closing time.

Okay, so it's been like a month since I've been home and amidst all the craziness of my summer, I'm finally having some down time to tie up the ends of this blog. I'll miss it, but be sure to come back to my regular blog to continue following me!
Finishing up Scotland, I'm just going to offer some big picture things, maybe some stories, but mainly things I learned and such.
Firstly, I'm listening to my new favorite British musical artist who has graced the US with his presence now, but won't be releasing his CD until September. So much love for Olly Murs and the fact that I discovered him the one [I actually went twice but..ha] time I went clubbing. Classic.
So here's my picture looking at what I learned about God, Scotland, life...
I learned God is the same regardless of where you are; He always answers prayers, but not always how you'd expect or how you want, but it's all for good. Others may have differing opinions on things in the Bible, but we all love the same God. His character does not change. Scotland may not be a huge country, but the Scots are big on their country. Bagpipes are commonplace on the streets. It felt weird to not hear them when out for a walk. Tea time is real and necessary. Scottish accents sometimes sound like a different language. Paying to use the bathroom is a hassle, but I guess it makes some sense because the bathrooms are usually nicer...so that's debatable. It didn't rain nearly as much as I thought it would. Scottish people are more relaxed than Brits, althought the Brits I met were actually quite hilarious. Maybe just older British people are so proper? Still, they're all a little more proper/polite than Americans. Everything's better in a UK accent. Public transportation is fabulous, even when it's confusing, it's still fun to figure it out and feel accomplished when you do! Warm weather is above 50s. 60s is hot. When it gets that warm and sunny, everyone is outside lounging on any space that is covered in grass and having cook outs with £5 grills. Walkable cities are such a huge blessing. Europe does it right with all its public transport and walkability. I learned how to get things done efficiently..or at least done. I learned it takes work to reach a goal but the success at the end is sweet. I can write an 8-10 page paper like a boss. Library books are often more helpful and than internet sources. I like routine, but also change too. I learned to eat a lot of things I wouldn't necessarily at home. Like fried eggs or classic Scottish dessert: sponge cake in varying flavors or with varying added ingredients like sultana or peaches with custard. Salad everyday: normal.
Since being back in the states, I've gotten used to this life quickly, yet at the same time, I am overcome with waves of Scotland withdrawal. Some days I long for the days of walking the city and hearing accents or of the cool winds and rain even though when I was there in that weather, it wasn't very pleasant, but now it would be so perfect. Sometimes I even miss my crappy dorm room and its flat pillow and its only redeeming factor of the view of the Crags out the window. I miss climbing Arthur's Seat [which I did like 7 times in the last 2 weeks I was there.] I miss getting excited when they had naan in the dining hall. In all that, I remember how last semester was so surreal, yet it really happened. I really got to live across the ocean in a beautiful country and fulfill multiple life dreams like riding a double decker bus and learning to play bagpipes [sort of]. I am so thankful I had the opportunity to travel so many places and make new friends and become so much more independent. I can't wait until someday I can visit again, but until then, I will do my best to keep exploring where I am and loving where I am.

BCN part dos.

