Garden Party

Wednesday 7/20, I went to the Museum of London and St. Paul's Cathedral. Unfortunately, I couldn't take photos in the church. The Museum was interesting, the time frame started when the Roman's first originated in London and called it Londinium all the way to present day London.  St. Paul's is beautiful and my friend and I walked all the way up to the top of the dome, aka 600 steps up to the tip top.  The stairs are old and extremely small so getting up there was a bit of a challenge! But a wonderful view at the top!

Thursday was mellow and Rich picked me up from London to head to his house for the weekend :) and had nice meals with his family! Today I left to head back to London so I didn't miss going into Buckingham Palace!  So a bit after the ISA group headed to the Summer opening of the Queen's official residence. It was BEAUTIFUL! And it was such a nice day today also, it made it a lot better. After viewing the Palace a couple of friends and I went to have afternoon snacks in the Queen's garden, no big deal or anything :) Overall, it was a good Sunday!

This week is going to be short but sweet though, Globe Theater, Alton Towers and back to Newbury! 

Speak soooooooooon x

My childhood is now over.

Yeah, I said it. That just means the Harry Potter saga is OVERRRRRRR. and I'm so DEPRESSED. Saturday after my 3 week friends left, Rich came up for the weekend and Clauds, Auds, Rich and I went to see the oh so sad, last HP movie.  It was extremely brilliant. Considering that I am in England for the movie makes it 10 times better. :) After we went to this awesome Asian Fusion restaurant called "Wagamama," DELICIOUS. And it has a silly name. Finally, Saturday ended with attending a legit British "young people's" party. hahaha Sounds so cliche. But it was fun and I experienced real British young folk. Sunday, Rich and I went to get a full English B-fast in the Morn and then watched Bad Teacher.  The weekend weather was pretty bad so going outside wasn't really ideal. Welcome to England I guess! :D

The week began with a free lunch at Westminster for the new session starting that day. This next 3 weeks I'm taking the course "London: Culture Capital of the World." The professor is really interested in what he talks about and he gets very excited. After class my friend and I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum for a little bit and then had a very nice tea and scones :) Just being more British everyday.

Today after class, we headed to the Tate Modern, which was really large. After that we went to King's Cross to find Platform 9 3/4! Weirdly enough, they moved it? So the little wall of platform is now outside of the station, now that was funny.

The rest of the week is going to be fun, off to St. Paul's, Museum of London and then Penwood on Thursday! Speak soon xx

The Week of Goodbye's

So this week went by really fast.  Obviously, it's not the weekend yet but that'll be a different beast :)
I ended last week's post on Monday, so it's time to start on Tuesday!

I had class(like usual), but then it was time to wander and try a new ethnic dish! Since we had, so far, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, English cuisines so far, it was time to go to China Town and get chinese.  Unfortunately, it was pretty expensive, but pretty good.  We were already around that area because our program I was with set up going to a London show.  We went to "We Will Rock You," which had songs from Queen.  Luckily, I have to say, I'm glad I didn't actually pay for it. I didn't enjoy it too extensively.  Don't get me wrong, I love Queen, but this was just weird.  It was set up in the future where people didn't actually know what real music was and everyone was called "Gaga girls and boys." Anyway, glad it was paid for already.
Wednesday was pretty exciting.  I studied at night because I had to ace my final the next morning! Woop Woop! So Thursday I took my final, luckily it went well.  But before that my friends and I went to Westminster Abbey to go to the Evensong service.  Otherwise going in during the day it would be 13 pounds. No wayyyy. But the service was amazing. The choir was probably the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.  Most of you know I'm not a church go'er or anything of that sort, but it was very inspiring and lovely. Then off to dinner on the southbank after!
Thursday I had my final and just hung out after I finished.  That night we had the Westminster summer school River Thames boat dinner.  The food was awesome! But we were on the boat for like 3.5 hours. A tad long.  Also, Americans wonder why Europeans or I should say, the rest of the world hates us, well I'll tell you.  A good example was all the "children" on the boat who think that getting absolutely PLASTERED is the right way to say Hello to being legal to drink here in the UK.  Welp, it's not.  Most of the people on the boat were sooo immature and grossly drunk that it made me not want to be associated with anyone in that group ever.  Plus, I want to blend in, not stick out when I'm in a different country. I love being able to adapt to different cultures and get rid of mine, whereas some think they are high and mighty and AMERICA is the best country to exist.

