My Precious Choir

This weekend was the weekend of our last choir concert in France. It was in Orleans, about 1.5 hours from Tours, and each day we would meet at a parking lot about 20 minutes from my house to take the bus together. The bus rides were fun, especially with a new friend I made. I never caught her name but she was really sweet and we spoke French all the way to Orleans. We also sang songs while everyone in the bus watched us. They thought we were pretty funny. When we got there we warmed up for maybe 20 minutes with the other choir, then we worked on our songs for maybe an hour. Then they sent us home. It was the most useless rehearsal I've ever been to. Mainly, because it was shorter that the time it took to get there.

All the French were prepared for the bus ride home, but us "étrangérs" missed the memo. Everyone whipped out their food so all of us were so hungry. Before we got on the bus, my friend Miriam from Sweden said loudly, "Je meurs de faim!" (I'm dying of hunger). And literally all six people that were walking in front of her turned around and started pulling out sandwiches and other types of food from their bags. It was the funniest thing! And Americans doing think French people are nice. Ha! When we got on the bus we were bombarded by people trying to give us food. They were all so sweet and we got home full and happy.

The next day was the same thing except we were prepared this time. It was a real concert but this time we warmed up for 20 minutes got on stage and sang for 15 minutes and then got back on the bus and went home. I ate my sandwich that I had on the way home so I didn't have to bum food of anyone this time around. On the way home the people sitting in the back seat started singing a really pretty hymn. It was so nice just to listen to them. Then one of the women from choir took us home like she had done the night before. She's a really sweet lady that is a Professor at our university in Tours. She is also Aaron's teacher. She dropped us about 15 minutes from our house and we walked the rest of the way. It's getting so warm out it was a really nice walk.

Then today we met earlier that usually because it was a matinée showing. The same thing again, 1.5 hours to get there, 20 minutes warm ups, 15 minutes on stage, 1.5 hours ride home. After our concert in the bus our director, Hervé, made an announcement that it was all of our last concert with them, and he thanked us for being here. They all clapped for us and then, on the bus, they broke our the wine and crackers!! Everyone got a little cup of wine and the crackers, cookies, and nuts were passed around and around until everyone was happy. I hadn't eaten much when I had the wine so it knocked me out and I slept the rest of the way home to the sound of the students in the back singing :)

When we arrived back in Tours everyone got off the bus, and as I was getting off they all started to sing Auld Lang Syne (the French version) to us. I had to hold back my tears. It was the first goodbye I've had to say yet, and they were just so sweet to us. Hervé came up and gave us biz forts (big kisses) goodbye and then someone got a picture of us with him. Then we said goodbye to all the individuals and took off in our own directions. Miriam and I started "fake" crying after we left, but that's all I really wanted to do, but I knew if I did I would never hear the end of it from Grant. So I held it in.

We went to the bus stop to wait for the bus, but then Romain called me and said they were on their way to pick me up and take me home, so I just went with them. Now I'm sitting in my room realizing how much I'm going to miss France when I leave, and trying to think of ways that I can make it thought the goodbyes. But I'm sure dinner is just around the corner so I'm going to sign off.

Bisous mes amis!

Travel Day

April 15th, 2010

Up early to catch the train. We ate one more croissant and nutella before we left and we checked out by 9:00am. We took the train to the station in Pisa, a bus to the airport, a plane to Paris, bus to the metro, metro to the train station where we thought we only had 3 minutes to make our train...then come to find out it was cancelled because of a train strike and we'd have to take the next one to Tours. However, so would everyone else on that train...

It was so full everyone was standing in the isles. I found a nice little spot by the door and popped a squat. It was actually really comfortable and I didn't mind a bit. The big lady standing in front of me was Indian, I think, so she had on this elaborate outfit. Her skirt had little brown furry balls hanging from it, so when no one was looking I would play with them. Ha. I thought that was pretty funny. She eventually sad on the ground by me.

Then one stop everyone got up to get off. She couldn't get back up so I got up to help her, then everyone unloaded at that stop so I got a seat. I'm alone because Mamie and Valeria thought it would be at platform 1 so they went to stand there but I was skeptical so I stayed by the sign that said where it would be. It was in 16, all the way across from where they were. I'm surprised they even made it on. But it's been a nice quiet ride home and I'm ready for some home made food cooked by our very own Jackie in Tours, France.

Uffizi

April 14th, 2010

First thing we did after our croissants and nutella was go to our reservation at Uffizzi. It was literally 2 minutes and we were inside. Worth the money there! We went upstairs where we saw lots of art. Little of which I know but it was still nice to see. I did recognize a few, such as the birth of Venus and some others painted by Leonardo de Vinci. And I also picked out my new favorite painting: Musical Angel by Giovan Battista. Look it up, it's cute. SO then we went to the train station to buy our tickets for the next day. We found a nice little plaza that we decided to go back to later, but Mamie still wanted to buy some art. We headed back to the market where I got a new cashmere scarf, and then the girls went to buy some art. We grabbed some pizza nearby and ate it on the steps of the cathedral where we stayed for a very long time just soaking up the sun. We even went back after getting gelato to eat it on the stairs.

We decided to go back to the plaza after taking our stuff back to the hotel. The girls wanted to stay at the hotel but I wasn't about to miss out on a sunny day in the grass when back in France it was cold. So we went and layed in the grass till the sun went down, then it got a little chilly, so went back to the hotel again.

There the girls took a nap and I looked at all 906 pictures that I had taken thus far on the trip. It is ridiculous but they are all so priceless! I can't wait to get them on my computer!

