Study in England

So I’m nearing the end of my journey here in England. Tomorrow, well later today really, I’m boarding the bus for the last of my field trips. We are going to Devon and Cornwall and I am going to try surfing. It should be good times. And then I’m going to London for 2 days. And then I have 2 days left in Brum before I board the bus for the final time to get on a plane back home. I will update this blog with all of my spring break travels because I want them to be in a place where I can see them and you can read them. Plus it’ll mean that you won’t have to hear me tell them over and over and over. :D I’m coming home so soon….

So I am super excited to post about everything that I did on Spring Break but that break is still happening and most of my trips will require quite a bit of explaining so I will do so at a later date. My family is here right now and we are having the most amazing time. I leave to go to the Lake District with them tomorrow and I hope I won’t die in the process. Miss you and love you all!

that i have totally FAILED at keeping up this blog! I just don’t even have an excuse. But I would like to say that i will be updating hopefully when I get back from my other month long break. However for now I’ll give you little snippets of what happened as far as field trips this past semester! :D

York (Feb 4-6)-

York was fabulous. It’s a really pretty old Medieval city with lots and lots of Medieval glass. We went on a walking tour and heard all about the Medieval part of the city, the hospital, an awesome street called “The Shambles” or the Harry Potter street (cause it looks like Diagon Alley) and the castle stuff. I ate at a pub, drank some wine, and just hung out with peeps. We met an AWESOME Aussie girl who we ended up hanging out with when she came to Brum later in the month. I visited an awesome museum where I took lots of fun pictures with my friends. On Sunday we visited Whitby and the ruined Abbey there which was a really good/cold time :D

Belfast (Feb 11-13)-

Casey, Carlina, Ryan and I headed off to the land of the troubles in Northern Ireland. Belfast is actually a really nice city and I had a really good time there. It is difficult to believe all the difficult times the city has had. We went on a walking tour and learned all about how the city has changed within the past few years. We visited a pub where many famous bands have played, saw where the titanic was built, visited this awesome museum that had art, history and natural history all in one place. My favorite memory is Carlina, Casey and I just running randomly from bench to bench in the Botanical gardens and Ryan taking a bunch of pictures! It was hilarious and I’m pretty sure we made some Irish girls day! :D

Worcester (Day trip! Feb 18)

We took a day trip to visit the city where the program is moving next year. We toured the campus, met the Mayor and saw some of the student accomodation! It was super super nice. The Mayor was fabulous and let us try on this SUPER expensive necklace that he wears. Which was AWESOME! Overall it looks like a nice place for the program to move to although it isn’t as big as Brum.

Bristol, Bath, Stonehenge and Avebury (Feb 25-27)

This was a crazy filled weekend. We stayed in an awesome hostel on the river in Bristol that used to be a graniary. For the first time ever we didn’t totally take over the hostel. I found a Banksy piece which was awesome! I also visited the St. Nicholas markets which was also super cool. We went to Bath on Saturday and that was one of my favorite days of this trip! We visited the Roman Baths which were amazing and just full of history. Then I went with a huge group of people to the Royal Crescent before finding the COOLEST park in existance. Most of Team America played at the park for most of the afternoon. There was that crazy leviation thing like we saw in Geneva that all of us went on, a zip line, a twirly thing, and swings. It was amazing. We also all got ice cream afterwards. It was pretty much the day of pretending to be 5. Which was so needed by all of us. The next day we headed off to see Stonehenge and Avebury, both giant rock circles. I really liked both and felt like I was in the presence of something really remarkable. We got really lucky in that it stopped raining for us each time we got somewhere. Which made it a much better day. :D

Canterbury-Brighton-Hampton Court Palace (March 11-13)

