Operation Intimidation

As Wimbeldon commences and Nadal goes for the win...

2008-06-28T14:40:00.001-05:00

Well, while I have all the time in the world to kill, I might as well update everyone on what has been going on over the past three weeks… it has been a while. Sorry, guys. It’s been hard trying to find loads of time to spend to write down the stuff I’ve done – homework gets in the way of everything, unfortunately. But, since the others won't be back from Wicked for the next several hours and my feet are DEAD tired (I've been walking since 8:30 this morning – it is now 6:30 pm) and I don’t want to go anywhere else tonight, I want to give you the low down hoe down.

(FYI: I typed this in Word before I stuck it online. If I double-spaced it, it would be 8 pages long. But, if you want to find out what life has been like for me over the past three weeks/month-ish, keep reading. You won’t want to miss it. But it’s long, so just bear with me, k? Thank you for your time, and mind the gap)

Ok, so after the first week, we went up to the highlands for the weekend. We left on Friday, came back Sunday, yeah, yeah. There is NO way I can remember every town we stopped in. I couldn’t remember most of them by the time we got back. But, basically, this is how it went. We got on the bus at 9 am and drove. We drove past Stirling Castle, past many hills, many lochs, through many little towns. Occasionally, we would stop at some pretty places to take pictures and move on our way. But the first real place we stopped at was Loch Lomond. It was about 10:30 in the morning and it was gorgeous. A little overcast at that point, but eventually, the sun peeked its little head out of the clouds to bid us fair journey through the hills and mountains. Oh man, I got some really goods pics. I’ll have to show them off when I get back home. We got back on the bus and drove to Oben, a cute little harbour town with some awesome little shops and restaurants. I ate at an AMAZING fish and chips place with Emilee Wood and her dad. I had chicken and chips. Wow – if I could remember the name of the place, I’d ship stuff if I could. A DEFINITE must-eat. After lunch, we continued on our way, passing the Monty Python Castle eventually on our way. Then we stopped at this little kirk on the side of the road and got pictures of it. I went up a forbidden spiral staircase that was too skinny. Two people could barely fit at the top. But it was cool. Does the name Robert the Bruce ring a bell? Well, that kirk had a bone of his buried with the statue they had of him. I thought it was pretty neat. Went out back and got pictures of the lake behind it and then continued more on our way. Eventually, we stopped in a little town beside a river for a good night’s rest. The hotel was really cute and the bed were comfortable. And the view? Spectacular! I fell more in love with Scotland during this trip than I ever thought possible. As a group, we watched the first half of Braveheart. It was pretty good, though, quite historically inaccurate, unfortunately. But you can't make everyone happy. After that was bed. And we all slept well.

The next morning, the alarm didn’t go off on time so I was a little behind the times. But, in no time, I was all set and ready to go, full of breakfast and ready to start a new day. We made a few less stops this time, but we eventually made it to our next destination – Loch Ness. Wahoo! Going to be friends with Nessie! Loch Ness is a HUGE loch. In fact, it’s the biggest in Scotland – 26 miles long and OOH SOO deep – up to 1000 feet! That’s right 1 THOUSAND feet in depth. That’s a lot of room for a sea monster to hide. So, we get into St. Augustine, make friends with a bagpiper, and shop for a bit before our boat tour of the Loch. It was quite chilly and I had forgotten my jacket, but all was well. I lived through it. Woot. The loch tour was pretty good. It took an hour and there was radar that let you see down into the loch to see what the bottom looked like and how small we were compared to what was actually down there. I felt like a needle-point on a hundred miles worth of cross-stitch. Oh, yes, the loch is THAT big. I never would have imagined… Anyway, that was an adventure. I didn’t see the wee monster (or perhaps, not so wee), but there will be other times to look. After that we ate dinner and headed off to our hotel in Drumnadrochit. Isn’t that just the COOLEST name!? And it sits right on the Loch, which was really awesome to see. We did the Loch Ness Experience right there next to the hotel that’s supposed to tell you about the realities of the Loch Ness Monster, but all it did was ask more questions than it gave answers for. So, basically, you have to make up your own mind about whether you think Nessie is real or not – something that I could have told anyone before I saw the exhibit. I think Nessie is real – there are too many eye-witness accounts for me to ignore. Several thousand, actually. Although I didn’t see anything, sonar equipment has caught something down there, but no one is quite sure what it is. But, I think everyone agrees that there is most definitely SOMETHING in the water – whether it is actually a monster or not, time will tell. Maybe I’ll ask God when I see Him… Yeah, He would know. So, did that (I would not suggest it at all) and then we watched the second half of Braveheart. It was SO sad! Still very historically inaccurate, but pretty good none-the-less. I’d use it for less historical purposes if I ever bought it. It might happen if I needed it. Anyway, got to sleep that night and was prepared to go home the next day.

Sunday morning, we woke up, ate breakfast, and continued on our way. We stopped at Urquhart Castle right on the Loch. That was pretty cool – it even had a trebuchet! Yay for throwing things at the oncoming enemy in a closed Loch! … Yay for the Scots ☺ They were awesome people. We got back in the bus, stopped to take pictures of the Highland Coos and the cows. They were all cute, and smelly… I'd prefer to remember them as really cute, okay? Okay. We got back to Carronvale House, had church, and then hung out or went to bed. It was a fun weekend.

Then school happened the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next. I saw teachers yell at kids, I saw kids moved from classroom to classroom, I saw kids entering into the wrong classrooms (this was the start of their new timetable – they have three weeks of new lessons in their new grades before summer holiday), and others who were signing out of school forever (you can do that at 16 here if you want to). So yeah, a good week. That and I had my first lesson to prepare for – which took me the better part of the weekend and I still wasn’t prepared for it. Oh well. That’s later on. After that week, we had a weekend at Carronvale of which we could do whatever we wanted pretty much. Friday, we went to Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument. That was pretty awesome. I clambored on top of cannons, took pictures of myself, and had a pretty cool time. Then, the Wallace Monument – oh my goodness. That was cool, too. Something like 246 steps to the top – a single spiral staircase up to the top with the most gorgeous view of Stirling and the surrounding area. I LOVE Scotland in a pretty day! It has to be one of the most gorgeous countries I have seen with blue skies, so I took quite a few pictures of the sky and the sun on those blue days. I have a thing for that… Got done with that and had to hurry and catch the bus back to Larbert. Most everyone went to Glasgow on Saturday. I and another girl stayed because we had work to do for our lessons – I had research to do about the American Revolution and the beginnings of the American government and a PowerPoint to put together. I barely got all that finished by the time I had to teach my lesson on Tuesday. I had been up working on the lesson for a few hours when both Danielle and I were asked by some Scottish friends of ours if we wanted a tour of the surrounding area. We both said sure, so we went. It was pretty cool, actually. They took us to Linlithgow and showed us the palace there and we got pictures and I made friends with a massive swan and climbed a stump for pictures as well as a few other things around the palace. Mary, Queen of Scots, I believe, was born and raised in Linlithgow Palace. It was pretty and so was the lake. Then we went into town and saw a little parade. A bagpiper, a band from Texas, football players (a.k.a. Soccer players), and the council of Linlithgow. It was cute. Then, the Fairgrieves bought us Chinese food (which was really nice of them to do) and took us back to their house where we ate, watched football, and also the sunset behind the mountains that are out of the back windows overlooking the valley. Completely picturesque! After the sun went down, we went up to the little Wallace Monument at the top of their hill where the Battle of Falkirk was fought (and lost) by the Scots and the last battle that William Wallace was in before he was tortured and killed. And that was at the very top of their hill, which gave a many-mile overview of the valley and the Firth. *sigh* Good times. We stayed with them until 11 that night (it was STILL daylight, btw) before we got back. The next day, we went to church with the Fairgrieves had Chinese food in Stirling. It was a buffet – a pretty new concept in the UK and one that is catching on. It was fantastic! It was also the first time in a long time I had eaten Chinese with silverware… they didn’t have chopsticks. Going back, we almost missed the bus back to Larbert – I wound up running in high heels and a skirt through the streets of Stirling, which had to have been a sight. But we caught the bus in time and all was well. I went back and started working feverishly on my lesson and that was about it for the rest of the night.

Then, there was school again for the next 4 days for us. I taught my lesson on Tuesday. I know I could have done much better if I had been prepared better. I got lost a couple of times in my lecture and PowerPoint decided not to cooperate, but that was to be expected. I was told things to work on and things that were good, etc. Yay for constructive criticism! I was bound and determined to do better the next time. I taught for 50 minutes. Woot! There was a lot of stuff packed into that lecture, but don’t make me give it again when I get home. You can read my notes if you really want to. So, the week went on, I found a favorite teacher, and a least favorite teacher (as is to be expected) and one that I generally just enjoyed watching teach. I had great role models – for what to definitely do, and what definitely NOT to do. Awesome learning experience, boy I tell ya.

That weekend (our last in Scotland) was our St. Andrew’s and Peterhead weekend. This weekend was just completely awesome. We left on Friday (of course) and drove to St. Andrews. We stayed at the University there. We got there about 3, checked in to our hotel/dorm rooms (which were REALLY nice) and were free for the rest of the evening. I got ready to hit the town. I put my things away and was ready for the awesomeness that is St. Andrews. In case you didn’t know, St. Andrews is the home of Golf. Apparently, the Old Course is THE course to play on if you’re into golf. If you play the Old Course, it’s about $300 to play - £150. Too much for poor college kids like us to afford. So that night we all went out on the town. I saw the seat of the Roman See’s old Cathedral in ruins and saw, for the first time, the North Sea. It was a BEAUTIFUL shade of blue, I just couldn’t get over it. I took quite a few pictures and then proceeded to find a way to get down to the beach, which I eventually did. Remember, it’s not the warmest of days and by this time, I was coming down with a cold. So, being cold was not an option. Ha! Well, forget that. Throwing away the old “need to take meds and stay warm” rule, I went down to the beach, rolled up my jeans and stepped into the water. What an awesome experience! I got my feet wet, climbed on the rocks, posed for some pictures, got my pants really wet cause the waves were a little bigger than I had anticipated – was wet up to my thighs almost. After about 10 minutes, I couldn’t feel my feet anymore. But I didn’t care. I’ve suffered worse and it was totally worth it! I picked up a rock from the North Sea so I could remember my romp in its waters, put on my flip-flops, and continued shopping. Eventually, after dinner, I headed back because everything was closed or closing (it was only 6ish). I got back to the room and tried to find something to watch on TV. The only problem was that I had GERMAN cable, which doesn’t help if I can't speak it. There were few programs to watch. I eventually landed on a German tightrope walker. I couldn’t understand hardly anything they were saying, but it was fun to watch this pro guy jumping and doing all kinds of fun things on the tightrope, many I had never seen done on a tightrope before and it scared me. Later on, I learned that one of the girls had American cable in her room, so Emilee Wood, who had come to visit me (she’s a cool kid) and I went to watch America’s Got Talent. It was two seasons behind, but oh, well. It was still good. Then I went to bed cause I was tired.

The next morning (Saturday), we got up, ate breakfast, spent the morning in St. Andrews. I shopped a little, went back down to the beach, almost stepped on jellyfish (lots of jellyfish), decided I didn’t want to maze my way through all those stranded on the beach and just walked in the dry sand. Then I went back, got lunch, ate it, fed some ravens my bread, and met the group at the golf course museum. A couple of the group had played a St. Andrew’s course that morning and they had a lot of fun (not the old course, but the cheap one. But it’s neat to be able to say they’ve played there). Then, we went on our way to Peterhead. We left at 1 and got into Peterhead about 5, ate at McDonald’s for a lite dinner, and went to the church for evening services (they have Saturday evening services instead of Sunday because of the fishermen). Then, we were split up into different church member’s houses and sent on our way. I had heard a lot about Peterhead from my old (and awesome) roomie, Emily Venable, who had gone the previous summer. She had stayed at the preacher’s house with the lighthouse out of his front door and RIGHT on the coast of the North Sea. I was told to stay with them if at all possible. Well, we were split up. I almost went in the first group they needed, but I waited until last and I’m so thankful cause I stayed at the preacher’s house! We (myself, Megan Venable, and Jacqueline Dillion) got to the house and were completely amazed. The North Sea is (no joke) about 100 feet from their front door. The lighthouse was very prominent and they were SUCH hospitable people. They served us dinner and let us explore the area. We went to the lighthouse and took pictures, then we went down the harbour and saw the seals (yep, SEALS!) and took more pictures. It was SOO cool! Then we went to bed. We got up for church the next morning, were served breakfast and took the short ride to the building. After church, we (as a group) changed clothes and went back to the lighthouse. Mr. Wood had talked a lot about it and it bummed almost every out that they didn’t get to stay there, so Megan asked if they could stop by the lighthouse on the way back (since it was enroute). He agreed, which was good. Everyone liked the lighthouse. I went down to the harbour again and took pictures of the cute seals and the roaring North Sea waters and got splashed with a wave. It was awesome. Then we went back, got a short little tour of the lighthouse because Mr. Wood is good like that at getting things done, played with Lennox the HUGE German Shepherd, and left. Yay! It was such an encouraging weekend and the people were SOO nice. That and waking up to the North Sea spray right outside of your window has got to be the highlight of the trip (except the trip to London of course). We got back safe and sound and got ready for another week and I for another (and last) lesson on Wednesday. This time, it was one that I had heard twice before on the changing population of Scotland during the 1800’s. So, I felt way more prepared for this one than the other one – and I got to use the SmartBoard! Yay for glorified PowerPoint screen! That was pretty much the most exciting thing that week. The next day (Thursday) was my last day and it was kinda sad. I’m going to miss the school, the teachers, and the students. They were all wonderful and I really, really enjoyed my time there. I learned so much!

The next day (Friday, yesterday) was one I had been waiting for for a long time – we were leaving for LONDON! We caught the train at 9:15 to Edinburgh, caught a train straight from there to London King’s Cross/St. Pancras Station. That took 4 hours. I almost cried when I saw London for the first time in 6 months. As soon as we arrived, I took a couple of the girls to Platform 9¾ and then we checked into our hostel. It’s not far from the train/tube station, but was good cause we were lugging all of our luggage with us and it was heavy. As soon as we had put everything in our rooms, got our keys, go the run-down of the weekend, we were free to go. I booked it out of the hostel because I had things to do. Since I knew where I wanted to go and am one of those people who doesn’t like window shopping or stopping constantly to see things that I've seen before (unless I want to see them), I went by myself. It was probably better because I doubt anyone would have been able to keep up with me I was walking so fast. I took the Tube to Oxford Circus, walked down Oxford Street again so I could say I went again. I walked into the bookstore and that was about it, besides a souvenier shop where I bought stuff. Woot! Then I walked from there to Holborn station (past my old flat on Great Russell Street, past the British Museum where I finally got my picture of the Rosetta Stone, and past Jacqueline’s house). That in itself is a 30 minute walk and I was moving. Vroom, vroom on the toes. Took the tube to Charing Cross where Trafalgar Square is, peeked at that for a second (not much to see because they were striking a concert set), and went to the Texas Embassy for dinner. I got a HUGE hamburger and a refillable Coke and enjoyed that to the fullest. Then I went back to Charing Cross station, took the tube to Hyde Park Corner and made a stop at the Hard Rock Café Shop because I could. I almost went to Buckingham Palace, but I decided to walk down Piccadilly instead. I had forgotten where it led. When I came upon Piccadilly Circus (the Times Square of London) I knew exactly where I was. From there, I took the tube back to the hostel because I wanted to chill. Got back, did the online thing, and went to bed. The next day (today) was completely awesome! Ready, ready?!

Ok, so, I got up this morning, ate breakfast at 8:30 and got on the tube with some others to go to Portobello Market. I had been to this before, but I didn’t remember I had until I saw the signs for it. It is only open on Saturday and is full of 2000 shops and kiosks. SOO cool! So, I went with them, led the group there, and we split up. Megan Venable and I decided to go together since I knew my way around and everything I wanted to see she did, too. So, we spent the next almost 4 hours at the market browsing, buying, and trying on guard uniforms. That was fun. After that, we took the tube to Charing Cross because Megan wanted to see Trafalgar Square. So we did that, took some pictures and walked down Whitehall towards Westminster. We passed the Guards, got pictures with them on their horses and then with a lone guard who decided to stand in the middle of the sidewalk for no seemingly apparent reason. Then we continued on to Westminster. Megan almost cried when she saw Big Ben for the first time in full glory. I have to admit, I teared up a little, too. It’s just so magnificent! We got pictures of that, of course, and walked across Westminster Bridge to get pictures of Parliament from across the Thames. Then we headed on over towards the London Eye for our 3:00 appointment. We had a little time to kill, so we walked through all the street performers. Some of them were really good. Many of them were there when I visited during October/November. It was nice to see some old faces. ☺ Then, we waited in line for an hour to get onto the Eye. Did the eye, kissed Big Ben (yes!), and then Megan and I booked it over to St. Paul’s. I wanted to go to a play at the Globe so I went over to get a ticket. Unfortunately, they were sold out, but I did finally get my Groundling T-shirt that I had forgotten to get last time. Oh, well. It was still nice to go back. Then we visited St. Paul’s (which is MASSIVE, btw), got dinner (mmm, Burger King), and headed back to King’s Cross/St. Pancras. Now, I’m sitting here while everyone else is at Wicked glad to have some down time to update everyone on the happenings of my life during the past month. I hope you have enjoyed this little saga. I’ll try and let you know what happens during my last day in the UK (tomorrow) tomorrow after I get finished with everything. It should be fun and I’m planning on having some extra time to hang out at Tower and London Bridges. No time to do the Tower of London, which is a bummer, but I can always come back. In fact, I plan on it definitely being a come-back spot. If anyone is ever up for a trip to London, hit me up. I will almost always say yes (unless I'm too poor).

So, yeah. Life has been good until now. I get back in the States on Monday and I’m pretty excited. I’m hoping and planning that the rest of the summer is just as amazing as my trip to the UK, simply because I have awesome friends back home who I can spend time with. It’s been hard being without them, but I will see them soon. My family, too. I’m excited to sleep in my own bed again, finally. I miss the loveliness of my own room.

See you guys in the States on Monday!

Cheers!

Aimee

The end of Week 1

2008-06-05T17:24:00.002-05:00

A whole week has gone by in the schools. Almost unreal. Time goes by fast in the "real world" as Mr. Wood calls it.

Honestly, today was not very exciting. It was activities day on campus today. Most of the activities were off campus, which was sad because those were all the things that I would have wanted to do. Oh well. So, our day started off with breakfast as usual. Mr. Wood drove us to school again and we got there in good time this time. We were not late. WaHoO! Kurt and I went to the games gym because we were going to observe. What we thought would be a semi-enjoyable day turned into a nightmare. Well, not really, but it was a situation that was not handled in a suitable way. Here's how it went:

Kurt and I got to the gym at about 8:40 when the students were supposed to be in their activities locations. We stood outside with the kids (they were all boys... go figure I'd pick the group with all boys, lol) until almost 9:30 when the supervising teacher arrived. Both Kurt and I were pretty peeved that the teacher had the nerve to show up late. Then they had to set up everything, which was supposed to have been done by 8:30 that morning. Then, to make things worse for the poor children who were getting pretty restless, they only let in boys two-by-two that also had game systems and let them set them up. That took another 15 minutes. It was almost 10:00 by the time everyone was in there. Let me tell ya, that was frustrating as all get out. Both Kurt and I felt it could have been handled better and in a more efficient way than it was. From 10 until about 11:15, we walked around the gym and kept an eye on the guys playing and got quite distracted by the Guitar Hero expert playing kid. He's played Guitar Hero so much, he would play sections on expert with his eyes closed, backwards, and other forms of not looking at the screen... I decided that these kids have too much time on their hands and not enough homework. I can help fix that :-)

Kurt and I went on break and decided to find some thing else to go watch. About the only other thing we could find was Cinema - just movie watching. That was fine with the both of us. I took a detour to the history department to see if they needed me for something and I walked out with textbooks and ideas for my lesson. Woot! Got something accomplished today!

After that, I made my way through the maze of confusing corridors to the Drama room for the movie. They were watching Click. I have never seen it, but now I know how it ends. ... Not sure I need to see the rest of it. That was about the extent of the day. We got lunch and were out of there on the bus. Yeah...

Monday will be an adventure because all the high school kids will be back on campus and I get to really start my job. I can't tell you how excited I am about it! I have 3 weeks left and SOO much to do! I can make it. I can make it. :-)

We are going to the highlands this weekend and to Loch Ness Lake. You know, the one with the monster in it? Yeah. Totally get to see it! GAH!!! I will tell you all about it when I can. I don't know if I will have internet access this weekend, but I will try to keep you guys up to date as much as possible.

Oh, and just in case you didn't know, I miss everyone back in the States. Oh, I LOVE being here. The people are SOO sweet and I feel quite at home here. It's wonderful. I'm getting used to the language and how these people talk, but it's still hard to understand them sometimes. I have to listen really hard, and even when I do that, I might have to ask them to repeat themselves... 5 or 6 times... Nah. Not that many, but I'm sure they think I have a hearing impediment because Americans talk slow, and therefore listen slow. Psh... stereotypes. Oh, well. You get labeled everywhere you go. I'm quite used to it.

Until next time my loves!

Cheers and Cheerio! (not Cheerios...)

Aimee

Day 3 of Operation Intimidation

2008-06-04T16:42:00.002-05:00

Today was much less intense than the previous two days. But I did get to see some of the background work that goes into planning materials and lessons. So, here was my day. My semi-short day :-)

My roomie woke up at 6:30 to an alarm. I had no idea she was awake (totally oblivious to the whole world) until she poked me at 7 and told me it was time to get up for breakfast. Groaning, I got up and took a shower. Then headed down to breakfast. Quickly ate a croissant and left for school. I got there as the bell rang and headed to the Geography Base because that's where I was told to be. So I went. There was no one there when I arrived, so I put my stuff down, and walked down the hall, down the stairs, and found no one. So I went back to the base and waited because I figured my co-op teacher would know where to find me. After about 5 minutes, he walked in the door and took me downstairs to Aileen's classroom where she was preparing her History unit on America. She started sorting papers and we talked about teaching. I asked her questions about schools in Scotland in general and ones about Larbert. She showed me a couple of things on the computer, like the student's portfolio's. Every student has one - and it's a WONDERFUL idea! Every teacher can see when a student was called out and what for, every homework assignment they've missed turning in, things like that. It's great. After that, Fiona, a first-year teacher (the baby of the department) came in holding The Pianist. Amazing movie! But I'm a history nerd, so I would think so, of course. She told me to come watch it with her in her S1 class (7th grade), so I did. Mostly to observe the students at that age to see how they acted during a movie. They were good for the most part... after about 15 minutes into the movie. After that, they were really good. And the movie was fantab. Awesome stuff! After that class, we went to tea and I talked politics with the history teachers there. New experience for me! But they seemed to respect my opinion and I appreciated that.