It's weird to think that just last week I was in Barcelona and now I'm back in the states. But here I am, blogging away about my visit to the capital of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain. Whoot.
So our second full day in Barcelona brought even warmer weather and almost no wind, so it was a good thing we were going to be hitting up the beach later in the day. However, we started our day by walking to Montjuic, this large hill close to our  hostel that is home to lots of cool stuff. Our first stop was the Olympic Stadium from the 1992 Summer Olympics! It was so neat to see the actual stadium; we were allowed to walk into it, but couldn't go down on the field or the track.  Still legit to see it and such. I love the Olympics, so anything related I go crazy for. =) After we ventured around there, we continued on our way to see the magic fountains and the beautifully architectured art museum building. Sadly, the magic fountains weren't even on. I think we got there too early to even see them on. Their magic is only on display in the form of a light show on Thursday-Sunday nights...so none of the nights we were there. Of course. Whatever. The art museum building was insane; it was art in itself. We didn't go to the museum, just oogled at the massive building. We then decided to go see this supposed castle that was somewhere on the hill. Little did we know it was quite an uphill trek to get to said castle. After spending a semester in Scotland, this Spanish castle if you could call it that, wasn't that cool. It did have a nice garden. There was also a little food/drink cart thing, so we got water as it was a hot day and we'd just been out walking for at least 2 hours and uphill. Tiring. Once we hydrated, our energy was back and we left to go to the beach! Somewhere in there we had lunch...oh yeah! We went to see the Barcelona Cathedral and got baguettes from a little shop there. So French...in Spain. Ha. After that we made our way to the beach! Whoot. I'm actually not a huge beach-goer, but it'd been years since I'd been to a real beach, so I was kind of excited. Even though neither of us had brought swimsuits to Scotland, we still had a good time just relaxing on the beach; we did go down to the water and walked along it for awhile, but the water wasn't exactly warm so it was enough to just get our feet wet. There were a bunch of Indian men walking around with coolers and bags with drinks trying to sell them to people and there were others selling massages, tattoos, and wraps...kind of annoying because they just kept coming back, but I perfected the art of not making eye contact and when they asked, "Beer, cerveza?" to respond with a quick "No gracias!". Nonetheless our time on the beach was quite relaxing; we walked up one of the piers and I ate my first Magnum bar after hearing about them from friends back in Texas and how amazing they are. Personally, I wasn't blown away, but it was pretty good. We left the beach and made our way back towards our hostel and then went to dinner later at this place we had seen when we were eating our baguette lunch by the cathedral. We sat outside and I ordered tapas and once again we had sangria. My tapas were amazing. I had potatoes bravas, pork barbeque on toasted bread, and fried Camembert cheese with a dipping sauce. Potatoes bravas were diced potatoes fried with a spicy tomato sauce [thanks Wikipedia!]. I ordered them not knowing what they were, but having seen them on many of the tapas menus as a popular choice, so I figured I should go for them regardless of what they ended up being and it's hard to go wrong with potatoes. We walked back to Las Ramblas after dinner and got ice cream like the previous night too...yeah I know I had ice cream twice in the day too, but whatever, treatin' myself! Ha.
The next day we had a little bit of time before we had to head to the airport, so we hit up La Boqueria again for one last juice drink and walked to the other end where there was a big plaza area and some fountains and loads of pigeons. My favorite. Not. We took the metro then to the train station to catch the train to the airport. I used a bit of my Spanish skills to ask where the train was located and the lady responded to me in English which was common every time I talked in Spanish. Barcelona, I guess is more English than I thought...or rather touristy? It was frustrating because I was kind of excited to have to use Spanish and then I didn't even need to. I'm sure we could have gone to places where it would've been more necessary, but didn't end up anywhere like that. Also, a lot of people in Barcelona speak Catalan, which is more based out of Latin. Some of the stuff sounds and looks Spanish, but most is crazy. Haha. A lot of the little food vendors and such, and signs around the city were first in Catalan then Spanish. I did think that was neat. So anyways, we got the train, but not after almost taking the wrong one! The lady had told me platform 9 so we went there and there was a train there so we hopped on, not thinking to see if it was actually going to the airport. Thankfully, as we sat there, feeling like we were on the wrong train because it seemed a lot nicer and not many of the other people with suitcases on the platform had gotten on, a guy spoke to another guy in Catalan and we were able to understand it as this train isn't to the airport. So we got off quickly before it started moving! The next train took us to the airport and was jam packed and the same musical guys were playing and walking throughout it. Interesting. We had to wait in a lot of lines at the airport, but we had plenty of time, so it was fine and we made our flight in the perfect amount of time. Getting back to the Glasgow bus station after we made it into the Glasgow Prestwick airport was another story. For some reason, the bus we had to take was having a busy day so the bus we planned to catch was full and then the next one that followed didn't stop. We didn't have a ton of time to catch the bus and then our next one home to Edinburgh, so we were getting nervous, but finally the next bus wasn't full, and we barely made it onto our bus to Edinburgh, but praise the Lord we did, or else I'm not sure what we would've done. Not exactly the most relaxing travel, so it was a really lovely time when I spent the evening up on the Salisbury Crags near Arthur's Seat and watched the sun set. So peaceful and absolutely beautiful watching the day end over the city.
That ends my travel adventures, but don't worry, I have probably one more blog coming to wrap up this study abroad time. I'll try to write it tomorrow because if not, I don't know when it will be as I am starting my summer camp job soon! Off and running into summer, it's a good thing I wasn't affected by jetlag really!