When the girls woke up we went back to that restaurant we ate at the first day. We had to wait 1/2 hour but the food was great. Afterwards I was the only one who was craving gelato so I got one last one. 7 gelato in 4 days. Mmmm.

Saving Florence

April 13th, 2010

Today we got up a lot more reluctantly. We'd seen most of the city the day before so we were planning on doing museums today. We went to the l'Accademia Belle Arti where the original David is. The line was forever long and we heard the only thing to see in there was David so we decided we'd rather spend our money on the Galleria di Uffizi. It has more art that Val and Mamie wanted to see so we headed over there and took pictures of the David outside of that museum instead. This line was even longer than the last one so after some investigation I found that we would be waiting 2 hours in that line, but if we made a reservation for tomorrow it would cost 10.50 euro but we could go right in. So we decided time was money and we would pay the extra euro to go tomorrow. We thought we'd try to get in for the European Union student price so we went up to the window and spoke French accents and showed our French IDs but he didn't buy it. He wanted to see our passports, so we just said we would pay the full price. Too bad.

From there we went to get lunch. We shared a little pizza and a bottle of water and our waiter sang to us. He seriously spoke every language. I've decided I'm going to live there and work as a waitress. I could learn Italian and speak English, Spanish and French with all the tourists.

We wandered over to Santa Croce after lunch where we saw some musicians and got some pretty good gelato. We were all tired so we decided to head back to our room and take a nap before heading back to see the city at night. We slept for about 1.5 hours then we went to find a place to eat. The food is so good here. I could eat it forever. We then walked up all those stairs again to see Florence at night. It was beautiful. You could see the stars and all the city lights. All the big monuments were lit up and it was just a beautiful sight. We got our 5th gelato up there and ate it on the stairs before coming back to the hotel. But on our way back we were walking past a plazza and saw a trash can smoking. I pointed it out to the girls and we decided we should tell someone. Seconds after it burst into flames. A woman came to hand us a flier about her bar and Valeria said, "No thanks, but do you know someone we could tell about that?" The woman immediately ran to tell a group of cops one street over and they all came running. One ran to the nearest restaurant and got a waiter to bring out a bucket of water. There must have been 15 cops there.

And that is the story of how I saved Florence from burning to the ground!

Flying through Florence

April 12th, 2010

We woke up early and went to our included breakfast which was croissants and nutella...yum. First we went to the Duomo. We paid 8 euro to go up into the dome but it was so worth it. 463 stairs and you could see the whole inside of the dome and all the incredible paintings. Then we walked the rest of the way up to the top, on top of the dome where you could see all of Florence. It was gorgeous. The green mountains surrounded the city of red roofs. So pretty.

After the Duomo we walked down the Italian street to the Vecchio bridge. It was so pretty! Just as I always imagined it. We bought our first gelato on the other side of the bridge. It was the best stuff I've ever tasted! Right after that we were looking at post cards and we heard a girl behind us say, "Hi." We turned around and there was Anne Solyst, a girl from Concordia. She had lived on Valeria's and my floor our freshman year! She was late to class so we didn't talk to her long but it was need to see a familiar face in another country!

We then walked down to the Palazzo Pitti where we were hoping to see the Boboli gardens but it was 10 euro and we are all broke with all the fun we've had so we decided not to go. Instead we bought another gelato and ate it in the Piazza de Pitti. Yum!

Since we couldn't see the Boboli gardens we decided to see if we could find some other gardens close by. They were too expensive too but we got a beautiful walk up and down a hill that gave us a good view of the city. The road we were on took us straight to the Piazzale Michalangelo. We had to walk up a lot of stairs of course but the view from up there is gorgeous. We could see everything we had visited that day. We shared a hot dog up there and then we headed back down to the market we saw the day before. I bought a beautiful picture of the bridge, an Italian flag and a shirt I had been eyeing before.

We came back to the hotel to look at our good and rest a while before going out to dinner. When we were looking for a place to eat 3 Italian guys dressed in suits stopped us and asked us how to find the Duomo. We pulled out our maps and were about to show them when they said they were just kidding. They just wanted a reason to talk to us. I was watching my back and ready to bite and kick if they tried anything, because I always hear about those really wealthy, nice looking men who ask for directions and then shove you in a can and you are never heard from again. But they honestly just wanted to talk to us. They were quite funny telling us all the places we could eat and then they said good night and gave us bisous (which they to backwards, opposite cheeks from the French) and went on to find a place to eat. And of course we got gelato after that. 3 gelato in one day! Means we were having a good time.

The Flying Tower of Pisa

April 11th, 2010

We woke up early and got ready to go to the Leaning Tower again. The weather didn't look promising so we brought out umbrellas and warms coats. When we got there we ran to the ticket office because the wind was so strong. We got inside, bought out tickets and put our bags in the security lockers, but when we looked out the doors we were greeted with hurricane-like weather! It was so bad, and the flag on the top of the tower was blowing away. The Italian workers kept coming of and looking out the doors and then looking at us like we were crazy. On of them said, "Da tower, it fly away!" And another said, "You go get your money back." And pointed to the ticket booth. Then some people ran in that had just come down from it. They were drenched and windblown, they said it was worth it, but hold on because the wind is strong. We made a unanimous decision not to go. We got our money back but then we had to run back to the bus stop in the rain and it was so wet! It was too windy to bring out our umbrellas so we wrapped our scarves around our heads and ran for it. Every umbrella man we ran by tried to sell us umbrellas. We waited in the rain for the bus, and when we got on we didn't even buy a ticket. We were soaked and frazzled. Valeria said I looked like the Virgin Mary in my Scarf, but it didn't come off until we got back to the hotel.