After tea, I went back to Aileen's room with Fiona, Craig, and Leslie (I don't know ANY of their last names) and we had a staff meeting about who was going to teach what and when during the next Timetable year. It was really confusing for me because I have NO idea how their timetable works or what all the letters and numbers mean on the schedule. Plus they talk really fast and I was having a hard time trying to keep up. But I got most of it... the words anyway. Not that I actually comprehended what went on or anything since, again, I have no idea how their school is set up (they've not explained it to me yet). After that, I went with Fiona again and watched her as she gave a group of S1's a completion assignment. They had been learning about what it was like living in Scotland from 1959-1969 and had just finished a unit on the hippies. Their assignment? They had to take magazines, cut out someone famous, and hippi-tize them. It was awesome! And because it was the last day of school, it was just something to keep them busy until the end of the day. I met one of the kids. Apparently he was a trouble-maker, but was being very good during that assignment. I would never have guessed it. He was sweet.

At 12:25, I went to lunch and Kurt and I waited for Mr. Wood to get there to pick us up. When we got back to school, we had about an hour before class because Aubrey was on a field trip and didn't get back until almost 3. We had class at 3:30 and it was a really good class. Mr. Wood shared stories of students past, we had good cries (we're all excited about teaching!), and good discussions. Then we had dinner and cake (it's Danielle's birthday and Mr. Wood's Anniversary) and some of the group went up to Falkirk. Kurt and I didn't go. He went walking and I was going to start my homework assignment. As of right now, I still haven't started... it's about 11:20 p.m. Go me and my wonderful procrastination techniques! We did a bible study and then had more cake and ICE CREAM, compliments of Adam and Melanie from the Cumbernauld CofC. They're awesome!

So, that was my day. Not much of one. I observed, yes, but there wasn't much to see. I have noticed that teachers like to yell at their students because they think it helps. I know it doesn't... *sigh* Oh well. Tomorrow, I get to play the Wii for activities day. Yay! Maybe I can wear jeans to school... cause I don't want to box and bowl in dress shoes. I would break something... like my NECK! Tomorrow should be fun. I will fill everyone in on the occurances of the day tomorrow.

Until then, bedtime/paper time.

Cheers, everyone!

Aimee

Second day, second years

2008-06-03T16:19:00.002-05:00

Another eventful day has passed at Larbert and also here at the house. Let me start at the beginning (a very good place to start).

We all woke up this morning and ate breakfast at 8. 8:30 was our designated History of the Reformation Movement class. It was, again, very interesting. Class was over about 10:00 and Kurt and I didn't have to be at our school until 1:15. So I messed around on Facebook among other things while we waited for lunch. Emilee Wood and I had some cool bonding time. She's a cool kid. We ate lunch and then all departed for our schools. When Kurt and I arrived, we went to the Geography Base room where we were going to meet Mr. Martindale, my cooperating teacher. When we had talked about what the plans were for the afternoon, we got started. We walked around to several different classes as Mr. Martindale checked up on the teachers who were explaining the procedures for the student's Activities Day on Thursday. Then we met Mr. Pinnock, Kurt's cooperating teacher in English, and he took us to a classroom where teachers were preparing a group of students to go to Italy on Thursday for 5 days. There was so much energy in the room and the students (S3) were very rowdy. But everything was passed out and explained, after much shushing and rolling of eyes and teenage boys showing off. It made me thank my lucky stars that I was NOT a middle school education major. From there, we proceeded to our own observation classrooms. I was sent to *Mrs. McClurg's class - an S2 History class. These students were in about our 8th grade, so very rowdy, talkative, and disruptive natures because it's just that awkward stage of life. Third time I thanked those stars in two days. I introduced myself and as soon as I opened my mouth, all the kids started staring at me with their mouths open and smiling. I tell, ya, mesmeration works every time. I sat at the back of the class and just watched and listened. I actually learned stuff that I had never known before, or had forgotten if I had ever been told. Keep in mind, this history was taught from a Scottish point of view. Anyway, I watched and observed the teacher. I didn't like her teaching style - I think she wasted too much time being silent when she could have been passing on more information. It was interesting, but not very informative. But the kids were nice, and I could definitely tell who the trouble-makers were because Mrs. McClurg was the sternest with them. But they knew their place in the classroom. She had the power. Woot!

Class got out at 3:30 and Kurt found his way to the Geography Base to collect his things and he and I went out to the front to meet Mr. Wood... except, he wasn't there. At least, we didn't see him. So, we walked back to Carronvale House. It took us 25 minutes to walk. Good exercise, but I had other things to do. Oh well. We got back to the House and Mr. Wood was sitting in the foyer. He told us he had been waiting for us at the visitor's entrance, then went around to try and find us and never could. He tried twice and gave up. I don't know how me missed us, but Kurt and I had good bonding time anyway. I sat and caught up on Facebook before dinner. Ate sausage rolls and chips (yum!) and then went to games night with kids from Cumbernauld CofC. It was SOO much fun! We played a tripped out game of freeze. One side of the court was port, the other was starboard and we had to play like we were on a ship. The captain would call out a command like PORT!, STARBOARD!, Captain's coming!, Captain's wife is coming!, Up a Gum Tree!, Cannonball!, etc. It was AWESOME! I was the first person out because I couldn't understand what the Captain was saying. Oh well, it was SOO much fun to watch! We also played a game called Squishy Ball. Everyone was split up into two teams and given a number. Everyone had a number correspondent on the other team and there was a koosh ball in the middle. The narrator (for lack of a better term) would call out a number and both of the people with that number would get up, get the koosh ball and try and get it back to their spot on their team's side while the other player tried to do the same and take the ball away. It was a blast! I was on the floor a lot (and I have the bruises and cuts to prove it) but I think I would definitely play it again. Yeah, we had a good evening.

And that's been it for today, ladies and gentlemen.

Tomorrow is another day. I can't wait to see what it will bring!

Cheers, everyone!

Aimee

*Names changed to protect the innocent

My first day at school!

2008-06-02T12:44:00.002-05:00

Wow. So I really enjoyed today, but my feet are very glad to be without shoes at the moment. Quite an eventful day. Let me de-brief you if you so desire.

After a very short breakfast, Kurt and I (the other HU student at the High School) were met by my cooperating teacher, Mr. Martindale, at the front door of Carronvale House. He took us to school (Larbert High School) this morning to show us around, which was very nice of him to do. We got there, signed in, got security passes which basically gives us free reign of the grounds while we are here, and took a tour around the school. It's HUGE. It is in the shape of the letter "P" and is the second largest high school in all of Scotland. It has around 1850 students from ages 11 - 18. They call this age S1 to S5, so basically grades 6-12. I was completely amazed at the number of different programs that are offered here. I know many of the programs I saw there either are not offered in most public schools, or I just don't hear about them. They have wood work, culinary arts, a morning "Breakfast Club" that offers a 7:30 aerobics class with free breakfast, dance classes, table tennis classes, music classes and tutors of all kinds ranging from piano to oboe to harp, etc., a fairly extensive language arts program offering French, Spanish, German, and hopefully Mandarin Chinese in the near future. There are more but I just can't remember them all at the moment... there was so much to see and learn!

I met about a hundred people today, or so it felt like. I only remember 2 people's names, but I will get better as time goes on and I learn my way about the school. The Humanities department is very large and offers History, Geography, and Religion and Moral Studies (History RMS). There are (I'm guessing) about 20 or so teachers in this department alone and about 150 on the campus itself. Everyone I met was very friendly and courteous. Several were pretty amused that Americans were there as "baby teachers" to get a feel for what life would be like in the school. Others were very excited, since next week after testing and the short holiday are over, the history department will start a unit on United States History, and they want to use me as reference. Yay! Our "quick" tour took about an hour and a half and I almost could never figure out where I was. It all looked the same to me. But I'll get it eventually. At least, I hope I do.

After our "quick" tour and a tea break, Kurt and I headed to the assembly that was going on. A group of Masai Warriors from Kenya had traveled to do a demonstration for the students. Since the location the students were in was very small, each grade had a time that they were designated to attend it, unless you were in isolation. Then you didn't get to go at all. Anyway, the group that just so happened to be there were the S2's (13-14 year olds). After watching them for about 5 minutes, I was SO very glad that I was not a middle school teacher. I honestly don't think I could handle students as rowdy and disrespectful as they were. However, the problem here in the UK is that there are so many rules about how you can and cannot discipline children, even as a parent. There is a law that says that a parent is forbidden to spank their child after age 3. Most children don't need spanking until they're almost 5 (at least in cases I've been a part of), therefore, it serves no benefit to the child. Many of them grow up wrecks and stay that way, making them a nightmare for teachers to handle. Society here does not discipline the growing child and it is such a shame to see the state that the kids are in today here. A lot of them could use a good licking and community service.

One thing I do really like about Larbert (because I don't know if this is the standard for schools all across the UK) is that they do not have Behavioral or Learning Disabilities centers. They are called Learning Support centers, and Behavioral Support centers. Students aren't labeled as a negative when they walk in the door. They are there to get help, yes, but under a more positive atmosphere than someone saying "You have a learning/behavioral disability." Maybe it's just me, but I like the more optimistic approach of the "Support Centers" than the "Disability Centers". It makes it much more likely that a student will walk in the door because they are not seen as a problem that cannot be fixed, rather as a learner who needs a little boost in their educative juices.

After the awesome assembly, we were able to get lunch and then it was time to leave. We had two classes of our own to attend back at Carronvale House and had to be back by 2. Since Mr. Wood was at the school with us for some of the day, he drove us back, but not before we picked up 4 more passengers in a car that only holds 4. Put 3 and 4 together and you have 7 people in one car for 4... we had one ride in the trunk and another laying across laps. We're pretty sure that's against the law... Oh, well. Fun times!

I really enjoyed our History of the Restoration Movement. Yes, it's a Bible class, but it's a HISTORICAL bible class. Yay history! AND it's taught by a Scottish man, Mr. Ferrie. He's pretty awesome. I can't wait until class tomorrow morning!

So far, that's been all the excitement of the day. Tomorrow I will get to be in a classroom, but since the actual high school students are gone out of the country for after-testing holiday, there won't be many classes to attend. But that's ok. It's better to start slow, I suppose.

Now, off to go play Mafia with the gang.

More updates coming later!!

Cheers, everyone!

Aimee

Once again I'm overseas. Yay!

2008-06-01T10:52:00.005-05:00

Well, I suppose it's time to catch you all up with everything I've been up to since I've been in Scotland. Sorry, but I won't be able to finish with Fall semester before I start this one, so I will just have to complete it another time. More to look forward to, I suppose.

Alright! Onwards and forwards through my 5 weeks in Scotland! Woot!

26 May 2008: Departure Day
Well, this was the day that I had been waiting for for quite a while. I was ready to leave for Scotland to pre-student teach. What an opportunity! My dad and grandmother brought me to the airport and dropped me off. I went through security and sat down at the gate and waited for the plane to arrive. That took two hours, but I was okay with that because it was some good quiet time with my Assessment textbook. I finally got on the plane. I had a seat next to the window, which I was excited about! Found my seat at the back of the plane only to discover that my "window" was covered up with hard plastic. I was not happy. It terrified me because I couldn't see where I was going. Landed in Detroit and I met up with the rest of my group. Well... almost all of them. Mr. Mike Wood, his daughter Emilee, and Josh Mills. They were stuck in Little Rock because of bad weather. The plane they caught to Detroit landed about 10 minutes after we had left Detroit. So, the 7 of us that were there left together for Amsterdam while the stuck 3 had to arrive later.

We boarded the plane to Amsterdam and I settled in for an 8 hour plane ride, certain that I would not get any sleep. Oh, well. At least the food was decent. I watched Juno (for the first time. It was good) and most of AI: Artificial Intelligence. Then I played games on the little TV screen in front of my face. I had to keep myself entertained for a long time... give me a break.

*Look! A sunrise! ...The sun never actually set. It was always light. It was weird

When we landed the next morning (27 May 2008), we were all exhausted. We had to wait two hours for our connecting flight to Edinburgh, so we found our gate and sat and waited. Then onto another plane for Scotland! I sat next to this really nice Dutch man who spoke really good English. They even fed us food on an hour and a half flight. I love Europe :-)

When we landed, we found Jacqueline Dillion, who was one of my teachers last Fall in London. She lives in London and does whatever the Harding International Office tells her to do. So she met us and we got a bus from the airport to our new home for the next month. It was a nice drive. When we had finally unloaded all of our stuff, we took it up to our rooms. I got a shower, then took a nap. At 6 we had dinner and as soon as dinner was over and I had informed people I had made it safely to Scotland, I went to bed. It was about 8:30. I slept like a baby that night. It was so good!

28 May 2008: About the town
I woke up for breakfast (that's right, BREAKFAST!) and was still really tired. Mike and the others still hadn't arrived yet. We all decided to go to Falkirk, which is the town right next to Larbert, where we are. It has a High Street (basically, like Poplar is for Memphis or Race Street is for Searcy) and grocery store. Jacqueline thought it would be nice if we were able to wait on the rest to arrive and then go for lunch and hang out around Falkirk. So we did. The rest of the group arrived soon after breakfast, we loaded up and walked to the bus stop at 11. Ate lunch at The Comma (which was superb, and cheap) and hung out in Falkirk. Funny thing about it though, there's nothing else to do in Falkirk. High Street isn't that long and I'm NOT much of a shopper. So after exploring the high street, I explored a little more of the town. I couldn't leave soon enough. I was ready to get back and get to bed. At 3, we all met up and took the bus back to Carronvale, where I proceeded to take a nap. It was fantastic. For not ever really being a good napper, I was impressed that I could sleep that much during the day time. Dinner that night was good. I got to meet the teacher I will be in the classroom with for the next month. He's really cool. I like him and we had a good get-to-know-ya session. I stayed up a little later that night, about 10, before I crashed again. It's so good to get lots of sleep, especially if you're trying to adjust to a different time zone. Ahh, sleep. I can never get enough of it.

29 May 2008: High rise water ride
This was our first field trip day. Everyone woke up early and had breakfast (it's good every morning) and we left soon after for Falkirk. Caught a bus in Falkirk city center for the Falkirk Wheel. It's this ingenious device that replaces the lock by taking a boat, rotating it on a wheel and either bringing it up or down to the next canal. It's the only one on the world. It took 1000 men to build it. 17.5 million British Pounds were poured into its funding, and 14,868 bolts were used to hold everything together. It was truly fascinating. And it only takes 4 minutes to get to the top, which is about 130 feet in the air. It's also VERY quiet, too. I almost didn't know we were moving. And the view was spectacular! It would have been much better had the metal fence not been so high in the stall, but it was pretty, none-the-less.

After the Wheel, we caught a bus back to Falkirk where I and another proceeded to exchange money and do a little shopping at ASDA (Britain's Wal-Mart. It's the same company). It didn't take us very long. We got back just in time for dinner. Ate dinner and then stayed up entirely too late on the internet. Me and my addictions.... I finally went to bed around 1 in the morning.

30 May 2008: Hunting Royalty
This Friday was one that I had been waiting for since I left Scotland the last time. We were going to Edinburgh! And this time, we were going on a Scavenger Hunt. It was really cool! It took place on the Royal Mile and I walked it about 4 times, up and down, up and down. I was so tired by the end of the day that I fell asleep on the train home. I saw the Elephant House again, I found the Greyfriar's Bobby statue that I had somehow missed the last time, I bought stuff and had a grand time in the rain. We did Edinburgh Castle. It was good to actually have all the time I wanted to explore the castle. It was great! I was so exhausted that I went to bed at 9. *sigh* I had another good nights sleep before another busy day back in Edinburgh.

(Break for dinner)

31 May 2008: Climb every mountain
This was day 2 of 2 in Edinburgh and it started out with a train ride into the Burgh. From the train station, we walked to the Sevens arena. The Sevens are Scotland's Rugby team and we went to a tournament thing there. We saw several teams play from around Europe and other countries. It was quite spectacular. They played short games - 7 minutes each, with 11 instead of 15 players on the field - and a few of the teams were outstanding. Some were surprising in the last few seconds of the game. If there was a tie, it stayed a tie. Good times. I bought a Scotland Rugby jersey to add to my grand collection of 2 rugby jerseys, the other from England. P.S. The Sevens are really very good. They played the Aussies and won! Yay! After we had tired of the 5 or 6 games we watched, we got lunch and proceeded to Princes Street, which I had already traversed the day before. I wanted to go back to the Royal Mile for pending purchases and also to see and climb Arthur's Seat, the mountain-thing that overlooks Edinburgh. I got separated from the group shortly after lunch and continued on my own through Edinburgh. It was actually really nice to be by myself. I could take whatever time I wanted and go anywhere I wanted at my own pace (which is quite a bit faster than everyone else here, unfortunately). It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and there were no clouds in the sky, which guaranteed that there would be no rain. So, I walked down the Royal Mile towards Holyroodhouse and Arthur's Seat, bought a couple of things on the way, and generally enjoyed the sunshine. Then I made my way past Holyrood Park and up to the foot of Arthur's Seat. This time, I was going to take the easy way up. Last time I climbed it, Liz and I made the mistake of going the hard way that takes almost an hour and you walk around THE WHOLE mountain before you can get up to the top. And it was steep. So, I opted to take the chicken way up, which was a lot harder than I remembered... probably because I had only ever come DOWN the easy way, not up. But it was harder than I thought, but the breeze was welcoming as the sweat started pouring down my back because it was so hot. But I finally made it to the top. It was pretty :-) I saw the North Sea bay area that Edinburgh sits in, birds-eye pictures of Holyroodhouse (which, if you didn't know, is the house the Queen and any other royalty stay in when they're in town) and the modern but ugly Parliament building. Got a couple more pictures of Edinburgh Castle along with some of myself on the very windy mountain. *sigh* Hard work always pays off in the end.

I finally decided that I should leave the mountain since it was close to closing time for several shops. I walked back up the Royal Mile and stopped at a Starbucks because I was in the mood for coffee (Starbucks moods don't happen very often). I got the new Dulce du Leche frappachino. It was FANTASTIC!! I wanted to go back to the Elephant house and get a T-shirt, but I forgot... so now I don't have one and it kind of makes me sad. If I get a chance to go back to Edinburgh for whatever reason, I'll make it a point to stop and get one. Oh well. Can't do everything I suppose.

I caught the train back and was the first one of the group. Then I got online and the rest of my evening was spent catching up with friends and family back home. Oh, and then I played Taboo with Courtney, Kelly, Kurt, Megan, Aubrey, Camille, and Josh. Oh, we had so much fun! Then we did Taboo-ish Charades... but you had to act everything out with a partner. It was a hoot! There were things like milking a cow, playing the piano, drinking poison, the long jump, speed dating, and having a baby on the list. Oh, good times and GREAT bonding moments! I definitely think that would be an awesome ice breaker one day in my classroom. Totally awkward, but SOO much fun!

1 June 2008: First Sunday in Scotland
Not much has happened today. We went to Cumbernauld Church of Christ which is about a 30 minute drive away. It's VERY small, but the people are really nice. I actually enjoyed the sermon today. We ate at the Beefeater pub. Um... YUM! It took forever, but I guess that's okay. I got back around 4 and started checking stuff online and starting this post. Then we had dinner of Mac'N'cheese and chips and pork chops and peas. The food here is awesome! We are DEFINITELY NOT starving people. They take such good care of us. Now, I just have supper to look forward to. Yay tea!

Well, that is successfully everything I've done thus far. Tomorrow we spend the first day at school with our teacher. I'm kind of nervous, but also very excited! I will keep you updated about the goings-on here in Scotland. Miss you all! See you when I see you.

Cheers, everyone!

Aimee

P.S. I'll put pictures up when the internet starts working properly again... sorry about that. Some of them are on facebook, though. Check them out if you haven't already!

Let's keep Free Traveling!!

2008-05-24T18:50:00.029-05:00

Hey, guys. It's been 5 months since I updated this thing. Pathetic, and I'm sorry. I really probably should tell you what happened during the rest of free travel because it was awesome!! So, here I go again. Up for another whirlwind adventure in Italy? I hope so. Let's get started!

03 December 2007:
So, this was one of the days I had been waiting for for a long time. Got up bright and early, sunshine, and Kaity, Jordan and I met up with Ruth and Jill, another girl from the hostel we were in. She had been in Rome a few more days than we had been and wanted to show us around our next location, which we were totally fine with. So, we all boarded the Metro and took it to... whatever stop we went to. It was in Italian, and I think it started with an "O". Whatever. We got off and had to walk a little bit... OK, we had to walk a long way, but that was okay. On the way, met some interesting characters... like the guy who groped one of our own. Not fun, but anyway - that's the italian for ya. Anyway, kept walking and finally happened upon our next location, and it was exciting :-) Check it out:

*Think you can pinpoint this spot?

*How about now? Look familiar yet?

Yep, that's The Vatican!

See the middle window on the top row? That's the Pope's window! He comes out of that window and speaks to the people on Sundays. Unfortunately, I hadn't known that the previous day, otherwise I would have shown up. This is as close to the Pope as I'm probably ever going to get, so look! The window! (and the light was on)

So, we walked around the Vatican for a little bit and then decided we wanted to explore something a little more...colorful. So we went around the back (because that's where you're supposed to go in order to get where we were headed), paid our 8 Euro admission fee and started our walk through many, many little museums. It probably took about 2 hours to get through all of the little museums. Saw some really cool paintings, and statues, like this one: (2)

*I hope you recognize this one at first glance. It's The Thinker statue and it's really small. Maybe 2 feet tall, but no bigger. And to think that I almost missed it!

So, kept walking through the museums, saw a sign (and a line) for this: (Sorry it's blurry)

And walked inside. And this is what it looked like:

Ready for a better picture?
*The world-reknowned painting of The Creation of Adam. Isn't it pretty?!?

Everything is covered in paintings, except the floor. It was breath-taking. I almost cried, but knowing how much of a softie I am, are you really surprised?

Isn't this staircase COOL!! It's the one I had to go down to get out of the Sistine Chapel. I like this picture :-)

After the Chapel, Jill, Ruth, and I went one way, and Kaity and Jordan went their own way. The three of us took the metro to another stop and went to Triton's fountain, built by the Romans (of course) way back before Jesus.

*Me at Triton's Fountain

It's really cool being in a city where a lot of what you see is ancient. It really puts into perspective how young our country is and how NOT old 200 years is. Anyway, got a picture with the fountain and then continued on. Hard to believe, but we forgot to go to St. Paul's Cathedral... makes me a little sad, but I can always go back :-)

So, from Triton's fountain, we walked all the way back to the hostel. We passed this guy. He's real!

Our hostel was clear across the center of Rome and it's not small. On our way, we passed Trevi fountain, again (yay!) and then made our way to the Pantheon. You know, that building in Rome with the big hole in the ceiling?

*But first we took pictures outside with the massive columns. See?

Yeah, that one.

It's pretty cool inside. See? Hole in the ceiling, lots of space, huge and heavy doors, and it's free. That's the best kind of attraction. I don't mean the bottom of my chin...I'm sure people would NOT flock thousands of miles to see that...

After exploring the Pantheon and seeing some really cool old graves, we left the Pantheon (there's only so much you can see) and walked across and down the street to St. Edward II Museum. Ruth and I didn't go in but Jill did. But while Ruth and I were waiting, we saw a Bishop in Hot Pink (no lie)

(like so)

and lots of nuns,

*Look! Nuns!

all following the Bishop to the robe store just down the alley from where we were. We watched them go in, and then we walked to the store and looked in the window. It was actually pretty cool to see up close what the Catholic high-peeps wear with their robes. It was all pretty and you get to pick your colour. Isn't that funny?! Leaves one to wonder why the Bishop picked hot pink...