Today was a lot better.  This morning all of my new friends went out to brunch, which was SOOOOO SOOOO good. After that me and a couple of my friends headed to Covent Garden's to go to another Cath Kidston store. Aka we've been to a ton. But this time I got myself a wallet :) Finallyyy.  After, we headed to the Olympic park site, which was pretty phenomenal.  The reason London got the site was because where the site is, is a really poor area.  They are trying to build up the area, so that after the Olympics, they'll have a bunch of sport structures to have events and housing available. And they're going GREEN! :) After we headed to Greenwich to see the Univ. of Greenwich, which used to be a Palace where King Henry VIII was born, which used to be a Royal Navy Academy :) and then walked up a HUGE hill to see the Royal observatory and stood on the Prime Meridian, aka was in two different hemispheres!! I felt invincible. Then we had a delicious Mediterranean meal and to finish it off we took a boat on the Thames back to our dorms, well close enough, to the London Bridge.

It was a fun filled day, but unfortunately, most of my friends I made are leaving in the morning :( So today was probably the last day I'll see them.  But REUNION TRIP TO NYC SOON. Anyway, off to a pub for one last goodbye. Hopefully it's not the last good bye though!

Speak soon! xx

"LOOK I CAN SEE FRANCE!"

The last week has been very busy! It was week 2 of classes and it went by pretty fast. The group of people I hang out with are mainly leaving next Saturday too, so quite depressing. Anyway, we started off the week by going to the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum.  All of them are free which is really nice. The science museum was the most fun, they had a bunch of little activities in one of the main sections we went in. One changed your face to make you look older or like a baby, that was hilarious.  For most of the week we didn't do much, just went to class, looked at shops and wandered.

Thursday was pretty awesome. It was the Harry Potter movie premiere for the last movie in Trafalgar Square.  People literally were camping out all week to get a peek at the stars.  They had a big screen that showed all the stars when they showed up and rolled the trailer over and over again. My friends and I wanted to see what all the excitement was and headed over there to see the amounts of people that were there to see it. The stars didn't show up until 4 and we were there around 3.  Luckily, youtube was streaming it live which I thought was better.  Even though we were there in the Square, I was still in LONDON! Better than anything anyone else can say :)

Friday we were off to Canterbury and Dover with ISA, the group I signed up with. Canterbury was really historic.  We mainly saw the Cathedral, most of them look the same. But this one was different because it was home to the people who took a pilgrimage out to Canterbury in the olden times. Hence The Canterbury Tales, which tells the stories of all the different types of people on their journey to Canterbury.  Luckily I'm taking a class on the Tales so I'll be able to learn a bit more about it! :)  It also has a lot of meaning because when King Henry VIII changed the country from Catholic to Anglican, this Cathedral had to as well, and Sir Thomas Becket didn't agree with the King and he was actually killed in the Cathedral.
After the Cathedral we headed to Dover, which was the best part of the day I thought! It's on the coast of England and you can see France over the 17 miles of water, the English Channel.  It reminded me of Catalina a little, just being able to see the peaks of the "island," but in this case, the country.  We saw the white cliffs of Dover, amazing, and then went up to the Castle.  Everything is ridiculously old. We walked about 5 staircases to the very top to get an unrealistic view of the seaside, France and the original cell towers.  After that we went to the secret underground tunnels, not so secret anymore though if I can go in 'um.  But basically, it was rad. The guide took us to all the places they used to have to look out and incoming enemies, and showed us clips of WWII videos about the Dunkirk problem they had over in France during the war and how they had to rescue troops and Dover was the closest to help. History lesson! That was the end of that day, and it was back to London.

Saturday we headed off to Brighton, famous beach spot for the English. We took the train from London and it took an hour.  Unfortunately it was so packed that no one had seats and we stood for an hour.  It was a bit cold and windy, but overall the pier reminded me of Santa Monica and they had a bunch of shops, fish and chippy's and an arcade and rides! We had fish 'n chips for lunch at a proper fish and chippy also.  It was pretty good and cheap.  After that was all done, we headed over to the Royal Pavilion, which kind of got the idea replicated from the Taj Mahal in India.  King George IV had it constructed to have it for his beach home, although, when Queen Victoria was living there, her room was small and didn't even have a seaside view. The palace wasn't very ideal for the Royal families because of how many kids they had and including everyone that helped them in everyday living.  The Pavilion has a different style, it's very oriental and not Westernized at all.  We couldn't take pictures, so that wasn't nice, but considering it is a Palace and it was extremely small.

