I apologize for any frustration at the lack of communication on my part. I can only say that my parental units (this includes paternal and maternal unit) WORE ME OUT! I was thinking about it today - my fall break included - London, Paris, Brighton, Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath! How in the world is one supposed to update every evening with that intense itinerary?
Well - so now - we shall have a very long, update. :) I'll do this one justice just like I would any single day post. Let's start with Tuesday - shall we?
Tuesday - October 12th 2010:
Alright. Tuesday was a great day. We decided to hop on a train and make our way over to Brighton - a coastal city. I've already been there, but no matter, because Brighton is a nice breath of fresh air compared to London.
My parents were amazed at the ease of travel in the UK compared to the US - and it's much cheaper. We did the travel in a group of three and were off! We got to Brighton about fifty minutes later and walked the main street down to the water. Mom and Dad were just as surprised as I first was at the rocks. They are beautiful - but it's shocking to see a rocky beach. We walked along the beach for a while and then we all realized we were hungry. (We were not off to an early start - I think we got into Brighton around one.)
So we went to a nice little Italian place for lunch. I got some mushroom thingy. It was really good. After lunch we noticed that there was a sign right outside the restaurant on top of this other building that said something like "correctional facility" and had a date from the 1700s on it. We took a picture of mom and dad standing under it. ;) Ha. We were having fun.
Anywho after that we made our way to the pier. Luckily it was a beautiful sunny day, although a tad chilly. Last time I was on the pier I didn't get to ride any of the rides. SOOOOOOO - I first went into the arcade. I played whack-a-mole and Dad played ski ball. Mom watched and laughed at the two of us; I felt like I was in Chuckie Cheese's again. Good times.
Next I persuaded Dad to go on the Crazy Mouse with me. Now that sounds intense - and it was more intense than I thought it would be. It was this little roller coaster on the edge of the pier overlooking the water. It didn't go upside down of course, but it did go jerky sideways and twisted you around in all different directions. I knew Jess would have gone with me at the drop of a hat, but I had to spend thirty minutes convincing dad.
So we went - there had to be four of us in a car - (Which the mouse car looked like a little mouse with huge ears). Dad and I ended up with these two German teenagers who literally did not understand the worker lady telling them to buckle their seat belts. (I feel like, no matter what language you speak, it's imperative that you buckle your seat belt before you get on a roller coaster on the end of a pier...overlooking the ocean...)
Anyway - Dad says that I owe him and he's right. First of all, we had to hold our glasses to our faces because we were concerned that we would lose them in the depths of the waves. AND there were a couple of turns that I really thought we were going to go careening into the ocean. It was great fun (but I was a little queasy after that. Haha.)
Next we tried really hard to find a pinball machine in honour of the Who. BUT - the arcade on the pier (which was huge and I mean hey - they had Whack-a-mole!) didn't have a single one. And that made me think that I haven't seen a single pinball machine in ages. Sad day. :(
Then we stopped at this place called Moo Moos that had these two cows out in front of it. I got a strawberry milkshake to share with mom and dad - guess what it was called? Non other than the Wimbledon Womble. I was excited. It was great too - it had marshmellows in it. Mom said that was weird and Dad just made a face. Oh well, more for me.
After that we headed back to the train station and proceeded to platform three to catch the train that was to leave for London in five minutes...well...we went back right during rush-hour. SO - that meant that when we booked it to get on that train - that almost every seat was taken. SO Mum, Dad, and I were standing in the door way with no seat. The prospects were looking dim. Mum and Dad went and sat finally, because someone left the train at one of the stops. I finally gathered up the courage (or my feet gave out - who knows which came first) and I sat next to a business man. I don't like doing that because it's just so invasive. Space over here is completely different to space in smaller cities. SHEESH!
Finally though, someone else left and we all got to sit together. I read some of Hamlet - yay homework - and we we alighted to the station we grabbed the tube back to our flat. We went out for dinner. I had some really good breaded mushrooms that night. After that we returned to the flat around eleven and it was bedtime. See?! See, they were keeping me up late - that's why I couldn't update this thing...;)
Wednesday - October 13th 2010:
Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath tour - OH MY! Can you believe we did all that in a day? And we sat on a bus with the most horrible tour guide ever. Let me start from the beginning.
Ok. Well. We had to be at our meeting point at eight for our pick up. Then we were herded onto a huge coach bus - which was a bad sign. Literally all the seats were taken. In the beginning it was interesting because I sat next to this little old lady whilst mum and dad got to sit together. SHEESH. (Do you realize that you're not supposed to travel alone? If you were - why in the hell wouldn't they just have coach buses with huge aisles of one passenger seats. Nope. You're supposed to have a partner. Easy for my mum and dad - but I've always got to be making friends on coach buses apparently...)
