Writtings from England

So I suppose I will FINALLY after a month, write the last blog.

You all know that I am now home, working, and working some more. It's fun, really...

England was a success, I enjoyed every minute, even while walking to school. I finished my classes, hopeing I passed. Just Kidding, I'm sure I did...but I still havn't gotten my grades back yet. Not sure when that will be. Thank you everyone for the welcome home, it's much appreciated and made it a bit easier to assimilate myself back into my life.

I miss Canterbury and of course my friends. However, I still have my many pictures that I look at from time to time to remember everyone and what an amazing experience it was to be there. I have to thank everyone for helping out, I think you will all agree it was compeltly worth it.

This summer I'm working, then in the fall off to Missouri State University I go. We start classes August 28, I'm pretty excited to go. Yes, Wheeler and I are still together and hang out about twice a week, neither of us can afford to hang out anymore.

I hope everyone is doing well, see you soon!

I leave on Saturday, and should be back in St. Louis around 9pm. However, there is so much to tell from the last week.

First of all we had our last field trip to Bath and Stonehenge on Friday, it was definatly enjoyable! Stonehenge was cool for about 10 minutes to take pictures, but it's true when they say it's just stones and not really that big of a deal if you already know the history and everything, it's just something you have to see once in your lifetime if you're me. So that was successful, another thing to check off my list of things to do. Then we made our journey to the city of Bath, which is where the Roman Bath's are. It was soooo awesome there. The water was still hot, just like in the day of the Romans. The ruins were left how they were, and it was so awesome to walk through and get to see the different rooms, the changing rooms, cold bath, hot back, the sauna. It was really awesome. We also went to the Jane Austen Museum, it was alright, I love Jane Austen, but there really wasn't that much information or interest. A lot of it had to do with the recent reproduction they did in 2007 on BBC. Costumes and such, interesting so some...not to most. Overall though it was pretty exciting, I was glad we got to go. Then it was back home for 99p night at the Student Union, the last time we all get to be together there.

The regular students here are on Easter break for a month, so the Student Union closes early...that means no more 80p nights, no more comedy night, no more 99p nights. All is well, we went on Friday and hung out with some of our British friends. One, Kellyann, is actually dating someone in St.Louis and is coming for three months to Columbia in June, so that's awesome...we get to all hang out again. She may be moving here for awhile for an internship as well. We'll see. Anyway, Saturday night we left for Amsterdam and arrived at 4am on Sunday morning. Jeeze that was aweful. We slept in the bus station for a few hours until the cops came and said we had to leave. We were just waiting to exchange our money, and wait to go to our hostel becuase they wouldn't let us check in that early. So...we finally figured out the tram, got to our hostel, the room wasn't ready so we just went to a history museum down the street, ate lunch, and then went back. Basically the whole day was wasted on trying to figure out the tram. Then we went back out at night after taking a much needed nap, and went to the city down by Central Station. It was so fun, the city is beautiful. We saw some really awesme buildings, and ate at this restuarant called The Grasshopper. They had AWESOME food. Then we went back to the room and got ready for the next day.

Monday we woke up bright and early and went to the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House, IT WAS SO AWESOME. We spent a few hours in the Van Gogh Museum....that was probably the highlight of this entire three months. Then the Anne Frank House...we toured the office building then went to where they lived. Anne's room still had the pictures up. It was sad, but really neat to see. Then we just walked around by Central station again, took some pictures of the canals...oh haha, and well we went to a Sex Museum. It was very uncomfortable so I suggested we leave, but it was still halarious to go to. Jeeze, Amsterdam is a very liberal and crazy place. We arrived back home this morning at 4am, then went to class at 9am. Now I'm just studying for finals...