Olympic Stadium!

beautiful art museum

Barcelona Cathedral

hanging out by the Mediterranean Sea

patatas bravas

Las Ramblas

pigeons all over

hola barcelona

Sorry I'm not sorry, but I'm skipping really blogging about my solo trip to Derry. That's what I get for being behind in blogging, no one really wins. =/
But I promise, Barcelona is much more exciting than Derry. That's not to say I didn't enjoy Derry; I definitely did. Traveling completely alone was scary at first, but everything worked out and I liked the solo time. That's all I really want to say about it. Perhaps it'll get a bit of a picture post later. Don't fret.

Anywho, BARCELONA. I am so glad I went there as a last hurrah trip with Elizabeth. It was amazing! We left Monday morning to get to Glasgow, where our flight went out of [it was cheaper that way]. By the time we got to Barcelona, it was about 5:30, their time. It's an hour different than Edinburgh. Anywho, that airport is not labeled very well, so we had some difficulty finding a "cajero automatico" and then the train that our hostel directions told us to take. Eventually we found the train, well more accurately, a train, and hopped on. It too wasn't labeled well, but it was the only one, so we took it and hoped for the best. Thankfully, it ended up being okay even if it wasn't exactly the right train. We had to take the metro from there and that was 10x easier. Love metros. Our hostel was simple to find once we got off the metro, too. Yay. When we got to our room, there was another girl in there who'd just gotten there like an hour before. She was from Hawaii and had studied abroad in Seville for the semester. She invited us to go to the market with her to get dinner, so we did and had a cheap, but tasty dinner of pasta and chicken and onions and tomato sauce. They had some nice spices in the hostel, so that flavored our meal as well. HA. Wow, that's like super detailed and you probably don't care. Sometimes I lose my filter of what to share on a blog and what to save for just my own journal. It's harder when I'm blogging first as opposed to after I've already journaled. So sorry. The rest of that night we just hung out in the lobby of the hostel..

La Boqueria fruit market!

Casa Batllo, a house designed by Gaudi

Tuesday morning we had breakfast in the hostel, then Elizabeth and I went to Plaza Reilal or something like that to do this free Gaudi tour around the city. We stumbled upon La Boqueria on our way; that's a huge food market with the most delicious, cheap fresh fruit juices. Of course, we indulged. =) On the tour, we saw 3 houses that Gaudi designed and ended at the Sagrada Familia. It was really cool getting to learn about Gaudi and see the actual buildings and all the crazy detail he put into them and just how imaginative he was. He was a bit of a crazy genius, very focused on the architecture and often went way over budget and just did what he wanted for the sake of the building not necessarily what the commissioners wanted, but hey, that's okay because now there are really awesome buildings and such all over Barcelona! I knew that the Sagrada Familia was still under construction, but didn't realize how much still has to be done to complete it. It is also going to be HUGE. What is the tallest spires or whatnot currently are actually going to be the shortest part. They are the bell towers. I don't know if y'all care about the construction of the Sagrada Familia, probs not, so I won't continue, but know that they are trying to finish it in 14 years since that will be the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death. It's apparently over halfway done, the whole inside is complete, but the hardest parts still remain...should be interesting to see if that happens! The construction is funded completely by donation and the visitor fee, so seeing as I went inside, I helped fund the building of the Sagrada Familia! Whoot! Oh, another thing, Gaudi is well on his way to becoming a saint, too. How cool is that? So even if the building isn't done in 14 years, he'll probs be a saint by then. Wacky.