So this nice little old lady was from Arizona in the states. I couldn't really understand her accent, which is interesting, because she wasn't foreign...Hm. She proceeded to tell me over and over how excited she was about the architecture in London. I managed to distract her from that topic by switching over to food. We talked about cookies and cakes for the ride all the way until Windsor Castle. After that, I didn't sit next to her on the bus again.
However, while I was sitting next to her our guide was supposed to be giving us information regarding the neighbourhood we were passing through and such. WELL - I swear - I've gotten used to the accents over here, but HE. WAS. NOT. SPEAKING. ENGLISH!!!! I got so frustrated with him! He literally was speaking goobledegook! My poor parentals couldn't hear any better than I could. Sheesh.
Well we got to Windsor Castle. This is the first castle I've been to whilst over here. It was totally worth the bus with our crappy guide. It was an amazing castle. I wish we had had more time (which was the only problem) because I loved exploring the depths of the castle. Apparently, the Queen likes dollhouses - because she has a whole section of the palace dedicated to her royal dollhouses. I also saw some sketches by Da Vinci in the drawing gallery. The lavishness of it all was breath taking and overwhelmingly lovely. I enjoyed it so much.
Side note: the guide took forever to get us to our starting point. AND at this point, whilst mum, dad, and I were about to punch him for taking so long he started speaking Japanese I think. (It may have been chinese, I really don't know the difference.) Apparently, there was a group of people on this tour that didn't speak English. SO, the tour guide was leading two tours at once. GAH! How frustrating is that?
Anyway - our next stop was Stonehenge. Round two for me, round one for the parentals. I will say, that this experience was much more pleasant than my first one. It was not raining, although it may have totally been colder. It was freezing! (Yes Johnny Gately, I'm allowed to say it was freezing, because it literally was!) Anywho - Dad loved stonehenge, although he was frustrated with the distance you have to be from it. Mum and I were both a bit let down with the whole thing. But at least I can say now that I've been to stonehenge. AND - I enjoyed watching the little sheep in the surrounding fields. :)
After that excursion we headed back to the bus for lunch. We stopped at a small village called Lacock. It's a small town in England in which sections of Harry Potter have been filmed. At this point, the guide turns around (and of course - now is the time I can hear him) and he goes - "What I'm about to tell you may shock you: Harry Potter is a fictional character." My frustration with him reached a boiling point and I leaned up to the seats in which my parents were sitting which was directly in front of me and I said, "REEEEEEAAAAALLLY? No shit."
Luckily for him, we got to eat right after that or I would have sent a spit ball at him. We ate at St. George's Inn, which has been a pub since the 1300s. It was quaintly great. The staff was incredibly nice. I got fish and chips and tried a sticky toffee pudding. I will say - the sticky toffee pudding was excellent. I want to learn how to bake/make that. Absolutely delicious.
Next we got back on the bus - and let me just say. The people were all in an uproar. Let me backtrack. I mentioned that I sat next to a little old lady for the first segment of bus-riding. However, after that, my parents and I moved closer to the front to see if we could hear the tour guide better. At this point in the trip the guide walked down through the aisle after we had ALL already sat down and said something about how he had said earlier that we don't play musical chairs and we all needed to sit back in our original chairs that we were in in the morning. SERIOUSLY?
I really couldn't believe him. And everyone except for one couple (which I watched throughout the rest of the trip and they must have been really well-off because he was in a burberry raincoat and she had on a burberry sweater, scarf, and gloves with a versace purse. SHEESH.) Anyways, this one couple was about to have a fit the whole time because of their seats. They had apparently started out in the front and ended up in the back. I mean sheesh, I suppose mum, dad, and I got their seats. I don't know what difference it makes, however, because the guide sounded worse even closer up.
Anywho - we finally went to Bath. I didn't like the exhibit of the baths that much because I felt like the exhibit was weird. I mean, it was amazing to get to see the remains of the Roman Baths...Roman as in from the time of the Romans - which is a really long time ago. The architecture of the town looked like an Italian type town. I was beautifully awed. But the exhibit was all modern looking and very T.V. oriented. I didn't like it that much - also I was very tired by this point. Anywho we were rushed a lot at Bath. I got my picture made with the "Roman Guard" at the baths. He was funny because he kept calling my parents slaves. I thought that was appropriate. He told me which market I could go to to trade mine in. My parents and I just laughed.
We got back on the bus for one last hoorah into London. When we got back to South Kensington we went out to a pub. It was a football game night, so you would not believe the people that were in this pub. It must have been a big match - England v. Montenegro - because people were serious about it. We switched pubs and ended up meeting this interesting old guy from Liverpool. He and his buddy were watching the game on the tele - and they thought they were blocking our view. We weren't really all THAT interested in the game (I mean it's soccer, not American Football :) ) Anyway - we talked to him and he was pleasant. Just goes to show you that you need to get outside of London to get a good impression on how nice/mean the people of England are. London is basically an international city anyway - most people do NOT speak english.