Moving on! We kept walking and finally I saw the Colosseum again.

Like so... Ain't it purdy?!

It was pretty with the lights shining on it and the sun going down. *sigh* Good times. I like the old stone sphere. Too bad it's falling down...

So, got back to the hostel and waited on Kaity and Jordan. It took them about 2 hours to get back. It was good to sit and relax. Ate dinner and then decided that I wanted to go to bed. The only problem was that we had new visitors in our room that night. There were 2 guys and they were Spanish - like from Spain, not Mexican Spanish-speaking. Spanish-speaking Spaniards... and not attractive. Oh well. So, I was getting ready for bed and one of the guys beckoned me over (it was pitch black) and asked me if I spoke English. I said yes. He asked me about myself (where I was from, why I was in Italy, etc.) He then asked me if I knew of anything to do in the area bar-wise. I, of course, had NO idea since I was not in Rome for the bars. He also asked if I thought he had time to go find one. I said he probably did. Then, he wanted to know what I was doing. I told him I was going to bed (alone, of course) and he said "okay". Then he left. 30 minutes later, he came back and I was lying in bed almost asleep. He came over, poked me (and I could smell alcohol on his breath, so I figured he had found his bar), and wanted to keep talking. He asked me when I was leaving and I told him the next morning. He sounded disappointed but I didn't care. He was a bit creepy...

Then I went to sleep because I couldn't wait for the next train ride.

04 December 2007:

Woke up about 6:30 in the morning, took a shower, and ate breakfast at 7. It was awesome! It was the first time I had had the hostel's breakfast since we had been there. It really got me up and going. Kaity and Jordan woke up and we packed and left for the train station. Sadly, Kaity left her awesome umbrella at one of the cafe's at the station. She was so sad... It was such a cute umbrella. Boarded the train at 10:20 because the time kept getting pushed back (the first of two that day) and headed off to our next exciting location. About 2 hours later, we arrived. Unfortunately, where we wanted to go was NOT near the train station at all. So we walked because we didn't feel like paying for a cab, lugging all of our stuff behind us because we didn't want to pay to have it sit at the train station. Penny-pinchers, aren't we? Yeah, we're college students :-) Anywho, walked, and walked, and, just for kicks, we took a wrong turn and walked some more down cobblestone streets with rolling luggage. Yeah, we got looks, but we were so used to it by then, it didn't really matter. Then, all of the sudden, we saw this:

*Yeah, that's the leaning Tower of Pisa.

*And here's a better one...or few

*Kaity and my's artsy pictures

*Another artsy Pisa pic

Yes, we were in Pisa! for only about 4 hours or so, but long enough to cross it off the list of cities to visit in Europe. Isn't it cool?! Kaity and Jordan decided that they didn't feel like spending the 15 Euros to go to the top of the Tower, so I went alone. Let me tell ya, it's really weird walking up that thing because one second you're walking uphill, and just like that, you're going downhill, over and over and over again. 286 small long steps to the top. Nothing that would put you into cardiac arrest. Got to the top of the Tower and had a look-see around, took some pictures, like these: (pictures)

*The Cathedral and the Baptistry from the Tower

*From the top - pretty!

*One of the huge bells on the top

and continued on up to the very top level. It was pretty and the sun was setting (remember, it took us about an hour or so to get from the train station to the Tower, even though Pisa is VERY small). Then they kicked me off the top because the next group was waiting to come up. I have no idea what the guard told me (because he spoke in Italian), but I'm pretty sure he said something like "You crazy American! Leave because more people are coming up." He didn't look happy at all and I didn't want to anger him even more, so I did what I thought he was telling me to do and got lost. An expensive, short visit, but worth it. Who knows if I'll ever get to see it again.

Then went and walked into some of the surrounding shops and explored the Cathedral that was right there next to the Tower. It was pretty, but a very typical church. Nothing we hadn't seen before. We tried to get into the cool baptistry, but it was closing, so we decided that it was time for us to leave. So, we walked back to the train station... and saw this on the way back:

*This is a hang drum, ladies and gentlemen. (it's a little blurry...sorry)

Look up "Hang Drum" on YouTube and you can listen to it. Links are not working at the moment, sorry

It's cool. I took this picture for Coleman because he wants one. After hearing it, I kind of want one too... Anyone have 2000 Euro you want to bestow upon a poor kid???

It took us forever to find out where we were going, but eventually, because Kaity is smart, we got to the right platform and were boarding the train for our next city. I'll give you a clue - in a picture:

*Take a whack at it.
A) What statue is this?
B) In what city does is this famous statue housed?

Did you get it?
Answers:
A) David by Michaelangelo
B) Florence, Italy

It was dark by the time we got to Florence, so we had to navigate at very strange city in the dark, again lugging all our luggage with us for a long way. It took us a while to find the hostel, and, after asking for directions several times and crossing several really busy streets, we found our next home away from home. It was at the very top of a 7 story building with a 100 year-old elevator that only took passengers down (because it was so old). So we had to walk up about 82 stairs with 30 lbs. of stuff on us. It didn't help that we were exhausted from traveling all day. But the hostel was nice. We met some Australian guys there (oh man, were they CUTE!) and they told us some of the highlights of the city, gave us a map, and circled everything he thought we would be interested in. It was cool. I made myself a cuppa, ate dinner (which consisted of crackers, bread, and nutella) and decided to go to bed. But before that, I had some homework to do for my Environmental Science class, so I finished the class, and then crashed. It was awesome.

05 December 2007:
This was the morning of the glorious shower. The hostel we were staying in was really nice, so there were really nice bathrooms with REALLY hot water. I took the longest shower I had taken all semester. It was FABULOUS! Got ready to go and left the hostel at 9 a.m. to get in everything we wanted to do that day. The first thing we wanted to do was to see the awesomeness that is Michaelangelo. So, we headed over to the Galleria dell Accademia to see the wonderfulness. Jordan decided he didn't want to go in because it was 10 Euros just to get into the door. So Kaity and I went in and studied the statues that Michaelangelo had started and had never completed for the Pope because the Pope had died before they were finished. There were 14 of them and they were all really cool. Then, we turned around and saw the wonderful nakedness of Mike's most famous statue, David. He's perfectly proportioned. It's a feat that no one else has been able to achieve. David is 16 feet tall, and about 8 feet of the ground. It's illegal to take pictures of it, and having cameras ALL around it makes it really hard to attempt... so I didn't get one - of the full statue. I got from the neck down, but I'm happy with that. Then we walked into the next room and saw a painting by Raphael that looked EXACTLY like Daniel Wade (went to high school and college with him). It was scary.

Left there, met up with Jordan, and walked to the Duomo. The Duomo is the largest (as in widest) roof in Italy, if not in the world. I can't remember. It's been 6 months, give me a break. But it looks like this:

*The Duomo

And this time I forgoed the 6.50 Euro to climb to the top. Instead, I walked around and explored the streets of Florence. Happened upon several markets and walked into a few stores and just enjoyed the pretty Florence afternoon. It took about an hour for Kaity and Jordan to get all the way through the ceiling, but afterwards, we met up and kept walking/exploring the city. We happened upon one of the markets I had walked through and just browsed. It was called the San Lorenzo Market. It just happened that it was about lunchtime, so we pulled out our Nutella and crackers and had a feast.... or not. But we did feed the birds with our crumbs and shooed away the gypsies because all they're looking for are rich Americans who feel sorry for them to give them money. Poor college kids have no money, therefore, we ignored her and she went away. That's all you can do for gypsies. Shoo them or ignore them. Continuing...

Left after lunch and just walked around the markets for the rest of the day. Since we're poor, we didn't buy anything, but it was fun to see all the places selling aprons and boxer shorts with David's...um, yeah...plastered on the front. After a while, I found it not so funny. The problem is that it was EVERYWHERE, on every street corner, etc. You can definitely tell the tourist sections from the non-tourist sections...

After we explored that for a while, we went to the Piazza del Republica that was right next to the river. There is a mock statue of David here and we got pictures with it. It was funny. We walked along the river and headed back to the hostel for dinner and some relaxation time. It was much needed, too. By this time, we had almost run out of things to do in Florence. See, Florence is a city about art. And for three people not really that into art, it was hard to find something to do that didn't involve art... So we went back and hung out in the hostel just talking and catching up with blogs and what not. Then, we decided to hit the sheets before our next day.

And, here, I'm going to stop. I think it's long enough. I will catch up another time, when I have time. Maybe after I get back from Scotland, which I leave for on Monday and won't be back until June 30. I'm going to Pre-student teach in Edinburgh for 5 weeks and the head on over to London for 4 days. Yay!

Ciao everyone!

The start of a whirlwind experience

2007-12-29T16:05:00.000-06:00

Hey all you faithful readers (and non-faithful ones as well), you're about to enter another incredible reading (incredible because of where I went and how long it's going to be...). It's been a busy day so far and I'm just now getting to sit down and fill you in even more. I just finished playing a 3 hour session of Guitar Hero's II and III, so forgive me if my fingers are not all here. Right then, ready to embark?

Strap on your hiking boots, grab your litre of Evian, a good stick and a snack and get ready for another adventure.

I wonder where I went this time :-)

2 December 2007: Forums, fountains, food, and friends

So, I hope you remember from the last Europe post that I am in Rome at the moment, saw the Colosseum (almost cried, twice), and had a wonderful relaxing evening. Today is no different. Let us begin!

We woke up late (for us at least - 9:30) because we didnt have to be out of the hostel until 11. Praise the Lord we can sleep! Anyway, got ready (that was a nice ordeal...*ahem*) and left. Walked towards the Colosseum (because everything is that way), which takes about 15 or 20 minutes. But a nice walk all the same. Went through the park there right in front of the Colosseum and continued on our way. As we were walking towards our next destination, we got stopped by a Roman Gladiator. Well, Jordan did. Apparently, the Italian guy thought it would be funny to tell Jordan that he was Jesus. How anyone can mistake Jordan for Jesus completely bewilders me. Jordan has red hair and does not look in the least bit Middle Eastern. But whatever he said made us laugh (though it probably shouldn't have) and we ignored him because that's what you do in Europe - ignore anyone who comes up to you. After our laugh, we passed the Arc that is right in front of the Colosseum and headed to the Roman Forum. I didn't know anything about it (and, I must be honest, I don't know much more now) but it was interesting and filled with all kinds of old stone remains, etc. Sanctuaries were the most common things that had been put there. But we also explored an ENORMOUS house on the hilltop, which our Colosseum ticket got us into. We didn't have much time to look around since the audio guide was due back in two hours, but what we did see was pretty cool. I finally saw a Roman Bath (since I missed the ones in Bath, England) and what looked like an arena. Other than that, one can only guess what had been there. When something Roman decides it doesn't want to stand anymore, it takes a big fall, so it's hard to really be able to look at something and guess what it was for unless one had documented evidence, which I was very short on. But I had fun exploring the gardens and walking around the ruins and trying to guess what they had been in centuries past. It was awesome.

Since we only had the audio guide for a short time, we decided that it would be a good idea to use it. We had to pick and choose what we wanted to see, but I think we picked some good ones. Not that I'm an expert in ANYTHING we saw, but it was interesting at the time. I have never seen more stone ruins in one place than I saw here. Most things only had maybe a pillar or two standing, some had a foundation left and that was it, some things were still intact pretty well. If I remember correctly, the buildings in the forum spanned several hundred years, and many emperors, including Nero. I walked down a HUGE stone walkway that was put in place by Nero (and when I say huge, I mean, the stones were as big as I am). I think it used to be blue, but you really couldn't tell very well, unless you were an expert and I am VERY far from that.

See how it's falling apart? I thought it was cool that the brick was still standing

A bridge and a tree right in the middle of this house on the hill thing

These bronze doors are older than the birth of Jesus. Wow - and they are the ORIGINAL doors. Talk about sturdy

This was a cool santuary thing that I don't remember anything about except that invaders tried to tear down the pillars. Well, they didn't succeed but you can still see where they put the chains at the top to try and bring it down.

See? Besides the previous picture, this was just about the only other thing that was still intact...sort of.

Yeah, that was the Roman Forum. After that, we left and found a Scottish pub to eat at. It was really good. Then we explored some of the stores before continuing to our next location. I KNOW you will recognize it as soon as I put a picture of it up here. You ready?

Guess away!

If you don't recognize this, you better study up on your Roman tourist sites. Now, exactly WHY this fountain is so significant, I haven't the slightest idea. But it's pretty, isn't it? Oh, and it's even better at night when it's all lit up. Ok, if you don't recognize it, I shall enlighten you - Trevi Fountain. I will never understand the significance of a "famous fountain" unless it was somewhere Jesus was baptized at, but that was in the Jordan River. No fountains... So, like I said, I don't know why this fountain is signficant, except for the fact that the Romans built it, but it is. And it's pretty. We spent a bit of time here,

Throwing coins over our shoulders and making wishes...

Taking pictures (look how excited Kaity is to see Trevi Fountain!)...

Running our fingers in the water...

And studying the intricate stone carvings of this magnificent waterhole.

I can't tell you how many times workers came up and asked to take my picture. CLEARLY they didn't see that I had my own camera and was taking pictures for myself... *sigh* anything to make a Euro I suppose. After exploring and taking pictures to our hearts content, we went back up the little street we had come down and got Gelati. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically Italian ice cream - gooey, and MUCH sweeter than American Ice Cream, but AH-Mazing!

My gelati, a little on the bright side

Me and Kaity sharing gelati, a little on the blurry side

And don't forget the 35 Euro jar of Nutella - I wonder how long that would have fed us....

Yeah...I never want to eat that much Nutella...EVER! I got pretty sick of it after a whole week of eating just that, crackers, and bread. Thank goodness we were saved! But more on that later...

Yes, gelati was amazing but as we ate, we continued to our next destination. Someplace I had never heard of, but had seen it in movies. Anyone recognize these?

Something called the Spanish Steps perhaps? Yeah. Cool, huh? My pictures are being stupid at the moment, so this is one off the internet, but it's by far better than any one that I have. Like them? Me too. But there were lots of people there - found two couples making out on the steps. They were really funny to watch - but that didn't happen for very long.

So the fountain at the Steps

was pretty awesome.

I drank out of it. Don't believe me? Check it out...

See? And for those of you who think the water in Rome is bad - you would be terribly wrong. It's better (MUCH better) than Searcy water and almost as good as Memphis water. Best water I had had to drink since before I left for Europe. It was delightful - just rolled over your tongue like a soft cloth. Oh it was heaven...for about 5 seconds because there were other people waiting. The two pictures are two different incidences, so yeah. I drank TWICE. Wahoo!

After that, we climbed back up the steps (because we had come out on the top) and went back to the hostel. It took 30 minutes to get back, but we made it in time for dinner that night (remember the free dinner? Mmmm, pasta!) which was awesome. I also met Ruth who was on a 6 month travel and was finishing up in Rome. She was 9 days away from being home in Belgium (but she's an American) and she was so excited. She had a 13 year old daughter that she hadn't seen for 6 months, so I know she was ready to get home. But we talked all through dinner. I told her where we were going the next day and she asked if she could come along. Of course it was ok. She had been tagging along with people since she started her journey and the three of us were more than happy to have her accompany us on our next excursion. Where is that?

You will have to find out next time.

Until then,

Ciao!

Aimee

A very special Christmas

2007-12-23T12:48:00.001-06:00

This post has nothing to do with Europe, but I thought I would share it.

About a year ago, a family placed membership at our church. I knew nothing about them, only that they had a son named Cole who was 3 at the time. After a few weeks, I noticed him and his dad together. Both had shaved heads. I thought this was a pretty cool father/son thing...until my dad told me that Cole had leukemia. His dad had shaved his head so Cole wouldn't feel bad about not having any hair. I kept up with Cole's chemo progress for the next year through my mom who read Mrs. Casper's blog about Cole's medical progress. Just before I left for England, I received news that Cole was not doing very well. At the time, his dad had gone back to their hometown (since Cole was in Memphis at St. Jude Children's Hospital) for work. Cole's buddy was missing when he was needed the most. I wanted to cry for him. I left for England and didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks. Then, I heard that Cole was in isolation. How terrifying for a child so young to have no contact with the outside world - barely even his parents. I prayed for him everytime I thought about him. He had been so strong. Everytime I saw him, he always had a smile on his face. I never would have guessed Cole had been fighting cancer because he was so strong. That was the last I heard until this morning at church. I was blessed to get to sit a couple of rows behind Cole and his parents (Cole is about 4 now, I believe) and noticed that he was not as bald as I had remembered. I wondered if that meant he was getting better... The answer came just a couple of moments later when it was announced (and it was news to me) that Cole had been cured of his two year battle with cancer. I lost it inside. Tears welled in my eyes as I thought of the brave little child in front of me. He was so happy. Every time I've seen him, he has given me hope. Cole never gave up, neither did his parents, even when things got bad.

Cole will never know how he has touched my life. I doubt he will ever know how many people he has encouraged by just being strong. What a terrible thing to have to go through at so young an age, but how wonderful it is that he conquered with flying colors!

I know that Cole's parents could not have asked for a better gift for Christmas - their son, alive and whole and back in the game.

Sometimes, the biggest blessings come in the smallest packages.

God bless you, Cole, as you have blessed everyone around you.

Merry Christmas!

Aimee

Let's start traveling free!

2007-12-21T12:10:00.000-06:00

Hello to all my faithful followers! You are about to embark on a journey around Europe - covering 9 cities, 5 countries and only in two and a half weeks. Think it's a bit much in just 18 days? Nah. It was an adventure everyday. You ready to take off on the fastest 18 days ever? Wonderful. Make sure your seat belt is buckled low and tight across your waist, your tray table is folded in the upright position and your seat is completely forward - now we're ready for take off!!

1 December 2007: A journey begins...with no sleep

So, Kaity, Jordan, and I left our flat for the last time at 10:00 PM and headed to Gatwick Airport. This involved taking the Tube several stops and tube station run-throughs to Victoria station in order to catch the Southern train lines to Gatwick. We didn't have tickets at the time and the automatic "do-it-yourself" machines wouldn't take our cards so Kaity stood in the slowest que and the only que to get tickets. The guy gave her a whole lot of trouble and for no real reason. Both Kaity and I got upset but suspected that it was because it was late and that we were Americans that he had the right to be rude. Oh well. It happens. But we got the tickets and borded the 11:30 train to the station. By this point, we were all tired but ready to take on an adventure, the likes of which none of us had ever gone on. It was exciting, to be sure, but first we had to get out of London.

We got to the train station and there is no one in any kiosk to let us check our bags, so we lug them all upstairs to the food section of the airport and look for a comfortable spot to rest until our 6:50 AM flight. We found a bench at Cafe Nero, which was open 24 hours a day and for which Kaity was eternally grateful (since she loves coffee, almost more than anything else) and set our stuff down just to wait. Apparently, there had been a strike at the airport into which we were flying and spent about 2 hours freaking out that our flight had been canceled, but for no reason. We flew out at 6:50 - the canceled flight left at 7:05. Thank goodness Kaity booked the ONLY non-canceled flight. I bet you're wondering where we were going, aren't you? Yeah, you are. :-)

Kaity and I watched Troy a bit before she decided to try and get some shut eye. I don't actually know if either Jordan or Kaity slept, but they said they didn't. I didn't sleep at all. I kept watch over the bags - mostly because I was paranoid that someone would take something since it is Europe and pickpockets are everywhere. But I busied myself with Snake, Bubble Breaker and Solitare - for 4 hours. Yay... There would be time to sleep later, when we got to our hostle in .... oh, I forgot. I'm not telling you yet.

Well, I "woke" up my two comrades in arms at 4 am and we went and got our luggage checked, went through security, and hung out in the shopping area until our platform number was announced. When we found that out, we walked to it - forever away, but still. Waited some more until we could board, hopped on the plane and settled in for a 4 hour flight to a totally different country. The only thing we were not excited about was the fact that there was NO leg room on the plane at all. My knees were bumping into the seat in front of me, and I have short legs. I felt bad for any tall person who was riding on the plane. We fly for a while and I get a bit of sleep, but not much since I have a hard time sleeping on planes. But I did wake up one time and see the tops of the Swiss Alps. Isn't that cool! Does that give you a hint as to where we were headed? South. What's south? you may ask.

We landed in a state of exhiliaration - we were totally in .... *sigh* When we pulled into the holding bay, we heard the familiar welcome we had become used to...in Italian. Yes we were in Italy. But there are so many places to go in Italy! Well, this happens to be the center of all things Roman.

Yeah, I know - I'm lame, but we were in Rome! I was so excited and so very grateful that our flight had not been canceled. I honestly don't know what we would have done. But no use in worrying about that anymore for we had arrived! It took us a while to get on the bus, since the airport is on the very outskirts of Rome, but we finally made it. What was supposed to take 25 minutes, took an hour and a half because the traffic in Rome is awful! There are too many cars. But since everytime Rome tries to build another line to their existing, but small Metro System they always run into more ancient Romans ruins and have to stop. *sigh* I guess it's the price you pay for living in such an old city. On the way to the hostel, we passed all kinds of old stuff - like palace ruins and aqueducts. As soon as I saw the aqueducts I started crying - ye olde softie am I - because I couldn't believe that these things were still around! They were over 2000 years old and still standing. Not they they were whole or anything, but most of them still stood and it was really cool to see something older than Jesus' birth still around. We finally got to our hostle, which was didn't think was in a good part of town, but over the next few days, it got better. We checked in and went out on the town since we weren't allowed to stay just yet (lock out was from 11 until 4 for cleaning). We just walked and guess what we found?? This:

Yep - we walked through a park and, BAM, there it was in all its Roman splendour. I about cried again (me and my historical pitifulness...oh, I love it) but I didn't. We decided we wanted to conquer the Colosseum, so we did. We got in the long que, went through security, and got our tickets. One thing about Europe - if you are a student, well, that's nice, but you have to be European citizen in order to get discounts most places. It would have helped at the Colosseum, since admission is 11 Euro, but I would have paid more than that to get inside. Just about everything I did during the next 17 days was something I had dreamed all my life of doing. Now, I was standing in the Colosseum - the epitomy of fire exits. We went inside and spent over an hour just meandering through it. It's not as big as the pictures make it out to be - therefore I was very surprised at how small it was. But it was really cool. It's all falling apart and has been patched with concrete to keep it together (which is sad, but who wants it to fall down?) but you can see the labyrinth below where the floor was. It's a bit hard to imagine what it would have looked like, at least for me, since you really can't tell where people are supposed to sit, but there are still the impossibly steep stairways haunting many a dark corner. We walked up one in order to get to the second level and realized why, in all Roman sculpture, every person has amazing gluets - it was because of those steep, tall staircases they had to climb up all the time. It was definitely a workout. After having come from London where there is nothing BUT steps, I thought I was ready for Roman steps - yeah, I was wrong. Not these Roman steps - they were killer. And don't try running down them either because you just might die. The steps themselves are tall and narrow - room for almost 3/4 of one's foot to tread and that's it. But since the Romans were not tall people, we can't harp too much on their lack of spacious stairways.
(stairway in Colosseum - but the picture doesn't give this stair justice)

I called my mom from the Colosseum and both she and my dad were so excited that I was standing there. I almost cried again - third time in a day. That's a bit sad. But who wouldn't when you're standing in the shadow of the great Colosseum. The sun started setting while we were still exploring this wonderful place (the sun starts setting at about 3 pm). I saw most of a sunset in the Colosseum and it was beautiful.
(see? Pretty!)