When we got back to the hotel we asked the little Italian man in a purple shirt how much breakfast was. He asked us our room number and hesitated and then said: "It's free." So we got breakfast included :) After that we finished packing and went to the train station where we caught our train to Florence!

When we got to Florence Mamie realized she didn't have the sheet with our hotel's name or address on it. I had to call Romain and give him Valeria's email address, password, and instructions on how to get onto the Concordia website so he could look it up on her email. He text me back with the address so we found a map and figured out how to get there. Since we couldn't figure out the bus schedule, and we couldn't speak the language we decided to just walk. It didn't look that far. It was raining a little so we pulled out our umbrellas and took off in the direction we hopped our hotel was in. We found it pretty easily. We also found that it was located right above a serial killer museum that plays scary music until 10 o'clock at night. Funny! But the hotel was really nice.


We went searching for some lunch then and ended up eating at this self serve place that was really cheap and super good. Afterwards we went to the market right down the road from our street. It is an awesome market with so much leather and some really great touristy stuff. We wandered around there and somehow ended up at the Duomo, a huge cathedral with the world's largest brick dome. We took some pictures and walked around the find the entrance for the next day.



We came back to the hotel for a little while and planned our next day. Then we went searching for dinner. We ate at a small restaurant by the Duomo and quickly found out that we could share our meals instead. We also found that there is a "cover" charge which is more or less equal to our tip. So now we know in the future not to order so much. After dinner on our way home we bought a bottle of wince, but we realized too later that we didn't have a corkscrew. So we went home and tried to pull the cork out with tweezers, our room key, a brush and a dirty sock. When that failed we decided to just push the cork into the bottle, which was not much easier. But it was hilarious and the wine wasn't even that good!

The Leaning Tower of Pisa!

WE woke up early to go to the airport. We took the 7:59 train to get to our bus that took us to the airport. We were there really early but that way we didn't have to feel like we were in a hurry, and the sunrise on the train to Barcelona was beautiful!

The airplane flight was the bumpiest I've ever been on but it was fun. I feel asleep soon after but not for very long because then we were in Italy. I realized how much we had missed when we fell asleep on the plane from London though! They were selling things, walking up and down the isles, making announcements about the things they were selling over the intercom. It was incredibly annoying. Our landing was rough so when we landed everyone clapped. Val and I went to find our hotel and got settled in before going back to pick Mamie up at the airport an hour later. Our hotel was cute and it was right next to the train station. Once Mamie got there we impulsively went to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The sun was setting and we took some awesome pictures! We decided to come back the next morning before our train to Florence and go up into it. Then we went to find some food, which was of course, pasta :) and went to bed fairly early. I think seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa that night was one of my favorite parts of my trip!

BEACH!!

April 9th, 2010

We woke up again today at 10:00am. We took our time getting ready and then wet Celia for lunch. It was a great lunch and we had wine mixed with carbonated water. It was really good that way! When Val and I went down to the beach and layed there the rest of the day. I actually got a tan! We decided to go get gelato and go home for a little bit to get our journals, so we could take them back to the beach with us and write till the sun went down. It was pretty but it got cold fast so we left and again went searching for a place I could mail my postcard to my uncle, which was again impossible. We went home to dinner at Celia's which was a whole bunch of finger food. Mmm Mmm delicious!

(Cathedral next to the beach)

(Sitges Beach where we layed all day)

(Puça joined in on dinner with us)

La Playa y Park Güell

April 8th, 2010

I woke up to my alarm at 10am. Valeria immediately woke up and yelled, "It's ten o'clock?" I'm like "yeah..." then she goes, "in the morning??" She made me have to think really hard about it. It was too early for me to know...but how could it be 10 at night....?

When we finally did pulled ourselves out of bed and opened the windows, there was blue sky and sun! We decided to go to the beach in Sitges first since it was sunny and later it was supposed to rain. We were at the beach for about 3 hours. We took so many pictures running in the freezing cold water and writing in the sand. It was a beautiful day.

Then we took the train to Barcelona and the metro to Park Güell. It's a park on the top of the mountain and you can look over the whole city. We had to walk up a road that looks like it was in San Francisco, they even installed escalators near the top so you wouldn't have to walk the whole way. The view from the top was beautiful. You could see all the way out to the ocean. Then we walked down to the actual park. It's a gorgeous park with mosaic benches and 2 buildings with mosaic roofs and a mosaic lizard. We ate lunch there and then took the metro back down the mountain.

(Up above that green between the buildings is where we had to go!)

We spent the next few hours (honestly hours) looking for a post office and apparently they don't exist in Barcelona, or Spain for that matter, because there was not one to be found. When we finally did find a place to buy stamps we were right down by the beach, and Val and I very impulsively decided to go on a boat ride. It took us all the length of the Baceloneta beach. I even got to ask a French man in French to take our picture. Barcelona is filled with Frenchies.

When we got back we got on the metro to the Montjuïc fountain again. but when we got there it wasn't going. We waited for a few minutes and then went to look at the show schedule. It was so hard to read but we finally figured out that in winter the shows are only on Friday and Saturday. It was Thursday. So we decided to give it up. We went back to Celia's where they met us and took us out to dinner at a Korean restaurant. We all got one thing and shared it. And of course we got a bottle of wine. They then took us out to a jazz club where they kept buying us drinks. We'd say no and they'd say, "You're in our country now! You're going to have one more!" So we had a lot of fun and heard a lot of funny stories about her and my uncle. After the club we went home and crashed. It was a fun fun day.