After that I went to sleep around one - because I had to work on my newspaper article for the Hendrix newspaper. It's interesting and about the tube and if you want to read it just tell me and I'll send it to you. Haha. I don't want to post it here because I think that might be some kind of copyright problem.
Thursday - October 14th 2010.
PARIS! Oh Paris. Such a romantic and beautiful city. I would personally love to go back. :)
We had to be up at 4:30 to get to the Eurostar on time for our train ride. AND it was interesting to ride through the chunnel. My ears didn't like it very much, haha. Paris was also a bus tour with a guide - but it was a totally different experience than the one we had on Wednesday.
Our tour guide was a nice young, lady who spoke English and French. Her accent was not hard to understand at all, and she was so very nice. Also - there were only twelve of us on the tour so we had a huge coach bus for only twelve people and that gave us plenty of room to spread out. Paris was beautifully sunny whilst we were there, although it was colder than I anticipated. :\
We started out by the bus station - Gaurd de Nour. I don't particularly like tours at all, but I think it's best that we did a tour in Paris simply because I don't know any French at all. None. Whatsoever. We would have been totally lost and unable to get where we wanted to go. Anywho - sorry I interrupted myself - we started out in the Arab neighborhood. They had a bunch of neat street-markets and such. All of the buildings looked gorgeous and beautiful though.
I had no idea that Napoleon had the city of Paris essentially bulldozed so that he and his architect Baron Haussman could create the Paris we know today. Sheesh. The city is beautiful and spacious and created in such a beautiful style. Apparently Napoleon wanted a lot of windows so that the people could adourn them with beautiful flowers and curtains. I had to keep reminding my little branch of history in my brain that we were no longer in England, we were in France, and that contains a whole different set of history.
Anyway we drove around and saw the Grand Opera building as well as the golden flame that the US sent to Paris as a gratitude for receiving Lady Liberty. We also saw the Louvre and the Champ Elysees (which is the famous shopping street.) We saw the Eiffel tower a bunch of times from the bus as well as the huge Obelisk that the Egyptians sent to the French as a peace offering. It made me think that Paris should have been a much more peaceful city if it has all these peace-associated monuments. Hah. Just saying.
THEN, we went on a river boat along the River Seine. It was absolutely amazing. I got to see Notre Dame (the fake one Johnny) from the boat. It was absolutely riveting. i took some intense pictures of the gargoyles. I want to go climb the stairs there one day. The Parisians like their bridges and they have over twenty at least. That's because the original 'Paris' was a small island that is now surrounded by Napoleon's spacious creation.
After the river boat tour we got to go up on the Eiffel Tower for lunch. I didn't really like the elevators because they slanted upwards and you felt like you were going to fall out. By far, the Eiffel Tower was my favourite part of Paris. It was absolutely splendid. Our lunch was great - but our chicken had some weird soap sud looking things on it. I stuck my finger in mine and licked it and decided that it tasted like gravy. Then I was embarrassed at myself because we were in a swanky French restaurant on the Eiffel tower and I was being...ridiculous.
Anyway - we had a gorgeous view of Paris as we ate. Then we walked around on the first level and looked at all the different sites. It was hazy, but you could see Lady Liberty's sister and I took a picture of it. I'll post it so you can see it. I got all excited about it. Then I convinced Mum and Dad to walk out along the green lawn so we could take pictures of ourselves with the Tower in the Background. I sure wish I could have seen it all lit up at night. It was gorgeous. Granted that I speak no french and I am not living in Paris - but Paris is much more magical than London in my opinion. (My-oh-so-biased opinion. BUT Paris is way smaller in numbers to London so that could be a great positive factor to consider.)
The only thing I disliked about the Eiffel tower was that you maybe felt like you were in Mexico...because...there were a bunch of street vendors but they WERE. SO. PUSHY. I mean, they were more pushy than people in London and there are some people who sell magazines over here that are pretty pushy. But they were all trying to sell little Eiffel Tower keychains. They were all selling the same things and they were all shouting at you. You had to literally pretend like they didn't exist. SHEESH.
We lazily walked back over to our meeting point (that's another cool thing about this tour - we were a group of twelve - but we got a lot of free time from the group - so that was nice.) We got on the bus and made our way over the Louvre. Apparently the Louvre is the largest museum in Europe - I don't know why it shouldn't be the largest one in the world. IT"S HUGE!
