Well, here I go. My last post! Sorry about the delay, but you will understand why I haven't posted anything for awhile after you read this post. It's gonna be really llooooooonnnnnnnngggggggg, and everything is kinda blurry at this point, but I'll do my best.
On Sunday, Ash and I decided to take the alternative scenic route to Oakwood. We took Cockfosters road up to Cockfosters station (I still can't get over that name!) and enjoyed the beautiful sights. There is a little pond along the way, and it had a few mandarin ducks in it. I had never seen those before, but they are beautiful and so colorful! (Facebook pic to follow). The fields on either side of the street were so green and expansive. We both agreed that the leisurely walk was very refreshing after all the rushing we had been doing lately. As we walked along, we ended up at a cafe called Miracles where we grabbed some delcious food and a couple lattes. I had a prawn and avodaco sandwich which sounded strange but was very tasty. After we stuffed ourselves, we took the tube to the Zoo. I already posted about my previous trip there, so I'll skip the redundant description and just say that we had a lovely time. It wasn't nearly as cold as it was when I went there last, thankfully!
The large amount of moving and sightseeing we had done during the past few days was starting to catch up with us, so we decided to go back to halls early and make some dinner. I think we had spaghetti. In the evening we decided to go to Christ Church (my last service there), and strangely we managed to end up at the tube station EARLY. How often does that happen in London? As we looked at the clock that said 6:30 and realized that we had half an hour to kill before the service started, we decided to sit at the tube station until 6:45 in order to avoid the awkward early arrival to the church service. We laughed at ourselves for preferring to wait at the cold tube station instead of in the warm church, but we didn't want to be those awkward people who show up to church half an hour early and don't really know anyone. Weird, I know, but hey, that's how it went down.
The church service was alright, but my favorite part was the spiced-up version of "Be Thou My Vision" that they sang at the end. I talked with the worship leader afterwards about it, and he gave me a copy of the music for me to take back to my homeland : ). I chatted with Gill for a little while too, and we said our final goodbyes but not before exchanging contact details. What a blessing she and Martin were! Sarah, Kim, Ash, and I walked back to campus and discussed the message which I had many reservations about. In short, I didn't trust the speaker's reasoning and inferences. Anyway, our conversation passed the time, and I think the only other thing I did that night was work on some homework.
On Monday, Ash and I hit the city for some final sightseeing and shopping. First stop - Big Ben and Westminster. We decided that we were willing to pay the entrace fee to Westminster, and we took a guided tour through the place. Wow - talk about ornate! It was absolutely beautiful, but I left thinking, "These English people cling too tightly to the past." It's a tendency for all of us I guess, but the English (at least those in London) are pros at it. I found the amount of memorials and graves to be a bit overwhelming, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless. After our tour, we were famished (we both get hungry pretty often, especially with all the walking we had been doing) and found a cute Italian restaurant for lunch. The people running the place were moving at Stabucks rush hour speed, if not faster. It was unbelievable. In fact, I had a hard time relaxing to eat my food because they were whizzing back and forth so quickly. The good news is that they brought our food out very quickly, and it was delicious! Hmmmm, carbs :) After we stuffed ourselves AGAIN, we walked up Whitehall Road and into the Trafalger Square, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus area. We walked into St. Martin in the Fields (a cathedral off of Trafalgar Square), and I took a picture of the HUGE organ. When we walked down to the crypt, we found a bustling restaurant instead of eerie graves. It was strange, but I'm proud of the English for modernizing like that :) After walking around a bit, Ash and I landed at Fortnum and Mason where I did some serious shopping! I managed to fit all my purchases into my backpack when we left, and we walked up Regent's Street to check out the exceptional Anthrolopologie store they have there. We roamed around in there for a bit, and then decided to head back to campus. We were getting pooped quicker and quicker, and I was wearing heels which didn't help. My feet had been getting progressively more sore ( is it more sore or sorer???) as the week wore on. That night, Ash, Kim, and I went out for some fish and chips. They served us a WHOLE cod fish along with the chips. We're talking beyond American portion size. That plate was huge! But it was delicious, and I had the second half of it for lunch the next day. I'm pretty sure I crashed when I got back to my room. What a fun-filled day! Oh, I forgot to mention the idea-mashing session Kim and I had for our Shakespeare papers on Twelfth Night. Poor Kim was so stressed about it. After we reached saturation point, we made some ice cream hot chocolate to help her drown her sorrows and to help me grow my food baby (he's growing so quickly! Erggg). It was delicious. You should try making some sometime. Ben and Jerry's is good with Cadbury chocolate.
Tuesday, the library FINALLY opened back up, so I spent 3 hours there in the morning and spent the rest of the day doing homework. Ash entertained herself in her room and had a movie marathon day. She was ready to relax a bit, so I didn't feel too bad about hulling up in my homework cave. I made some surprising progress on my assignments. A little later as I sat at my desk mulling over my work, I heard a knock on the door and figured it was Ash or Kim or Sarah. Not today! Alayna had come back to halls early, and I freaked out! She might as well have resurrected from the dead because I never thought I would see her again (at least for a very long time), but there she was! We had a nice chat and she showed me her new ENGAGEMENT ring! Wow, everyone is getting hitched or planning on it these days. Her man proposed to her under the London fireworks at midnight on New Years - classy. It was soooo nice to see her again!