After that, we decided to head back to the hostel and get some sleep - besides, we had free dinner at 7 and we didn't want to miss that. So we headed back and rested in the hostel for a while, ate a dinner of pasta, met some of the other people staying in the hostel, and went to bed at about 10 since we were all wiped.

What a whirlwind first day, but one worth remembering forever.

I still had 17 days left in Europe and I wondered what they would all bring.

That's all for right now, guys. I still have unpacking to do and my room is a wreck. But I will have some more up about free travel when I can.

Ciao for now!

Aimee

Last Week in London

2007-12-20T15:44:00.000-06:00

Hey all - again it has been a while and I've got another three weeks to catch you up on, but my goal is to have you all caught up by this weekend since I'm home and don't have very many things to take up my time :-)

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

Look!! Pictures!! Now guess

2007-12-10T15:12:00.000-06:00

Hey guys! So, I'm going to fastforward for the moment and put up a couple of pictures that I really like

And

I want you to guess what they are and where. For some of you, it will be easy, but I want to see what you come up with.

I also would really like to know who reads this.

So, comment away. You don't get a prize, but I get satisfaction knowing that my words don't go to the blind side since I really have no idea who keeps up with this.

Oh, and no city-telling because that would be cheating, but it should be easy enough, right?

Have fun!

Another day, another of those boring posts....

2007-12-05T14:18:00.000-06:00

Hey guys!! Hope everyone is doing well since I last posted (yesterday was it?). I'm doing fantastic at the moment, but I'll get to my long free travel as soon as I'm done with the rest of everything I've left you guys in the dust with. Sorry about that...still trying to catch up, but I'm a week down and...still about three left, but that's better than nothing!

So, off we go again, then, eh? Sweet.

18 November 2007: Another Sunday

Well, this Sunday, nothing too important happened. Went to church at Wembley again and then went back and did some homework because I'm studious like that. Too studious like that. Had class that afternoon. Once again, didn't pay a lick of attention (because we're not even tested over what we spend 7 hours a week learning - pointless classes really) and spent most of my time surfing the internet or playing games. Seriously, I really don't care about that class - I have an A and I'm happy with that. So, onwards and forwards!!

19 November 2007: A "Class"ic Tea Party

Still have class on Mondays, in case you're wondering - so I went because I can't skip. I only really like my Brit Lit class. Speech is ok, too, but I've already had it and it's not hard. Taught by the same teacher who's pretty much amazing on her own. We always have fun in Ms. Dillion's class - most of the time, we don't even stay on topic - she doesn't seem to care that much because she has fun with us. Yay Ms. Dillion!!

Anyway, after class, I still had homework to do (and this is supposed to be a RELAXING semester....yeah right) so I did some. But that afternoon at 4, Ms. Dillion was treating ALL of us (students, teachers, and students' families) to a High Tea Party in the boy's flat. So, at 3:59, I dropped my studious bit and went right across the hall to flat 4 to have High Tea (it was the only time in London that I was able to have High Tea). It was great!!! We had all kinds of tea, sandwiches, crumpets, mince pies, desert pies, jams, cookies, biscuits, and the like. She bought so many sandwiches, though, that they didn't all get eaten. We basically had a box of 25 sandwiches for each person because Ms. Dillion bougth 25 boxes!!! Every box held 25 sandwiches...you do that math. That's a lot of food!! Yeah, I ate so much and drank so much tea - but it was amazing! By far one of the best group activities we've ever done. I tried a mince pie (it wasn't very good) and ate like 8 sandwich quarters and drank several cups of tea...then I stopped. Ha! But it was so good! Perhaps we HUE people can all get together one day and have another High Tea afternoon. It was definitley an experience I think EVERYONE who goes to London should take advantage of.

After the tea party, I went back and attempted to work on my speech (but that didn't happen) when the fire alarm went off. It typically goes off sometimes for about 3 seconds when FSU is testing it every week. This one? When it didn't stop after a minute, I decided to go out and see what was going on. When I didn't see anyone, I walked over to the boy's flat and found Ms. Dillion, Kaity, Jordan, Jordan's sister and Jordan's mom all watching Ms. Dillion on the power risers. It was the funniest thing!! No one seemed worried that the alarm was going off so I stayed inside...until Jordan's mom said that she smelled smoke. Poor Ms. Dillion didn't know what to do! She couldn't take off the power risers without risking being burned alive and she couldn't walk down the stairs because the risers were so new to her and hard to control. I went down, hoping everything was going to be ok. I got outside and ran across the street (barefoot - in 40º weather and even colder rain) and looked up in the window. What I saw was hysterical - at least to me because you really had to have been there. I saw Ms. Dillion, still on the power risers, trying to walk down the stairs, only she looked like an awkward T-Rex (but a much smaller T-Rex) trying to fumble its way down stairs in the dark. It wasn't dark on the stairway, but I think you catch my drift. It was great. After about 5 steps, Ms. Dillion decided that she couldn't make it down all 64 of them, so she turned around and went back up the stairs - sure to be burned alive had there really been a fire. As soon as she returned to the safe-haven of flat 4, we were able to get back inside. Most of us HUE'ers went up the stairs to see if Ms. Dillion was ok. She was great! She'd never had so much fun in her life!

Oh man...good times. Good times.

20 November 2007: Meandering a maze and drooling over a dollhouse

So, another Tuesday, another field trip and the next to last one with awesome bus driver Tony. This was the final "Have to see this place before I die" location, which I will reveal in just a minute. So, we get on the bus and drive to our first location. We've done quite a bit with King Henry VIII, and this was the last stop. We were going to Hampton Court, which he built. It was really nice. Went through the apartments and saw some amazing (original) artwork from some famous artists at the time, but don't ask me who they were, because I don't remember. All I know is that I really liked some of them, just some of them. I honestly don't remember much about the court. So much has been pumped into my head this past semester, I'm surprised that I remember any of it! But there was this cool maze thing in the gardens. It was small - a third of a acre - and I'm surprised that I even found the middle. One can put a lot of twists and turns into a third of a acre - but I kind of wanted it to be larger, just for kicks because then I really would have been able to get lost. Yeah! Can't go home cause I'm lost in a maze - what a tale! *ahem* Anyway, did the maze thing right? Yeah. Did the court thing, right? Sure did. Got back on the bus and then we passed through Runnymede. Does anyone know what that is?! Ha! History majors should know :-) If you don't, you're a little behind, I'm sorry to say. Runnymede was where the Magna Carta was signed - and I've SEEN the Magna Carta! Twice!! Ha!!! Now all I have to do is transport myself back to 1215 and see the actual signing - don't think that will happen in my lifetime, but it's nice to hope. So, passed through that on the way to my final "have to do before I die" locations. Where is it? I'll tell you.

Windsor Castle! Dr. Harris (my wonderful advisor and teacher) was actually the first person to tell me about Windsor back in my Freshman year when we were discussing my trip to London. She told me things to see - priorities and the like. In case you didn't know, Windsor is also the summer residence of the Queen of England - at least I could see ONE place the Queen gets to stay. I must say, I was VERY impressed with Windsor...I can only imagine what Buckingham Palace looks like after today. So, we get in the vicinity of the castle, and, as I'm about to burst with excitement, learn that I have to pass through a shopping center of sorts just to get to it. Blast - that will take another 10 minutes, not to mention the fact that I still have to eat before I die if starvation. Great, another thing to prolong my agony. How long will it last?! Not long actually. 30 minutes was enough time for me to eat my bacon bap and head to the entrance where my ticket was ready and waiting (like it usually is). I received my ticket and my audio guide, and it was OFF TO EXPLORE WINDSOR!! It was breath-taking. I loved it! The day was foggy, so not a very ideal day for taking pictures, but I did what I could. Since you weren't allowed to take pictures inside (which always saddens me), I had to do what I could when I was outside. Granted, it was quite a view even though fog blanketed just about everything. So, audio guide in hand, I marched into the castle and started my tour. We always seemed to get places about an hour or so before they closed, so I had to pick and choose what I was to go see. The Queen's doll house was the FIRST and ONLY thing on my list of things, though it wasn't the only thing I did, thank goodness. I found the location of the doll's house and made a beeline. Dr. Harris had told me that if I get to see anything in the castle and nothing else, the doll's house was the thing to do - so I did. And you know what? She was correct as always. It was the biggest doll house I have ever seen. It was made for Queen Victoria during her reign just to give her some amusement (it didn't help that she was obsessed with dolls, but hers were considerably larger). If I were to guess how big it was I would say about...8 feet tall and 8 and a half feet long. Oh yes, this was a BIG doll house. It wasn't made for use to play with dolls, just to show off what living in a house during that time would have looked like. I have to admit, I wanted to live in it - shrink to about the size of a coffee mug and live inside - oh yes, I could actually live inside. The house has a library with REAL books written just for it. It has electricity and running water. It's 4 cars really run - on gas. It's all real. There's even a jewel room where there is housed miniature crown jewels. And the Hoover vaccum cleaner really works - its about 5 inches tall. I was amazed at just how large and intricate it was. I probably stood admiring it for a good 20 minutes before I realized I was running out of time to see the rest of the castle. Stopped by and looked at the Victoria's collection of dolls - which are montrous and have their own sets of clothes, shoes, gloves, and evening gowns. They also have their own cars, which were driven down the Champs Elysee in Paris. Too cool :-) I kept on exploring what I could in the time that I had left. I wound up in the Stateroom/Grand Staircase room and this blew my mind! It would be impossible for me to try to explain what this place looked like. I wouldn't even know where to start!! There are suits of armour everywhere, knight on horses, guns, knives, swords, stolen goods from other countries, the bullet that killed Lord Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar (remember, he died on the HMS Victory that I had seen the previous week), and busts of several famous British people, including (as always) Winston Churchill. I saw where the Queen sleeps when she's there (which is actually quite nice and homey), where the king would sleep if there was a king, the drawing rooms, etc. It was a whole labyrinth of unique stuff that I wish I had time just to sit and look at for a really long time. Windsor is one of those places that you have to go to as soon as it opens and stay until it closes in order to get the full amount of it in. I want to go back SOO bad! I have made a pact with myself to go back one day - at the end of the year when the Queen isn't in residence - and spend loads of time there just browsing to my hearts desire. Windsor is DEFINITELY on the top 5 things to do in London - it competes for first with the Tower of London, which is so cool.

I had a wonderful day and only wished that I had had more time to explore. Of course I went to the gift shop and bought stuff - hello classroom!! Then I got a picture taken "with" a royal guard (it's the only place you can get one and not get yelled at) and then it was dark - time to go. As we were leaving, we noticed that the bells were ringing, and had been for some time. We soon realized why. November 20 is the Queen Wedding Anniversary - she is married 60 years this year, longer than any other monarch in British History - as we went to one of her houses. Wahoo!! November 20 also marks the 15th Anniversary of another incident - the burning of Windsor Castle. Sadly, it happened in 1992 on the Queen's Anniversary. Where it burned was in the Tower - there is hardly anything original left there any more because it was all destroyed...except for one of the floors. It just so happened that one of the beautiful hardwood floors was spared, charred but spared. The workers simply took up the hardwood, turned it over and waxed it up. You can't even tell it was burned. In fact, it was because the castle was burned that it was opened up to tourists - England itself couldn't afford to pay for the refurbishment so they made the Castle a tourist attraction in order to have the funds to pay for the remodeling. Now, you can't even tell it ever burned. I would never have thought it - there was no evidence that I could see that anything had ever been touched by burning ember. It was simply beautiful.

If you've never had a desire to go to London, this should be your new desire. I would go to London for 5 days if just to see this wonderful place again for as long as I could stand it.

Is anyone up for another field trip?!?!? I want to go back!!!!!

*Ahem* So did the cool castle thing, right? Check. Got my fill of Windsor? Um...no, but I will one day.

Got back on the bus for the trip back to the flat where I basically crashed after doing more homework (seems to take up a majority of time, doens't it?). Sleeep is good. Very good...

21 November 2007: Another day, another class

Still had classes, though this was the last week as the following week was finals and I had homework up to my eyelids that I still had to complete. For some reason, teachers always seem to think it's funny to have EVERYTHING due during the last week. Now, myself being a procrastinator (which, obviously, I'm not afraid to admit), I had enough on my plate. But it was all busy work that I could have started earlier, but didn't. Why? Because I know, in the end, I'm going to put it off to the last minute anyway so I might as well not start anything early because it's never going to be as good as my last minute stuff (trust me, I know this from experience). So I'm working away and thinking about all the things I need to do, should be doing but aren't, want to do, wish I could do, people I wish I could see, places I ...hang on. Mind is drifting TOO far off homework. *sigh* I need a movie. So I go across the hall and borrow The Notebook from Chris. Sometimes, you just need a mushy gushy movie - I don't like watching these types of movies very often just because they make me depressed, but I was in the mood for one at the time. So I watched it while trying to do some research in the process. It went like this: Oh credits, I have time to look up...yeah, ok, picture, check. Oh, it's starting! *watch movie for 5 minutes* Got to get back to research! *research for another 3 minutes* Oh! A good part! I'm not skipping it! *watch good part* What am I doing?! I need to be doing homework! *Research for 30 seconds* Forget this. I'm watching the movie *Puts movie into full screen mode and sits back to enjoy Rachel and Ryan gush it up on screen*

Yeah...that's the last thing I did before going to bed 6 hours later. Oh, I attempted to do homework, but I do it better when I'm under pressure to get it finished so I put if off more. Way to go! You're going to DIE in a week!!! Oh boy...can't wait....

22 November 2007: Thanksgiving in the Great Hall
*Disclaimer: If you are not a fan of Harry Potter, you should probably skip this section*

So, it's the next to last Thursday in November...and Thanksgiving back in the States (because it doesn't exist in England). While everyone was getting ready the night before and thinking about all they wanted to bring to the Thanksgiving potluck that night, Sasha and I were preparing to take a journey of our own. That's right, we were SKIPPING Thanksgiving in lieu of something else. Something both of us had been wanting to go back to since almost the start of the semester, and today was our last chance (literally, our last chance). We were going back to Oxford! Yeah! For those of you who don't know me very well, I'm a big kid at heart. Being a big kid at heart also makes way for the fact that I read Harry Potter. Oxford is where a lot of the first two Harry Potter movies were filmed - at Christ Church College of Oxford University in Oxford, England. So, Sasha and I were going back to take the tours of all the Harry Potter places. Sounds nerdy doesn't it? Yeah, well if you're mad at me for skipping Thanksgiving go right ahead, but I've celebrated it since I was born - skipping one is not going to hurt me or America's feelings. Besides, I had one last chance to see this place and I was NOT passing that up. So we went. Wahoo! Taking a bus to Oxford while everyone else...is...cooking.......food.........*sigh* I can eat when I get back!! Ha! So it's not really skipping afterall.

So, we arrive in Oxford and make our way down the familiar streets of Oxford to Christ Church to see the Grand Staircase and the Great Hall, just like they are in the movie. I TOTALLY stood where McGonagall stood, and the rest of the first years. Sa-Weet!!! Then it was through the next doorway (literally, just like in the movie) to the Great Hall. It was exactly I had seen it, except there were only three tables, not four (special effects people!!). But there was the fireplace and the headmaster's table. *Sigh* It was very homey and much smaller than I had thought, but it made sense in my head as to why there couldn't have been many student at Hogwarts. Good times, still.

After we had our wonderful fill of those two rooms, we made our way to the Bodlein Library where the Invisibility Cloak scene was filmed, and where the movie library comes from. It was really old but really cool. We were not allowed to take pictures of this or go down the aisle because it was for students and teachers only. But that was just fine - I got to see it. Wahoo! That and the Transfiguration Classroom (again, no pictures, students using the facilities). It was the best cheap tour I have ever taken. I felt like a nerd, but most of the people there anyway were there to see the same things we were there to see, so it felt a little better.

We finished about an hour earlier than we expected, so we took the 5 o'clock bus home instead of the 6 o'clock and got stuck in rush hour traffic for an hour...whoopdee freakin' do.... Sasha and I finally got off a Baker street, had no idea where the Tube station was, and just had to wing it in hopes of finding a station we knew. We finally hit Oxford Street (which you would if you walked long enouhg) and took the Marble Arch on Central right back home. It was great! We had food waiting for us and everything. Granted, it had to be warmed, but that did not make it taste any less amazing.

That was the extent of that day, besides all the amazing food - mashed potatoes, cornbread dressing, RANCH DRESSING (first time I'd had it in 3 months!), bread pudding, macaroni and cheese, more potatoes and mac and cheese, etc. I'm not a turkey girl, so I didn't eat Turkey. Who cares right? But I suppose it's a good thing it's not the national bird (but it almost was).

So I slept well that night. MmmmmMM!!

Something that I was also reminded of (and didn't realize that a year had traveled by so quickly) was that Thanksgiving marked one year that someone very dear to me, my family, and my high school class had passed away. She was a wonderful mother, friend, mentor, and wife. She had a wonderful caring heart. I just couldn't understand why something as awful as cancer could take our Debbie away from us. Kevin woke me up Thanksgiving morning and told me that she had died. I have never been so miserable in my life. I cried all day, looked up pictures, and watched a video that I had forgotten I had of her. She told me she loved me in it, I don't think I ever told her how much she meant to me. I spent the day in agony thinking of all the things I wish I had said, visits that I wish I had made, and prayers that I wished I had lifted up. I went to her memorial that night, saw where she took her last breath, and read her last scripture, and said her last good byes before she went home. I still miss her terribly. Even now, I start to cry when I think about how much of a void she has left in my life. But I know that one day I will see her again. One day she will be there to welcome me with the open arms I knew so much and the smile that could brighten a thousand darkened days.
One day soon. One day soon I will see her again.

23 Novmeber 2007: The usual...

We had class this sad Friday, which we never do. But since we didn't have class on Thanksgiving, this was the next best bet. Last day of class and I still had a whole bunch of stuff to do. But I was more productive. Got some homework done (yeah!) and had fun with the girls on my last Friday night in London. We watched Mary Poppins and Love Actually. A classic and a new one for me. But both good. Stayed up late (like usual) but had lots of fun. Wahoo!!

24 November 2007: The usual...part II

Well, I was supposed to do homwork, but I really didn't. That was my bad because the next week was awful for my sleeping habits....

Which I will talk about next time!

Bedtime for me. I've been working on this for far too long and it's late.
More next time I have loads of time to sit and write.

Ciao from Florence!

Aimee
acancien@harding.edu

P.S. OH!! And I just changed the settings (I know it's a little late) but now ANYONE can comment on my blog. So if there's something you're curious about, comment and ask and I'll get back with you. Or you can email me. That works, too.

Ciao ciao!

Well, it's more, more, more!

2007-12-03T14:09:00.001-06:00

Time for part II of a several part catch-up series. Yesterday, you learned about The Lord Mayor's Parade, the Children's play, and Remembrance Sunday (and how much I really liked it). Next, gear up for an amazing week/weekend as you take the next step in my journey to see the world.

You ready? Let's go.

12 November 2007: Class

Yup, just class today and homework. Nothing speical worth talking about, really. Except for the fact that Dr. Tullos left for Boston early this morning for work or something lame like that. He missed the next day field trip, but I'm sure American food was treating him well...I get some in two weeks. Yay!

13 November 2007: Field Trip!

So, as all Tuesdays are, we have another field trip. Where did we go today? Portsmouth and Salisbury! Yeah! We started out at Portsmouth where we saw the HMS Victory. It is the oldest ship still on commission in the British Navy, even though it's 300 years old. Yeah!! It's been dry-docked since 1923 but could still be called to go out and fight for her country should the Queen require cannons instead of high-powered machine guns to protect her... This ship is mostly famous for the Battle of Trafalgar, where Admiral Lord Nelson was killed. I saw the place he died at. Anyway, we took the tour and it was so interesting! Now and forever, I never want to live on a ship ever! It was so gross and I really admire those few men that actually chose to be sailors and Navy men and the like. Most of the men upon the ship were forced into service - which was why they weren't allowed on land when the ship stopped for food and drink, because the forced ones would have run away because it was NOT a life worth living for very long at all. There is quite a bit of original work still on the ship, but most of the cannons are replicas - though there are several original ones - they're big, cold, heavy and I definitley would NOT want one of them pointed at me. Apparently, every 1 cannon took 12 men to take care of it - and the ship held 104 cannon. Thats a bunch of men! In fact, the HMS Victory had to hold over 800 men (and just two toilets....imagine the line in the morning for the loo). Now the ship is big, but it did not look big enough to house 800 men. There was one deck we went onto that just freaked me out. The men on this deck (I believe it was the very bottom one) were not allowed to leave. They had to live with 500 other men, animals, sick, and dying. Nasty. If you want the real down and dirty, I will explain more when I talk to you, if I do - I hope I do. So that trip pretty much dashed all my hopes and dreams of ever becoming a pirate. Dang....makes me sad. Then again, I'm glad I dont have to eat 5 year old salted meat and wash my clothes in urine. Oh, and the punishement was harsh. Stocks, the cat of 9 tails (from which we get the saying "letting the cat out of the bag"), and the stick. Yikes. Again, more explaination when I see everyone. We also get the saying "three square meals a day" from the ships. (later, later) It was a very interesting day. I also found out that just before Russell Crowe starting filming Master and Commander, he walked upon the HMS Victory to kind of get the feeling of what it would feel like to be a captain. I think it worked because the movie was really good and the ship looked VERY similar to the Victory. It's the most historically accurate war ship movie out there as far as I know. I walked in Russell Crowe's footsteps...dude. And I really felt like part of the ship...even better (I think).

After our really awesome battleship adventure, we went to Salisbury. Just for clarification, this is NOT where Salisbury steak is from. No one actually knows where it's from, but Salisbury does NOT claim it at all. So who knows. Anyone want to research it and see if we missed something? Great. Get back with me on that. We went to the Salisbury Cathedral where I saw (get this) the Magna Carta!! Well, one of the four originals. I saw another original at the British library. Now I have two left and I'd really like to know where they are...Oh well. I also saw a clock that was made in the middle ages (about 1300) and that still worked. It was awesome! It was really tall and used pendulums, etc. Kept great time, I think. The cathedral spire (which is 104 feet tall) is the 4th tallest church spyre in England. That was really cool - it was pretty. I think I've had my fair share of churches for a while. I've been to so many...they are all starting to run together and look all about the same. It's sad. I really like them, but too many.

So that was the extent of that day. Really cool. Really cold and really cool.

I bought a Magna Carta for my classroom. Yeah!!

14 November 2007: 4 day Free Travel #2!!

Today marked the first of the seccond 4-day free travel (if you didnt get that from the title). Before any of us had left the states, Kaity, Jordan, and I had all of our free travel stuff ready to go, so we were so excited when we hopped on a plane at Gatwick and landed in ... Ireland!! We went to Cork, Ireland for 4 days and that was amazing! So, what's in Cork you ask? Well, nothing really. But what's outside of Cork is worth going to, especially what's 5 miles outside of Cork - Blarney. Anyone ever heard of the Blarney Stone? Yeah, I kissed it.