(This is where the fountains were supposed to be)

(Celia and Alfred at the Jazz club)

7 miles of Spain!

April 7th, 2010

We got up early to go into Barcelona. We were exhausted so we didn't get up as early as we wanted but we still got everything done we wanted to do. We started out at the Picasso museum and I learned a ton about Picasso I didn't know. Then we headed up to the cathedral built by Gaudi. It's pretty but there was a lot of construction going on on the outside so it was hard to enjoy fully. There was a live band playing outside with a piano on wheels. I wonder if they wheel that thing out everyday.

It started to rain so we decided to get lunch in the plaza outside the cathedral. It was a cute little sandwich place and we got sandwiches, fries and a drink for only 5 euro. After lunch we headed over to Barri Gòtic - the oldest neighborhood in Barcelona. It was really quiet but very beautiful. Everyone had their laundry out drying on their patios and the architecture of the buildings was just beautiful. We walked to the end of the street which took us back to the Arc de Triomf. We realized that if you stand in the front of it and put your hands out it looks like you're holding it about your head.

We then walked down another street to Plaça de Catalunya. This was a beautiful square with fountains and statues, and more pigeons that anyone could count. Val and I ran though them and made them fly everywhere. At one point some guy threw seeds out and every pigeon in the square flew to the feast. A gypsy was running through them and the sky was filled with pigeons. When they settled again I told Val to go run through them so I could take pictures. Once Val was in the middle of all these birds with the gypsy, they were flying everywhere and all of the sudden the gypsy picks one up and chucks it at Valeria. It hit her on the back and feathers went everywhere! She did that twice! Crazy Gypsy! We spent a good hour there and it was so much fun!

We continued up the road to some crazy looking old buildings called Casa Batilló and Casa Amatller. They were like mosaic buildings and were nothing like I've ever seen before. Up the road was another place that Celia told us we should go. It said "entrada gratuït" so we thought it was free since "gratis" is free in Spanish and "gratuit" is free in French. Well, turns out it doesn't mean free...so we didn't go inside.

It was only mid-afternoon and we had already seen everything Celia told us to see that day. So we decided to go that big cathedral I saw when we drove in, called Sagrada Familia. It has 6 huge spires towering in the sky and it looks like something from the Little Mermaid movie. It's the biggest thing I've ever seen. It cost 12 euro to go in and Celia said it wasn't worth it so we walked around outside instead. It's not like a normal cathedral. Instead of gargoyles it had lizards and in big letter on the side in Catalán it said, "What is the Truth?" We met some Italian boys that asked us to take their picture and then they took ours. It was our first picture together in Spain.

From there we just did a straight shot to the beach. It started to rain so we stopped in a little shop for xocolata caliente and the best chocolate donut I've ever eaten in my life. We waited for the rain to stop but we weren't that lucky so we kept walking anyway down to the beach. When we got there the rains stopped and the clouds started to clear. We tried to take some jumping pictures on the beach with the self timer on my camera but that proved to be harder than we thought, so we walked down the beach instead. The wind was sat our backs so it wasn't too cold, but it was so much fun to finally see the sea. We walked almost all the way down to the end when it started to rain again so we headed up towards the Mirador de Colom, a huge pillar with a statue of Christopher Columbus on tip pointing over the see. We walked past that and bought some postcards on the street behind that. I also got my Spain flag there. We ate at a place called the Pita house. It was so good, and cheap, but we didn't realize how large the ice teas were and they cost just as much as our pitas. We could have shared one and been fine. Too bad.

We had seen online the night before some picture for these huge fountains called the Font Mágica de Montjuïc. We thought we'd go see that so we hopped on a metro and stopped at the stop I thought would be closest. We ended up being in a really sketchy part of town but luckily I'm really good at reading maps so I got us there walking without a problem. The fountain wasn't going off when we got there so we were confused, but there was a sigh with the times. We had the summer times and not the winter times since April is still considered winter so we were an hour late. We checked the winter times and decided to come back earlier tomorrow. We then walked to the metro in Plaça Espanya which was a lot closer and very pretty at night and we took the metro to the train station where we took a train back to Celia's. We fell into bed when we got home. It was an exhausting day. We had walked over 7 miles!!

Spain!!

April 6th, 2010

I woke up as the pilot told the flight attendants to prepare for landing, and soon were were in Spain! When we landed the Charge song came over the loud speakers and everyone started yelling and hooting. I've never seen that before on an airplane!

I don't know if all of you know, but Spanish is not the first language in Barcelona. It's actually Catalán which is a mix of Spanish and French. All the signs were in Catalán and then in Spanish and we realized this was going to be a little harder than we thought. The guy that stamped our passports spoke to us in Spanish and also where we asked how to find the bus into Barcelona, but it's Spain Spanish so it's a little harder to understand. When we got on the bus we both fell asleep again and when I woke up we were in the center of Barcelona. The first thing I saw was the biggest cathedral I've ever seen in my life. The bus stopped shortly after and when we got out we wandered for a while before asking directions to the train station. A woman pointed us in the right direction and on our way there we saw the Arc of Triomf of Barcelona. It looks nothing like the real one. It's Spanish style. It's a reddish color with crowns on the top and it only had 2 legs, not 4 and it's much smaller than the one in Paris.