La Sagrada Familia!

inside, supports based off of trees

at Park Guell

looking out at the city

trencadis method, like mosaic

After we had lunch in a park across from the Sagrada Familia, we took the metro to go to Park Guell, a park that has a bunch of Gaudi art in it. It was much bigger than I expected, but so cool. There was all sorts of cool stuff to explore and I'm sure we didn't see half of it. It was a gorgeous day, too so we spent some time just sitting and enjoying the park. We made our way slowly back to our hostel and had to chill there awhile until it got later so it was more acceptable to go to dinner. We ended up just finding a random place on La Rambla [the main touristy drag, but very pretty]...all the places I'd looked up before, we couldn't find and then we tried one that the hostel recommended but all the tapas there were seafood. haha. Of course, and it was kind of sketchy seeming. So we just went to this place that sounded good on La Rambla and got chicken paella and sangria! The sangria was quite good and the paella was pretty delicious too, even though the chicken pieces were still boned. We got ice cream after dinner and that was awesome. Wait, maybe I only did, but whatever. Noms. and that's pretty much the end of our first full day in BCN. =)

sangria for the win

me and hp [that's harry potter]

So again, this is rather old news to me, but not to you lovely blog readers! On April 25, my friend Maddie and I embarked on a journey to London. We were going there to go to the WB Harry Potter Studio Tour! So as I said, the journey started April 25, specifically at 10pm. For some reason we both thought our overnight bus left at 11pm, but thank the Lord I checked again at a little after 9, so we ended up jogging most of the way to the bus station so we wouldn't miss the actual 10pm departure!
The bus ride to London overnight was around 9 hours. I don't think I ended up sleeping more than 4hours at the very best, but somehow when we got to London around 7:30, I was up and rearing to go. It was also raining. Classic. Maddie and I walked to see Buckingham Palace in the rain and then it kind of stopped so we headed to Big Ben and Parliament, too. It was Maddie's first time to London, so I felt kind of special, knowing how to get around and stuff. Ha. It started raining again when we were on the bridge by Parliament, so we trucked it back to find somewhere to hunker down and freshen up. We were pretty wet by the time we got to a Pret a Manger and they didn't have a bathroom, so we didn't stay there long and instead went next door to Starbucks to freshen up. Classic. I don't know what else we did after that, mostly wandered, then we took the tube and the over ground train to the station closest to the studio. From there we took a shuttle bus to the actual studio.
It was so cool, even just in the lobby and gift shop. Eventually, it was time for our tour so we queued up and were in in no time. They first had us in one room where we stood and watched this little clip on the Harry Potter worldwide phenomenon, then we went to another room, basically a theater area, with super comfy seats and watched clips from the movie and the main actors said a bit and then it got epic. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint were there! HA. Kidding. But that would have been even more insane. So right, they were sadly just on screen and they opened the doors to the Great Hall and were like "Come on! What are you waiting for?", then the screen raised and there were the doors to the hall right in front of us!! Cue collective gasp. There was a sort of tour guide there who asked for a volunteer to help him open the door and I was this close to being that person. Not bitter. ha. So that was really fabulous to watch happen nonetheless. I don't remember if at this point they played Hedwig's Theme or not, but throughout the whole tour music from the soundtracks played. It was absolutely fantastic. I'm obsessed with the music. So good!
I won't bore you with much else story-telling; instead I'll bombard you with some of the pictures I took. I took a bazillion because there was literally almost everything you could think of from the movies, so it was a little overwhelming, but very special to get to see it all!

Maddie and I at the doors of the Great Hall

Gryffindor boy's dorm/Ron's bed

chamber of secrets

death eater masks

maurader's map

Knight bus

knocking on Number 4 Privet Drive's door

Buckbeak!