Canterbury has a lot of churches. I went to the city walls, a park that has been there since the 1700s and a tea shop. Overall I’m not too sure why we were there. The hostel was AMAZING cause it was an old mansion and as we all know I LOVE old mansions. I enjoyed Brighton. The Pier was fabulous and although a few people got stuck on rides I got to do awesome bumper cars! Which was a good time. I wandered around the city and down by the beach. It reminded me of CA and the North Shore all at once which was a little weird. We visited the Royal Pavilion which was beyond words. It looks middle eastern or just Eastern and the inside is impossible to explain. It looks like you’ve come to China or at least the English’s view of China. It was fabulous. Sunday we visited Hampton Court Palace which I loved. It was Henry the 8th’s palace and then William/Mary’s a good while after him. They had a fabulous audio guide that told you all about Henry’s time at the palace. I really enjoyed it being the history nerd I am. It reminded me of Versailles a little bit. I would recommend it.

That’s been it so far. But now I am off to Berlin, Barcelona, Zante Greece and Venice! Then Mom, Dad, Sarah, John, Carrie, Auntie and Nana will be here for 2 whole weeks! We are going to London and the Lake District and I can’t tell you how excited I am to see them! I miss you guys but I am getting ever closer to the end of this amazing journey. See you in just 55 days!

We woke up and then figured out we had way more time than we thought this morning, so we hung out and ate some epic breakfast. Then I grabbed some interweb time just for fun before going to grab my luggage to get OUT of Paris. (In case you didn’t already know, I’m not a huge fan of Paris). We were in high spirits heading the the train station cause we were on for our last big adventure! We then creeped in the station for about an hour, taking pictures of each other and various other people in the station. We got on the really nice train and most of us fell asleep pretty much right away. We got to Brussels early which was fabulous! and we were pretty sure it was thanks to Ryan cause his trains are always early or on time. We hung out in the train station for a while since we couldn’t check in to our hostel for a while and we had some Sbarro. We also talked for a crazy amount of time about our rooms back home. No idea why. Then it was off to try to find the trams and the hostel. When we got there we found out that we had been updated to a 5 person room rather than a 14 person room and it had an en suite bathroom for the same price!!!! Plus there was free interwebs!!!! :D So we hung out in the hostel, interwebbed, looked at the most awesome map EVER, creeped out our window and then headed out to locate dinner at a grocery store. We hung out in the common room and ate our dinner where we found a tv playing music videos but not the ones for the music we could hear. Plus there was another tv playing American football. Which confused me but I couldn’t change the channel so instead I read. :D We also played Legretto. Naturally. Cause that’s what we do with our lives. We all really like Brussels. It’s calmer and feels safer and is simultaneously prettier and uglier… :D