That night, Sarah, Kim, Ash, and I went up to the local Indian food restaurant for my last supper. Wow - it was sooooo tasty! I am officially a fan of Indian food, even though I haven't eaten much of a variety of stuff yet. We stuffed ourselves (AGAIN - what, is this the 3rd time in this post? No wonder I gained weight.), and headed back to campus. It was about 9:00, and I still hadn't finished my assignments that I planned on turning in before I left. Because they weren't technically due for awhile, I decided to leave them to finish at home so I could enjoy my last night in London and have time to pack and make a massive batch of goodbye cookies. So, the homework stopped there, but I have to tell you a funny story about one of my assignments before I move on. My professor wanted a certain part of my music project to be bound in one of those really small, comb-like spiral folder things. Of course I didn't have one, I didn't know where to find one, and I didn't have the time to look for one. Because I was still planning on turning in this project before I left, I decided to improvise. I found the front and back cover of a spiral-bound notebook that I had and used those, but I didn't have a way to bind them. I needed string but all I had was thread or floss. Then I saw a drawstring backpack/bag thing I had laying on the floor, and took out the drawstring. Perfect - that would work. Wait, I don't have a hole punch. I promptly folded the side of the paper that was going in the notebook, and I cut tiny triangles out of the side where the hole-punches should have gone. It felt like I was making a paper snowflake, but it worked! I stiched up my makeshift notebook with all of its improvised components, and I never felt so POOR! I was laughing at myself the whole time. It was fun actually.
Ok enough of homework. On with the cookies and packing. I had SOOOOO much stuff that wouldn't fit in my suitcases, so my neighbors made BANK off of me and scored some sweet stuff, such as all my food. Packing took way longer than I thought, and I had to finish the next morning. Ash helped me make a double batch of cookies late that night. I made the dough, and she chopped the Cadbury chocolate bars. I was writing my goodbye cards at the same time, so Ash ended up putting most of the cookies on their sheets and into the oven. Her mom is a massive baker, so I should have known she would be the perfect person to help me bake! Of couse we had a couple cookies for ourselves and then packaged them up to give away the next day. I didn't fall asleep until about 2:00am.
I was up at 8:00 on Wednesday morning and got right to packing. I made the rounds to Sarah, Kim, and Alayna's rooms to give away my extra stuff and later to say goodbye. After everything was said and done, Ash and I left campus over an hour later than we had planned. I had SOOOO much luggage, I don't know how it managed to carry it all let alone fit all the essentials in it. (I had a guitar too, remember). My big duffle was so heavy the the roller handle broke off by the time I had made it to the tube station! Haha, I still managed to pull it along, because it was crazy heavy. We had an 1.5 hour tube ride ahead of us, and we were getting nervous about making our flights. Ash's flight left 20 minutes before mine, so that was especially worrisome. We parted ways at the check-in desks at Heathrow and scurried our way to our gates. Thankfully, we both made it. Ash's phone didn't work in London, so I didn't know that she had made it until she landed in Chicago during a layover and texted me. Thank God! I can't imagine her (or me for that matter) being stuck in Heathrow waiting for another flight. She was headed to San Francisco next because it was cheaper than flying into Sac.
I flew with Air New Zealand all the way to L.A. on a 10.5 hour flight. The time went by really fast actually, and I watched 3 movies: Eat, Pray Love (which was kinda overrated, if you ask me, but entertaining enough), Made in Dagenham (an English flick), and Charlie St. Cloud (it's true - Zac Efron is hot.). The flight was the most plush flight I have ever been on. I had tons of leg room, the overhead compartments were huge, there were 70 movies options not to mention TV and music channels, and they served BOMB food and free wine with your meal. Seriously?!?!? Yes, seriously. And there was cheesecake for dessert. Yum.
Eventually I made it to L.A. and had to go through customs and re-check my bags for my United flight to Sacramento (see below for details on how that worked out). After I made it through an offensive amount of security and border control hoopla, I had to walk from terminal 2 to terminal 7 (quite a long way) to connect to my next flight. There was probably a free shuttle somewhere, but I didn't want to bother with it and I had time to spare. Plus, I needed some exercise after sitting on my butt for 10.5 hours and growing a large food baby in London! I made it to my gate with about 2 hours to spare, so I napped a bit, looked through pictures, and chilled. Come 10:00 (we were supposed to depart at 10:30), they tell us that the flight has been delayed until 11:20 because the flight crew was still on a plane from Boise. Hurray. I phoned my family to tell them to hold off on arriving at the Sac airport until about 1 instead of 12 (midnight). We finally made it out of L.A., and I snoozed most of the flight. When we were descending into Sacramento (we were close enough to see the city lights through the clouds/fog), we heard an announcement saying, "Sorry folks, (our airline stewardess was from the South), but because of the heavy fog, we have to divert to San Francisco where we will get some fuel and come up with another plan." Lovely. So, we landed in San Francisco, fueled up, and waited for the plan. Ends up, that United totally cancelled the flight because the fog was way too thick in Sac for a safe landing. SOOO, everyone piled off the plane into the San Fran airport at 1:30 am where we ran into a customer service clerk who told us that there wasn't a shuttle bus yet to get us to Sacramento and she was working on the hotel arrangments, but it wasn't looking good.
Here's where it gets cool. So, as I mentioned before, Ashley was flying into San Fran. Her parents were gonna pick her up because it was cheaper that way. When Ash was in Chicago and texted me to tell me she had made it, she also told me that her flight to San Fran had been delayed until 11:00. (Of course all of this would happen to us. It's like the Middlesex shuttle bus service was planning it or something). I remember this when I got stuck in San Fran, so I found a departures/arrivals board and saw that her flight was due at 2:30. Originally, she was supposed to get in at 10:45, but of course that didn't work out. I thought, "I wonder if I can get a ride home with her?" I called Ash and left a message and a text because she was still on the plane. Then I remembered that I actually had her mom's number in my phone. This was very odd because her mom and I aren't BFFs or anything (she's awesome, but we don't text each other or anything like that). The only reason I had her number in my phone was because Ashley's phone wasn't working in London and she had asked me earlier that week to text her mom to let her know that she had arrived safely. Ash told me her number, and I sent the text. Well . . . the number was still in my phone, I called her mom and definately was able to catch a ride back to Sac with them! I waited for Ash's plane to arrive, her parents arrived soon after, and we loaded up our stuff for the very VERY foggy drive back to Sac. When we got back, my sister picked me up from their house and I was FINALLY home at 5:00 am.