After we got some good pictures we bought our train tickets to Sitges, the place where my uncle's good friend Celia lives. She agreed to let us stay for 3 days while we explored Barcelona. A worker in the metro came up and asked us where we were headed and then he told us exactly how to get there. nothing like London where no one knows anything about anything. So we got on that train and switched trains in Sants Estació but we missed the first one so we had to wait half an hour for another. The train ride to Celia's is 1/2 hour but the train passes right by the sea. I gasped when I saw it and Valeria turned around and we both started laughing we were so excited.

When we got to Sitges I called Celia and she came to get us at the train station. Her house is a 5 minute walk from the station and 5 minutes from the beach! Sitges is a beautiful little town and the sky was blue and sunny so Val and I were happy to be in Spain. When we got to Celia's we met her husband Alfred. His first language is Catalán but he speaks Spanish with us. He's very hard to understand because he has a very deep scratchy voice, but he's just a sweet, sweet man. Celia is very lucky. She showed us our room and got us both a drink called Vermut. It's a sweet martini...which was interesting. Then she got us a glass of her favorite red wine. It was only 3:00 in the afternoon! She made us lunch after that while we looked at pictures of their travels and their wedding. I didn't know my uncle had given her away at her wedding so that was fun to see. Our lunch was steak, rice and wine. It was so good, and we decided to take a "siesta" afterwards. It was supposed to be a 20 minutes siesta because we had bought return tickets to Barcelona. We planned on going back that night, but because of our long night at the airport it turned into a 3 hour siesta. We woke up just before dinner and instead decided to get on the internet and plan our next day while Celia prepared dinner. They eat dinner here at 10:00 at night, so we went to bed right after. Celia told us that there was a space heater that we could turn on if we were cold, but we had to charge our camera batteries so we froze instead. The next day Celia asked us if that's what we did....she knew us all too well. "American style!" she calls it. Freezing to charge our technological devices

The Wild Goose Chase

April 5th, 2010

We woke up the next day well rested because Katie's guest bed is amazing. I took a shower and we left for our 4th day in London. 1st on our list: Eat. Aaron had told us about a place called Nando's that we should try so I had looked it up and knew there was one on Oxford Street. So when we got there we chose a direction but didn't find it. And since the buses were "free" we decided to get on one and ride it till we saw Nando's. Well, we never saw it, but the bus was going to a place where we could ask about the airport so we decided to stay on. We had just given up looking for Nando's when I saw one and we pushed the button to stop. But the bus didn't stop for 3 more minutes and it was too far to walk, so again we gave up on Nando's. We rode the bus for 5 more minutes and stopped at a bus station we had been at 2 days before. Then Valeria goes, "Isn't there a Nando's here?" And sure enough there was. So we got to eat there after all! And it was delicious. Spicy pitas...mmmmm.

Then the chaos began. We were at a large station so we thought we could find the best way to get to the airport early in the morning. Turns out no one knows anything about anything in London, and we were sent on a wild goose chase to find a bus that went to the airport. 3 hours later we found it and after much frustration we had a plan. The tube stops running at night so there was no way to get from Katie's house to the bus to get to the airport by 5:00am so we just decided to take the last bus to the airport at midnight and stay in the airport overnight.

After our goose chase we decided to do something fun and go to the Tower of London because my dad told me to stop skimping on going to things and put some extra money in my account for me to see the fortress. We got to take one of the old fashioned buses to the Tower. There we bought our tickets and it was worth it. From the outside it didn't look like anything special but going inside changed our whole perspective. We got to see the crown jewels, the bloody tower, guys dressed up as soldiers and a guard with those funny fluffy black hats. And I made him smile! No lie...I have it on camera.

(Not a flattering picture of me but you can definitely see a smirk on his face!)

After that we took the metro back to Katie's to get our stuff where she made us some soup and grilled cheese. Mmmm. Then we put on our backpacks and headed to Piccadilly Circus, the Times Square of England. It was dark by then so all the sign were lit up. There we saw a guy doing limbo to Michael Jackson. He was intense. We then bought a Cinnabon and shared in on the steps right in the middle of town. Two girls, in London with everything they owed on their backs and no place to stay that night. It was the ultimate adventure.

Our plan after that was to see London by night so we took the metro to the far side of town and hopped on a double decker bus, right in the front, and took it all the way to the east side where we switched buses to go to catch our bus to the airport. While we waited I took pictures of Valeria jumping. We would wait for a red bus to come by and I would try to get her jumping with it in the background. We were laughing so hard, the people walking by thought we were crazy.

When the bus arrived we bought out tickets. The airport was an hour away but it only felt like 10 minutes to me. When we got there we bought some wraps and cookies and found a nice spot on the floor to comp out. About 20 minutes later a group of 6 guys with beer in hand came and sat across the way from us. We think they were Italian. They started playing cards and drinking. They even brought their own music. We thought it was so funny that it was legal to drink in an airport so I went and bought us a Smirnoff Ice for the night. We wrote in our journal and then settled in on the floor. I used my backpack for a pillow and I slept solidly for a good 2 hours before I work up at 4:00am. I finished my wrap and then we got up to go find where we needed to be. We got our visas stamped, went through security and there we ended up waiting for about 2 hours to find our gate number. All the screen kept saying please wait, so we both tried to sleep in the chairs but that ended up being harder than sleeping on the floor. Val and I made bets on which gate we thought our flight would be at. Val said 78 and I guessed 48. We were waiting for it to come up for so long we were worried we wouldn't make our flight. So we got up and walked to the front of the terminal so when it came up we would be ready. It finally came up 20 minutes before our flight left and both of us said 48 and started to walk. Then we stopped and looked at each other when we realized that I had guess the right gate out of 99. Haha!