Let's start at the very beginning...Arrived in Cork, took a shuttle to the city centre and walked to our hostel from there. It took us a while to find it, but when we did, we crashed...almost. Spent the rest of the day/afternoon/evening exploring the really small city, looking for places to eat and planning our day out the next two days. Found this really great market (thanks to some really awesome guys we met when we were looking for a coffee shop - Starbucks doesn't exist in Cork) and bought REALLY cheap bread, then Nutella to eat it with and cheese. Yes! Food for three days! After we ate, we went to bed...and I got sick. Thanks to the people in Europe who think that smoking is the next best thing to sliced bread!! I applaud you for your STUPIDNESS! Since air conditioners are almost non-existent in Europe, you have to open the window. Not so bad really...unless that window is JUST above the smoking section outside the front door. If you close your window, it will get so unbearable hot that there is no other choice but to open the window again and, thus, smoke. It didn't help either that my comfortor was caked with smoke smell - that just made it SOO much better!! So by day 2, I couldn't breathe, taste, or sleep for that matter. Yuck. But I still had a wonderful time! So, went to bed (got sick) and slept as best I could before the next day which was one thing I had been waiting for since I was little. Yet another dream coming true! I love traveling!

15 November 2007: A touch of eloquence

Woke up a little stuffy but ready to take on the day. Yes!! Today we were going to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. Score! So we left the hostel a bit early and got bus tickets (because that's the only way to get ANYWHERE to and from Cork) and headed to Blarney. When we got there, I was really surprised at just how small Blarney really was. I mean, Cork isn't huge. You can walk from one end to the other in about 30 minutes or less, but Blarney - even smaller. It took us less than 5 minutes to find where the entrance to the Castle was. I think there's 1 grocery store and 1 pub. That's about the extent of the town. So, we get our admission, and by this point, I'm was so excited you could have tasted it. We explored the castle for a while before going up. Found the cave that Oliver Cromwell and his men stayed in for a while when they apparently were in Blarney. Then we explored the overlook - and that was an awesome view! Ireland in autumn is breath-taking for sure. We finally entered the castle (after 20 years of waiting, I didn't want to wait any longer!) and walked up it. I liked this one because you could actually explore the whole thing. You could go into all the rooms and stuff. It was really cool. The castle itself is not very big, but it felt like it. It was still dark and cold, but I liked it. Caernarfon is still my absolute favorite, though (GO TO WALES!). So, we explore and then...we're at the top. Yes!! I'm about to kiss the Blarney Stone. The Stone that gives those who venture beyond the point of comfort the gift of eloquence. The Stone that millions of people have kissed, including Winston Churchill (BEFORE he became Prime Minister of England - makes you wonder whether the Stone actually helped in those wonderful speeches he gave). The Stone that I had waited years to see. The Stone that was right in front of me. I started jumping up and down, even though there was a nice crowd around it. Wow! Stone Kissing!! Jordan went first because he was standing in front of me. Wahoo! My turn! We weren't allowed to take our own pictures because they took one for you - but I was TOTALLY ok with that. So, I (still bouncing up and down) get on the wet, cold ground, lay on my back, and reach way out away from the edge of the castle. Good thing there's support bars you can hold on to so you don't fall and die! So, I edge my way towards the cold, hard stone and Yes!! contact!! I kissed the Stone, smashing my nose in the process, but kissing it all the same. Wahoo! Now to wait and see if the gift of eloquence has been bestowed upon me.... Yeah, it was cool. Kaity kissed it, too, of course. After that, there was nothing else to do but go down and see how we looked kissing the Stone. I never wanted to forget the moment, so I bought a picture. It was totally worth 10 Euro! After that, we went to the Rock Close, which was the garden of the castle. It would have been gorgeous in the summer time. It was still really pretty when we went. Saw a mysterious rock that weighed about 5 tons that still sometimes swayed back and forth. I tried pushing it, but it wouldn't budge. I don't get it...Then we did the Wishing Steps. For these, you have to walk up the steps with your eyes closed wishing for the same thing over and over again until you reach the top. Then you have to go back down the way you came - exactly the way you came - meaning you have to walk down the steps backwards, eyes closed, wishing for the same thing the whole time. It was hard, but it was so much fun! Want to know what I wished for? Sorry, can't tell you. But I can tell you it hasn't come true yet. We continued to explore the Rock Close and came across some waterfalls and a really interesting tree. Then we had to leave because it was getting late. So we ate lunch/dinner at the castle (Mmm bread, nutella, and cheese) and made our way back to the bus stop. Rode the bus back and ate Subway for dinner - yay good semi-American food! Then we crashed because we still had another day to go somewhere. That night didn't get any better for sleeping. In fact, it got worse. But I dealt with it. When I was away from the hostel, things were usually ok - but night was a very different story...

16 November 2007: Eating capital of Ireland and a fort I had never heard of

Woke up, couldn't breathe, but didn't care. It was our last day in Ireland. Who knows when I will be going back. So, once again, we went to the bus station and hopped on a bus to Kinsale. I had never heard of the place, but Kaity had done he research. It was a nice drive and the town was really cute. It sat right on the water and had a harbour and everything. Yay! So, got to Kinsale and found out the a few of the things we had on our list were only available during the summer. That's ok - we had more than three things on our list. We finally decided to go to Charles Fort. I thought it was cool because it was a fort, but I knew nothing about it. There was no transportation there except to walk...so we did - like 2 miles. It was up some really outrageous hills and down some others, but it was a GORGEOUS walk. It went right around the harbour and then looked out onto the Irish Sea (which was beautiful at dusk). When we finally got there, we found the entrance and got ready to go inside. This made us really excited - the admission was 1.50 Euro. That is SOO worth seeing! And it really was. The fort was HUGE! It was built in 1603 when the Spanish Armada landed on the shores of Kinsale to protect the city. It was used during WWI, bombed and then abandoned. I walked around the WHOLE thing - at least, every part that wasn't blocked off. I took a lot of pictures of the fort. I kept wondering exactly what happened there. Haven't had time to really look anything up since then. But it was peaceful and we were just about the only people there. It's not a very popular tourist spot - probably because no one knows about it. But, we did the fort, and then we left...to walk along the beach. That was amazing at sunset! We climbed all kinds of rocks, skipped rocks along the coast, and followed the path - at least I did. I walked for a while until I decided that I should turn back. I saw lots of cows and some gorgeous skyline. Wow, do I love Ireland. We ate dinner at a restaurant (since Kinsale is the eatery of Ireland apparently - they're known for that and the prices showed it) which was amazingly good. Before we caught the bus, we found a pub and drank tea there (it's Ireland and we still had to find a decent pub to go to) and that was good. Yumm! Then we caught the bus back to Cork. It was our last night in Ireland. None of us knows when we will be back, but I want to go back. Anyone want to plan?

Still stuffy, I climbed back into bed ready to depart the land of the greenest grass I have ever seen.

I'm going to miss Ireland - a lot!

17 November 2007: Leave for London

So, we got up early and prepared to depart for home - for London. Flew back into Gatwick, caught the train back to Victoria Station, and made our way back to our flats. By this time, London had become our home - and it was good to be home. It felt comfortable. Argue with me all you want, but I think London will feel like home for a long time. It's the first time I actually felt fairly independent - aside from Harding rules. But I got to decide what to do with my days, I didnt have to sign out to go places (unless I left the country, then we just had to tell Dr. Tullos where we were going) and I didn't have people breathing down my back, watching me like hawks to see if I had followed the rules or not. I was free to make my own decisions and plans. I'm going to miss that freedom so much when I go back - even at home. I don't feel like I can make my own decisions and have my parents trust me. Just once, I'd like to just up and go someplace and not have them worry or call and ask where I am and what I'm doing. I don't need that if I'm going to be leaving in a couple of years and I get that enough at school. London is where I grew up - not physically, but emotionally and mentally. I'm more independent. I like that.

I learned so much in London - not academically because, well, the classes were SOO easy - but about myself and about the world. I will always see London as home, even though I may never live there again.

I already miss it...

More to come! But I'm getting closer!

Cheers and Ciao!

Aimee
acancien@harding.edu

This is just the start...of more than one post

2007-12-02T14:34:00.001-06:00

Hey guys. Sorry again that it's been so long. So I'm going to try to make it up to you. That means Mutiple Posts! Yeah! I'm only going to go so far tonight since I have a busy busy day tomorrow and didn't get much sleep last night. I have over 3 weeks to catch up on and I feel terrible about not having enough time to post SOMETHING earlier. I hope you forgive me. Please?

Ok, ready? Here goes...the start of 3 weeks!

10 November 2007: The Lord Mayor and a Children's Play

So this was a good day. Got up early and met the Tullos' at 8:15 for the Lord Mayor's Parade - a big to-do in London where the new Lord Mayor rides through town in his big stagecoach preceeded by a huge parade with people from everywhere (literally). Took the Tube to St. Paul's and found an amazingly (warm) spot in front of a Starbucks. Thank goodness for Starbucks!! I got hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll, which was fabulous. I loved every bite of it. We staked out our spots by 9 and sat until 11 when the parade started. Ian and I got different seats from everyone else, but his parents didn't mind that. So we had our spots and they were great...until this family of 10 (no joke) showed up and decided that their kids were too good for the sidewalk, so they stood in the street, blocking everyone's view cause the man was like 6 feet tall, and holding two kids, both older than 7, in his arms, meaning that he took up a lot more space than he needed to, meaning he blocked several people's views. So people kept moving farther and farther into the street (because there were no barriers, which was London's first mistake). The second? Unhelpful bobbies. One brave one of our group went up to the bobbie and asked him if he could make the family move to the pathway, but he said that "it wasn't his problem" and that he couldn't do anything anyway. Jerk. So the entire group of ours that was there had to move into the street, which was a pain because now the amazing seats we had were not amazing any more - people were now blocking our view, and Ian's short so he couldn't see so he moved in front of the crowd now gathering right in front of me. Great...now I can't see. But the parade came and there were people from everywhere. Scotland, Wales, Taiwan (I think) and lots of charity and hospitals in and around London. It was cool. I got lots of pictures. I like them, except for the fact that the same woman's head is in most of them because she kept moving in front of me. People kept trying to move in front of the others in the group, but someone (and I won't say who) pushed a little kid out of the way who was trying to get in front of them because they were sitting down and the kid was in the way. Makes sense. We had been out there literally before anyone else and no one was going to steal their looking space, dang it. Finally, I got fed up with the fact that I couldn't see very well and that the same woman's head was in lots of my pictures and I moved to the front where Ian was. I'm pretty sure I stood directly in front of someone, but I didn't care anymore. I wanted to see and if someone else lost their privilege, they could move, too. London has taught me to be rude. Sometimes it is necessary. In this case, I think it was - at least, I'm saying it was. But I really did enjoy the parade, aside from the people I was standing with. I saw the Lord Mayor because he was leaning out of the carriage on the side I was on. I got a really good picture of him, too. Yeah! As soon as he passed, the parade was over and people started leaving (they waste no time in getting where they're going).

I went back to the flat to change because I was taking Ian to a play later that day at 2:30. He had been looking forward to it for three weeks and was so excited! I have to admit that I was pretty excited, as well. So I changed and met him at 1:15 and we took the Tube to London Bridge and followed the signs from there to the Unicorn Theatre. Yeah, a children's play! We wen to see How to Beat a Giant, just in case you were wondering. Got to the theatre, picked up the tickets and waited until house opened - which was about 15 minutes. Ian and I stood right by the door because we wanted the best seats (there was no reserve seating for this show). So we were the first in the theatre and picked out seats on the very front row on the end in the middle. When I saw front seats, I mean the floor - the stage - because the stage was on the floor. It was great. The actors came up the audience during the play - close enough I could have reached out and touched them. It was amazing for a children's play. I really enjoyed it. The main actor was one that was in the Merchant of Venice and Holding Fire. He was really good. (If you want to know what the play was about, I will explain later - as in when I'm in the States - if you want me to.) So, went to a really good play and left for St. James Park where we went to feed thhe birds on the lake. If you don't know, this is the same lake that is in many of the pictures people take of Buckingham Palace. Yeah, that lake. And we went during sunset, so I was at the lake looking at the Palace at sunset feeding the Queen's birds and having a grand ole time with Ian. We left there because we wanted to see the Lord Mayor's Fireworks, which are the best that London has - yeah, much better than Guy Fawkes Day. So we got on the Tube and got off at Temple - at 5:15. Fireworks started at 5, so we missed them. I was so disappointed! Oh well, I will go back another time during November and see them...hopefully. But Ian and I walked back from Temple via Covent Garden. It didn't take as long as I thought it would have. We talked the whole way and saw London at night. It was pretty amazing. I really enjoyed that day - again, with the exception of all the rude people at the parade. I was glad that I could spend time away from people my own age and hang out with a 10 year old.

yeah, good times.

11 November 2007: Remembering those who gave their lives

So for all you history buffs reading this (I can think of at least 1, maybe 2), I hope you recognize the date. No? Search your memory? Still drawing a blank? Let's fill it in. This was Remembrance Sunday - or Veterans Day in the States. It was nice this year that the 11th was on a Sunday this year because England celebrates Remembrance Sunday on the closet to the 11th. For those of you who are still drawing a blank as to why this date is even remotely interesting, I will fill in another blank. 11/11 at 11:00 am is the time that WWI ended and peace was going to start happening (until the second war...). So, every year on November 11th (or the Sunday closest to the 11th in England) at 11:00 there is two minutes of silence (at least in England. I dont know about the States). The two minutes is begun and ended with the firing of a cannon and the time is kept according to Big Ben. So, at 11, a cannon fired, Big Ben chimed 11 and we were all silent for two minutes.

Let me start at the beginning...

I got up (that's always a good thing) and got dressed (again, a good thing). I left about 9:15 with Kaitlin, Megan and Chanel for Whitehall, just off Trafalgar Square, for the Remembrance Day service. This was the service the Queen was going to be at, so of course we had to be there early. Next time, I'm getting there at 6 in the morning. When we arrived, had our bags checked just to make sure we weren't there to kill the queen or something really stupid like that, and started walking towards the monument the Queen was going to lay a poppy wreath on, people were already half-way down Whitehall. We found a spot that was sort of close and we could see the monument pretty well...until later on, but I will tell you why. Met this nice lady and her daughter who had travelled to London for the day just for the ceremony. Her husband was in the parade. Yes, there was a parade. Every year, the Queen invites war veterans from every war (those that are still alive) and every veteran she invites gets to walk down Whitehall and place a wreath on the WWII monument. So we get there, talk to her, and then these people start coming down the street in a monumentously long line (am I allowed to say that?). There were 5 lines of war veterans ranging from WWII to the War in Iraq. And there were people there from every country that fought on the Allied side with the British - commonwealths at that time in other words. So there were people from Ireland, Scotland, Australia, Asia, and other places. I'm guessing, because I don't know for sure, but there looked to be about 4000 veterans that walked down Whitehall, all invited by the Queen at some point (when a veteran gets invited, they can come back year after year). It was so wonderful! I started tearing up, honestly. Sometimes, I don't understand why the U.S. doesn't make a big deal of of Veterans Day. But then again, the last war fought on our soil was the Civil War, and there is no one alive today who remembers that. I know the President goes and lays a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier, but it's not a public thing like Whitehall is. That makes me sad. There are so many veterans who do not get the recognition they deserve for laying down their lives for their country. Honestly, the U.S. could learn so many things from England - I don't know why they don't. But the veterans came walking down the street, some in wheelchairs, some barely able to stand making their way towards the monument with their comrads. I heard several of them as they walked past catching up on old times. It was like time had not moved on - like it had only been a few days since they had last parted, but I know for many of them, it had been at least 60 years since they had seen one another. Finally, all veterans were in place holding poppy wreaths or flowers to lay on the monument after the Queen. Then the service started. The bishop (of Canterbury, if I'm not mistaken) read somethings we sang a song and then....there was a cannon and two minutes silence. I had seen the men and women of their respective countries walk by, those who had given everything they had for their country, seen friends fall from enemy and friendly fire, and lived through horrific times, and I thought of my grandfather. He served in both WWII and the Korean War and passed away last summer. During those two minutes, I thought of him, his war buddies, and those standing in front of me. I started crying because I realized, to a very small degree, just how many people devoted their lives to protecting their homeland. I thought of my grandfather and everything I wished I had asked him and thanked him for serving to protect his family, and his country. It was a touching two minutes - I thought about a lot during that really short time. Another cannon sounded and the two minutes silence was over and the service continued - the Queen laid a wreath, etc. Then all the veterans went, row by row (5 total rows) to lay their wreaths or flowers upon the monument with the Queen's. It was beautiful. I got pictures after everyone left of the monument after the poppies had been laid. So many people died in so many wars. I'm glad they at least get a day to be remembered.

After we left Whitehall, Kaitlin, Megan, Chanel, and I went to Nando's - a chicken restaurant - and I got a plate of chips because I had been craving them for a long time. It was really good and I highly recommend it. Plus, FREE REFILLS! I'd go there just for the refills. Then I went to do homework and class. Yay...

That was the extent of that day.

Another day another day. Bed time. It's almost midnight and I'm going someplace tomorrow that I really should not be tired for.

BTW, I'm in Rome at the moment on my two and a half week free travel. After this I will be returning to the States. Europe has to end sometime. I really think I'm ready to get back and see everyone - but Europe first!

Sorry its only two days, guys, but sleep is important, especially since I didn't get enough of it last night.

Cheers! Ciao! Au revoir!

Aimee
acancien@harding.edu

Almost business as usual...almost

2007-12-01T14:03:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone. I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated. I've been terribly busy. We had finals this past week and I was up late for...over a week besides doing all kinds of other homework. I didn't go to bed at all one night because I had to study. It's been stressful, but I promise that I will give you a full post when I get time to sit down and write it all out. So much has happened in the past three weeks!!

Right now, I am sitting in Rome. I saw the Colosseum. I walked inside the Colosseum. I stood in the footsteps of the past. How cool is that?!

Hopefully in the next couple of days I will be able to update you on everything - nothing will be left out so you can be sure you will be in for a nice long read.

Again, sorry for the delay. Things should be up and running again soon.

Cheers! Ciao! Au revior!

Aimee

This has been a very busy week...finally!

2007-11-10T12:16:00.000-06:00

Hello, all! I do hope you've not missed me too terribly much since the last time. This has honestly been the busiest week for me ever. Trying to fit homework and everything I've not done yet in London in 24 hours is hard work, but somehow, I've been able to manage homework and fun - now I'm having more fun than doing homework, which is as it should be. I love London!

So, I supposed, once again, I should start where I left off...

4 November 2007: Church and a movie
Sunday = church as always and this week we went to Wembley. Although, it was very awkward. How? I'll see if I can explain. We got to church as usual and the people are so nice, but apparently, there had been some disputes during class that I really don't know the details of. Halfway through service, some guy walked up the little aisle, said something to the preacher, and then the preacher got up and made an announcement - he asked that all visitors please leave because the church family had something they needed to discuss. We, being guests, left - though we felt like we shouldn't, but we thought it might be something they really didn't want very many people to know about. So we all went home, confused and worried. What had the aisle guy said to the preacher? Later that evening, we all found out. A friend of Dr. Tullos's knows someone in the States who knows someone that goes to Wembley very closely. He told us that his friend had talked to the Wembley member and the church was talking about a split. Keep in mind, this is the biggest Church of Christ in England - with a top attendance on Sunday at about 60 people. A split in a church like that is a VERY big deal, as it would in any other church. But because Wembley is so small and need so much encouragement, we were very disheartened. Please everyone keep them in your prayers. We do not know hardly any details, but they need encouragement.

After church, I went to ASDA, then the flat, did some homework and watched John Tucker Must Die and The Holiday with Courtney and Liz. Good girl time - serenaded by the Guy Fawkes fireworks in the background. It was heavenly! What a great night! And then I went to bed because sleep is a very good thing.

5 November 2007: A guy, some fireworks, and a walk
So, for all of you who don't know, November 5 is Guy Fawkes Day. This is the only holiday the English have between Halloween and Christmas, and it's kind of a big deal. Guy Fawkes, Catholic, was one of over 10 men who plotted to blow up Parliament at the opening. However, they made a mistake. There was one man in Parliament that the plotters were friends with, so they sent him a letter telling him not to go to the opening of Parliament. He found this suspicious and showed the letter to other members of Parliament. They figured that someone was going to try something, so they set out to search the Parliament Building and found Guy waiting for the exact right time to light 36 tons of gunpowder and blow the Protestant Parliament to Kingdom Come. They arrested him, tortured him, he broke a few names, hung just before he died, drawn and quartered, beheaded, and then burned. His head was placed on the Tower Bridge to remind people NOT to mess with Parliament. Cool, huh? So the English celebrate the the Catholics did not overcome the Protestants. Thus, an amazing holiday weekend with bonfires, fireworks, and the burning of Guy in effigy. SOO much fun! Unfortunately, I was not able to see any bonfires - apparently they do not to bonfires on the actual 5th of November which made me sad, but I did see a pretty good fireworks show. I went with nearly my entire flat and we had so much fun! There was a parade with paper lanterns from an elementary school in the area who wanted to put on a show. It was about the cutest thing I've ever seen!

After the show, a few of us didn't want to go back to the flat, so we walked the Thames River...at night...in the cold. But it was amazing!!! Walked across the Golden Jubilee Bridge, which is the funny looking bridge - almost a suspension bridge, but not. It looks like a clipper on top of the water. Pretty cool. Saw Big Ben at night again. I love him at night. Tried to get another video of him bonging, but my camera died...sad day. Then we took the tube back to the flat because it is not a good idea for girls to walk down Tottenham Court Road at night - pretty scary stuff. But I had a great time! I love Guy Fawkes Day!

6 November 2007: The Queen's home, Diagon Alley, and a bunch of dead guy's paintings
This was a Tuesday, which means FIELD TRIP!! Except, this time, we stayed in London and went to the Opening of Parliament. We did not actually see the Opening persay, but we did get to see a wonderful parade that walked down the Mall from Buckingham Palace. That's right - I saw Buckingham Palace!! We got there about 2 hours before anything started to get a good seat, and man, did it get crowded. Why was this a big deal? As you could probably guess, Buckingham Palace is the Queen's home. There was a parade down the front of her home - who wouldn't want to see that?! I saw the funny guards with their mink hats, but in grey coats instead of their usual red costumes. But they were pretty sweet. The horses I saw were ALL so GORGEOUS!! The Queen takes VERY good care of her horses. They're all big and beautiful - some of the prettiest I have ever seen. So the parade went in front of the Palace and then, it happened. Why was everyone there? Because the Queen was going to Parliament to open in and everyone wanted to see her. That's right. I saw the Queen of England!! Wahoo! She was in her pretty gold and red carriage, dressed in white, but looking absolutely goregous in her old age. The princes did not make an appearance, which probably saddened every girl in the audience, including myself. They're just too cute. But I got to see her, and the Prime Minister, but I didn't really care about him that much. Dude, I saw the QUEEN! Then, there was a 41 gun salute in Green Park that I did not know was going to happen so I only go to see the smoke the cannons were setting off in perfectly round circles. I can only imagine what war must have sounded like way-back-when because just one of those cannons was almost deafening and shook the ground - and we were pretty far away from them.