Wow. I know that God had more than taken care of me while I was in London, but I had no idea that He has this last little adventure in mind! I thought all that adventure stuff was over! Talk about provision! What a cool story. God definately "wow"-ed me with that one.
So, needless to say, my parents had gone home when they heard I was getting a ride, so they were sleeping when I got in at 5:00 am. I had a snack, chatted with Shelby, and went to sleep around 6:30 am.
And here I am. It's Friday morning (I woke up at 6. Jetlag, you know), and I have finally made it back home. What a trip. It still feels surreal to be home, but I'm definately glad to be here.
So, what's next? I kind of get to recreate my life now.
Goal number 1 - get rid of this food baby I grew in London and just get fit in general. I won't be able to hide under London layers for much longer! 24 Hour, here I come!
Goal number 2 - ???
So, that's the end of Lauren on London and Life Abroad. Thanks for reading.
Friday, 7 January 2011
Saturday, 1 January 2011
December 30- January 1
Wow, I have a lot of catching up to do! Ash and I have been kickin' our London Bucket list really hard these past 3 days. On Thursday, we started off at St. Paul's Cathedral. It was super beautiful, but we only got to see some of the inside because you had to pay to see the rest of it. I've had my camera on me the past few days, but I've pretty much delegated the task of photo-taking over to Ashley because she enjoys it way more than me and gets better shots too. We weren't supposed to take pics inside the Cathedral, but we snagged a few - oops. We walked from St. Paul's over the Millenium Bridge right into the Tate Modern. I've nearly given up on museums, but I still feel the need to at least check them out briefly. The first exhibit we saw was in a huge hall. It was 100 billion porcelain sunflower seeds covering the floor about 1.5 inches deep over about the area of a basketball court. It was dumb. In fact, I snuck up next to Ashley and whispered that very thing, "This is dumb," and she agreed. We couldn't even walk on the seeds because the dust from the porcelain is apparently a health hazard. Wow, what a waste of porcelain. Anyway, we kept laughing and moved on to another floor where we found more modern stuff, of course. One of the exhibits was about 6 painted canvases about 10x10 feet that looked like the remains of a peeled SKU tag off of various plastic products. Very strange . . . and scratchy looking. I remember being confused mostly for the whole time we were at the museum, but we kept moving. I really don't get moden art. Because Ash and I like to crack jokes all the time, we responded to our confusion by making fun of some of the pieces. The icing on the cake was this room full of canvases that had big pastel stripes on them. Just rectanglur strips. Ash said, "That looks like a faded-out American Eagle t-shirt," and she was exactly right. It was after that comment and a supressed laugh, that I said, "I think it's time for us to leave." Ash said, "Ya, I'm pretty sure I'm not respecting all this, and I'll just keep laughing if we look at more of it." As we walked out, I felt as if I should have been kicked out for disrespecting the "art." I really don't get it, everything we saw. I can't really describe it much more than that, but I was really happy to leave.
Right next door to the Tate Modern is Shakespeare's Globe Theater. If you've read my other blog posts, you already know by now how I feel about Shakespeare. I just took a picture of the place from the outside and moved on. Ash and I made our way down the bank of the Thames, along the Queen's Walk, and toward Tower Bridge. We came across a museum about London prisons (but didn't go it), a cool clipper ship that was famous for some cool reason that I can't remember right now, and then (here's the best one) a pub called The Horniman Pub. I'm not kidding. I have a picture of it. We both were getting hungry at this point, but I just couldn't get past the name, so we moved on and continued laughing. Dude, what is it with these English people and their sexual humour? First, we have Middlesex University, then Cockfosters (the city our school is in), then The Horniman Pub??? The worst part is, you get used to it after awhile. Wow - I'm not sure this stuff would fly in the U.S. Oh, also they often call cigarettes "fags," which I have heard before but I'm pretty sure is not P.C. back home. Enough of that. Moving on.
Our feet were already sore, but we kept walking, crossed Tower Bridge, and landed in front of the Tower of London. We decided to indulge and pay for the tickets to get inside. It is much bigger in there than it appears, and there were tons of people! Of course we wanted to see the Crown Jewels, but we didn't feel like spending the rest of our lives standing in the infinity long line that wrapped around a huge portion of the large courtyard. Crazy. Way worse than Disneyland, but probably not quite as bad as those people who had to stand outside St. Pancras Station a few weeks ago waiting for Eurostar. We decided to join a free Beefeater tour instead and spent the next 45 minutes or so listening to our good-looking Beefeater tell us stories about the Tower, the royal dynasties, and various incidents of torture. The whole experience was pretty cool. We left and landed at a pub a few blocks away called the Hung, Drawn, and Quartered Pub - very appropriate considering its vicinity to so many historic killings/hangings. The title wasn't as bad as the Horniman, and we were tired and hungry, so we stopped, had a pint and a snack, and played some cards. I had an ale called Honey Bee, and it was really good. We then headed to Covent Garden just to kill some time and then went back to campus for the night.
Yesterday was great. Ash and I landed in Camden Town at 11 and shopped our little hearts out until about 4:30. I think I've written about Camden before, but in case I haven't, it's basically a huge collection of markets and stalls that sell all kinds of stuff with lots of personality. It's one of my favorite places in London. When we were done scoping everything out and scoring some cool stuff, we headed to the city center (Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square areas) to meet up with Sarah and Kim. We were early, so we walked around a bit. Of course there were tons of people because it was New Year's Even, but Ash and I managed to find a cute and cozy cafe to chill at for awhile. It was very peaceful - and warm. I've pretty much mastered the art of layering since I've been here, but you can't keep out ALL the cold. We eventually met up with Kim and Sarah, walked past Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster, and along the Thames until we found a spot that looked like a good fireworks viewing area. It was only 8:00 at the time, so we wandered around and found a pub to chill at for a few hours. Kim taught us how to play hearts with the trusty deck of cards Ash always has with her, and we passed the time very enjoyably. By 11:00, we had found a place on a crowded bridge not too far from The London Eye, and we just waited until midnight for the fireworks. The London Eye had a mild light show going to pacify us until the big show at midnight, and it was really awesome. Thankfully, it was clear and not raining that night! The fireworks were amazing, and the crowd was surprisingly mellow. Of course there were a few crazies, but most of the people were very responsible and considerate of the large crowd. After the fireworks, we made a long walk to one of the relatively close tube stations, waded through a sea of people while clinging to each other and our backpacks, and finally made it onto a train. It was about 1:30 by the time we got to Oakwood Station, so we called a cab back to campus where I promptly crashed right into bed and slept until 11 this morning.