Tomorrow night is our going away night at our mentor's house. We're just watching movies and eating pizza, hanging out and having some laughs. Then later we'll probably go to a club a few blocks away. Thursday I have no idea what is planned except for packing. Friday, who knows...hahaha. The last couple of days we're just hanging out, having fun, and relishing in the fact that we're in a foreign country having the time of our lives. I'll miss this place, most definatly... but I am excited to be back home with my family and friends. (only I could do without the working...haha)

I'll write more later, see you all very soon!!

Cheers!

So Paris was great, every pretty much guessed it would be. But then I came home and had an overabundance of papers to write, one of which I had already started and made pretty good headway. THEN the worst thing that could ever happen...did. DUN DUN DUN... I lost my flashdrive. Which had 1300 words of my 2000 word essay for my Religion class. I WAS NOT HAPPY. I was very upset and hoped someone had turned it in. No luck. Unfortunatly not only did that have my relgion paper on it, but also my Muhammad term paper, and my egyptology paper from last semester...two papers that I was very proud of. Not to mention the other papers that were half way decent that I had written, even my art history paper from last term that took me forever. I am not the least bit thrilled.
Moving on with my story...
so the religion paper was due Thursday...I lost my flash drive on Tuesday, which means, I either stayed up all night wednesday writing a really crappy version of what I was writing about...OR I e-mail the teacher and get an extension. Well I'm a genius and asked for the extension, which ends today. Thankfully everyone was in Rome this weekend except for the guys, Wheeler and Tom were in Manchester at a football game (Manchester lost...everyone cry now, it's a tragedy.) SO, I had plenty of time and less distraction to write that paper OVER again. Luckily it's a better paper than before and I'm kind of impressed with myself, well, I'm impressed with my use of quotes to get 2000 words atleast. So that paper is done, I could have finished my history paper and cinema paper this weekend, but instead I had to finish that one which is harder than it should be...but I do have a good headstart to my history paper which I am now writing on King Charles I and the conflicts he had with the parliament...basically he married a catholic in a protestant country during the 30 years war (that's a big no-no.) Parliament was not impressed, there were many different things that also happened which forced Britain into a civil war...and ended with the King being beheaded. It's actually very interesting...

So other than that, I some how managed to hurt my foot which is slowly sucking the life out of me, but not only that, I slept on my neck wrong and can only move it to the right...I will be so incredibly happy to sleep in my own bed with my own pillows....AND take a very long hot shower. (sorry dad...) Don't get me wrong, I LOVE ENGLAND, I love england, I love travelling, I love the british people themselves...I just miss home, my home, my very own home.

In other news, this week we have to term papers due, I have to actually write three, becuase I will be gone on Monday in Amsterdam. Or third and final paper is due monday, so we have to turn it in early. That's ok, whateve. I'm so excited to go, the Van gogh museum is just down the road from where we are staying, they have beautiful canals (kind of like italy...but only kind of.) the anne frank house, and i read something about a rembrandt museum as well. SO EXCITED. We're really only there for two days and one night, becuase we have finals on wendesday and then we have to pack for home the rest of the week.

Well see everyone very soon. Love you all, I hope everyone is doing well.

Cheers!

Unfortunatly it's back to reality...well atleast as far as I can get with basically being on vacation for the last two months in England. Back to writting papers atleast. Paris was amazing, frustrating at times becuase unfortunatly I don't know a lick of French...but it was managable.

We arrived late Friday becuase we missed the ferry we were supposed to catch over the english channel, but it all worked out great becuase by the time we got there and found our hostel, the room wasn't ready so we had to walk around for awhile. We walked around the city and took pictures, found the metro and where we can eat for cheap. By the time that we all got settled in it was nap time and we didn't really get moving again until about 2 in the afternoon. We took a trip on the metro to Notre Dame and took a lot of pictures. Then we wanted to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night...which was gorgeous!! We ate at this nice restuarant across from the Eiffel Tower, I had roast duck and a glass of wine. It was delicious! Everyone was so exhausted that we just crashed and got some sleep for Saturday. We woke up fairly early and Wheeler and I went to Notre Dame again to take a trip up to the top, which was incredible! It was a ton of stairs and my legs were shaking after the tour was over, but it was worth it. Wheeler and I had a really great lunch at this little cafe. French food is amazing I don't know what everyone was talking about before. If anything England has really weird food.