After that, I decided that I really didn't want to go back to the flat, even though I had homework that I had to do (me being the amazing student that I am....*cough* not *cough*....I wanted to pat myself on the back for going to have fun! Wahoo! So, what did I do? I went on a Harry Potter scavenger hunt. That's right - I went to several of the places that appear in the movies. It was so cool! I saw Diagon Alley (which is Ooo so cute decorated for Christmas!), the Leaky Cauldron, the inside of Gringotts, but I couldn't take a picture of that, and the front of the Leaky Cauldron (which is actually a pub in the Burough Market). I don't think I have time to see the suburb that was used for Privet Drive and I have yet to see the Great Hall, but I know exactly where it is. I want to go back!! But that hunt was SOO much fun!! I felt like such a nerd, but i felt like a good nerd. Yay for Harry Potter!!!

After that, Sasha, Kerri and I went to the Tate Britain which houses the famous paintings of dead painters I've never heard of. But they were all really cool. I saw the painting of The Lady of Shalott, which is my most favorite Tennyson poem of all time. It was so gorgeous!! I really liked this museum. I love the fact that all the best museums in London are free - that way you don't have to spend a lot of money doing some really awesome things.

After that, I went to the flat and did...nothing. Just palled around in the flat and had a good time doing NO homework. Wahoo!

7 November 2007: The Center of 0º, clipping, and Japanese food
After classes today, we headed to Greenwich, England via the Tube. The ride was really nice. For those of you who might not be aware, Greenwich is where 0º longitude is and it runs right through the little city. We went to the Royal Observatory at the top of a very steep hill, took a short tour of the surroundings, saw the very first clock that work on the sea (Harrison's clocks) and his first "pocketwatch" that didn't run with a pendulum but with all wheels. It wasn't as large as I had pictured, but it wasn't small. It was so pretty! I got my picture taken at the Prime Meridian overlooking the city. It was so cool! I stood in two hemispheres at once! Yay!!

After that, those who wanted to took a ferry down the Thames back to Embankment (near Big Ben, the next stop would be Westminster except the ferry didn't go that far). I took the ferry. We all stood on the back of the boat, but I walked all the way along the railing to the very end of the boat and just stood there embracing the magnificent airy feeling of the Thames River. I really enjoyed that. Very relaxing. The boat we took was one of those that skimmed along the top of the water, so we were going really fast and that made it even better.

Following our wondeful ferry ride, the Tullos's, Christina, and I went to Wagamama's, a Japanese restaurant. It was kind of expensive, and a good experience with Japanese food, but I don't think I will go back again...and if I do, I will get something different cause I didn't really like what I got. There was not much flavoring and nothing I could really do to change it. But I enjoyed eating with chopsticks. Yay!!

After Japanese, I went and did homework for the first time in about 3 days. I was up until all hours of the morning and both my presentations were crap, but I had a great day and I really didn't care.

8 November 2007: Winston Churchill slept in the Circle of Life
After classes (and my terrible presentations...), we went to the Cabinet War Rooms from WWII. This bunker was almost unknown to everyone in London at the time. This was the place where Winston Churchill and his cabinet members met to discuss the War, etc. Whatever important people like that talk about. I saw where the Prime Minister ate, cooked, sat at meetings, and slept. It was so cool! Everything was left exactly as it was found when the bunker was discovered in the 1970's. It was very interesting and I bought stuff for my classroom. Wahoo!!

Following a visit to the gift shop and buying stuff for my classroom, Courtney and I decided to go to Twinings. That was adventure in itself. We were on our way and it started to drizzle as we were making our way down Strand Street. No big deal. It drizzles a lot and it's just gross. Well, we continue on our way and then it starts to pour. I'm not talking just straight rain, im talking soak you to your skin (when it's already cold), make you sick kind of pouring down rain. It was nasty. We got stranded inside a shop that was devoted entirely to Doctor Who merchandise. It was kinda creepy cause we were the only girls among many guys in a strange shop....awkward. Anyway, the rain did not let up, so we went back to the flat - sopping wet. It was great!!

After that, I was back in the flat for about 15 minutes before I found out that some people were going to The Lion King that night. They knew I wanted to go, so they asked me if I wanted to join them. And of course I did!! The Lion King is (or rather was) the top spot on my list of musicals to see in my lifetime. We weren't really sure we could get tickets because it was supposedly sold out until the end of the season. But we decided to try anyway. About a hour later, we were on our way to the Lyceum Theatre off of Strand Street. We walked to the box office, all 5 of us, and asked if they had any more tickets left for the night. The lady asked if we were students so we could get the discount, and of course we were, so she looked and found 5 seats - together - on the floor - £36 cheaper than they were originally. What a deal!! So we sat in the stalls in abouut the most amazing seats ever and saw the greatest show known to man. I started crying in the first 10 seconds of it just because I had never seen anything like it in my entire life! The costumes were amazing and so was the set. I was so glad I decided to go. We were all prepared to pay £40 just to see it, but £20 is even better. Seriously, if you have ANY desire to see the greatest costumes on the face of the planet, GO SEE LION KING!! Words do NOT describe how incredible this experience was, just that I would go again in a heart beat and that I would have paid the full nearly £60 to see it if I had to. It was that good. No wonder it is ALWAYS sold out on Broadway.... AMAZING! We all bought shirts of course. Dude....

9 November 2007: Early mornings, a tea shop, cheap clothes, and a night with King Henry VIII
So apparently, this wonderful Friday was the last time we were really going to get a chance to see the changing of the guard (which I had not seen yet...), so several of us went. Actually, I got to Buckingham Palace a 9 in the morning and waited, staking out a good place to see the changing before everyone else got there about 10:30 - an hour before the event. It was so cold and I dont know HOW I FORGOT to dress warm, but I did - so I shivered for three hours. Fun.....But the changing was interesting. I dont think we stayed for the whole thing. The band started playing (Stars and Stripes Forever for some reason) and both Courtney and I were freezing so we decided to go to Twinings. This time it did not rain. It was a beautiful blue sky all the way! I bought boxes of the teas I had been trying and really liked. Now I have to ship them home. Yay!! I was so happy.

I got back to the flat and Megan was there. Liz had just gotten back from Primark and was showing off what she had gotten. I got the bright idea that I wanted to go to Primark, too and Megan wanted to as well, so went. I had been in the flat 15 minutes before I left again. What a busy week!

So, clothes shopping, which I NEVER EVER do. But I wanted a scarf and some PJ pants. So that's what I got. And let me just say, I know why so many girls here have so many clothes - it's because Primark is SOO cheap! Regular PJ pants that cost $15-$20 in the States...£4. Scarf - £3. So I bought 3 pairs of pants, a scarf and a shirt all for under £20. Isn't that amazing?! I love London. I've said that so many times, but it really is true. Yay London!!

After a wonderful hour of shopping, we got back and had to get ready for the dinner that night. Guess where we were going? A medieval dinner - 7 courses - in the hall that King Henry VIII had dinner parties in. Just think - I've eaten where the King has eaten and had a few laughs and fun times. Wahoo! I love England and their history. But the dinner was fun. I pounded the table a lot, drank a lot of coke and lemonade, ate wonderful food (the best baked chicken I have EVER had, and I don't like baked chicken) and some of the craziest games ever. It was a hoot. Henry came out, then he died and Elizabeth came to the throne. Got my picture with her. She looks good for being dead 400 years. Then we disco-ed. No really. They had a disco and we stayed for a bit afterwards, but our busdriver needed to get back seeing as it was 10:30 already and it takes a good hour to get back. Probably the most fun I've had in a really long time. I suggest everyone go to the medieval dinner if you EVER to go London. Go with a big group and it's even better.

I still got to bed later than I should have...oh well, perhaps I can make it up later...sometime...when I don't have to get up early and go places.

This past week has been the most fun packed, busy and tiring week, but I would not take it back for anything. I've enjoyed being out of the flat and exploring London and seeing more of what there is to see, going to the theatre, shopping, historical stuff. You know - the usual.

London is so amazing. I only have 3 weeks left and I plan to make the most of it in the short amount of time I have left. I have a nice list of places I still want to go.

The next week is going to be another adventure because it's another 4-day trip and Kaity, Jordan, and I are going to Cork, Ireland where the Blarney Stone is and I'm going to kiss it - and all the people who have kissed it before me. Yay!! That has to got be a world record....Hah!!

Hope y'all have a great week and I will re-post when I get back from my trip when I have the time, of course.

Cheers!

Rugby, Sir Isaac Newton, and Halloween!

2007-11-03T12:12:00.000-05:00

Hey y'all! I know, I know....it's about time right? Yes, it most definately is. These past two weeks have been very eventful in many ways. Want to know how? Keep reading to find out.

Lets finish the last day I wrote about:

19 October 2007: Hyde Park is filled with squirrels and pigeons

After a relaxing time in the flat, I went to Hyde Park with Kaity, Jordan, and Chris. Why? To feed the birds. Jordan brought bread and peanuts and almost immediately, birds came out of nowhere! They flew around you, on top of you, and landed on you! Oh, it was fantastic! A few minutes went by as Chris sat on the benches shelling some peanuts then he felt something on his leg - it was a squirrel come to eat the peanuts. And yes, they really do come eat out of your hand. They don't like to be petted, but I managed a brush. They are SOO cute! They climb all over you and eat right out of your hand. If you give them a peanut that hasn't been shelled, they'll sit on your leg and shell the peanut before taking off to bury it and coming back for more. It was so very entertaining. I got landed on by pigeons a lot. They're pretty good about keeping their mess to themselves, which was good cause I didnt want to have to go home with bird goop on my clothes. Yuck! So yes, that was fun. I'm thinking about taking Ian to feed the birds cause he loves hanging out with us so much. He is the cutest little kid and so sweet. I wish I had more time to get out and take him places just cause he likes us older kids. And that is that!

*This is Jordan feeding the squirrel at Hyde Park
*This is Chris feeding the squirrel at Hyde Park
*This is me with a squirrel eating out of my hand

Onwards!!

20 October 2007: A little Rugby with your dinner?
This is a day I won't forget for a long time. It was such an experience. That morning, I went to Camden Market with Courtney and Liz to shop and look for Rugby jerseys (we'll get to that in a minute). The others found what they wanted (clothes, etc. but I'm not too big into clothes shopping), but I hadn't yet. So we took the tube on over to Piccadilly Circus to check out LillyWhite's, a sporting goods store, and the only place that would sell decent rugby jerseys. I did find what I was looking for and it fits great for a kids size! (the adult sizes were much too expensive) I also bought a great flag and a scarf. Yay Rugby! Went back to the flat for a few hours before saddling up for a great night of food, fun, and sporty men. I put on my Rugby jersey and Courtney, Julie, Chris, and I went and staked out a pub in which to spend our evening. We finally wound up at the Rising Sun just down the street from here (there are about 20 pubs in the vicinity....) and took our place for a night of wild game. Why? What was the special occasion? Why, the World Rugby Cup of course!! England was playing South Africa in France that night and we wanted to join in the fun. None of us knew how good either team was, but they had to be decent if they had made it that far, right? Needless to say, we were going for England of course. How rude to be in England and not root for the home team (which many did not). So, we four sat down, Courtney and Julie ordered dinner (I had no money at the time) and we sat and talked for a long time before the game. We got there at a good time because about 15 minutes after we showed up, people started staking their ground for the match - this was going to be exciting! Chris left us a while later and went back to the flat, but we three stayed for the game. Honestly, I do not understand Rugby at all, I just know when they score. I couldn't follow the game very well because the TV was so small, but I got what I could. We met some guys there who, I think, were going for South Africa, but we never really could tell. They were nice...drunk, but nice. Anyway, after a not-very exciting game (according to those who were broadcasting it), South Africa won the title. A disappointing game, really, but fun none-the-less. There were parties we heard because of the South African's win, but we did not attend any of them. It was sad to know that England lost, but I still had fun. When am I ever going to do that again, honestly? And that night was over

21 October 2007: A different kind of Worship
For church today, I and several friends, did not attend Wembley as normal. We wanted to check out a church much closer to us (right around the corner actually). From what I had heard, it sounded exciting, so I was all about going (not that I don't appreciate Wembley, but sometimes you just need something different). So I went. I did not know at all what to expect so when I walked into the theatre (yes, it was in an actual theatre) I was overwhelmed. Seriously, it was like a concert setting (ok, it was a concert setting) and the air was alight with excitement. Everyone was so nice and welcoming and no one cared what you looked like, only that you had showed up to worship God. It was relaxing to say the least, but adrenaline pumping at the same time. You know what I mean? So, church started and it was a concert-type of worship. There was a group singing and there was music and everyone in the audience was cheering and clapping and jumping up and down, hands raised, voices praising God, and hearts really into what they were doing. I didn't know any of the songs, but that doesn't mean that I didn't try to sing. I picked it up eventually, but I spent most of the time swimming tears because it reminded me of the old camp days when people really believed what they were saying. It had that kind of energy, but it was so much better. For the first time, I actually thought about what the songs meant and they were SOO beautiful! This was a much needed Sunday. And the preacher didn't even talk about what he had planned, which was a first for me, but it was something that I needed to hear. For the first time in my life, I really enjoyed going to church and I actually took away something. It was a great feeling and I would go back in a heartbeat if I weren't required to go to Wembley. I liked it a lot and it actually felt good to be a Christian. Yay for Jesus!

The rest of the day was devoted to classes and more homework. When am I not doing homework?

22 October 2007: Class
Yep - another day of classes and more homework. Yay!!

23 October 2007: It's Tuesday, which means Road Trip!
So today, we went to Cambridge and Ely Cathedral. As I hope all of you know, Cambridge is the other "college town" in England, alongside Oxford. It was pretty small but filled with people...on bikes...running you over in the street. No joke. I liked Cambridge, but one can never get over the fact that there are 30,000 bikes inside the city. Why? Because cars are not allowed to be owned by students unless they are disabled, etc. So everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) has a bike. I hardly saw a car on the streets, but bikes were a different story. I nearly got plowed into several times. You must remember that in almost all cases, pedestrians do NOT have the right of way anywhere in England, so vehicles (including bikes) have permission to run over people in the way. Kinda scary, but that's how it goes. So we took a tour of Cambridge (a 5000 year old town) and that was really interesting. I learned alot, but would remember more if I had pictures to look at. I did see the several thousand year-old market where they still have a market. That was cool. I saw "Newton's" apple tree, or the actual DNA'd tree from the real tree. It didn't like to produce apples - it was very small but intesting all the same.

After that, we headed past more fields and windmills Ely Cathedral. It has been a Cathedral for several thousand years - since before the Normans - I believe it was started during the Celtic age of England (which is VERY old). A girl from our group, Lolli, used to go to school in Ely Cathdral, which was cool. We were going to sing, but there was a memorial service going on, so we couldn't but we did enjoy listening to the chorus sing beautiful songs with the 7 second echo. It was fabulous. I enjoyed the Cathedral and the stained glass (I have a thing for stained glass....). And the day could not have been more beautiful!

24 October 2007: Another day, another class, another abbey...Abbey??
So, obviously we had class again. By this time, I began to realize how much homework I had to do over the weekend and I was beginning to flip out - MAJORLY. And so I was getting all upset and angry inside because I had so much to do and not enough apparent time to do it in...I began to hate school for the first time in a very long time. And then we just had to go to Westminster Abbey, which wouldn't have been so bad had I not had so much to do already. Still, I enjoyed the abbey. I saw the grave of the Unknown Soldier who is buried with the kings. I thought that was so sweet. And yes, I did see several king's tombs, which were msotly above the ground and not very ornate, like I thought they would be. Still, not everyone can say they've seen King Charles I tomb, or Queen Elizabeth I's tomb or Mary, Queen of Scots (who has personal items at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh which I saw when I was there). Overall, I really did enjoy the Abbey. Honestly, it is not on my top 5 list of things to do, but it is a good thing to see at least once in your life if you go to London. I find that walking amongst the dead is a very peaceful pastime, as morbid as it may seem. You should try it sometime. You just might enjoy it. And then there was night and sleep. Good sleep.

25 October 2007: Oh, yeah, we just saw a torture chamber
So, classes resumed the following morning, regardless of the fact that was didn't want to go and already had so much to do. But there-in lies the problems of school, they just keep giving it to you. And lo and behold, I got more work pushed upon me. Great....I'm going to have a WONDERFUL weekend - NOT!!!!

BUT, things got better because we went to the Tower of London. Oh, yes, the infamous Tower of London - full of blood and stories and such awful things as those that are so much fun to learn about!!! I spent nearly 5 hours in the Tower of London - 5 of the most interesting, thought provoking, and physically tiring hours of my life. But it was SOOO worth it. This place was chock full of history, torture (because that's where people were kept as prisoners for many years), tradition, etc. Just being here was enough to get me even more excited about being a history teacher. Some places are just SOO cool to learn about! I walked through the castle by myself (which was probably better because I was able to take as much time as I wanted anywhere I went) and took time to look at everything, go into every room, read as slow as I wanted to read as many times as I wanted to read them, and have free reign of the castle. It was fantastic! The only downer was that I didn't have anyone to take my picture, so I am lacking in the "me at the Tower of London" stuff pictures, but I did get a few :-) I saw where the Prince King Edward was held captive and where there were two skeletons found in the Tower supposedly belonging to him and his brother who mysteriously disappeared. I saw carvings of many a prisoner on the walls of many prison towers. I saw torture chambers and the artifaces used in carrying out said torture. I saw the changing of the guard inside the castle, and beefeaters (who are the guardians of the castle). I saw the crown jewels (as in the ACTUAL ones the queen wears during the Opening of Parliament - the official crown jewels. Yes, I cried throughout that whole exhibit. Call me a softie, but it just made me so gloriously happy that I could see these things. I have only HEARD of them, learned about them, but NEVER actually thought I would SEE them! I have been so many places like that, it's hard to wrap my finger around it all. I saw cannons, and chapels, and toilets. I got to see how good of an archer I was, pick up actual guns used in the 1800's in the British Army, and touch the ground that many a prisoner, king, queen, prince, and princess have walked upon. I have walked on the faces of history, and most people only care to look at what is there now, not what has been. Many of my group left after only about an hour, but there is NO WAY ANYONE could even BEGIN to see anything remotely interesting in just an hour. There is just too much. The Tower is one of those places that you MUST spend a whole day in just to begin to get the feeling of it all. I was sorely upset that I had to leave, but it was closing and I could not stay any longer. I bought so much stuff at the Tower....I really shouldn't have, but I liked it THAT much. By far THE BEST £13 I have EVER spent - to walk upon the past is to see the face of the future.

26 October 2007: Free Day....spent doing other things
Yes, I know, I spend too much time doing homework, but that's what I did....ALL DAY Friday. I hate homework, but I know it has to be done. I wanted so badly to go out and do stuff with my friends, but homework is priority because I have to do well. I have been getting better at the whole balancing-homework-having-fun-in-London thing. And it's working out great.

But still, that does not make me despise homework any less....

27 October 2007: Parched and tired....
Yes, parched. Not because the water here tastes awful, but because the water main broke and we were without water for almost 24 hours....yuck. I was one of the lucky people to have gotten a shower before the water main busted, but most in my flat were not. They spent a miserable, hot day hoping and praying that the water would come back on, but it did not. The Tullos' were gracious enough to offer their two bathrooms to anyone who wanted to take a shower since they were in a different building and had water...go figure. So I took a shower at night - quite out of my normal routine because I hate taking showers at night, but no one knew when the water would be back on, so I took one. Turns out, the water was turned back on early the next morning, but we all had a devo in the Tullos' flat because we didn't want to go to church smelly in case the water was not on Sunday morning. That was nice, too. It was spectacular to take a shower that afternoon. I will never take running water for granted ever again!

That night, Megan, Julie, Kaitlin and I went to Covent Garden and had dinner. I ate a pizza, which is once again quite out of my routine because I don't really like pizza... but this was a good pizza. Aside from being attacked by a hungry pigeon, dinner was quite uneventful. It was nice to get out, away from homework, and spend sometime with people I don't usually get to hang out with. We then went and rode the carousel in Covent Garden. I've not ridden one in so long! It was nice to be a kid again. This was by far the fastest carousel I've even ridden...it was crazy! If you didn't hold on, you were going to get thrown off. But it was great. I very much enjoyed that. After that, I went and slaved away at homework again...oh the joy of my life - or not.

28 October 2007: Grubby Sunday
So, most of us got up that morning not having had a shower in over 24 hours, which gave the flat a very interesting smell...but not nearly as bad as some of the streets of London, no siree! But devo was good. Then I finished cracking down on the homework I still had to do for the next few class periods. Trust me, I had more than I was paying for....and it was not a good thing.

I survived classes and prepared for another day of massive homework doing. Homework is soon becoming my bestest friend!!! Ha!......

29 October 2007: Class
Yes, classes as usual, but after today, the week got much less stressful. Things had been turned in like they were supposed to and not all my assignments were due on the same day the next week. What a joyful thought!! But I still went and did homework again after classes cause I'm a nerd like that...but I also helped prepare our flat for the upcoming Halloween Party. Everyone was getting costumes for the contest and buying candy (British candy, not as good as American of course), etc. Whatever you have to do for a party, as well as hang decorations. Liz's favorite holiday is Halloween and she gets so excited about it. Seriously, she started planning in September - it was awesome. And, I decided what I wanted to be for Halloween - a big deal cause I've not dressed up since I was very young. But I'm not going to tell you just yet what I decided to be....cause it's a surprise. : )

30 October 2007: Tis another Tuesday Adventure!!!
So, today, we went to probably the cutest place ever - Canterbury and Dover!! I loved this day. I saw the Canterbury Cathedral where Thomas a Beckett was murdered - and I SAT on the exact spot he was murdered at. That was cool. Once again, walking upon the face of history, rather in this case, sitting on the face of history. Haha! That just sounds funny. But I really enjoyed our 2 hour tour of the Cathedral. Yay Thomas Beckett!!

After Canterbury, we went another half an hour out of the way to Dover. Ever heard of the white cliffs of Dover? Yeah, I totally saw those...and played in the water on Dover Beach, and saw my first ever sign of land called....France!! Wahoo! I took quite a few pictures of Dover Beach - it was so much fun. I got really wet cause I had a really big wave come and collide into my shins...I had tried to roll up my pants, but that did not work very well...Oh well. It's no crime to have the English Channel eat part of your pants in an attempt to bring in the coming tide. It was uber cold, but that's what made it so much fun! I did not go to Dover castle (the biggest castle in Britain, fyi) because I did not have the £7.50 to get in the door. But I didn't care - I had just as much fun goofing off on the beach and shopping in the town centre. I fell in love with both of those towns because they were small, homey, and still had so much of the original building work there. They looked old, but I definately think England and I get along very well indeed. I love this country!

