Writtings from England

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!