Bonna Nie! Or at least that’s how it sounds! Which means HAPPY NEW YEAR in French! This day was insane! We started with a visit to Notre Dame. It was a very pretty church with fabulous stained glass windows. It wasn’t as amazing as the basilica in Lyon though. We also legit couldn’t remember why everyone went there but we liked it anyways. And then we maybe remembered that it had something to do with a Hunchback but we weren’t sure. :P We also went through it backwards. I blame this on England and the silly way they drive cars over here. We then walked on to see what else we could find. We found the Pantheon but couldn’t get in for free cause we aren’t citizens of the EU, just residents. So Casey, Steph and I found a DC comics store to nerd out in for a bit. We then went to one of those crazily tacky tourist shops and bought souvenirs. I got a great hat and a mug! We had lunch at the hostel before going on a tour of Monmarte or the Mountain of Martyrs. It was with a SUPER cute English tour guide named Alex. :D We saw the Moulin Rouge, the place where Van Gogh lived with his brother (PS Van Gogh failed at EVERYTHING he did besides painting… like legit everything. Including love.), Picasso’s old studio, the last vineyard in Paris, the last windmill in Paris, St. Dannie’s statue (He apparently kept preaching after his head was cut off…creepy huh?), the Sacre Coere (GORGEOUS church with lots of creepy people around it), the cafe in Amelie, the original Bistro (literally means fast food in some language), the Artistic cafe where Picasso would con the waitresses into giving him free food for their portrait drawn on a napkin, the Man who walked through walls (cool story, cooler statue), Dali’s studio, the green grocer’s from Amelie, Dalida (a statue of the famous pop princess), the pink house (most photographed spot in Paris) and a nunnery of Henry 4th who totally got with the head nun so then it couldn’t be a nunnery anymore….way to go Henry. :P We then got a free glass of wine, which helped get rid of the cold cause we sat inside. :P We then headed back to the hostel and had some dinner. By this point we had met back up with Carlina and Ryan. After dinner, we headed down to the Eiffel Tower via the FREE metro! WE got brilliant pictures of the Tower lit up and it was amazing. Then we located Dana and her cold friend Ally and headed off to find Jered and Meghann. Then we proceed to hang out on steps in front of the Tower for about 3 hours. Eventually half the group went off in search of a bar or something. Meghann, Steph, Carlina and I hung out until they got back. They brought wine and we just passed it all around. During this time we were calling out “Bonne Nie! Bonne Nie!” and these two people turned to us and answered! We were like “OMG French people who actually like us!” and then we found out they were American. Figures, huh? So we invited them to drink our 4 euro wine with us and so they did. We chatted for a while and found out that their names were Tiffany Hines and Conrad something (I can’t remember his last name). What I do remember is that when he said his name was Conrad I legit said OUT LOUD “Of course it is” because honestly, he could not have had any other name. Conrad just fit him. Also Tiffany Hines happens to be a TV star. Which is amazing. We hung out with them until the clock struck 12, when nothing actually happened. The tower lit up like it does every hour on the hour but there were no fireworks or countdowns. There were a few really weak and lame fireworks but that was it. Then began our trek back to our hostel. Now during this 3 hour hang out in the cold nonsense, we all gradually really really really needed to pee. Like really really really badly. We were planning on taking the metro back to our hostel which should have theoretically taken only like 1/2 hour. However, the station we were planning on using was closed. So we were forced to wander until we could find a dark alley for Ryan to pee in. We found one and then found out there was a Biffy! So Casey, Carlina and I went in there. Which turned out to not be a unisex one, so we ended up squatting anyways. As I’m sure you really wanted to know. ANYWAYS! By this point it was already like 12:30? And we needed to find somewhere where there was a metro open because it would take us about 3 hours to walk back which was NOT happening. So we figured out where we were and started heading towards a large station. To get there we had to cross the Champs which had a ton of people on it! We finally found a train station that was open and headed in. The train was stopped because there were so many people on it it couldn’t close it’s doors. Finally it went. We waited 2 more trains before getting on one. We got off that one and ended up on this other one (after waiting 2 more trains) that wasn’t that full. As we continued on, this guy who is obviously drunk gets on. He then attempts to LIGHT a cig on a FULL metro car! He drops his lighter and this girl hands it back to him saying IN ENGLISH “Please wait.” Well, if you know ANYTHING about the French, you know that they HATE english. So this guy starts going off at this girl in French. And then this old dude behind me starts yelling at the guy. And then they almost get in to a fight right in front of me. I had NO idea what was going on because they were yelling in French but I was seriously scared. And then 20 seconds before we were supposed to get off some dude projectile vomitts right behind Ryan and Carlina. It is amazing how much room shows up after that. We finally got off the train and back to our hostel by 2 am where we climbed the 70 some stairs before passing out. :D

Day 4

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed to go on a 3 hour walking tour of Pairs. Remember that walking tour that Steph, Casey and I inserted ourselves in to? Yeah, this time we decided to do the whole thing. :P We started at Saint Michel, saw this awesome bridge built by Henri IV, the love-lock bridge, learned about the Immortals (their whole job is to protect French from English), the boulevards, the royal Palais, the dude who killed Henri IV, the Louve (again), the woman who married the Eiffel Tower but then dumped it for the Berlin Wall (no I am not joking. This is legit), the cursed island, Louis the 16th, the Egyptian Obelisk that was “given” to the French, a funny looking Metro stop, the Opera House, and the other Arc plus Paris burning. Then we went back for a nap. We woke up, had dinner and hung out with some more of Team America. In all it was a good day. :D