After lunch we went back to the Eiffel Tower and met our group there and took some silly fun pictures. Saturday was absolutely gorgeous with blue skies and awesome warm weather! Then we went to the Arc de Triumphe. It's basically just an archway that's very famous, huge, and a monument commemorating the lives of those lost in French battles. Tom, Wheeler, and I went to the top, everyone else went to the Eiffel Tower again and someplace else. It wasn't as expectacular as the Cathedral, but it was pretty cool to look off the top of the archway. There're some really cool sculptures at the top as well. Then we made our way to another cathedral, Sacre Coeur. It was gorgeous on the outside and inside. Not as impressive as Notre Dame, but close to it. It's on a huge hill that overlooks the city, its gorgeous! People gather on the steps outside and there was a guy playing some music and activities down the hill.
Later that night Tom, Wheeler, and myself went to Mcdonalds which was an adventure in itself. First of all, there is the language barrier...second, I don't eat burgers or chicken nuggets, atleast not from there. I only eat my dads burgers becuase I see him make them and they are good. Fast food burgers are just nasty. That was a problem becuase there were no chicken selects like at other McDonalds. So instead I had a ham and cheese happy meal...that took about 5 min to order with the lady because she didn't speak a lick of english and i don't speak french. Then we get our food which she packaged togo when we clearly asked for here, no problem...whatever. But there were no fries!!!! NO FRIES! I had a happy meal with no fries. Who does that?!! So I went hungry for the rest of the night becuase I didn't feel like buying anymore food. No problems...we made up for it on Sunday.

So we woke up early again but it was kind of a misty gloomy day. We were all meeting up at the Eiffel Tower, but it was wet and gross and I didn't want to go to the top getting wet and whatnot, so instead we just spent the entire day in the Louve. 6-7 hours in an art museum. I think I died and went to heaven. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. I've never seen so many sculptures in one place, nor paintings. I saw my favorite sculpture, the Winged Victory of Samotherace. We saw Leonardo Da Vinci, including the Mona Lisa. They had very few impressionist paintings, which was a little dissapointing, but god was that museum awesome!! I loved every minute of it. After we left there everyone went there seperate ways and Wheeler and I wanted to check out the Opera House, so we went there before we had to get on the coach home and took pictures of it. Then ate dinner at a nearby cafe where we saw this crazy fight outside. There were squad vans and these police officers dressed in riot gear...I'm assuming we may not have been in the best part of town, but I donno...it seemed nice. It was a really good dinner and interesting story to tell the group when we all met up again to go home.

The ride home was less eventful, we had a long tireing weekend and didn't get home until 6am this morning. I went back to sleep until 12, and now I have to get to work on homework.

I hope everyone had a safe weekend. Now I have to be off to write all the papers, ick!

Cheers!

Well not much has been going on this week, I've officialy been 20 for a whole week.

Monday the guys made me dinner and we went to 80p night, then to Chicago's. It was a lot of fun, I had a great birthday. Then Tuesday night was the comedy night as usual in the Student Union. They are halarious, and we get to see them twice this week!! Wednesday I don't think we did anything, Thursday we went to the Penny for a bit and hung out, then went home becuase we had a field trip on Friday. So Friday we went to Windsor Castle and spent the whole day there. I saw the Queen, gave her everyones regards. Just kidding, she couldn't come down and have lunch with me, she was preoccupied with the drama of this country.

So that was fun, Friday we went out to Chicagos again and had fun. Saturday we just stayed in and worked on homework, then watched a football match with the guys and Wheeler's friend who just came into town for a visit. We stayed for the rugby match which happens to be the most ridiculous and complicated game I've ever seen in my entire life. Those people are ROUGH! Throwin punchs and basically beating each other up for this egg-shaped ball. It was interesting nonetheless.