We wanted to go see the Mona Lisa. Unfortunately - it's not London so most museums in Paris ARE NOT free. We waited in Line to get inside and then we went to look at a map. We finally decided not to go see the mona lisa simply because with the time constraints we had we would have had to run to find her and then run to get back to the meeting point in time to catch our bus back to the Eurostar...so...we just walked around and looked at a bunch of shops and such. I got some pistachio gelato. IT WAS AMAZING. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good. Unfortunately...it puts the stuff in Little Rock to shame. :(
Anywho - we got back to the meeting point and realized just how ridiculous Paris rush hour is. We literally had to get out of coach bus and walk the last stretch to the train station. I didn't mind because I liked the fresh air - but we were so rushed getting into the train station because we were pretty much almost late. They drive like maniacs in Paris. I mean, they drive on the RIGHT side of the road and everything which is good - but they do not stay in a lane - if lanes are even marked. AND we had a very patient bus driver. It was funny because no matter how many times people cut him off or he went the wrong route he didn't get frustrated...until the very end right before we walked out. He and this other driver got into it and I had to hold down my giggles - because I didn't think they were that appropriate. But hey, I didn't know what they were saying they were speaking French.
Anyway - we got through customs and went back to the Eurostar. The Eurostar was way more full at this evening time than it was when we got up in the morning to take it. SHEESH! Mumsy, Dad, and I just ended up standing up and chilling in the car where you can order food. It was nice because we didn't want to sit. However, when we did go sit I made another friend. I was sitting next o this lady who was Canadian and she and I talked about London for the whole ride home.
Once at the station we had a new bus driver that was supposed to drop us off at the meeting point we walked to from our flat earlier in the morning around five thirty. The only problem was that this guy was covering for some other guy - and of course Mum, Dad and I were the last to be dropped off. My dad just told him to drop us wherever because we knew where we were in the neighbourhood. He had one of those gps location map things. SHEESH! And he kept complaining and sighing and it made me really uncomfortable.
When we got back to the flat I showered and started watching Bridgette Jones' Diary. (Hey I'm in England right?) I didn't have the energy to go out so I let my parentals go out without me. :) Haha. I finished my article for Hendrix and then passed out. Hence again, no update.
Which brings us to:
Friday - October 15th 2010
We all slept until noon. We got up and went to a nice little cafe for lunch (in fact the same one we went to our first day in South Kensington.) I mean, you can't help it because once you've decided you like something you gotta keep it up.
After that we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Which, I've discovered, it's much more fun to go to a museum on your own time than during class. We got to look at things I wanted to look at. We looked at the glass gallery, the fashion exhibit, the stained glass exhibit, the jewelry exhibit and some sculptures on our way out. I totally enjoyed my time there and I know my Dad and Mom did.
After that we tortured Dad and we went into Harrods. Harrods was much more fun the second time around. We walked through the food area and made our way to Christmas World. We spent a long time in there and in the kids toy section. I'm telling you - they have some NEAT gadgets in this place. Then we popped back down to the food court thing and Mum got me some tea. In fact, I'm drinking some Mango tea right now and it's absolutely delicious. I tried some apple last night and so did Dad. He said it tasted like jolly ranchers, but it's not nearly that sweet. Anyway - it's fun to drink if that means anything. :)
After Harrods we went out to a pub and chilled the night away people watching and eventually eating. We always end up in the same place - I guess there is a reason that they have 'neighbourhood pubs.'
I found this beer I really like that is brewed in London. It's Fuller's Honey Dew - it's an organic wheat beer and I like it a lot. :) Now I just need to see if I can find it anywhere close to my flat. It's probably fancy or something. Haha.
Okay so that brings us up to today - Saturday.
I've just been completing my to-do list today. I was very sad that my parents left and I cried a bit on the tube ride home. I can't help it - I guess I'm just a softie and I love my family. Either that or I'm a big baby - either way - the tube ride with my bags this time was much easier because I knew where to put my luggage. Ah, the way that things become so much simpler when you know how to do them. :)
I have done some laundry, gone to the store for eggs and bread, and went to the post office only to discover it's closed on Saturdays. :( GAH! Fail. I have some postcards I'm going to send...on Monday. :)
Gramner I haven't gotten my package, I checked. However, I did get a letter from my special someone - yes you - JOHNNY GATELY. :)
I think I might go running really quick because it's the perfect time to do all that. As for the rest of the evening I'm just going to work on Hamlet I guess. I'm waiting for Kemper to get back and trying to distract myself.
ON the bright side - it's only 47 days until I fly back to the states. That's not bad at all. In fact, I'll blink and I'll be home. AND it will be Christmas time. I love Christmas.
Alright well Cheers for now!
Enjoy the pictures (also side note - I've reached a maximum capacity for all the pictures I can hold on that web page and I didn't post any from Paris - so I don't know what I'm going to do - just stay posted. I'll figure something out!)
Miss you guys!
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