So long story short we half ran to our gate because we thought we were late but when we arrived, there was no one even at the gate. Eventually we got on our plane. No seat numbers so Val and I got to sit together but we both fell asleep within seconds. I don't even remember the take off!! Talk about one long day!

Disaster Day in London

April 4th, 2010

Now, disaster day sounds pretty bad, and there were disasters, but we had some of our best laughs this day as well!

Val and I woke up to get ready but our roommates hadn't left yet so we stayed in bed till they were done packing and had gone. Then we got up and finished getting our stuff together and took off in the direction of Gloucester which is pronounced glouster and no one knows why...

We were headed to a hotel where we would be catching a bus to take us to Stonehenge. When we got to the train station we immediately got lost. We asked a police officer and he pointed us in the right direction. I took a picture of him because his outfit made me feel like I was at Disneyland. Haha! We wandered down the direction that he pointed us in, but we still had no idea where we were going. There were a lot of hotels but none with the right name. We ended up finding a post office, which was a pretty big deal considering it was Easter Sunday and we had been searching for 3 days, so we finally got to mail our postcards. We asked there where to find the Gloucester hotel and again she pointed us in the right direction. I started naming off the hotels as we passed them, even if I had already said them before. I said, "Millennium Gloucester" again for the second time and she goes, "Oh yeah! That's it!". It had been one of the first we had seen....lol. Disaster 1 solved.

So when we went in it was like the ritziest hotel in all of London! They opened the door for us and even though we were lugging our ugly backpacks around he asked us if we were checking in. We told him we were just looking for the bus and he told us where to find it, so we ran to find some food and came back to wait.

The bus was really late and when it did show up the British man that got out said he was only taking 2 people with some Italian last name. There were 9 of us waiting there. I was very persistent that we had paid and were told to be picked up here so he begrudgingly let us all get in his little bus. Disaster 2 avoided.

He took us to another station where we switched to a larger bus, and luckily this British bus driver was a lot nicer. Since it was Easter I thought we needed some chocolate so I went to grab some while we were waiting at the station for everyone to arrive. The bus ride there was long. Almost 2 hours but we got to see the Windsor Castle where Queen Elizabeth lives, and we also saw where Mary Poppins was filmed. When we got there the bus driver told us to be back at 5 till 5:00, or he would be leaving without us, and the nearest train station is 100 miles away. In other words, DON'T BE LATE!!!

The audio guide was included in our price so we both grabbed one and headed out to see the pile of rocks we had just driven 2 hours to see. Both Val and I had a really hard time listening to the audio guide. We found ourselves letting it talk in our pocket as we took pictures of each other and tried to take pictures of ourselves and Stonehenge at the same time. We found that to be a challenge because our heads were always in the way. So at audio number 4 we were trying to get the perfect picture and a cute little old man in a orange jacket walked up and offered to take the picture for us. After he had taken the picture he looked at it and said, "Looks good to me!" I thanked him and took the camera back. As he walked away I looked down at the picture only to find Valeria and I smiling with no Stonehenge to be found except for one small stone peaking out from behind Valeria's head. I looked up at Valeria and we immediately lost it. She turned the other direction and all I could see was her entire body shaking. We laughed so hard that my abs hurt and I'm sure the people there thought we were crazy. It's my favorite picture from the whole day. Grant one day at breakfast told us not to go to Stonehenge, that is wasn't worth it. We told him he was crazy and everyone else in the world would like it. He said, "Fine, you go there and tell me you had the greatest experience of your life." Grand- That was one of the greatest experiences of my life. haha I wouldn't have missed it for the world!

When we got back to London that night we decided to go straight to the new place we were staying and get settled. It was a friend of Hallie's (a girl we live with) house and she had agreed to let us stay 2 nights. But what we didn't realize was that her house was 45 minutes by metro from London. We got pretty discouraged so where we got there and had no further directions to her house, and couldn't get a hold of anyone to help us, we bought tickets back to London to see if we could find an Internet cafe and get directions. We forgot it was 8pm on Easter Sunday. We got back to Oxford Circus and decided to find a place to eat (Garfunkel's - Legendary and Loved) and text everyone we knew to see if they could help us. Valeria text her boyfriend and I text mine, Hallie, my dad and my brother. My dad gave me hostels I could call and Hallie said she'd try to get a hold of her friend while Valeria's man looked up hostels online. We seriously thought we were homeless in London. It was scary but kind of exciting. Finally I got a call from Katie, Hallie's friend, and she said if we came back she could meet us at the metro station. So we got back on the metro and trekked 45 minutes back to Katie's. Disaster 3 solved.

They greeted us there and took us home and fed us hot chocolate and cookies before we went to bed. Her Scottish husband, who is almost impossible to understand, looked up how we were going to get to the airport the next day. We were so tired that everything he said went in one ear and right out the other, but it did get us thinking about our next move. And that was our disaster day.