After a lazy morning of recovering from last night's celebration, Ash and I caught the 12:45 bus to Oakwood and spent a good chunk of the afternoon at Portobello Market. I have been planning this week to be a major shopping week for me for awhile now, but I still don't like spending so much money in such a short time! I've scored some awesome stuff, but I'm ready to settle down back home, start making money again instead of living off of my savings, and to start spending less. Ash and I left Portobello at about 4:30, and headed for the British Museum. It was closing just as we got there, but we both were ready to head back anyway. Back at halls, we had ourselves some dinner, popped in Dumb and Dumber and just laughed and relaxed for awhile. We parted ways at about 9, and I got to work on some laundry and homework while Ash did her own thing. It's almost 12:30 am now, and I am ready for some sleep!
Prayer Request of the Day: That I found find the time to finish my assignments as quickly and as well as possible, oh, and with as little stress as possible :)
Right next door to the Tate Modern is Shakespeare's Globe Theater. If you've read my other blog posts, you already know by now how I feel about Shakespeare. I just took a picture of the place from the outside and moved on. Ash and I made our way down the bank of the Thames, along the Queen's Walk, and toward Tower Bridge. We came across a museum about London prisons (but didn't go it), a cool clipper ship that was famous for some cool reason that I can't remember right now, and then (here's the best one) a pub called The Horniman Pub. I'm not kidding. I have a picture of it. We both were getting hungry at this point, but I just couldn't get past the name, so we moved on and continued laughing. Dude, what is it with these English people and their sexual humour? First, we have Middlesex University, then Cockfosters (the city our school is in), then The Horniman Pub??? The worst part is, you get used to it after awhile. Wow - I'm not sure this stuff would fly in the U.S. Oh, also they often call cigarettes "fags," which I have heard before but I'm pretty sure is not P.C. back home. Enough of that. Moving on.
Our feet were already sore, but we kept walking, crossed Tower Bridge, and landed in front of the Tower of London. We decided to indulge and pay for the tickets to get inside. It is much bigger in there than it appears, and there were tons of people! Of course we wanted to see the Crown Jewels, but we didn't feel like spending the rest of our lives standing in the infinity long line that wrapped around a huge portion of the large courtyard. Crazy. Way worse than Disneyland, but probably not quite as bad as those people who had to stand outside St. Pancras Station a few weeks ago waiting for Eurostar. We decided to join a free Beefeater tour instead and spent the next 45 minutes or so listening to our good-looking Beefeater tell us stories about the Tower, the royal dynasties, and various incidents of torture. The whole experience was pretty cool. We left and landed at a pub a few blocks away called the Hung, Drawn, and Quartered Pub - very appropriate considering its vicinity to so many historic killings/hangings. The title wasn't as bad as the Horniman, and we were tired and hungry, so we stopped, had a pint and a snack, and played some cards. I had an ale called Honey Bee, and it was really good. We then headed to Covent Garden just to kill some time and then went back to campus for the night.
Yesterday was great. Ash and I landed in Camden Town at 11 and shopped our little hearts out until about 4:30. I think I've written about Camden before, but in case I haven't, it's basically a huge collection of markets and stalls that sell all kinds of stuff with lots of personality. It's one of my favorite places in London. When we were done scoping everything out and scoring some cool stuff, we headed to the city center (Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square areas) to meet up with Sarah and Kim. We were early, so we walked around a bit. Of course there were tons of people because it was New Year's Even, but Ash and I managed to find a cute and cozy cafe to chill at for awhile. It was very peaceful - and warm. I've pretty much mastered the art of layering since I've been here, but you can't keep out ALL the cold. We eventually met up with Kim and Sarah, walked past Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster, and along the Thames until we found a spot that looked like a good fireworks viewing area. It was only 8:00 at the time, so we wandered around and found a pub to chill at for a few hours. Kim taught us how to play hearts with the trusty deck of cards Ash always has with her, and we passed the time very enjoyably. By 11:00, we had found a place on a crowded bridge not too far from The London Eye, and we just waited until midnight for the fireworks. The London Eye had a mild light show going to pacify us until the big show at midnight, and it was really awesome. Thankfully, it was clear and not raining that night! The fireworks were amazing, and the crowd was surprisingly mellow. Of course there were a few crazies, but most of the people were very responsible and considerate of the large crowd. After the fireworks, we made a long walk to one of the relatively close tube stations, waded through a sea of people while clinging to each other and our backpacks, and finally made it onto a train. It was about 1:30 by the time we got to Oakwood Station, so we called a cab back to campus where I promptly crashed right into bed and slept until 11 this morning.
After a lazy morning of recovering from last night's celebration, Ash and I caught the 12:45 bus to Oakwood and spent a good chunk of the afternoon at Portobello Market. I have been planning this week to be a major shopping week for me for awhile now, but I still don't like spending so much money in such a short time! I've scored some awesome stuff, but I'm ready to settle down back home, start making money again instead of living off of my savings, and to start spending less. Ash and I left Portobello at about 4:30, and headed for the British Museum. It was closing just as we got there, but we both were ready to head back anyway. Back at halls, we had ourselves some dinner, popped in Dumb and Dumber and just laughed and relaxed for awhile. We parted ways at about 9, and I got to work on some laundry and homework while Ash did her own thing. It's almost 12:30 am now, and I am ready for some sleep!