31 October 2007: Halloween, what else?
So we had classes today as usual, but it was Halloween, so everyone was excited about the party that night. After class, I went to LillyWhite's again (remember the sporting goods store? Yeah, I could spend time in there like a girl in the mall) to get the final touch for my costume. I was so excited!! The entire costume (if you got it specifically for Halloween) had to be underr £10 in order to be qualified for the contest. And guess what? I found the last item for £9.09. Go me!! So I got them and went back to get ready for the party that night. I was almost all dressed by 6 - an hour before the party was to start. But that was ok cause I was so excited and it gave everyone else a chance to get ready and for me not to be in the way. Are you ready to find out what I was? Ok...well. I decided to be an England Rugby Player!! I already had the jersey, the Rugby ball, and the flag. What better thing to be? All I had to get were the shorts (which are very comfortable, btw) under £10, and I totally did that! Of course, I had to soup it up a bit, so I had really messy hair with leaves in it, and some fake injuries on my face, my arm and my leg. I thought I looked great and so did some other people. They all seemed to really like what I dressed up as considering I hadn't had to think about it in such a long time. But it was SOO much fun! We had a dance party, contest, did charades, bowling, and a movie (which I did not watch because I went to go write a speech due the next day. Go me!). But I ate candy and food and cake and saw Hermione Granger, the four seasons, a power riser, gypsies, a good witch, snowflakes, fairies, and of course the Rugby player. I had a great time just spending it with friends, goofing around, and having a stress-free time. Ahhh, holidays. What better thing to put us in a good mood?

1 November 2007: Classes
Had classes today. After classes I took a much much needed break from homework. Even though I had a science test the next evening, I didn't do homework for at least 6 hours because I didn't want to. Go me!! I honestly don't remember what I did besides give a speech on two hours of sleep (I was up until 5 writing my speech), perhaps thats why I dont remember - I was so tired....But I did go to bed at 10:30 that night and slept for 12 hours. Ahh, blissful sleep!! What a nice relaxing day! And my speech went very well. Ms. Dillion really liked it - very impressed and blown away by statistics...I did the history of Coca-Cola. It's still interesting.

Today was also the 21st birthday of my bestest friend, Kevin. Can't forget him - not ever.

2 November 2007: More study, then free time!
I spent all day before 5 preparing for my environmental science test that evening. It was not a big deal and I made a 100 on the test, so all was not that big of a deal. After that, I watched two movies and some early Guy Fawkes Day fireworks. It was great! I love this country and all their customs. Yay for the English. Today was mostly a relaxing day after 5, when I took my test. Good thing too, cause I don't think I could handle another weekend like that....

3 November 2007: A time away from home
Today was a free day, completely void of homework, except what I'm going to do right after this because it's due tomorrow and I've not started on it. I went to the Harrod's Christmas Day Parade when Father Christmas welcomes Christmas into London. It was so cute to act like a kid again! I got a balloon and a crown and candy and a teddy bear! Yay for Harrods! The parade was so cute and there was snow - soap snow, but snow all the same. Then we went shopping in Harrods - that was cool. We were in there when almost no one else was. It's great to browse without 1000 other people crowding the same building. After that, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe store and got shirts since we ate there. Then we went down Burlington Arcade - really expensive stuff and very posh. Dressing up is a good idea when walking down it...After that we went to Primark and I bought....CLOTHES!! Not many, but enough to say that I have. Wahoo!! I spent almost 10 hours out of the flat today, not doing anything very productive, but feeling great about that. I love this country, have I already said that? I can't stress that enough.

Now, off to get busy doing stuff that is due tomorrow. I hope you have enjoyed the past two weeks of my life in retrospect.

I'm sorry if I've been bad about this, but if there is anything you have questions about, just want to say hi, etc., please feel free to email me. I would love to hear from anyone who is enjoying my time in England as much as I. If you don't have my email address, I shall enlighten you: acancien@harding.edu. Again, I would love comments, inquiries, etc.

Love you guys! Cheers!

In Him,
Aimee

Oh look - another one of the boring England posts! Hooray!

2007-10-24T17:44:00.001-05:00

Hey y'all! So sorry I've not been doing well with this thing recently. Things have been pretty stinkin' busy over the past almost two weeks. I've not gotten time to sit down and write anything. BUT...now is as good a time as any to tell y'all what I have been up to.

So, once again, let us start our adventure where we left off. That would be....ah, yes. The 8th of October (oh that was a good day).

08 October 2007 - A bird's Eye view
So, of course we had classes today - it was a Monday. yay.... BUT, we went on a field trip (yay field trip!). We met at our designated time and set out, riding on the Tube to our stop, gettin separated several times and winding up on a street that granted a magnificent view of...The London Eye. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I rode the London Eye. For someone who does not appreciate heights as others do, I had a fantastic time. The Eye was built in 2000, so it is fairly new. It's VERY big and white, but, oh, so much fun to ride! After waiting for our group to get together again, we set off, up the ramp, past the security guards (who only asked if you had dangerous items on you....) and into the moving pod. This part was interesting - not only was the pod moving very slowly in a circle to ensure the riders do not ride upside down, the wheel was also moving, which granted a fun lurch for a split second. And then I was on. Our whole group was able to fit in one pod (which shows you how big they are - we have almost 30 people). I saw some of the coolest things from a bird's eye perspective. I saw Big Ben and Westminster Palace, the long Thames River, Buckingham Palace, and Paris! No, not really...but that would have been cool. I did see an Eiffel Tower, though, but not the real one. Apparantly, London has one at the very end of the city (some probably 40 miles away). I would definately do it again. It was more than worth the £13 spent. Oh, and just to clear things up - it is not a ferris wheel. So it looks like it, I don't think Londoners would get a kick out of any American calling the Eye a ferris wheel - it's like calling Mount Rushmore a slab of rock - there is to much more to the Eye than meets the eye :-) I had a great time and I got many pictures. Good thing it wasn't raining....

The London Eye!

Wesstminter Palace from the London Eye

Looking up the Thames from the Eye

09 October 2007: We Shall Never Surrender....to Tolkien
So, it's Tuesday. That means field trip!! We do not have classes on Tuesday, in case you were not aware. We use Tuesdays to travel around England and see many different things. Today was our Blenheim Palace and Oxford day. Wahoo! I am not exactly sure where Blenheim Palace is (we never know where we are....) but it definately was beautiful. Blenheim Palace is home to the Duke of Marlborough and has been since it was built about 300 years ago. This was also the place Winston Churchill was born. I saw the bed he was born in, the room, his first outfit, and locks of his childhood hair! It was so cool! I also learned that every one of Winston Churchill's names was a family name. The first Duke was a Churchill, and the names Winston and Spencer (his middle name) were names of former Dukes or their wives families. Winston was actually the cousin of the Duke at the time he was born, and, if I am not mistaken, lived at the palace for several years. His pride and joy were his toy soldiers of Napoleon's army. They are on display in the palace and were a gift to the Palace from him because Winston wanted everyone to enjoy them as much as he did. There are over 400 pieces and are so beautiful!! I loved Blenheim Palace - very, very intersting and jam packed with history. At one point, it was a school and a hospital during the wars. It even has its own organ! The present Duke and his family live there still and this Duke-dom is the only line in which the oldest daughter can become Duchess if her brothers are dead. I thought that was cool :-)

Blenheim Palace!

The lake in front of Blenheim Palace
*******************************************
After Blenheim, we went to Oxford. Now, you might be thinking - Oh, cool! You got to see Oxford University! But in fact, there is no Oxford University campus. Yeah, I know! Shock and surprise! Oxford University, as well as Cambridge, is actually a compilation of over 36 other colleges under one umbrella called Oxford Univeristy. Wherever the British have land, there is an Oxford Univeristy campus. 36 spread out around the world - you can even go to Australia and study!! There were two colleges in the town, but I never really got a definate answer if they were part of the university or not. I did get some cool Oxford wear, though. I do plan on going back, by the way, because one of my favorite movies was partly filmed there, but I am not going to get anyone's hopes up just yet, in case I don't get to go back. I liked Oxford - but not as much as I had liked York or Edinburgh. It just felt different, not that it was bad or anything, cause it wasn't. Oh, and for those of you who are J.R.R. Tolkien fans or C.S. Lewis fans, the pub where those two went all the time and wrote at is in Oxford - The Eagle and Child. I did not have time to go to it, but if I go back, that will be another thing I will take the time to do. Most everything you want to do in Oxford you can do in about a day. We only spent 2 hours there and most of that was a walking tour so not much free time. But totally want to go back.

This is part of Oxford Church, where a movie was recently filmed. If I go back, I can tell you what movie, but not yet....

This is the 800 year old pub I want to go back and eat in

10 October 2007: O, Canada!
So, today was comprised mostly of classes and me doing homework. But that evening, we had a lovely dinner compliments of Jason (one of our 4 boys). He is Canadian, and in the spirit of true Canadianism, he had Thanksgiving....for 30 people. The holiday was actually two days before that, but he didn't know on Monday if he was going to celebrate it. But he decided to and it was absolutely wonderful! We had turkey legs, boiled potatoes, veggies, bread, and dessert. We played games and just had a really great time being together as a group since we do not do it very much - or hardly at all. It was so much fun! I gave massages and put people to sleep. It was an awesome night. Thank you, Jason!! Thank you, Canada!!

11 October 2007: War gives us the most interesting places....
So today, Dr. Hopper, the International Programs administrator, spent a coupld of days with us in London before departing for Africa and Italy to visit the other international programs. We had class as usual and then Dr. H took us to the Imperial War Museum where we had lunch and spent as much time as we wanted to perusing the many artifacts in the museum. We did spend some time in the Camouflage exhibition they were having. That was SOO neat! I learned so much. I had no idea that ships were painted in camouflage while on the water. Seems pretty pointless to me but I guess it worked.....They were not painted in the usual colors of brown, dark green, beige, and black. Nope, these ships had bright blue, pink, and even purple. That doesn't sound like it would help anything would it? But the exhibit was very interesting and I enjoyed it a lot. After that, I went and explored the submarines, and went into the Holocaust exhibit (cause, ya know, I like history and World War II is one of my favorites). That was heart-breaking. I did not get to spend as much time there as I had wanted because I had homework to finish, but I can always go back. It doesn't cost anything to go, so it would be a really good day-trip. This is the kind of museum that would entertain anyone from any age and I highly recommend it - just FYI in case you were making a trip to London soon :-)

*Imperial War Museum

*Missile gun in Camo in War Museum

*Me! In a sub!!

*Me! In another sub!!

Then I went back and did massive homework time....

12 October 2007: Free day!
This whole weekend was devoted to the doing of homework. I had a science test Monday that I had thought was the following week, so I had 5 chapters to read and take quizzes on and study as well as my Bible assignment and paper due Sunday afternoon. The good thing was that I did finish all my homework and I made an A on my test. Wahoo! Saturday, though, Kaity and I went down Oxford Street (THE shopping street in London) looking for one store. We didn't find it, but we did find other things, like a 3 foot tall chocolate cake and a cheap place to have high tea. Oxford street is so cool!

*This is the chocolate cake we saw in the shop window. Doens't it look wonderful?!

That was the extent of my weekend. Homework and a few hours of Oxford Street. Too much studying, not enough social time. Seems like the summing up of my life in just two days, doesn't it?

14 October 2007: Just another manic Sunday!!
Yeah, it was just classes. They were an hour later because of a festival the Tullos' wanted to go to. They are the trip leaders and some of the coolest people I've ever met. We all love them to pieces, and their son Ian, too.

But class....and then more studying for me - a Brit Lit test and a Science test....oh boy.

15 October 2007: Double classes....yikes!
But it really wasn't that bad because NOBODY had double classes. It was great. I made A's on both of my tests and spent the rest of the night relaxing and reveling in the thought that I did not have to do homework until the weekend. It was so nice to just sit and do nothing for a while. I watched a movie, ate junk food and went to bed a little early. Yay! It was so nice to be with myself and nothingness.

16 October 2007: It's Tuesday, again!
What does that mean?! FIELD TRIP!!! Today was the field trip that I had been looking forward to for a very, very, very long time. Today, we were going to Stonehenge!!

This is a place shrouded in mystery and a country deep in superstition. Crop circles are fairly common in this area, which gives all the farmers a really good reason to be uber superstitious, which they are. The area is also surrounded by burial mounds, which the farmers do NOT touch. I like that. Disturbing the dead just sounds....disturbing.

But really, Stonehenge was so cool!! I had been warned that it was small, don't expect much, but it was actually larger than I had pictured, which was a nice surprise. We are not allowed to walk on it anymore. See, there is this highway that forks on either side of Stonehenge and it has been there for quite a while (the highway). Over the years, the vibrations from the highway have worked its way to the foundation of Stonehenge, which is RIGHT NEXT to the highway, and started making it unstable and start sinking. I don't blame the earth. If I had 50 ton rocks just standing on for 2000 years, I'd give way eventually, too. There is talk of moving the highway, but I don't know how definate that is right now. I wish they would. It would make the countryside so much less interrupted. But I really enjoyed it. It was very windy and cold and rainy, but that did not take away from the magnificence of the place. I took quite a few pictures, and some of them I am in :-) but I had a really great time. I also bought stuff for my classroom, which made me excited. I honestly can't wait to be a teacher and share all of my experiences with my students. I only wish I had had teachers like that in high school. Learning history from the point of view of someone who has been there and seen it is so much better than reading about it in a textbook. Personal pictures are so much more entertaining. Yay for my major!!!

*This is my first look at Stonehenge!!

*This is what it used to look like...

*This is me!

*Oh, look! A good picture of Stonehenge

After that, we headed to Bath - home of the Roman Baths, which I did not see. Instead, I went to the Fashion Museum, which was actually pretty interesting. Of course, many of the things on display were ridiculous, like today, but none-the-less interesting to see how fashion has changed over the decades. I would have gone to visit Jane Austin's house, but I did not have time. Instead, I went to the Rugby store and bought a Rugby ball. Yay!! This was one of the few items on my "have to get this in London" list, just to be able to say that I had bought it there. I found it pretty exciting. It smells good - like new. That was the extent of the day. We got back about 6:30 that evening and us girls spent the rest of the night hanging out and talking. I love the girls in my flat. It's always so nice to be able to spend time with them all.

*This is the oldest bridge in England that still has shops going across it

*This is the river that runs through Bath

17 October 2007: Mmm...Free travel
Today was the day that marked the first day of the first 4-day free travel. Since I had not planned on going anywhere, I and the rest of my flat, stayed and had a good time. Wednesday and Thursday were spent hanging out in the flat, watching movies, and relaxing. This was much needed. Rejuvination time is awesome!! That means no classes for 4 days. Wahoo!! Several people did go out of town, but not many. But yes, nice to relax and enjoy being in grand ole London towne. Hah!

18 October 2007: Mmm...Free travel
Still free traveling people abroad and me still hanging out. BUT!!! I did go somewhere. I went to Her Majesty's Theatre and saw The Phantom of the Opera. That was really good. Not the best I have ever seen, but not terrible. It could have been better, but I am not complaining. The set was fantastic and whoever did the costumes was amazing. The acting was...in my humble opinion, mediocre and the singing could have been much better. Still, I enjoyed my night with Her Majesty and the girls from Flat 5 (that's my flat, in case you didn't know). After that, we took a short walk to Westminter Palace because I wanted to get some pictures of Big Ben at night. Oh my goodness, I got some really good ones. I was super excited and proudly braved the cold for Ben. I even heard him bong!! It was the most beautiful sound I've heard in a long time. *sigh* I love Ben. I always enjoy seeing him.

*Her Majesty's Theatre where Phantom of the Opera was playing. Pretty isn't it?

*This is me and Kaity (a little blurry) after the show

*The Eye across the Thames

*The ever famous Parliament and Clock Tower picture from across the Thames river

*Big Ben just before he bonged!

19 October 2007: Drinking a cuppa
Early this morning, Kaity, Jordan, and I got up early and went to the National Portrait Gallery off of Trafalgar Square. This was for one of our assignments for Humanities 270. I actually enjoyed it. The finding the picture part was not fun, but looking at all of the different pictures of famous people, kings, queens, writers, composers, etc. was a very nice ride. I saw Handel, and George Washington (like, first president of the United States), and Oliver Cromwell, and Jonne Donne, and Milton and many others. And that was all only on one floor. There are still three other floors to explore. Yay!! After we did that, Kaity, Chris and I went a-walking - to find Twinings tea shop. It is the oldest shop in London and still in the same location it has always been in. It was small, quaint, and easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. Seriously, I didn't see it the first or the second time. I had to take a triple take before I saw it. Yes, very small. We looked for about 30 minutes and all came out with tea. i bought several tea bags of different flavors to try so I know what to get the next time I go there. It was not expensive at all. You'd think that it would be since it is being sold in the actual store instead of some place like ASDA or Sainsbury or TESCO. But cheap is good. One bag for 15 pence is really good!! And it is so worth it. I've already tried one bag of tea and it was SOOO SOO SOOO good!! I have GOT to get some of it.

So, now I am sitting in the flat relaxing again but needing to do homework. Oh well, I love London and everything it has to offer. I am so happy here.

I got to talk to my parents for the first time since I have been in Europe and it was nice to hear their voices. They were so excited to talk to me! Yay! I really am having the time of my life here.

No one fear
I love being here :-)

Cheers!

So I love London!!

2007-10-07T16:47:00.000-05:00

I suppose I should start with where I left off, shouldn't I?

I think....yes, September 28.
*Note: This post will be considerable shorter than the last one and probably not many pictures since I still have to put some on my computer. Sorry guys....but I will put them up when I get a chance to get them on my computer.

28 September 2007: Orientation and settling in

So today was the day we were talked through stuff pertaining to the FSU flats and how they run and stuff. It was uber boring, but very important all the same. We also got grocery money so that meant, of course, the grocery store so we could all eat - which is very important in the long run. I greatly suggest it. :-) Other than that, today was pretty much - "Hey, lets get to know London and finish unpacking and settling in". Not too terribly exciting....

29 September 2007: All classes

Yeah, so we had ALL of our classes on a Saturday. That was not very much fun. I suddenly had MOUNTAINS of homework and became very stressed very quickly with all that I am being expected to accomplish this semester. Let's see, that's: Do homework, do well in class by doing homework, explore London, do everything I want to do in London, have fun on mini free travels, and still do well in class without falling asleep, etc. So much is expected of us. It feels like we are having to cram in so much stuff in the middle because we've missed a month of classes so it just is not a good day.....The rest of the day was devoted to getting a head start on my homework. I don't think I got very far, but I sure made the attempt to - cause that's what counts, right? Right!

30 September 2007: Church and guided bus tour of London

We went to church today, which is like a 20 minute Tube ride from our flat - that equals like 10 miles.....its REALLY far. So yeah, that meant that I got to ride the Tube, which is one of my favorite things to do. It's dirty, but it's so much fun. So yeah, church. Afterwards, we went to London Wal-Mart - I am not kidding. It's called ASDA and it's two floors with an escalator for the baskets. It's way cool!! We had lunch there in the cafe and that was really good. Then, Tony (remember our awesome bus driver who really knew his stuff? yeah, he showed up again!!) picked us up for our bus tour of London. I was stupid and didn't bring my camera to church so I didn't get ANY pictures of our tour....I wanted to cry. But our tour took us ALL around London. I saw London Bridge and the Tower Bridge. I saw where Diagon Alley and Gringotts Bank are (for those Harry Potter fans in the audience). I saw the Millenium Bridge (a.k.a. the Wobbley Bridge cause when it was first put up in 2000, it shook so bad they had to close it and fix it) and soOOmany places to shop - like Chocolate stores and clothes stores and, well, just about anything!!! It took about 4 hours to get around the city. We stopped at St. Paul's Cathedral, which is where John Donne gave his last sermon - the no man is an island sermon about the tolling of the bells, if you know what I'm talking about - that was also where parts of My Fair Lady and the bank in Mary Poppins were filmed. It's so beautiful!! So yeah, we did that and then we made it back to the flats where we had a party for all the September, rather the one September birthday, we had in the group. It was a blast! I gave about 6 people massages and almost put one guy to sleep....I'm glad he was happy. Then from there I did more homework (can you see a pattern developing here? free time = homework right now until I can get enough ahead) and went to bed. Ahh, wonderful sleep!

01 October 2007: Class

This was pretty much the only thing I did that day. We had classes and I spent the rest of the afternoon doing more homework becasue I'm so worried that I won't have everything done in time - and trust me, they're asking a lot of us in such a short period of time....it's crazy!! That was that....not exciting at all I'm afraid.

02 October 2007: Class and field trip!!

So yes, we had class. And after class we had about an hour until we went on a field trip. And guess what we did?! We saw the Merchant of Venice...IN THE GLOBE THEATRE!!! The play SOo GOOD! I was so very impressed. I got the actual experience of being a groundling in the Globe. It was a neat experience. The groundlings are part of the play - literally. The cast comes through and interacts with them, pushes through them, and really involves them in whatever play they do. Even though I stood for three hours, it was SOO worth it! The actors were so funny. I must admit, Shakespeare really comes alive when you see it how it was supposed to be done. I had such a great time!!

So we did that (and I did get pictures of that, but they've not made it onto my computer yet...but you will see pics when I get to them) and then I went back to the flat and hung out. I decided that homework was over-rated and just did nothing for a while....until it finally got to me and I did some...better to be prepared, I suppose.

03 October 2007: Class

Most days, Sunday afternoon through Thursday, will be consisting of class. If anything else of note comes up, I will let you know. Actually, something of great note happened today....I went to the Odeon at Leischter Square with a group of girls at 12:30 (this is important....sort of). We took the Tube and found several people standing near the entrance - so we stood with them. This was NOT by chance. We knew exactly what we were doing. If you don't know, The Odeon is the cinema in London at which all the movie premieres happen. If you haven't guessed, we went to a movie premiere!! I know! Exciting stuff, isn't it?!??! Oh yeah, the movie was Stardust. The one with Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfiffer, Sienna Miller, Robert DeNero, and Ricky Gervais. Yeah, we got there at 12:30 and STOOD until 8 pm....yeah...I think I sat down for....5 minutes...? Something like that. But we got a front row action view right at the entrance to the theatre. It was SUCH a good spot! So we watched all the people set up the stuff - and they had a green carpet, but it looked really good with all the decorations they put up. It looked like the woods in the middle of London - it was pretty sweet. So yeah. People started showing up at about 6 and we were there ready with our paper and cameras. Charlie Cox was the first one we saw. I got his autograph, his picture, AND he touched my hand! He is so cute and really, REALLY nice. He came up and talked to our group for a second before he made his way down the rest of the excited crowd. He was the ONLY person who signed autographs for EVERYONE. Yeah...then Michelle Pfiffer showed up. She didn't sign any autographs, which was a bummer, but at least I can say I've seen her in person. Sienna Miller also made an appearance. She signed autographs for one of the girls in our group, but had talked too long with the press to get many in. She was really nice, but in a very big hurry....oh well. I really liked her dress. Ricky Gervais showed up and signed some, but I didn't get his either. I did get several pictures of them all. It was a great night and we (the Americans) got interviewed like 8 times by different people. I got a camera stuck in my face a lot and it was pretty intimidating to say the least. but it was fun and now there's a video of us screaming somewhere on the internet. Metro.co.uk - somewhere on that website we are there.....and probably other places, too. good times. I also got a poster from the premiere that i intend to hang in my room at home (its pretty big....like 5 x 3). Ahhh...good times, good times. Then we took the tube back and we got some interesting looks, but it was all worth it. yay!!!

04 October 2007: Class

Yeah class, and I went to the British museum for the first time for my Bible class. If you EVER go to London, you have to spend like three days in the museum. No joke. It would take anyone three days to really appreciate all the stuff in there. I'm glad I get to spend two months in it. There is SOO much to see and learn about!! yay!