Weasley's shop

scale model of Hogwarts, the detail on this was insane

on being parisian: last day in paris

Writing all these blogs is making me miss Paris. It was a lovely city. So our last day in Paris, we started the day eating breakfast at the same cafe we'd gone to the day before where Katie and Mom had grand cremes. This time we also got eggs and croissants. Delish! After that we went to see some of Sorbonne University. It didn't even seem like a uni to me, at least the part we saw. All of the buildings were so grand and majestic! It would be awesome to have a class there. Edinburgh has some pretty buildings, but I felt like all of Sorbonne was outstanding architecturely. Then we went to Luxembourg Gardens for a little rest and to figure out what we were going to do for lunch because we wanted to do it like the Parisians: fruit, cheese, baguette. But we didn't see any grocers along our journey there. We spent some time soaking in the sun and I avoided kicking the pigeons [that is one bird I really hate haha]. Then we left to attempt to find a grocer and praise the Lord we did! We got two different cheeses; I don't remember the names, but one was way better than the other. The other one was quite pungent. Apparently you are supposed to let it air before eating...so it got somewhat better upon sitting out. We ate our meal in this grassy area in the gardens where there were a bunch of college kids hanging out too. So French. After that we went to Sacre Coeur which reminded me of the Taj Mahal, even though I've never actually seen the Taj Mahal in real life. It was all white and situated on top of this hill. It unfortunately seemed like quite a tourist trap, which kind of took away from the fact that it is a sacred building/church? There were loads of people and there were hawkers and people putting on performances on the steps. There was even a double decked carousel! Craziness. It was a really gorgeous building despite all that! After going inside and walking around to see this square that had a bunch of painters, we walked to see Moulin Rouge. It is on the same sketchy street we got lost on that one night, but this time we were going during the day...and it was still really sketchy. So we did that side trip as quickly as possible. We were meeting a work friend of Katie's for dinner at this classic French restaurant so we went to meet her and her boyfriend to wait in line there. They don't take reservations and it's a really popular place. I don't remember the name, but it was really a cool place! It was really big and quite noisy because there were so many people in there. The architecture was again, outstanding. I feel like all of Europe has amazing buildings and such. I tried escargot there! Katie got it as an appetizer. I made her dig it out of the shell because it kind of grossed me out, but taste wise, it really just tasted like the garlic and butter it was soaked in or whatever. It was really chewy, too. My main meal wasn't French....spaghetti bolognese, but it was really tasty. I had some of Mom's duck and that was fantastic, kinda wish I'd picked that! Ha. Katie and I split a ice cream and cooked plum thing for dessert. That too was yummy! We didn't do much after dinner, but went back to our hotel to pack up and such because once again our departing train back to London left really early! Surprisingly, I liked Paris more than I liked London. I'm not really sure why, but probably partly because we had more time in Paris so we weren't as rushed. I'm also a big fan of the bakeries with cheap, yummy bread and pastries EVERYWHERE. London can't compete with that. Ha. I wish I had been able to explore more of London like going to see Abbey Road and such, but it's all good. I still really liked London; I just liked Paris a little more! =)

one of the buildings of Sorbonne University

Luxembourg Palace in the Gardens

classic Paris lunch

Sacre Coeur

The Red Windmill. ha.

Je t'aime Paris

Paris Day Two. We decided not to rush ourselves as much for the rest of our time in Paris, as London was whirlwind and our first half day in Paris was a bit crazy. So we got breakfast at the same little bakery and then went to a cafe so Mom and Katie could get coffee. They got grand creme, which apparently was quite the stellar coffee, but seeing as I'm not a coffee drinker, the taste I had wasn't good. I imagine if I did like coffee it would've been fab. Ha. Next we went to Notre Dame. With our museum pass we'd be able to go up the towers, so we got in line. It ended up being the line that just went into the cathedral, but that was okay because we wanted to do that too obviously! After we looked around inside, we went to find the tower line and discovered it was extremely long, so we decided to hit that up way later in the day and went to get crepes instead. I got an apple one and it was soo good. I could eat crepes all day. We walked over to St. Chapelle and waited in line there. However, they stopped letting people in for the hour between 1 and 2 and thus, we just missed getting in before 1. Ha. The line moved pretty fast so we figured to come back at 2 and it'd be cool. We went to Shakespeare and Co. and I think maybe we went walking over Pont Neuf bridge. Shakespeare and Co was awesome. Eclectic bookstores rule. Famous authors lived there and wrote there, like Ernest Hemingway. After that adventure, we went back to St. Chapelle and got in pretty quick to just bask in the beauty that is a chapel of pretty much all stained glass windows. They're in the process of cleaning the glass so one wall was covered in scaffolding and still dirty. But the rest was absolutely breathtaking. I can't imagine what it was like to make that. When we left St. Chapelle, we headed back to Notre Dame to go up the tower. The line didn't seem as bad. I got a second crepe while we waited so that probs made it better. Banana and nutella for the win! There's like 400 steps to the top of Notre Dame so that was fun...spirally staircases frighten me. But I survived and it was worth it. Amazing views of the city and got to see the gargoyles up close. I also saw some guy wearing a Baylor hoodie. Sic 'em! Oh we also got to see the huge bell in the bell tower. It was crazy big. We also got stuck up there in the wind and rain for a little bit. That was real cool. ha. We got down eventually and walked around to the back of Notre Dame to see the flying buttresses and then it was raining again and we were quite chilled so we went to Cafe Panis, which was this cafe across the street that we'd heard was good. I got warm vanilla milk, but not without a struggle. I guess when I attempted saying it in French, the waiter thought I wanted cold milk even though I pointed at it on the menu. Whatever, we got it fixed and I got my warm vanilla milk. Not sure it was really vanilla but it was warm nonetheless. After warming up, we went to Champs Elysees! We ate dinner at Paul. I had ham and cheese on a baguette [I see a trend in all the food they serve here...ham and cheese all the way! haha]. We shared a raspberry macaroon and a slice of blueberry pie, too. After dinner we walked down the street to climb the Arc de Triomphe! It was much bigger than I imagined. I feel like most everything was bigger than I imagined. Haha. It had nice, spirally steps to the top, too. Space-saving, but terrifyingly high to climb. It was so neat to be on top of it at night and see all the streets coming together and the Eiffel Tower. We stayed so we could see it sparkle too! It only does that every hour for like 5 minutes. It was late when we came back down and made our way to the metro, only to find out that our stop was closed or something weird so we couldn't take the metro and had to walk to the next nearest stop aka ALL the way down Champs Elysees. Done. Just like a Tour de France rider. only not on a bicycle or actually down the middle of the street. That would've been a bad idea. Haha. So that was a fun ending to the day!
Picture time!