Prayer Request of the Day: That I found find the time to finish my assignments as quickly and as well as possible, oh, and with as little stress as possible :)
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
December 28-29
Yesterday morning, I woke up with a headache, but that didn't stop me from making more pancakes! You guys are gonna think I'm a pig after all these posts about pancakes! But maybe I am . . . I shared them, if that makes a difference. They were delicious as usual, and they were even better with nutella. After breakfast and trying to get some work done, my headache wouldn't go away so I took a nap. In the past 8 months or so, I have developed this new weakness of wanting to take naps too soon after I wake up. I don't know what that's all about, but it surfaces every now and then. When I woke up, my headache was gone and I got to work on some homework. The next thing I know, Sarah comes barging in my room (she tried to knock but I had my earbuds in) a while later telling me that she almost chopped off her finger trying to cut herself some leftover Christmas ham! I grabbed my mini first aid kit and wrapped her finger in gauze. She must have overdramatized the situation because I didn't see any blood.
With her all patched up, I decided to take a break from my work and take a walk. I layered up and power walked for an hour hoping that the physical exertion would help me sleep better than I had the past few nights. It didn't really work, but at least I was awake and feeling good afterwards. Instead of getting right back to homework, I got distracted by music and spent some solid time jammin' and eating dinner. More whole wheat spaghetti - yum. It hits the spot everytime. When I finally sat down and faced the music (literally, I had music homework to do), I got overwhelmed by the whole academic situation over here again. I don't really want to go into detail right now because it makes me tense to think about it. Sarah came into my room a little later to decompress from her homework too, so we both had a chance to vent. Aside from all that, yesterday was pretty uneventful actually. I was trying to make a dent in my homework before Ashley got here so I would have less to worry about. It didn't entirely work, but oh well. That's how things go over here. I'll figure it out.
This morning, I set my alarm for 5:50 and woke up to a club beat version of Katy Perry's "California Girls" which I hate. I literally plugged the ear that wasn't on my pillow with my finger and tried to cram the pillow over my ear to block out that crap. Next, "Over the Rainbow" by Israel (something or other . . . you know, that fat Hawaiian guy who plays the ukulele?) came on, and I thought, "Now this is the kind of music you're supposed to wake up to." Norah Jones was up next, but I wasn't diggin' it so I finally got up and turned off my alarm. After some leftover pancakes and some tea, I caught my cab to Oakwood (the shuttle doesn't run that early) and hopped on the tube for the 1.5. hour ride to Heathrow to meet Ashley! To make a long story short, I ended up waiting at the airport for 4.5 hours, but Ash finally made it! She had missed her connection in Chicago and had to catch the next flight out to London. After all the disappointment over Natalie's flight being cancelled, I was starting to think something like that was going to happen with Ashley and I would have to spend my last week here sightseeing by myself. Well, she made it but her bag didn't (of course something like that would happen). She was chill about it, and we're hoping it arrives before we both head back to the States! I've got enough to cover her in the meantime.
From the airport, we went back to campus to get her settled in, ate dinner, watched Rat Race and just chilled. Later, we went out with Sarah and Kim to a pub called Ye Old Cherry Tree because we thought the name was entertaining enough to warrant a visit. It was so adorable! The pubs over here are very cozy and cute. I had fish cakes and chips (fries), and my stomach is very happy and full right now. Surprisingly, Ash seemed very energetic considering her long journey here and her high level of sleep deprivation. The four of us had a very nice evening out and made it back to Oakwood just in time to catch the last shuttle bus back to campus.
I'm starting to lose a bit of motivation with making these posts particularly interesting, but I'm getting really excited to be coming home in a week! Ash and I are gonna go out with a bang. We were hoping to make it over to Dublin, but we decided against it for a number of reasons. So, London has our full attention, and we're gonna rock this town!
Prayer Request of the Day: That we would enjoy as much as possible before we leave!
With her all patched up, I decided to take a break from my work and take a walk. I layered up and power walked for an hour hoping that the physical exertion would help me sleep better than I had the past few nights. It didn't really work, but at least I was awake and feeling good afterwards. Instead of getting right back to homework, I got distracted by music and spent some solid time jammin' and eating dinner. More whole wheat spaghetti - yum. It hits the spot everytime. When I finally sat down and faced the music (literally, I had music homework to do), I got overwhelmed by the whole academic situation over here again. I don't really want to go into detail right now because it makes me tense to think about it. Sarah came into my room a little later to decompress from her homework too, so we both had a chance to vent. Aside from all that, yesterday was pretty uneventful actually. I was trying to make a dent in my homework before Ashley got here so I would have less to worry about. It didn't entirely work, but oh well. That's how things go over here. I'll figure it out.
This morning, I set my alarm for 5:50 and woke up to a club beat version of Katy Perry's "California Girls" which I hate. I literally plugged the ear that wasn't on my pillow with my finger and tried to cram the pillow over my ear to block out that crap. Next, "Over the Rainbow" by Israel (something or other . . . you know, that fat Hawaiian guy who plays the ukulele?) came on, and I thought, "Now this is the kind of music you're supposed to wake up to." Norah Jones was up next, but I wasn't diggin' it so I finally got up and turned off my alarm. After some leftover pancakes and some tea, I caught my cab to Oakwood (the shuttle doesn't run that early) and hopped on the tube for the 1.5. hour ride to Heathrow to meet Ashley! To make a long story short, I ended up waiting at the airport for 4.5 hours, but Ash finally made it! She had missed her connection in Chicago and had to catch the next flight out to London. After all the disappointment over Natalie's flight being cancelled, I was starting to think something like that was going to happen with Ashley and I would have to spend my last week here sightseeing by myself. Well, she made it but her bag didn't (of course something like that would happen). She was chill about it, and we're hoping it arrives before we both head back to the States! I've got enough to cover her in the meantime.