PS. One really funny thing that happened to us that I didn't mention above was when were were discouraged and decided to go back to London after the first trek to Katie's we bought our tickets back and we heard the metro down the stairs. We were walking down slowly and obviously we were going to miss it. So I asked Valeria if we were going to try to make it. She didn't even say anything. We just both started running down the stairs. The metro makes a little beeping sound when the doors and closing and that started when we hit the bottom of the stairs so we booked it and both leapt through the closing doors. Our backpacks both hit the doors and then hit each other and we bounced off each other into the metro. We were laughing as hard as when that old man took our picture earlier. The couple sitting across from us was laughing as well. I would have loved to see that from their point of view.

Camden Town!

April 3rd, 2010

We woke up early to take showers today. There was no one in the bathroom when we got there so 9:00 must be a good time. At first I couldn't even get my shower to work, so I put my clothes back on and tried the other one on the other side of Valeria. It didn't work either. When I went back to my first one it was running. But the water was so hot I could barely touch it. And in the meantime Valeria was screaming about how cold hers was. So I was talking all her hot water and she was talking all my cold. We both showered fast because of it but I still think I got the better choice of the two. I didn't bring a blow dryer but there is a hand dryer in the bathroom so I went and flipped my head upside down under that thing and it did the job.

We were going to see the if the changing of the guard happened today because we read that it didn't but our roommate's told us that it did. So we went early and took the bus to the Tube station and the Tube this time that took us directly to town. We got off there walked towards Buckingham Palace, but when we asked someone where it was he said that the changing of the guard isn't today, it's tomorrow. So we'll miss it because we're going to Stonehenge tomorrow. So we took our time getting there. We saw this huge, amazing looking cookie in the window of a little shop so we went in there to get one. One each that is. The cookie itself wasn't that good but the chocolate chips inside were to die for. I couldn't stop eating it even though I knew I should. When we reached Buckingham Palace everyone and their mother was there! We knew nothing was going on but I don't think anyone else did. So we took some pictures and got glared at by people's who's pictures we accidentally walked into and we got to see some of the guards ride through on their horses but I think the thing that makes the Palace cool is the changing of the guard. That and the fact that Her Majesty the Queen lives there. I'll have to go back one day.

From there we saw the Westminster Cathedral and we got to go inside this one. The whole thing is made of marble and brick. It really was incredible. From there we took a double decker bus (and sat on the top) to Westminster Abbey. It was £12 to go in so we decided against that as well. It was beautiful from the outside though. Then we wandered around looking for the cemetery my mom told me was around there but we couldn't find it for anything. So we decided to go to Camden Town, in the north of the city, because Romain told us it was his favorite place. We took the Tube there and when we got out we were on a long street with lots of people. The buildings were colorful and there were lots of little tourist shops and I liked it a lot but I couldn't in my life imagine why Romain liked it. It seemed to crowded for him. I text him and told him we were there and he text me back, "Yeah!! London baby! Camden Lock!" I looked up and there was Camden Lock. So Val and I went to check it out. We took just a few more steps closer and we realized why he loved it so much. There was a little river running under the road and there were boats that you could ride down the river it. The willow trees were just blooming over the river and there were people everywhere eating and walking outside. There was a little bridge down the river a little that I just loved.

We walked inside the building that said Camden Lock and it was just like something you would see in Mexico. Lots of little shops with pictures, paintings, hand made crafts, linens, and dresses...dresses galore! We spent almost all day there. It was a huge market area and it used to be an old stable for horses I think because further down into the building were some statues of horses and it was called Old Stable Market I think. It was really incredible. Valeria and I both bought a dress. It's the only thing I'm allowed to buy here besides my British flag. We got lunch in there at a restaurant that had a Japanese sign above the left side and a Indian food sign on the right, but the workers were wearing Chinese food shirts. Classic...haha. Mine wasn't that good. She didn't give me anything I wanted, mainly because I don't think she speaks English but I got a Dr. Pepper :) So I was happy. And it was cheap and actually filled me up.

We kept walking and we went to the bridge that I saw earlier and we had a Mexican couple take a picture for us. Val asked them in Spanish and the picture is adorable. We still had a lot of the day left but we didn't know what to do. Since we were in the north part of town we decided to see the library that Aaron said was so cool. We took the metro there and then it was closed but the outside was HUGE. It would have been neat to go in.

We decided that we were going to go out to Piccadilly square later so we thought we'd go home and write in our journals and take a nap. When we got we tried on our dresses. I like mine but I'm going to have to make some adjustments to it. It doesn't fit me quite right. I went downstairs then and I got on the internet and talked to Romain, wrote my parents and some friends on facebook, and also checked out things we still needed to do in London. It's £1 every hour for internet and I was on for 2. I went back upstairs where Valeria was sleeping and because I was so cold I crawled in bed too and thought I would try to sleep. It didn't happen. I was thinking too much and trying to remember all we did today knowing that if I didn't write it down I would not remember it. I was also thinking about how tired I was when Valeria woke up and asked me if I was napping. I told her no and I was just thinking about how I didn't want to go back out tonight. She said she was just thinking the same thing. So we decided to go write our blogs downstairs. The thing is I write everything on my blog and Valeria writes everything in her journal. So I've been down here for and hour longer than her writing to all of you.

Now I'm going to go see if we can find some food and plan our trip for tomorrow. Let me know if there is anything I should see still. We still have all of Monday to spend in London and I don't want to miss anything really important! Love from London XOXO!!!

Sights of London - Day 2

April 2nd, 2010

I woke up to Valeria moving around on the top bunk. It was about 45 minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off so I lied there for about 15 minutes before getting up. We were going to try to make a walking tour at 11:00 so we got ready fairly quickly and headed out. We took a bus map that we found in the room and went down onto the street. It was the first time we had really had to deal with the cars driving on the wrong side of the road. I didn't find it that strange at first but it causes a problem when crossing the street. I find that I can never figure out which way to look before I cross so I just look both ways.



