I owe it to you to complete my journeys across the European continent. You ready for another one? Wonderful!
25 November 2007: Last Sunday in London
Just as the previous line says, this was indeed the last Sunday in London. I couldn't believe it was almost over! After having looked forward to this past semester for 4 years, it was hard to believe that it was actually coming to an end. It's still something that I have a hard time trying to grasp. But it was the last Sunday (and the longest sermon ever!), but I had no time to enjoy it because I had to study for exams that week. There never seems to be an end to school work, does there? Alas, I spent the rest of the day studying for finals, which, in all actuality, were not as bad I as had envisioned. I'm pretty sure I aced...all of them.
Easiest exams ever, but much needed easy exams
26 November 2007: A Monday night sighting
We had classes as usual this lovely day (finals started on Wednesday) which was kind of sad. It was the last day of classes and I knew I was going to miss Brit Lit. I really liked that class. My favorite that semester, easy as it was :-) Thanks Ms. Dillion. After class, I went and did more studiousness (oh the joys of school....and procrastination). I actually had a science test that afternoon for my independent study class, so I went and took that test at 5 and was done in 10 minutes. Yeah! I got back and learned that two of my room mates had left to go to the Odeon to see the Premiere of The Magic Flute, directed by Kenneth Branagh. He happens to be Julie's FAVORITE director ever! She knows so much about him and talked about him whenever she talked about all things Hollywood entertainment. So she and Kaitlin went to see if he was going to make an appearance - and he did. Julie got a picture with him and his autograph on his Much Ado About Nothing DVD. That was cool. I actually didn't really know who he was so I IMDB'd him to find out. I only recognized a couple of things he did, among which (since you know that I'm a Harry Potter fan) was Professor Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Wait, I missed being able to see him! I was a bit sad that it was a little late to go, but that's the price you pay for not knowing things in advance. Oh well.
Well, hello Jen! (as she walks into our room).
Hey, guys. Who wants to go stalk Kenneth Branagh with me?
Wait, Jen you're going?
Um...Yeah! I didn't know the other two had gone so I'm going to see if I can spot him. Wanna come?
Yeah! Just give me 5 minutes to make and eat dinner. (and I did)
So I went with Jen to stalk Kenneth Branagh at the Odeon. We weren't there long before we saw him. The Premiere was already over but the movie was playing and Kenneth was coming out of the theatre about 30 minutes after the movie had started. Jen and I had been standing in front about 15 minutes when we saw him. I snapped a quick picture, but it looks funny....you can't really tell it him, but I promise it is!
He didn't sign anything - he got right into his car and drove away. Aww...sad day. Oh well. Maybe there will be a next time. We were both a little disappointed, but that's ok. I had better things to worry about....like the mountains of homework I still had left to do before finals...grr!
27 November 2007: Peacocks are friends with Shakespeare
This was our last Tuesday field trip, hence it was the last day with Tony, our awesome bus driver. We had all come to love Tony - he always gave our trips something extra special. So, can you guess where we went on this last Tuesday field trip? I'll tell you in time.
The first place was a castle (yep, England is full of them) that I had heard of perhaps only once but it didn't mean anything to me. But that doesn't mean I wasn't excited to go! We didn't learn hardly anything about the castle. In fact, I'm not sure we learned anything at all...oh well. It was still cool. Where did we go? Warwick (pronounced War-ick) castle. This place was pretty cool. It wasn't very big, but it had a couple of things that I hadn't seen in any other castle:
#1 A real dungeon
Where they put prisoners "in chains" and left him to die (they actually used this)
Complete with a basement for "special prisoners". They would put prisoners in here and forget about them. Literally. You go put in there and you were never heard from again.
#2 A trebuchet \/ \/ \/
There were also many wandering birds around the castle and its grounds. This made for some interesting times. Yay! Royal bird chasing! Check out Ian doing what he loves - bird watching.
Recognize this awesome bird? Yeah, there was a whole garden devoted to them that I didn't get to see because I didn't have enough time.
This was a cool enough castle - thousand year old elk horns, a narwhale horn, and several full horses and knights in armour. Pretty cool to walk around this place. The smells were interesting as well, but in a much less desirable way...
Yeah, on we go!
I liked that castle and walked around the whole thing, scaling walls and what not, getting really really dirty, but hanging with the coolest 10 year old on the planet. We had fun and were proud to sport our brown, rusted fingers and clothes. Yay for small, dank stairways! Favorite part...or not.