This week I'm buckling down. I want to finish all of my papers before I really travel a lot more. This weekend we're going to Paris, which I'm so excited for. We're leaving Thursday night arriving early in the morning spending Friday, Saturday, and Sunday there then coming home late Sunday night. It should be amazing and memorable.

I have a World Religion paper due next week, which I've already written a similar paper for my art history class. It shouldn't be too hard. We have a films paper coming in two weeks which I'm writting about government censorship themes in movies...I'm basing it off The Minority Report and Equallibrium (rent both movies, they are amazing!). Then I have a Bristish History paper due sometime that I'm writting on the Margna Carta and it's consequences. And last but certainly not least I have to write a paper for modern Britain on why Britain has always been such a reluctant member of the European Union. All of the papers are atleast 2000 words...which is about 4 pages single spaced. It should be interesting. Luckily they arn't complicated and I don't think I should have any problems in writting them.

Well I hope everyone is doing well, I enjoy your comments so you should write more.

Cheers!

Happy Birthday to meeeee!! For all of those who don't know, I'm now 20 years old. That's right folks I'm not a teenager anymore.

Our trip to Scotland was awesome. We left Thursday night after I had a nice Valentine's Day dinner with a new fella that I must tell everyone about. Chris and I broke up on Valentine's Day which kind of started the day off horribly...but later on I had a date with the new boy I've been seeing. He's very nice and handsome, everyone will like him a lot. There's been a lot of drama that I can't even begin to explain, but it's just all petty and relationship geared, boring!!

So after our date, we went to Scotland for the weekend and arrived about 10am. We couldn't check in until 1pm so we just walked around the city for awhile and explored. It's a gorgeous place! We checked in and got settled, took a short nap, then took a tour of Edinburgh ending at the castle. It was gorgeous, I have tons of pictures. It's a very interesting city too, you'll soon learn that the Scottish do NOT like the English!

Anyway, Saturday we went to the William Wallace Museum and Monument, then later Wheeler and I went to the Scottish Gallery of Art and the Aslem Exhibit at another art gallery. It was a lot of fun, and the exhibit had amazing photos. (They were all taken primarily of the US and in the 1920-60s....the early on ones are impressive considering the lack of technology) Then we went to dinner and had a hotel party with our whole gorup. It was tons of fun, we were playing stupid drinking games and ended up playing spin the bottle. We went to 'The Rat Pack' club downtown and hung out there for a few hours until it got too crowded with old people. It was a lot of fun, we were having fun dancing to all the different music.

On my birthday, Sunday...we were driving home and on our way home we made a stop in York. It's not a very big city, but pretty significant. They still have the remains of the mote, the castle walls, and a gorgeous cathedral. We took a tour of York and learned a lot about it's history...including about the Parliament and how they had to relocate to York during the 2nd World War. King Henry VIII also has a palace there but he only stayed there 4 times. It was really neat.

On hte ride home we slept a lot, ate, then slept somemore! Tonight is the night we are celebrating my birthday. The boys are making me spaghetti and we're going to 80p night at the Student Union. It should be a good time. I'm excited!!

Well I hope everyone had a great holiday, and is safe and well. Love you!!

Cheers!

Well all, we leave for Scotland 0015 tonight, it's top secret.
Just kidding, 12:15 tonight we'll be on a coach making our way there...I'm so excited! We'll be there all weekend until Sunday night in which I get to spend my birthday on a coach and in York. We're celebrating on Monday, so that should be a good time.

Happy Valentines Day everyone!! I hope everyone enjoys their weekend, and I'll tell you all about mine when I come home.

Cheers!

Granny- Yes I go to school...Tues/Wed/Thur.
I had a class this morning.

I'm back in Canterbury, arrived Sunday night but I was exhausted all day yesturday and stayed in bed for most of the day.

p.s. Look under my media under my profile page...I posted up some pics from this weekend. I hope everyone enjoys.