From the airport, we went back to campus to get her settled in, ate dinner, watched Rat Race and just chilled. Later, we went out with Sarah and Kim to a pub called Ye Old Cherry Tree because we thought the name was entertaining enough to warrant a visit. It was so adorable! The pubs over here are very cozy and cute. I had fish cakes and chips (fries), and my stomach is very happy and full right now. Surprisingly, Ash seemed very energetic considering her long journey here and her high level of sleep deprivation. The four of us had a very nice evening out and made it back to Oakwood just in time to catch the last shuttle bus back to campus.
I'm starting to lose a bit of motivation with making these posts particularly interesting, but I'm getting really excited to be coming home in a week! Ash and I are gonna go out with a bang. We were hoping to make it over to Dublin, but we decided against it for a number of reasons. So, London has our full attention, and we're gonna rock this town!
Prayer Request of the Day: That we would enjoy as much as possible before we leave!
Monday, 27 December 2010
December 26-27
I think it's almost time for me to come home. I woke up at least 3 times Saturday night thinking I was at home. As I rolled around in bed until 10 am only half-concious, I thought, "I have the whole day free. Maybe I'll go to the gym (24 Hour Fitness). Ya, I'll go to the gym. Good plan." Then I came to my senses and realized where I was and that there is sadly no 24 over here, and the campus gym is closed for winter break. Lame. All this English food is starting to take a toll on my figure! The day after Christmas is always a bad time to reevaluate your fitness level though. Honestly, it's a bit cruel. I'll get down to business when I get home. 24, here I come! (In 2 weeks...)
A number of the tube lines were down yesterday because of a strike, so I stayed in all day. The morning slipped by as I ate, chugged a bunch of tea from my lovely Viennese teapot, and sat at the computer. I managed to make some progress on my homework, but I couldn't really get into the zone. If I were at home, I would have gone to the gym to calm down and work out my restlessness, but that wasn't an option. I worked on and listened to music instead. Sarah, Kim, and I had leftovers for lunch in the kitchen, and then we finished White Christmas. It was a lazy day, and I had trouble falling asleep because of a general lack of physical exertion.
Today, I made up for yesterday's laziness. I was up at 8, and was working on homework by 10:30. Thankfully, I managed to get a good amount done in the next 4 hours or so, but there's still so much to do! Lately, I have found that I focus better on composing literary papers if I'm listening to music while doing it. That has never been the case in the past; I've always needed silence. Over here, my brain somehow works better when I'm listening to The Script or some other mediocre (in a good way) band that's interesting enough to not be boring but that's not too wacky to be distracting. Needtobreathe and Thriving Ivory helped me out a bit too. A little after 2, I laid the homework aside to hit the town with Kim.
The tube ride into town seems to be getting longer and longer as the weeks go by. Slowly, we made our way to theatre central and did some research on what was cheapest. Wicked was our first choice of the night, but the cheapest tickets were 65 pounds = NO THANKS. Instead, we settled on Beauty and the Beast at the National Theatre, and Sarah joined us later for that. 5 pound tickets = SCORE (even though we had to stand half the time). Before the show, Kim and I spent some time in Camden Town falling in love with everything about it. Do you ever go into shopping shock when you see so many things you want but you end up buying nothing? That's what happened, plus we didn't have much time to load up on stuff because we had to make it to the theater which is on the other side of town. We grabbed ourselves some take away calzones and headed for the tube.
Like I said, we managed to score 5 pound tickets to Beauty and the Beast which was quite different from the Disney version, but it was absolutely fantastic! The National Theatre must have a number of mini theaters inside of it, because ours was very cozy, in a good way but the overall building is huge. There were tons of kids there with their parents, and it was so cute to hear them all responding to questions from the actors during the play and to see them eating ice cream that their parents had bought them at the interval (intermission). The girl who played Beauty (not called Belle) looked like Meryl Streep - totally cool - and she was a great actress too. The beast was more of a rat than a lion figure, and there were lots of other idiosyncratic elements of the play that made it very enjoyable and original. After the show, Sarah, Kim, and I headed back to campus on the long tube ride, stopped off at Tesco for some groceries, and then had some leftover apple pie and ice cream. Now, I'm full, happy, and sleepy. Goodnight!
Prayer Request of the Day: That my last week and a half would be everything it is supposed to be and that I would tie up all the loose ends.
A number of the tube lines were down yesterday because of a strike, so I stayed in all day. The morning slipped by as I ate, chugged a bunch of tea from my lovely Viennese teapot, and sat at the computer. I managed to make some progress on my homework, but I couldn't really get into the zone. If I were at home, I would have gone to the gym to calm down and work out my restlessness, but that wasn't an option. I worked on and listened to music instead. Sarah, Kim, and I had leftovers for lunch in the kitchen, and then we finished White Christmas. It was a lazy day, and I had trouble falling asleep because of a general lack of physical exertion.
Today, I made up for yesterday's laziness. I was up at 8, and was working on homework by 10:30. Thankfully, I managed to get a good amount done in the next 4 hours or so, but there's still so much to do! Lately, I have found that I focus better on composing literary papers if I'm listening to music while doing it. That has never been the case in the past; I've always needed silence. Over here, my brain somehow works better when I'm listening to The Script or some other mediocre (in a good way) band that's interesting enough to not be boring but that's not too wacky to be distracting. Needtobreathe and Thriving Ivory helped me out a bit too. A little after 2, I laid the homework aside to hit the town with Kim.
The tube ride into town seems to be getting longer and longer as the weeks go by. Slowly, we made our way to theatre central and did some research on what was cheapest. Wicked was our first choice of the night, but the cheapest tickets were 65 pounds = NO THANKS. Instead, we settled on Beauty and the Beast at the National Theatre, and Sarah joined us later for that. 5 pound tickets = SCORE (even though we had to stand half the time). Before the show, Kim and I spent some time in Camden Town falling in love with everything about it. Do you ever go into shopping shock when you see so many things you want but you end up buying nothing? That's what happened, plus we didn't have much time to load up on stuff because we had to make it to the theater which is on the other side of town. We grabbed ourselves some take away calzones and headed for the tube.