Day 2

We crawled out of bed and down to breakfast at 8:30 this morning. We finally left by about 10:15 cause we were just way too tired to move very quickly. It was a beautiful sunny day which is always helpful for sight seeing. Casey, Steph and I went to the Louve! We people watched while in line waiting to get into the main pyramid entrance. Here’s a tip for you, don’t go in that entrance. There are like 3 different side entrances that are never busy and get you to the same place. Also if you are student studying abroad in the EU show them your visa and you get in for free. Sadly I didn’t know that so I paid like 6 euro or something. We saw the Mona Lisa (which is under whelming) and a host of other famous and amazing pieces of art. We got lost at one point and could NOT figure out how to get out. It was crazy. By about 3 we were tired and super hungry. Ryan and Carlina were exploring Paris on their own and had already eaten so we found a cute cafe with pizza! :D We headed down to the gardens in front of the Louve which were full of statues and were fairly pretty for it being December. We found an English speaking tour group and we inserted ourselves in to it. :D It was really fun cause the girl was Australian and quite funny. We then walked down the Champs Elysees to the Arc d’ Triumph! There are 12 different roads coming off the Arc and no insurance agency in the WORLD will ensure you as you are on the Arc’s roundabout. We went through some of the Christmas markets as we walked down the impossibly long Champs before reaching the Arc. It was a beautiful sight. By this point we were super tired so we hopped on the sardine like metro back to our hostel. We grabbed some dinner at the grocery store and attempted to use the interwebs. :D I was falling asleep on the table by like 8:45. It had been a busy couple of days. In addition I had a massive bruise on my thigh from falling on the table trying to make my bunk bed. I am clearly very graceful and coordinated. :D

I woke up at 5:30 am in an attempt to make it to the train station to catch our 7:46 train. We made it to the station in more than enough time to collect our tickets, get breakfast and wait and wait and wait for our platform to show up on the screen. We were getting more and more worried and more crabby with every second. I’m seriously not a fan of the French train announcement noise. It sounds like the beginning to Soulja boy. Also I’m not a fan of French after that or I wasn’t at that point. We finally got on the train but were all in different compartments. I had a window seat and read the entire way to Paris. We got in to Paris at 10:20 which was only about 20 minutes late. We then spent time trying to find the underground station and the place to get the tickets. We finally got said tickets and got on what appeared to be a double decker metro but turns out to be an rer train which is like a literal train underground rather than a subway? If that makes sense… We got off at Gare du Nord and set about waiting for Ryan who was coming in from Florence, Italy. we found a cafe and grabbed a bite to eat while we waited. I somehow ended up with 2 sandwiches and we more or less all got what we wanted. We listened to music and I read my book while we waited for Ryan. He was having some trouble with his phone and so consequently it was difficult to get a hold of him and I failed with a text and stuff. Finally Ryan came and we set off for our hostel! We found it but also found out we couldn’t check in for a while so we went on a short walk, used their bathroom and then hung out in their common area until our rooms were ready. We unpacked and went to the grocery store right next to the hostel for supper. I got a microwavable pasta bowl and it was fab! We then decided to go wandering… At first this didn’t seem like a bad plan. We stop by a cool church and took some cool pictures but then we somehow ended up in the Paris ghetto. It was a super weird area, after dark and we started walking quicker and not speaking in English if we could help it. The hostel was nice and we tried to play some Legretto before succumbing to the exhaustion and heading up to bed. Carlina and Ryan came and talked to us for a while. After they left Casey, Steph and I and this super deep philosophical conversation that took forever and I don’t think it offended any one :D It was a really good end to a crazy day. :D