But I had fun.
The next location was a really cool one and one in which I wish I had had more then just 3 hours in. More like a day, or 3.
The second place was someplace I had heard about since at least middle school and I had always wanted to see it. It was some really old little town where some playwright named William Shakespeare was born and lived. Ever heard of him?? Only in some circles I guess - like the English class ones. So, Stratford-Upon-Avon was where we were heading! Yay!! Like I said, we didn't spend much time there. But I did get to see Shakespeare's birthplace, his and his family's grave, and Anne Hathaway's house - which is much prettier in the summer when all the flowers are in bloom. But the cottage is cute. The only place we (the people I was with) had time to explore was the gravesite. It was inside a church. Paid our 50 pence to get in to see it and were allowed to take pictures. Hallelujah! I got so excited. So I took some pictures. Here are a few from the collection:
His wife's grave marker
The man himself
I was so excited to see this sign! Mrs. Sanders, you are more then welcome to "borrow" this picture :-)
Like I said I saw his birthplace and his wife's cottage. Here are a couple of pics from those as well:
The actual house Shakespeare was born in
Me in front of his birthplace. Sorry if you can't read the sign...
Anne Hathaway's house - 2 miles away from everything
Isn't it cute?
So glad I got to see it
After we did a speed look at the cottage, we had to get back, since we had like 2 miles to walk to get back to the bus and it took a while. So we practically ran back to the town to get to the bus on time, else Tony was going to leave us. But I enjoyed Stratford-Upon-Avon a lot. It was all decorated for Christmas, so it was really cute and most of the buildings looked like they had been there since the 1500's, and many of them had. I also saw Shakeapeare's school and the charity houses, and the house of some guy named Harvard (you know, the one who founded Harvard University in the States?). Yeah, it was a good day. By this point, it's getting really cold in England, so being outside is not terribly fun. But I got used to it after a while and it wasn't so bad.
We also had a small party for Dr. Tullos as it was his birthday. Yay! We surprised him with a cake and ice cream and sang to him on the streetfront. It was pretty cool. We quickly to love the Tullos family - and Ian was always so excited to hang with the college kids. I'm going to miss not getting to see that 10 year old every day.
Moving on.
So we got back and I hadn't studied. Considering that finals were the next day, the situation was pretty bad. And it only got worse. I stayed up all night (not a wink of sleep) studying for finals the next day. I had to name all the second half of the English monarchs and three facts about each of them as well as the dates in which they reigned. It was intense, but really not that bad when it was over. I'm pretty positive that I got a 100 on that test (for having not slept, that's pretty good). But don't ask me to recite them because I don't remember them at all. Gone. Completely not in my head any more. That's how things go when you really don't want to learn things. Know what I mean? But yes, stayed up all night. It was awesome...but not really.
28 November 2007: Finals come with chicken
So, I took that monarchs final after not have slept at all and did well. But that didn't mean that I could sleep. Oh no! I still had more finals to take. So no sleep for me. Not yet at least. I did do some more homework but later went to Nando's Chicken restaurant with a few of the girls (Kaitlin, Chanel, Megan, Julie, Leah, Jillian, Amanda, and Courtney) and had a good time. Chicken is always a good thing to eat, especially since I hadn't hardly had ANY during my duration in England. Plus, they have free refills, so it's always worth the trip to go. (Free refills are almost a No-no in England, so it was nice to get a taste of home) The chicken at Nando's is really good and I was glad I went. Gave me an excuse not to study. But the other tests I was not worried about. I aced them all, just so you know. It was a really busy semester work wise, but really easy test wise. That's always a blessing. I didn't have to worry about any of my grades, except Science. I still don't know how well I did in that class (that was my online class), but I don't really care anymore. It's over and done with. Most pointless class I've ever had to deal with. I didn't learn a thing. I love those classes!