Like I said, we managed to score 5 pound tickets to Beauty and the Beast which was quite different from the Disney version, but it was absolutely fantastic! The National Theatre must have a number of mini theaters inside of it, because ours was very cozy, in a good way but the overall building is huge. There were tons of kids there with their parents, and it was so cute to hear them all responding to questions from the actors during the play and to see them eating ice cream that their parents had bought them at the interval (intermission). The girl who played Beauty (not called Belle) looked like Meryl Streep - totally cool - and she was a great actress too. The beast was more of a rat than a lion figure, and there were lots of other idiosyncratic elements of the play that made it very enjoyable and original. After the show, Sarah, Kim, and I headed back to campus on the long tube ride, stopped off at Tesco for some groceries, and then had some leftover apple pie and ice cream. Now, I'm full, happy, and sleepy. Goodnight!
Prayer Request of the Day: That my last week and a half would be everything it is supposed to be and that I would tie up all the loose ends.
Sunday, 26 December 2010
December 24-25
If I can't be home for the holidays, I say that being in London is a pretty sweet alternative. How many times am I gonna get to do that? On Christmas Eve, my friends Sarah and Kim and I went to the city. We took the tube, of course, and missed our stop for the first time since we've been here because we were talking about food : ) Quick fix, and we landed right across the river from the London Eye, our number 1 destination that day. The sun was out, and the view from the ground and from up in the London Eye was incredible! (pics are already on facebook). I half expected Peter Pan to fly by Big Ben, but of course that didn't happen. After the Eye, we headed to St. Paul's Cathedral in hopes of catching their 4:00 Christmas Eve service. Woah. I laughed when I saw the line of people waiting to get in. We got there at about 3, and the line was already wrapped around the building! Seriously, it was way worse then Disneyland. Those people must have been waiting for hours! Needless to say, we gave up. We found a pub around the corner and had a snack. Like I said, I was out with Sarah and Kim. It was a very interesting experience to watch what happened when their blood sugars dropped from hunger. I was a little worried, I must say. Neither of them are diabetic (or else they would probably be dead after all the chocolate we've been eating lately), but they were totally spacing out on me! I gently sat them down in the pub, helped them decide on something for us all to share (their ludic decision-making ability was cloudy at this point), and went to order for us. They perked right up when they ate something, but I was starting to think I was the crazy one! I'm glad I had a big breakfast that morning or else we all might have been stranded on a street corner somewhere trying to remember our names. Just kidding, it wasn't that bad, but I'll just say I'm thankful for food and its rejuvenating qualities and move on from there. After we finished at the pub, we went to Asda for a few last-minute things for our Christmas dinner and then went back to campus.
I had 2 mince pies for dinner (which are far from nutritious), and then promptly grabbed my guitar to go jam in the stairwell where I found some fantastic acoustics! I surfed the internet for chords to Christmas songs and had myself a "merry little Christmas" Eve, and my friends joined me a bit later for a Christmas carol session. It was super fun :) We had originally planned on going to Christ Church's Christmas Eve service, but we were all too tired. I'm glad we stayed in. Really, how many days out of the year can I jam to Christmas carols on my guitar without looking crazy? Just a few, so I took advantage of it. We ate tons of cookies and chilled in the stairwell for a couple hours. There was hardly anyone around, except one of the security guards and a few other people. It turns out that the guard on duty is a music fan also, so we talked shop a bit and he gave me a few tips on artists to listen to. Kim, Sarah, and I ended our fabulous Christmas Eve by watching a bit of White Christmas with our mugs of hot chocolate :) We were too tired to make it all the way through, but we stayed up until midnight, wished each other a "Happy Christmas!" and went to sleep.
I woke up a couple times that night thinking I was at Grandma's house. How disorienting! I definately woke up in London, and got to work on some Christmas morning pancakes! Yum. We ate our fill and then walked to church. It hasn't snowed for a number of days now, but there is still a bunch of leftover snow on the ground. My first White Christmas!!! Honestly, I think the whole "White Christmas" ideal is overrated. Maybe that's the beach girl in me, but I'm not a big fan of slipping around on frozen snow while walking to church. Come to think of it, I'm not a fan of all the layers I have to wear to keep warm in this winter weather either. To be fair, snow actually has an insulating effect (except on my feet) so it's better than rain, but I prefer sunshine, sand, a tank top, shorts/jeans, and flip flops. Whatever. That's for another day, and I still had a lovely Christmas. At the church service, they played a legit ORGAN with real pipes and everything, and it rocked my world! Ah, it's sounded so beautiful. The lady who led a number of the carols had a really good voice too, so I just listened to her mainly, because they sang some carols I didn't know.
After the service, we walked back to campus and got to work on our Christmas feast! We chilled in the kitchen all afternoon, took shifts for power naps, and whipped up a whopping good meal! Making Christmas dinner was a first for all 3 of us, so we kept Google close beside us for cooking tips. I would tell you more of the details, but you would probably laugh at our ignorance, so I will just tell you that it all turned out just fine. Our mothers would have been proud, even though they would have laughed at our methods. Between the 3 of us, we made a ham complete with cherries and pineapple, broccoli casserole, sweet potatoes, twice-baked potatoes, corn, dinner rolls, and applie pie (which we bought frozen, I'll admit). We enjoyed our meal in the stairwell, and Sarah brought in her mini Christmas tree to complete the festive scene. We took a couple plates of food down to the security guards, and we still have tons left over! I'm excited for dinner today. After we stuffed ourselves, I pulled out my guitar and we sang some more Christmas carols. In between times, we got to meet each other's families via Skype and hear about all the family celebrations back in the States. Technology is amazing. After that, all that delicious food that was stewing in our stomachs made us all tired, so we parted ways around 10 and wished each other a final "Happy Christmas."