Our hostel is so far out of the way that we weren't on the London bus map so we found a place that was and took a bus going in that direction. Unfortunately we didn't really research it enough. The bus went all the way around the outside of the town and it took us almost and hour just to get to town. When I found where we were on the map and tried to coordinate it with the Tube map and I had us get off and get on the tube which only took a few minutes and took us straight to the Eye of London, the huge Ferris wheel on the Thames River. Valeria took one look at it and said, "It's not that big. I thought it would be bigger." But the closer we got to it I made her take it back. That thing is huge, and so was the line to ride it. So we took some pictures and walked by.


Beyond the Eye of London was the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Valeria and I know so little about London that we both asked each other if it was really Big Ben. But we soon figured out that it was (So embarrassing!). We hadn't had breakfast yet so we stopped at a little waffle place and got some waffles with chocolate topping and ate them in front of Big Ben. We kept thinking we needed a map of the city so we could know what to see but we were too cheap to buy one. As we were about to cross the bridge to Big Ben I found one on the ground and we've been using that. We walked up the steps to the bridge and a guy asked Val and I if we would like to go on a bus tour. We said no, and then he said, "Well how about dinner with me tonight then." We both just laughed and walked away.

We took lots of pictures of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Then we saw them. Just passed the huge clock were the Telephone booths Valeria and I were so excited to see! We ran over and seriously took 20 pictures just of that telephone booth alone. We have pictures together, talking on the phone, sticking our heads our of it, and just of it alone. It's just like I always imagined!

At 12:00 we were supposed to meet Valeria's friend from Sweden who happened to be in London the same day. We found on the map where we were supposed to go and headed in that direction. On the way we saw a whole bunch of people taking pictures, and some guards in front of a gate. People were talking pictures of the street sign, Downing Street. We had no idea what it was, but I decided to take a picture of the street sign anyway. Then I turned to Valeria and was like, "Really, what is this??" The guard heard me and started laughing. So I ran over to him and said, "We just got here and really know very little about London. Can you tell us what this is?" He told us that it's where the Prime Minister lives and he even told us that we could actually see his door if we stood in a certain place. So we thanked him and now we've seen the Prime Minister's house!

We kept walking but it started to rain. Typical London. It was cold and dreary and really windy. We were supposed to meet her at this place called Primark, but when we got there, everyone and their brother was there so we found a Starbucks and text her to meet us there. We only sat with them for a few minutes and then we decided what to do next. We were on Oxford street so we decided to head over and see the Marble Arch and Hyde Park. Hyde Park was huge but there wasn't much to see. So I decided I really wanted to see the Tower Bridge, since that's what I know of London. It was all the way across town but I didn't care so we hopped on the Tube and headed East. When we got there we were going to get some food but I forgot everything closes at 3:00 so we went to McDonald's. Then we headed to the London Bridge. It was nothing like I thought it was, but I guess that's because the real one is in Arizona as far as I remember. But from London Bridge we could see Tower Bridge and like normal I took so many pictures. It was a beautiful day after it stopped raining and the sky was blue in every picture. Perfect.








We found a walkway down by the river and decided to take that over to Tower Bridge. The water was so high that it was lapping up onto the walkway and we had to wait till it went back out to run across. At the end of the walkway was the Tower of London. We saw it and considered going in but it was £15 for students. We weren't sure it was worth it and we didn't even really know what it was. So we decided to go across Tower Bridge instead. On the way I saw a guy from Concordia I thought I recognized, but I wasn't sure so I called out his name and sure enough it was. I don't think he even knows me but he's a friend of Brandon Jone's so I knew him. We talked to him for a little and I just can't believe how small the world it. I told Valeria earlier that day that I felt with all these people I'd have to know someone. Turns out I was right.

Tower bridge was cool but we decided just to walk across it. It was perfect because the sun was going down right as we were going over it and it was beautiful. I looked on the map and found out that Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was right on the river. I didn't even know it was in London and it's something I've always wanted to do since my high school drama group went one year without me. So Val and I took the bus (the wrong one at first and then we walked back and took the right one) to it. It was neat. I couldn't go inside because they still actually put on Shakespeare plays in there! But I got some good pictures of it.





We saw this huge tower next to it and we remembered that Aaron said you could go up into it for free and see all of London. So we went up into it. there were 7 floors and the views were great. It was a gallery which was also pretty cool, but we didn't stay too long. Then we walked across the Millennium pedestrian bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral which was also to expensive to go into but it was beautiful from the outside. We started waling towards Trafalgar Square and on the way we saw the Somerset House. I didn't know why I knew the name but I figured since I knew it, it was famous. So went in and it was just beautiful. There were fountains spraying up and some people running threw them. We met some girls there that asked us to take a picture of them and we realized they were French so we spoke some (very little) French to them so ask if they would take a picture of us.





From there we walked back to Trafalgar Square where we got to see the most beautiful lion statues and some great fountains. We ate at a little place just on the corner of the square. Just a little pizza that Valeria and I shared and then we headed home. We figured out the Tube so it was really easy to get home, but we thought the Tube station was closer to our hostel than it was so we walked and got lost but finally found a bus that would take us home. Good timing because it just had just started raining. We got home and crashed after looking at our pictures and having some good laughs about the day. It was a great day 2!