inside Shakespeare and Co.

St. Chapelle

best crepe ever.

gargoyles on top of Notre Dame

Classic Parisian meal.

Arc de Triomphe

on top of the Arc with the Eiffel Tower!

terrifying spiral staircase.

Through the Chunnel: Paris Day 1

A very early morning greeted us to begin our journey from London to Paris via the chunnel! I think I ended up sleeping through the time that we actually went through the chunnel, but really that's okay because it's not anything to see; it's pitch black because it's a tunnel through the land under the water. Yeah. It just sounds epic. Haha.
When we arrived in Paris, we went to get metro tickets and I got accosted by some girls trying to get me to sign something/get money. I didn't get it. Needless to say, after that I was advised to not talk to anyone haha. We to the metro to our hotel, Hotel Clauzel, which ended up being somewhat confusing to find, but we did it and hilariously, we were on the top floor at this place too! Lucky us. This place had an elevator, although it was tiny, so only one of us could fit in it with our stuff. Katie, the claustrophobic one, somehow got picked to be the one to ride in it. Oops. We went to find some food after that and the first thing we spotted were all sorts of little fruit stands...with amazing smelling and looking strawberries. So we naively bought some and totally got ripped off, but they were awesome strawberries! Ha. Then we stopped in a cute bakery for a baguette and Katie and I both got other things. I had a ham and cheese croissant. I wish bakery/pastry shops existed everywhere. Such a part of France, but they should share the greatness. I mean who wouldn't want a cheap, delicious bread place to go to everyday? After our little lunch we metroed over to the Louvre. Did you know that you actually pronounce the 'r'? I didn't. Ha. On our way through the metro, there was this band performing. They sounded kind of Russian, and they had CDs! What?! I really liked that about Paris...there were people playing music in the metro all the time! So yeah, we went to the Louvre and got a 2-day museum pass so we could go to all these other museums and cathedrals and such. At the Louvre we just sped through to see the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory because this other museum we wanted to go to wasn't open as late. My camera died right before we got to the Mona Lisa. Classic. So my mom let me borrow her camera, but I don't have any of those photos on my computer. Bummer, I know. We went to the Rodin Museum to see the gardens where the Thinker is and so were the Gates of Hell. Cool. After that we went to L'Orangerie to see Monet's water lilies. I really liked those. They were massive. If you've ever seen the movie "Midnight in Paris", there's a scene shot in that museum with the lilies. Following our little visit to those lovely lilies, we went to dinner at this cafe near the Rodin. I had a croque madame which is like a grilled ham&cheese but the cheese is on top and then there's an egg on top of that. It was quite delicious. I've taken to eating fried eggs for brunch every weekend in the dining hall at school so the egg on top was a nice addition. After dinner we went back to the Louvre. That was fun...ha. We were walking through the gardens in front of it to get there quicker, but then apparently they were closing the gardens and made us turn around and go out the way we came in even though we were nearly to the other side. LAME. So we had to walk all the way around the gardens to get to the Louvre. It was a hussle to get there before it stopped letting people in. We made it just in time and really had a quick spin through seeing the Code of Hammurabi and Venus de Milo as well as some other Chinese statue things that were actually replicas not the real deal. What?! Yeah. We left the Louvre through the pyramid so we could see it all lit up at night, too. How nice. We got horribly lost getting back to our hotel after the metro, ended up on the street you don't want to be on at night. Oops. But we got directions from a helpful young woman, so that was good or else who knows how long we would've been troubled. Ha. So that's the end of Paris Day 1.