Sunday we headed to the Tower of London, where a majority of King Henry VIII's wives were murdered.  AND where the crown jewels are housed.  That was really something.  The largest diamond in the world is on the current Queen's crown for the coronation and for other really important events.  Other jewels were in their such as the septor, Queen Victoria's mini crown all made of diamonds and other stuff.  We also saw the Bloody Tower and the White Tower.  The White Tower is the largest and the main one.  Also we saw the place where Anne Boleyn and others were murdered under false pretenses.  After that we headed to St. Katherine's Docks to have a nice Sunday Roast :) Overall, it was a great weekend!!

Now that the week has started, I'll be studying! I have my first International final for Finance! Wish me luck, it shouldn't be bad though :D
Today, I had class then went off to the Bank of England to see all the different currencies and what not. And for dinner I tried Indian curry for the first time! And I don't know why I never tried it before! Now I can eat it with my Parentals. :)

Anyway, this week is going to be fun! A broadway show, 2 going away dinners for the 3 week people and a final exam!

Talk soon :) xx

The city of LOVE.

PARIS, Je t'aime. Friday, 2 of my new friends took a day trip to Paris. It was so amazing! We got up at 430 in the morning to catch the Eurostar from St. Pancras station.  We arrived in Paris at 10am, there's an hour time difference too.  The first thing we did was hop on the Metro to the Notre Dame, which is unbelievable! Since I had been in soooo many cathedrals in the last month, we opted out to go inside, and the line was miles long.  But I thought the outside was the best anyway.  After seeing the Notre Dame, we were starving so went to a cafe for some LEGIT french crepes! Which was probably the best thing I've ever eaten. Then that was over, and we walked on the Seine to the Louvre! Everything is pretty close together so walking wasn't toooo bad, but we did get an unlimited metro card for the day with our tour package! We arrived at the Louvre, which was packed with people, and personally I think the coolest part of the museum is the glass pyramid on top and that was all we saw anyway.  The line to get into the museum was extremely long too, and we were on a tight schedule! We only had 9 more hours to do stuff for goodness sakes. After the Louvre, we walked along the Seine again towards the Eiffel Tower ou le Tour Eiffel.  The walk was really nice, and luckily the weather was too! On our way, we stopped at a boulangerie (a place where they sell sandwiches and pastries) to grab some lunch.  I felt very proud of myself because I spoke to the lady in French the entire time without speaking English when I was ordering my food :) I paid for a delicious sandwich and a french macaron, which was to DIE for. The baguettes are sooo tastey and deliciousnesssy, must be the water.

Anyway, after that we were at the Eiffel tower! It's amazing, one of the most amazing landmarks I have ever seen anyway, and I get around Europe! And for 3 Euros we could take the stairs to the second floor! WOOHOO you bet we did it.  668 LONG steps to get up to one of the most amazing views I have ever seeeen in my LIFE.  And yes, my calves are still killing me.  And after all the walking we went on our free River cruise to see all the cool landmarks of Paris, it was nice to sit, and to see all the sites of course :) hehe

The next part of our journey took us to le Champs Elysees and le Arc de Triomphe, amazing.  8 lanes of chaos! There's a tunnel to take you to the Arc so you don't risk your life trying to get to it from the street level, otherwise we'd all be dead.  From one street all the way down you can see le Grand Arche also. Which by the way is MASSIVE, it looked way closer to the Arc de Triomphe because it is so huge.  When we got to La Defense to see the Arche, you can see the tiny Arc and then we realized that trying to walk from the two was probably a mistake. (we attempted to walk it).
Our day was almost done, but first, we had to get souvenirs!  Aka a bunch of bread.  I bought some macaroons for Rich and his fam for letting me stay, and I bought some sandwiches and croissants for myself, so delicious!
That was basically the end to our Paris adventure, I saw everything I wanted to, although I would have really liked to see Versailles, but another day.  We started off to the train station to head back into London on the Eurostar, which is the fastest train in Europe going about 150 mph. So crazy to think that!

The next day Rich came up to stay with me for the weekend to hang out and live the London life for a couple days. We went to Houses of Parliament that day too and he was able to go in. And get this, most English have no idea you can even go into Parliament! Even though it's only open Saturdays, luckily we got tix with ISA.  It is such an amazing building with sooo much history too and we were able to see places that are actually used when Parliament meets and that goes on TV! I feel so lucky :) That night we went out on the town and met up with a few real Londoners, aka Rich's friends.  It was good night!

This weekend was very fun filled and a very busy week ahead! Update soon loveliessss!
x