05 October 2007: Free day and a play

We didn't have classes today so I slept late (this is a friday) - by late I mean 11:15. Then I did MORE homework - but this was good. I needed to. Speech, test, reading, etc. Yay....
Kaity, Jordan and I also went to a play. We saw Holding Fire in the (guess where) Globe Theatre!! It's not a Shakespeare play, but it was the same cast as the Merchant of Venice which made it better - it felt familiar. We were once again groundlings and once again, we were interacted with. I even had my standing space interrupted for the first half by a wagon - it was just pushed and tied where i was standing....it got kind of annoying, but still - i had a great time. This was the last night for this play because the season was ending. i got to see the play with the playwright and the director. it was just too cool! This play was also astounding. It would be kind of hard to explain, but it's during a revolution in the early 1900's in England about getting voting rights. It was sad, exciting, happy, funny, and everything in between. the only thing I wish i had been able to do would be to meet the cast, but they didnt come out and i just didnt ask cause it was getting late, and cold, and we needed to get back to the flat. but i still enjoyed it. once in a lifetime chance perhaps that i got to do twice. the globe is SOO COOL!!

06 October 2007: Free day....so I had fun!

Yeah, I slept late again, but not as late. got up about 10, did a small bit of homework and then got ready for a day of outings. Kaity, Jordan and I went to King's Cross Station to see Platform 9 and 3/4. Honestly, not a big deal but i did get to see it, touch it, and walk around the Station. It's very old looking/feeling but I thought it was pretty amazing. Then we went to Hyde Park. I saw the statue of Peter Pan, played around with the birds, and was able to really relax for the first time in a while. We walked around for almost 4 hours and we still did NOT cover half of the park - it is just entirely too big. I didnt even make it to Kensington gardens at the bottom of Hyde park (from the entrance). It took kaity and i almost an hour to find Peter Pan....but it was a nice leisure walk. Afterwards, we went to the ORIGINAL Hard Rock Cafe just down the street from Hyde Park. The food was AMAZING!!! i didnt buy anything at the store....at least i havent yet. i dont really feel like dishing out $40 for a shirt....it jsut doesnt seeem right...but i do have to go back there because theres a bookstore i really want to check out. sounds like fun so im going ... sometime in the very near future. but we did that and made our way back home where i stayed up late doing nothing important except SOME, not lots of, homework and went to bed. ahh, sleep.....

07 October 2007: Church and...nothing else special.

Went to church of course and came back, had about an hour to finish an assignment before class this afternoon because it was due. I did write a speech due at 10:30 in the morning and its still too long....but im sure its going to be ok. Im really not that worried.

So there you go. you are ALL caught up with the events of my life in London. Let me just say right now that I love this city. I've always told myself that i want to live in a small city, but im loving HUGE city life. i wouldnt have to buy a car cause i could get ANYWHERE using the Tube (which is one of my favorite things to do!) and the people are super nice. i also like the fact that if you cant take the Tube, you can walk. its great exercise. i would be ok with not having to drive EVERYWHERE all the time. the downside to London though is that it's the dirtiest city i have ever seen. if i put on here some of the things ive seen while walking, you'd get sick...so I wont, but trust me, it can be nasty!!

This is where I leave you until next time. Love you all and I WELCOME any comments you have to make. email them, facebook me, whatever. I wish you all well this week. until next time, friends!!

in Him,
Aimee

It's about time I told you what I was up to!!

2007-10-02T13:04:00.000-05:00

So for those of you who read this, I AM SOO SORRY I'VE NOT BEEN UPDATING!! Things around here have been hectic and busy and I've barely had time to do my studies, attempt to explore London, go to class, eat and sleep. It's been an exciting but very tiring week and I have so much to talk about! I really should tell y'all what I've been doing since I got here. I've already talked about the first day in Dublin, so I'll skip that day, but there is so much more to tell you! Are you ready? Here goes nothing:

18 September 2007:

Here are Kaity and I in Dublin about 20 minutes after having gotten off the plane into Ireland. Don't we look happy?! Don't we look gross....

I've already told you about the first day. Skipping to the next.

19 September2007: Dublin Walking tour.

As the title suggests, we went on a walking tour of Dublin. It took about an hour and we passed the Hard Rock, which had just recently opened. We also went to Dublin Castle and looked around a bit. It was not as exciting...But we did get to eat dinner and hang out in Temple Bar which was the area of town we were situated in and happens to be a very important and historic part of town, but I never really got the run-down as to why, but that was ok with me. I was in DUBLIN! Who cared?! That night several friends and I went to a pub just to hang out. We watched Rugby and Football (and for all you uneducated Americans, that's Soccer - and it was Manchester United!) and that was fun! We also listed to an Irish man play a his guitar. He also taught us a song, but don't ask me to sing it because I honestly don't remember how it goes....

Taking a walking tour of Dublin!!

20 September 2007: Waterford and Glendalough

This was the day we (as a group) went to the Waterford Crystal factory in Waterford, Ireland (which is about three hours drive south from Dublin, but NOT as the crow flies...). This was a great experience. I was able to actually SEE Waterford Crystal being made. For those of you who do not know, Waterford Crystal is one of the most prestigious crystal factories in the world - this is the factory that makes all the beautiful trophies for Tennis, Racing, Sailing, Golf, and several other sports. Tiger Woods has been awarded one of these crystal trophies. It was very interesting and well worth the trip. I was very impressed. And just an interesting piece of information: I know all of you have probably seen the crystal ball in NYC that drops on New Years Eve. That ball was made at the Waterford Factory in Ireland. Cool!

Nascar Racing Trophey from the Waterford Factory in Ireland

After that and lunch, we departed for Glendalough (pronounced Glen-da-lock). Glendalough is a place in Ireland that is home to a very old tower, cathedral and church. All remains of the presence of Christianity in Ireland. The tower, which was 103 feet high is the 4th tallest in all of Ireland and housed many a precious materials. With the door being 12 feet off the ground, valuables were safe from robbers, small animals such as mice and rats, and moisture from the ground. Towers also served as homing beacons so the monks would know when they were close to home. The Cathedral is old, but still one of the newer ones since it contains some evidence of Roman architecture. The little church there is barely larger than a small bedroom. Worship faces the east - which is Jerusalem. Those buried in the surrounding graveyard are also buried pointing towards the east owning to the belief that when Christ returns, all the dead will already be facing Jerusalem. This place was very peaceful and I would have spent hours just sitting by the lake and exporing the scenery but we did not have much time. I had time enough to run to the lake, take pictures and hasten to the bus for our departue back to Dublin. In all, that day was very fun, tiring, but very interesting at the same time - not to mention gorgeous. Some of my best pictures were taken at Glendalough. I fell in love with it.

This is Glendalough. Beautiful isn't it?

This is the oldest gravestone that as been found in the Glendalough graveyard. It is thought to be the grave of a monk - can you see the cross crudely etched on the stone? It is thought that this grave is from about 1600.

21 September 2007: Depart for Wales, Caernarfon Castle, and Snowdonia

This was the day we left Ireland for Wales via ferry across the Irish Sea. Needless to say, that was a lot of fun. It was also very relaxing. No bus, just water. It was a little cloudy but the water was calm and cold. From the ferry, I was able to see my first glimpse of Wales (which wasn't much at first, but it got MUCH better the longer we were in Wales, which was only a day...). After exiting the ferry, we got on a bus (with Tony, our awesome driver who REALLY knew his stuff) and left for Caernarfon Castle. On the way, I took many pictures of the landscape, but they do Wales no justice. It is just too beautiful to be seen in pictures - it HAS to be done in person. The castle is one of several in the Snowdonia area around Wales. We were able to explore the castle almost to our hearts desire. The views from the towers were incredible - endless beauty and really nice people. After trapsing around for a while, I decided that being a princess in an old stone castle was NOT something I wanted to be anymore. Castles were dark, dank, narrow, steep, and just plain scary. There was no light except for the natural light coming in from the very tiny windows, which didn't make much difference and probably didn't have to be there in the first place. But it was beautiful. Because of this castle, and what we did immediately afterwards, made me fall totally and completely in love with Wales. But first, a few pictures cause I know you're dying to see these places :-)

This is us leaving Ireland on the Irish Sea in the ferry and heading to Wales. Fun stuff!!

Look! Wales!

Caernarfon Caslte, Gwynedd, Wales - isn't it beautiful?

After the castle, we drove through Snowdonia. This was a part of the trip that was spur of the moment just becasue we had time. Our trip leader had never been there before, and he's been to Europe several times. It was great! We drove through the Snowdonia Mountain range which was breath-takingly gorgeous! That's all we had to do to get me to fall in love with Wales. Besides the wonderful people, the scenery is the best I have ever seen! Following are some pictures of Snowdonia - and trust me, they DO NOT do Snowdonia any justice. Take a look for yourself...

Snowdonia

Snowdonia

Snowdonia

That was pretty much the extent of that day. Oh yeah, that same night we arrived in England and none of us knew it.

22 September 2007: Dove Cottage and Hilltop Farm

This was the day we visited Beaxtrix Potter's house and William Wordsworth's house. For those of you who are not familiar with the name Beatrix Potter, she's the author of the Peter Rabbit books and made children's books in line of Peter Rabbit very affordable for families with children. She also bought much of the land around her house in order to preserve it. And preserve it she did. Several of the pictures in her books are of places in her house or what she saw right outside her windows. Hilltop Farm (the Potter house) was so cute! Following are some pictures of where she lived - I was no allowed to take any of the inside, but it's worth visiting if you get the chance.

Beatrix Potter's garden path

Hilltop Farm (The Beatrix Potter House)

See this picture? See the road? Yeah, it's in one of her books. Pretty isn't it?

So after that, we went to Dove Cottage - the home of the poet William Wordsworth. That too was interesting. Apparantly, before it was a house, Dove Cottage was a pub at the edge of town on the main street. Then it became a home and that of Willam Wordsworth for 8 years before it became too small to accomodate his growing family and frequent visitors. Following are some pictures from the village, the garden, and the surrounding areas of Dove Cottage.

This is near Grasmere Village where Dove Cottage is located. With the exception of my friend's head, isn't it pretty? We were actually looking for a mountain to climb at the time.

Another just outside of Grasmere Village

Dove Cottage - cute isn't it?

This is a group of some of the girls that were there. We are at a lake in Grasmere Village just across the street from Dove Cottage. It looks out onto a beautiful mountain and we just had to take this. Good times :-)

From Dove Cottage garden looking down onto the cottage

That was pretty much the extent of the day, besides winding roads and a whole lot of countryside (which was all gorgeous). Better keep moving forward because there is still so much to learn about!

23 September 2007: Housestead Fort and Hadrian's Wall

This was "Roman" day. The hostel we stayed at was just across the road from Hadrian's Wall, which was really cool. But this day, we saw the wall and a fort that had been built on the wall - both by the Romans of course who had control over England in about the 100's AD. Yeah, the things we saw were a good almost 2000 years old and still standing, or in ruins as is the case for the fort. We didn't spend a lot of time at the wall (which made me really upset) because it was so windy as you will see soon enough. But we did spend a lot of time at the fort. There was so much to see and take pictures of. My roomie Kaity and I went picture crazy and did just about everything we could to get good pics. It was pretty stinkin' fun! So...the pictures...I know that's all you're here for :-) jk. I hope by now you're getting a good glimpse into my life for about a week - hectic but unforgettable. Just check these out!

While we were relaxing and exploring, I snapped several pictures near Hadrian's Wall. This is just one of the many.

This is me and roomie Kaity at Hadrian's Wall. See? It was very windy and foggy which was just a gross combination but nevertheless a great experiance.

Climbed a steep hill and got this for you. Isn't Hadrian's Wall country pretty in the fog?

Strutting some stuff on Housestead's Fort

This is Kaity on Housestead's Fort overlooking the valley

Me at Housestead's Fort - it was very windy as you can tell

Conquering Housestead's Fort!

Hehee...I like this picture

Doing push-ups in the Graneries of Housestead

Whoah!! I can jump really high!!

After that, made our way to Scotland, specifically Edinburgh and that was another great highlight of my "before London" expedition.

Me and Kaity with Scotland in the background

24 September 2007: Edinburgh Castle, Royal Mile, and Holyroodhouse

So, after our awesome "Roman day", we did a cool "Scotland day". We went to Edinburgh castle and saw the biggest cannon in the world - Mons Meg. There will be pictures showing how big this thing actually is...cause it's a monster. After that, we walked down the Royal Mile which is a whole bunch of tourist shops, eateries, coffee shops, and the like - not forgetting the best kilt makers in the world. After walking down, we went to Holyroodhouse. For those of you who do not know what Holyroodhouse is, this is the house that the Queen stays in when she visits Edinburgh, as well as any other member of the royal family. I walked where she walked, saw where she sat, and walked through her gardens. To be completely honest, I don't think I would like staying in Holyroodhouse because it is not a homey place. It's too stiff and cold feeling - not temperature-wise, but just the decorations and furniture. It didn't feel like home, which is what I would have thought it would have looked like, at least a little bit. But it was pretty. I will say that the Queen's chambers were MUCH more comfortable-feeling. Her bed was behind a glass wall, but I didn't really get a good explanation as to why - it could have been because her bed spread was worth 400,000 pounds (quid - however you want to say it) or her bed itself is like 200 years old. I'm not really sure. But that was a great experience. Afterwards, we were allowed to wander wherever we wanted to until midnight. I did go by Harry Potter's birthplace - The Elephant House - for those who are interested in that. It was cute, and you could see Edinburgh Castle from the window. That made me happy. For those of you who also know anything about Greyfriar's Bobby, we saw his grave as well. It is directly behind The Elephant House and is gorgeous in the evening cause I went...twice. So enough words, right? Where are the pictures? Have at it:

*So my pictures aren't loading at the moment. So I will have to come back and put them up later. I'm sorry for the disappointment!*

25 September 2007: Edinburgh (Free day)

So just like it says, we had a free day in Edinburgh. Went shopping ALL day long. We also climbed Arthur's Seat at the edge of Edinburgh. There is a legend that says that King Arthur once sat on the hill, but that is pure speculation. But the view was spectacular and I took lots of pictures. I think all of those are on Facebook - I'd have to check and make sure. Going down the Seat we saw a rainbow and that just made me happy. After that, a couple of friends and I went back up the Royal Mile and visited Greyfriar Bobby's grave and the graveyard - J.K. Rowling walked in that graveyard and several of her characters are named from the people there (Tom Riddle, Hermione, McGonngall, and several more I can't remember). I think we spent about an hour and a half just walking around, taking pictures and having a great time just being with ourselves. I really needed it. Chris and I had a good heart to heart talk because I was being girly and emotional at the time. Boys are nice to talk to when you're feeling a bit down. In all honesty, I was very upset that we were leaving Edinburgh the next day. I had completely fallen in love with it. The other part was that, growing up, I honestly never ever thought that I would ever get the chance to go to Europe. I guess Edinburgh was when it really hit me that I was actually there, living a dream I had never thought possible - so it made me cry and Chris made it better. Yay boys!!

*So my pictures still are not loading. I will put them on later when they will load. Still so sorry for the inconvenience*

26 September 2007: Jedburgh and York

This was another long trip on the bus day. We traveled from Edinburgh to Jedburgh about 2 or 3 hours away. Here we stopped at the wool mill and bought lunch/cheap wool stuff like kilts (yep, I bought I kilt, but it's not for me so don't ask me to wear it). Then we were back on the way to York, where we spent less than a day. But honestly, most of the day was spent riding a bus. We got to York in the late afternoon/early evening. We took a tour around it - which didn't take long because it's so incredibly small. After hanging out in our awesome hotel rooms, we were getting ready for our night on the town - specifically Evensong at York Minster Abbey - when one of the girls in my room gets a text message from back home (home meaning Searcy). The text plainly said "Jan Jones died this morning". To inform you if you don't know, Jan Jones was the accompanist for the musicals at Harding. She was a wonderful lady (and a GREAT cook) with such a wonderful heart. She had been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer earlier in the year, so the diagnosis was not good from the start. She had been getting progressively worse and Courtney had actually earlier in the day told me that the Jones family had hospice come and had given her two weeks - but she died early that morning. Since several theatre people are on the trip (and I suppose I can count myself one of them), this hit pretty hard. After Evensong at York Minster, Kaity, Jordan and I all lit a candle for Mrs. Jan in her honor and memory and said a prayer for her family. The next day, in commemoration of her, I wore my Fiddler shirt, because that was the last musical she had been able to really take part in. But a night on the town was just what was needed for our sad eyes. York Minster is gorgeous and all the stain-glass is from the Middle Ages. It is the largest collection of Middle Age stained-glass in the world. I found it breath-taking! Afterwards was dinner and then bed time.

*Pictures still are not loading. Still will try another time to put them up. Sorry again, for the disappointment*

27 September 2007: York and London

This was the day that I had been waiting for for a long time. I was actually going to get to see London!! Yay!! But before that, we had to leave York. We spent a couple hours perusing the York shops but mostly enjoying the cool air and the small-town life. It was very cute. London was still quite a ways off, so we got back on the bus with awesome bus driver Tony (who really knows his stuff) and went off to London! Quite an uneventful ride to say the least, but exciting at the same time. All of us were SOO glad we were going to be in a place for more than a night, that we could do laundry, and BUY FOOD to keep in a fridge! Yay!! So we arrive in London after a long days travels. I don't see much that I recognize from pictures - why? Because all that stuff is only a 10 minute walk from my flat right down Tottendam Court Road, past Trafalgar Square, and right smack-dab into Westminster Palace - commonly known as the Parliament Building. Oh yeah, and I saw Big Ben!! Yay!! But not until the next day, which I will get to in a minute. That Thursday went by that evening with most of us unpacking since none of us had our Tube passes yet so we couldnt go very far. Some went shopping for groceries, some went to bed, but we were all happy that we had a home now - at least for two months. yay!!

Ok so honestly, I'm going to stop right there and continue at a decent hour. Since then, not too much has happened. I went on a tour of Parliament, saw Big Ben and Trafalgar Square, rode on the Tube, and went to Harrod's. Oh and I started classes. So there you go. My life until right now at 1 in the morning. I have class tomorrow (and we're going to the British Museum. yay!!) so I have to get up early - .....joy joy joy....yuck! I honestly will TRY my hardest to keep this up to date on what's been going on. Things have been quite busy and I finally had some time to sit and write. Granted, I've been working on this since abuot 8 and it's 1....slow internet + lots of pictures = long time coming.

Please keep in touch! I would love to hear suggestions for things. Please also keep me updated on things going on at home. I don't want to be too out of the loop when I get back. I love you all! If I didn't, this wouldn't be here. I hope you have enjoyed this little trip as much as I have. There is so much that I left out and I will talk about it when I get home. but now is time to sleep.

Love to you all!!

In Him,

Aimee

Has it already been a week?

2007-09-24T18:11:00.000-05:00

Well my friends, the time has come for a real post. I apologize for the delay, but the internet is hard to come by at the moment and expensive to pay for when you do want it. But now I have time. I hope you're ready because this is going to take a long time.

Got your popcorn and your giant-sized candy? Excellent - off we go!

Tuesday, 18 September, 2007

I flew from Memphis to Atlanta, my second plane ride ever, to meet the rest of the group. Uneventful, short trip. No biggie cause I was excited beyond my comprehension. I traveled with two other girls in the group - Julie Williams and Megan VanCleave - so it was nice to have company. Got to Atlanta, met the group, then we were boarding the plane for Ireland - hard to believe. I honestly don't know how long the flight was, I just know that we left at 8:45 and arrived at 9:30 the next morning. I think I probably slept for....2 hours? But that is a complete guesstimate. But I will say that I have never seen so many stars at one time - I think I cried a little because it was so beautiful. Let me stop here and say this: I wanted a seat by the window so I could watch stuff go by in the air - and get a window seat I DID!! I really wanted a seat so I could take pictures of the sunrise and my first views of Ireland from the air. I remember attempting to go to sleep, but I sort of dozed - sleeping on a plane aboe water just did not do it for me. So I couldnt sleep, but I left my window open so the sun could wake me if I did happen to doze off. I woke up about three times, all to see the same dark star-filled sky with nothing but utter darkness below - creepy. Anyway, about the fifth time I woke up, I saw a bit of sunlight, grabbed my camera, and took pictures of the litted sky. It was beautiful. I think God woke me up honestly, because I somehow sensed that I needed (NEEDED) to wake up, so I did and I was the only one I know of who witnessed the sunrise. Kept taking pictures. Got my snapshots of my first look at Ireland and a video of my first looks and the landing which will be on Facebook....eventually. So we landed, it started to rain (which it does A LOT over here). One minute it's dry and sunny, the next it's brick wall in your face raining and before you can get your umbrella out, it's over. But it's gorgeous. Anyway, yeah - we landed in Dublin. Saw a double-decker bus, a VW Bug, traffic on the wrong side of the road, and, well, dirty streets. But seriously, everything in Ireland really is green. The drivers are insane - and I'm talking there is no personal space between vehicles on the road. Drivers don't generally use their turn signals so it's hard to tell where they're headed. When they stop at lights, there's probably about a foot between one bumper and another. They also don't care about pedestrians and are NOT afraid to use their horns. Seriously, if you dont pay attention, youre going to get run over and the drivers don't care.

We stayed at Dublin's famous Trinity College where the Book of Kells is currently located on display and the coolest library is available for walk through - and you might have even seen it in a movie sort of recently (within the past 4 years). So did that, went around Dublin, learned some stuff that I won't bore you about now, spent sometime just traversing the great city, ate great food, went to a pub and just watched football and rugby (which is always amazing) and pretty much went to bed after that. Overall, the first day was a success - and I didn't shower for like 36 hours: I thought I was going to die.

Anyway, I will go into more detail in the future. The time I bought to use the internet is quickly winding down. I will tell you all about the rest of my amazing travels when I get a chance to. The first day really was not that exciting, except for the fact that, well, we were in Ireland.

At the moment, I am in Edinburgh, Scotland. I have already been to Wales and parts of England - yay!! But again, I must depart. It is getting late - almost 1 in the morning and I have to get up early.

Until next time,
Aimee

2007-09-20T15:48:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are checking this, I am im Dublin. I dont have a lot of time because I'm paying by the minute to use the internet, but I just wanted to let y'all know. Ireland is amazingly beautiful. If you ever get the chance, please check it out. I will post pictures when I get the internet on my computer and tell you all about it.

Love to you all!!

Aimee

I am Moving!

2007-08-13T18:32:00.000-05:00

So, from what I hear, Xanga is now blocked on the Harding campus. Great....

So, as long as this one isn't blocked, I will be posting my travels in Europe from here with pictures, posts, etc.

Make sure to check it out every once in a while. I don't know how often I will be posting, but I will try for at least once a week if not more - depends on how much free time I have. I will also be putting some pictures on Facebook - this one will be limited to just a few, Facebook will have more, but I will have all of them when I return.

I welcome comments, places to see, things you would like me to take pictures of, etc. Who knows, perhaps I will come home with even better memories to share with y'all since I would do them with you in mind - like SC Johnson - trips designed with you in mind. Haha!! jk...

Real posting will start after September 18, 2007 since that is the day I leave for Dublin, Ireland and my adventure starts.

I hope you all can enjoy this with me because I don't want anyone to feel left out.

Love you all!!

In Him,
Aimee

P.S. For those of you who might be reading this and do not attend Harding University, here's my email address in case you missed it:

acancien@harding.edu

If. by chance, you also have Facebook, please add me because I would love to be your friend :-)