view from our hotel.

Winged Victory

one of the first spottings of the Eiffel Tower.

london calling

Tuesday morning in London was GORGEOUS albeit somewhat chilly. Breakfast at the hotel was also bombin' and very British. They had a list of stuff you could get plus cereal and fruit cocktail. I had scrambled eggs and toast, but Mom and Katie got beans and tomatoes too. The eggs were outstanding, and I think I ended up eating 4 pieces of toast. Haha. After breakfast we walked to Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens and just enjoyed the beautiful morning. We saw the Peter Pan statue and the Princess Diana memorial fountains which weren't actually fountains, but more a a circle waterfallly thing. It was supposed to represent her life and you could walk around it and into the center, the heart of the memorial. Next it was off to Harrod's! That place is massive and so fancy! I didn't ever think of it being so upscale. There were like 6 floors and we took the Egyptian escalator up most of the way. So cool. We mostly just wandered through a little bit of the fancy rooms and then hit up the food area. Even that was fancy. They had all sorts of stuff from baklava to cheeses to Turkish delight to the classic shortbread. Being around all that food got us hungry, so we took the tube to this delicious veggie place, Coco Momo's, for lunch. What? Did I really use delicious and veggie in the same sentence?! Yes. I mean being in the UK has made me like veggies more because the meat in the dining hall is normally weird and the veggie options are just slightly better. So at Coco Momo's I got their lunch deal and had this carrot soup and a chicken mozzarella wrap. Following that tasty meal, we went to the Tower of London. I always thought it was only one tower, but it's a whole fortress! It was pretty cool. We had a free tour with a beefeater guide [that's what they call the guards; I don't remember why]. Our guide was really sarcastic and fun, and told us a lot of good stuff. We got to go into the chapel and later after the tour, we waited in a long line to go see the crown jewels. I saw the Scottish crown jewels when I visited Edinburgh Castle, but the crown jewel exhibit in the tower of London was way more intense. There was also a lot more besides just the crown jewels. It was funny, to see the jewels, they had one of those moving walkways like you see in airports! I guess that's a pretty ingenious way to keep the crowd moving. After seeing the jewels and such, we attempted to climb up one of the towers [there are like 5? I don't really know. haha], which got us stuck in another little museum with weaponry and we couldn't even get up near the windows to look out. Bummer. By the time we got out of there, we rushed off to make it to Evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral! Now that place is MAGNIFICENT. I was looking at the ceiling and around the whole service. It was short and this time we could see the choir which I liked. The cathedral was so beautiful. Too bad I'm not royalty; I'd love to get married there. Although, I've got plans to marry Prince Harry, so I guess we'll probably get married in there. Win. Princess status. Haha. From St. Paul's we walked across Millennium Bridge [destroyed by Death Eaters in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie!] and saw Shakespeare's Globe Theater. It's actually not the original one, so it wasn't nearly as cool as I hoped. We didn't go inside so maybe it was cooler inside? Whatevs. Then we walked down and across London Bridge and got closer to Tower Bridge to get pictures we forgot to do when we were 10x closer earlier in the afternoon. Then it was dinner time! We went to The Banker, this off the beaten path pub restaurant where we hoped to get fish and chips. Sadly, they only served that during lunch, but we got this awesome autumn plate that had all sorts of cheeses, little wraps, bread, grilled peppers. So good! After that we went back to Big Ben and such to too them all lit up at night. Mmm. There's something about the city at night that I really enjoy. 

beautiful day in Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens

Harrod's Bear.