29 November 2007: Last finals, and these come with a pub dinner
Took my last finals - still did well. Nothing changed. It was so nice to be finished with school! Except that I still had Science homework to do - but that wasn't due until December 10, so I was done for the most part. Wahoo! Par-tay! I mean...yeah... Went to a pub that night - Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese - as a group and the last group event we had. It was good. I got fish and chips, ate the batter off the fish, and ate the chips since I don't like fish. But it was the only thing on the menu that sounded appetizing and I wasn't allowed to order chicken nuggets off the kids menu. Boo hiss. But the chips were good and so was the batter and the tartar sauce. But the fish was fishy (but I have tasted non-fishy tasting fish and that's pretty good) so I couldn't eat it. But I had a great time with Courtney and Ian and Christina as we all ate together at the table. We talked and reminised about the semester. Then everyone started leaving - to pack, to go to last minute plays, etc. But Mrs. Tullos surprised our flat later on with cake and ice cream for the December birthdays since all those with December birthdays were living in our flat. It was great! We did christmas krackers and had cake and talked and just had a great time. It was my last night in London in the flat. I was a bit sad that it was already over to be honest, but I knew it was going to end some time. The only problem was that it seemed to go by entirely too fast. I wasn't ready for London to be over with. I wasn't ready to go on Free Travel and explore other parts of the world. I just wanted to stay in the safety of London for a bit longer. But I knew I couldn't. I had promised that I would go on Free travel and had already mostly paid for it. Oh well. There will be anotehr time, London, another time.
After the cake, I had to pack as I was leaving the next evening to begin two and a half week free travel. I had so much to pack. Like packages to ship home and two suitcases and the stuff I was going to have to take with me on free travel. It was a lot to sort out in a short amount of time - time to get started.
Farewell, last night in London....farewell.
30 November 2007: Last days are always a bit sad
So, this was it. The last day I had in London and I had a nice list of things I wanted to do. There were probably about 20 things on the list I wanted to get done, but I was only able to get a few done. What did I do? Well the day went like this.
Went to bed at about 3 in the morning. Set my alarm for 8ish and was going to get up and do the stuff on my list. Right. Sounds good, right? Yeah. The next thing I know, it's almost 11:00 in the morning. Apparantly, my alarm went off, I turned it off and went right back to sleep. I don't recall my alarm going off or having turned it off, and needless-to-say, I was pretty upset that I had slept in. But I needed it - it wasn't all that bad. So I got ready really fast and went out and did a few errands on my list. It went like this:
1. Get on the Tube
2. Go to Piccadilly Circus
3. Go to Lilly White's to get my Rugby ball deflated
4. Go across the street to Boots to get stuff for free travel
5. Go to the Rainforest Cafe and get something that says "London" (since I LOVE the Rainforest Cafe)
6. Get on the Tube
7. Go to Westminster
8. Get off and say good bye to Big Ben while filming him ringing like I had wanted to do all semester
9. Get back on the Tube
10. Head to Temple
11. Get off and go to Twinings to see if I want anymore tea (I didn't)
12. Decide that I didn't have time to go to the Burrow Market with Kaity
13. Get back on the Tube
14. Head home
15. Get to packing again
Let me say that I have never done so much in London in such a short amount of time. It took less than two hours for me to do all of that. Considering that London is pretty vast and it takes nice quanities of time to get just about anywhere, I felt that I had done well considering. I had planned on packing only taking me about two hours before I was going to go out and do some other last minute things in London, but packing wound up taking me until Kaity, Jordan and I left that evening at 10:00. However, I did take a break to mail my packages home and put some post on its way to the States and eat at the Texas Embassy with Liz and Courtney. It was SOO good! I decided to splurge and got chicken fried steak - best I have EVER eaten. I love Texas! I even got a shirt. Wahoo! So, other than that, I was in my flat packing my stuff and getting ready for the next two weeks. Anxious though I was, I was sad to leave London. It had become home to me - it was home. I never thought I could fall in love with a big city the way I have fallen in love with London, but I did and I can't wait to return!
So, 10:00 rolled around. I was just about ready (still packing last minute things frantically). I said goodbye to everyone and the three of us were headed out to explore the European continent. We all knew the next two and a half weeks were going to be an adventure the likes of which none of us had ever been on and definitely one that we would never forget.
So we boarded the Tube and headed to Victoria station where we took a train to Gatwick Airport. We spent the night in the airport since we had a 6 AM flight. It was quiet and I didn't get any sleep. But that was what the plane ride was for - or not so much since I have a really hard time trying to sleep on planes (the only place I've found where I'm paranoid about falling asleep...weird).
So we flew out at about 6 AM heading for the Mediterranean and all the ancient stuff we were to encounter there.
Farewell London...until we meet again.
Cheers!
Aimee
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