Cheers from Abroad!

Tomorrow should be spectacular...really this whole weekend should be. We leave for London early tomorrow morning and wont be returning until Sunday night. I can't wait. We're staying in a hostel downtown hopefully close enough to everything that we don't really have to get a cab or get on the London underground (subway).

Nothing much has really been going on. Last night I bought some groceries and took them home, then walked my butt 35min. away to go back to school for the football (soccer) game. It was alright, the guys were there and Elisha. I talked to Elisha for the majority of the game.

I hope everyone enjoys there weekend. I have to be going, I have my series of Alias and Spaghetti calling my name. I'll write more when I come home, probably not until Monday.

It's been an eventful couple of days, that is for sure!

Friday we didn't go to Whistable, we just hung out around town becuase everyone had other things to do...and Bryan sprained his ankle. They were playing rugby and football with some of the brits, and he landed on it wrong I guess. Anyway, so Friday night all us girls got fancied up and went out to dinner. Everyone looked really good. We met at 'Little Italy' a little italian resturant on High Street. It was really nice, but the way they do things in resturants is different then at home. You don't have a set waiter, and you don't tip. Although, here we did. Everyone got there drinks, Jill got some wine. It was really nice just being with the girls, we had so much fun just at the resturant. Then we decided to get on with our evening and went to the 'Bell and Crown' a pretty cool traditional pub off High Street. We had a few drinks there. At that point the waiter at Little Italy had already hit on me, then at the Bell and Crown this other Brit hit on me...weird. But it did make me feel very nice. Hahaha, sad right?! Anyway, we left there and walked to the Student Union where the guys were. We just wanted to make them jealous that they couldn't hang out with us. It worked. We walked in, looking really good in our heels, walked to the opposite side of them and just waited until they realized we were there. hahaha, I know cheap shot...but we played it out real well. They noticed and tried to crash our party but we kicked them out, well, that is until we cond one of them into buying us around of drinks. We stayed there for awhile with them but on our own side. We were dancing and everyone, met some more brits and then when they closed we left and went to Chicagos. It's a night club pretty close to where we were. We had a ton of fun there, just hanging out and dancing. The guys tried to get in but got caught jay walking and the bouncer saw and refused to get them in. I walked outside and tried my hardest...but it was no use so I just said sorry boys have a good night and went back in. It was girls night! They shouldn't have tried to crash it anyway. We stayed there for awhile then finally at lke 1am decided it would probably be better to go home. All of us caught a cab back to our homestays and the night was over. It was great though, I have some pics I'll have to post if it lets me.

The next morning at 7am I got a text and phone call wake up to be at the bus station by 8am for our trip to Brighton. We hopped on the bus and got to London where we had to get off and switch buses. We got there at 12, and spent the rest of the afternook at the Royal Pavillion and the beach. We tried to get into the aquarium but it had already closed. We also ate at a pretty nice little place off one of the streets, roast port and potatoes...it was pretty good! We found a really awesome ice cream place too. I got some sherry Ice cream...it was alright, and this blackberry cheescake stuff. They had apple pie and toffee, some weird coffee one, rubarb...some really different flavors (flavours...if your british). It was awesome. We went back to the Brighton Pier and hung out in the arcade and just walked around. We walked down to the ocean too...it was freezing!! Overall it was a pretty good day. We got home about 11pm and then I had to make my journey home...which took about 35-40 minutes. I got home and popped in some Alias to watch. I rented the first season from blockbuster to watch in the evening. It's awesome. I love that show!! Anyway, today it's just been a lazy day, tonight at 11 we're going to a pub to watch the Superbowl. The town has pretty much shut down now becuase of the Rugby match. I think Ireland is playing...it's supposed to be a pretty good game.

Well it's time for me to go and eat some dinner!! Hope everyone is doing well...keep up the comments, I really enjoy them.

Love you guys!
Cheers