Tower of London

St. Paul's

London Bridge!

the city by night

long time coming

I don't want to overwhelm y'all, but I'm sure some of you have been waiting for me to tell you about my spring break that was...oh, you know, like over a month ago. Well technically a month ago it was still happening. I was in London, actually traveling to Paris. Whatever. So here's part 1 of my Spring Break as I finally recorded it in my journal more or less. My hand cramped, but it needed to be done there before technology took over. Sorryboutcha.
My last day of classes was April 6. That was Good Friday. So I went to this Seder dinner with my friend Maddie. It was...interesting. and forever long, full of lots of Hebrew singing/chanting and odd food eating. The dessert was my favorite: flourless chocolate cake with a side of grapes. I miss grapes so that was really yummy.  The next day, Saturday, my mom and sister, Katie, arrived in the afternoon! That was an adventure getting in contact with them, but eventually we did and it was great. We ate an early dinner at Nyam Nyam Italiano, where I got pizza for the first time since I had Papa John's way back when. I can tell you this pizza was much better than PJ. Then I decided to take them up Arthur's Seat. Go big or go home, I say. We also explored this old chapel ruin that I'd always seen everytime I've climbed Arthur's Seat, but never walked to. It was built in like 1500. or maybe it was 1300? Either way it was super old. The next day was Easter, so we went to this church I'd been to once earlier in the semester. It was nice to go to church since I haven't really at all this semester. I know it shouldn't be an excuse, but I never really found anyone to consistently go with or a church to go to consistently. Regardless, Easter Sunday was nice. We went to The Piemaker which is this little shop that has pies and pasties and deliciousness for super cheap. In the afternoon, we went to Sandy Bells, this little pub Mom had heard about or found online that has folk music every Sunday afternoon. It was quite the small establishment, but the music was lovely. One of the guys played multiple harmonicas at once! So yeah that was pretty much Sunday.
Monday we had to catch our train from Waverley Station sort of early to get to London! The ride was about 5 hours and I picked the seats on the side of the train that would give us the best views of the coast. It was really pretty! We got into London King's Cross Station sometime after noon. Of course, our first stop was finding Platform 9 and 3/4. Really, we only went there for me. What can I say? I love Harry. But not as much as Ron. After that pit stop, we snacked and then tackled the tube system. The tube is great. We got to our hotel easily. It was quite nice, though we had a bazillion steps to climb up to the top, foreshadowing the crazy amount [read: over 1000] of steps we would climb over the rest of our trip. After we settled in a little, we took a double decker bus to Trafalgar Square and the London National Gallery of Art. We didn't stay at the Gallery long, just enough to see the Arnoldfini double portrait that I studied in my History of Art class and Van Gogh's sunflowers among other random things. It was rainy when we left to walk to Westminster Abbey [or possibly we took the tube? either way, still rainy.] But first we took our picture with the lions on Trafalgar Square. That was fun. Ha. I'm not a climber and it was wet since it was raining, but somehow I got up there. Getting down was another story. Thankfully a burly, foreign man hoisted us down. Haha. So we walked to Westminster to go to the Evensong Service. It was really cool to be in there and enjoy some lovely choir singing and there was scripture reading and some prayers too. After the service and kind of walking around and taking in the beauty, we ended up walking to Buckingham Palace. Around then, we tried to figure out what to do for dinner and it started raining again. Classic. We checked out the original Hard Rock Cafe but it was super busy and the wait would've been way too long. We did go in and attempted to sit at the bar, failed, and thus, left to eat somewhere else, not before seeing one of Elton John's crazy outfits and some of the Beatles drums and stuff. Legit. We ended up eating at Pret a Manger, this European chain restaurant. It was really tasty and had environmentally friendly food and such. Whatever they have left over they donate to homeless shelters and hostels, etc. How fab is that? Then we tubed it back to Marble Arch and saw another Pret still open, so we stopped because Katie and I were still hungry. I got a poppyseed bread thing. It was super lemony and really moist, but alright. We planned our next day and hoped it wouldn't be rainy. But we'll make the next day a new post to, like I said, not overwhelm ya. =)

going to hogwarts!

lion statue at Trafalgar Square

classic London. Big Ben and Parliament