Prayer Request of the Day: Still, that Ashley's flight over here won't be cancelled and that she will arrive safely and on time. We have so much to do!
I had 2 mince pies for dinner (which are far from nutritious), and then promptly grabbed my guitar to go jam in the stairwell where I found some fantastic acoustics! I surfed the internet for chords to Christmas songs and had myself a "merry little Christmas" Eve, and my friends joined me a bit later for a Christmas carol session. It was super fun :) We had originally planned on going to Christ Church's Christmas Eve service, but we were all too tired. I'm glad we stayed in. Really, how many days out of the year can I jam to Christmas carols on my guitar without looking crazy? Just a few, so I took advantage of it. We ate tons of cookies and chilled in the stairwell for a couple hours. There was hardly anyone around, except one of the security guards and a few other people. It turns out that the guard on duty is a music fan also, so we talked shop a bit and he gave me a few tips on artists to listen to. Kim, Sarah, and I ended our fabulous Christmas Eve by watching a bit of White Christmas with our mugs of hot chocolate :) We were too tired to make it all the way through, but we stayed up until midnight, wished each other a "Happy Christmas!" and went to sleep.
I woke up a couple times that night thinking I was at Grandma's house. How disorienting! I definately woke up in London, and got to work on some Christmas morning pancakes! Yum. We ate our fill and then walked to church. It hasn't snowed for a number of days now, but there is still a bunch of leftover snow on the ground. My first White Christmas!!! Honestly, I think the whole "White Christmas" ideal is overrated. Maybe that's the beach girl in me, but I'm not a big fan of slipping around on frozen snow while walking to church. Come to think of it, I'm not a fan of all the layers I have to wear to keep warm in this winter weather either. To be fair, snow actually has an insulating effect (except on my feet) so it's better than rain, but I prefer sunshine, sand, a tank top, shorts/jeans, and flip flops. Whatever. That's for another day, and I still had a lovely Christmas. At the church service, they played a legit ORGAN with real pipes and everything, and it rocked my world! Ah, it's sounded so beautiful. The lady who led a number of the carols had a really good voice too, so I just listened to her mainly, because they sang some carols I didn't know.
After the service, we walked back to campus and got to work on our Christmas feast! We chilled in the kitchen all afternoon, took shifts for power naps, and whipped up a whopping good meal! Making Christmas dinner was a first for all 3 of us, so we kept Google close beside us for cooking tips. I would tell you more of the details, but you would probably laugh at our ignorance, so I will just tell you that it all turned out just fine. Our mothers would have been proud, even though they would have laughed at our methods. Between the 3 of us, we made a ham complete with cherries and pineapple, broccoli casserole, sweet potatoes, twice-baked potatoes, corn, dinner rolls, and applie pie (which we bought frozen, I'll admit). We enjoyed our meal in the stairwell, and Sarah brought in her mini Christmas tree to complete the festive scene. We took a couple plates of food down to the security guards, and we still have tons left over! I'm excited for dinner today. After we stuffed ourselves, I pulled out my guitar and we sang some more Christmas carols. In between times, we got to meet each other's families via Skype and hear about all the family celebrations back in the States. Technology is amazing. After that, all that delicious food that was stewing in our stomachs made us all tired, so we parted ways around 10 and wished each other a final "Happy Christmas."
Prayer Request of the Day: Still, that Ashley's flight over here won't be cancelled and that she will arrive safely and on time. We have so much to do!
Thursday, 23 December 2010
December 22-23
I wore brown socks with black shoes today - ewwww. It was too difficult to change once I realized what I had done, so I just tried to hide it by pulling my pant legs down a bit. But I'm skipping ahead. I'll start with yesterday.
Two of my American friends, Kim and Sarah, were finally back from Edinburgh! There were still recovering from their trip though, so I hit the city again by myself. Before I left, I sat down with God again and we had an interesting exchange. Instead of directly praying the whole time, I ended up writing down my thoughts about my faith as they came to me in the moment. Specifically, I wrote about what I would tell my new non-Christian friends if I could tell them anything just out of the blue. That's where the motivation for the piece came from. It was a liberating exercise, and I posted my thoughts in a note on facebook if you want to read it. The original rough draft went into a little red notebook that I keep in my wallet for moments of inspiration. I'm sorry to say that I don't have many of those, but God gave me one yesterday. Maybe He'll give me more and send some songs along with them. I'm still waiting for that.
More sightseeing yesterday! I started off at Green Park which is right next to Buckingham Palace and then my way over to the Palace, of course, for some pictures. Even though I had my handy-dandy map, I still got a bit turned around and took the roundabout way toward Hyde Park. I came across a number of monuments on my way, most of which were war memorials. It was like being in D.C., only the British version. Hyde Park is putting on what they call "Winter Wonderland" which is basically a Christmas carnival and market. It reminded me of the Christmas markets in Vienna actually, minus the amusement park part. (Vienna is better.) Kensington Gardens is right next to Hyde Park, so I decided to make the walk. It was much farther than it looked on the map, but I had time. There is a little lake/pond between the two grounds called The Serpentine which was frozen over, that's how cold it was. There were all kinds of ducks and geese and swans and pigeons swimming in the small edge parts that weren't frozen or else they were just chillin' on the ice. It was a nice but long walk to Kensington Gardens where I didn't actually encounter anything that looked like gardens. I must have missed something, but the whole place just looked like a huge, cold park. Yes, I saw the Peter Pan statue (and totally thought of Winning London, Blee). I wanted to see the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and the Palace too but it was getting dark and I was getting a bit tired of walking.
Instead, I walked past the Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial toward the Natural History Museum where I could warm up and walk less. Apparently, this place is supposed to be pretty cool, but I've already told you that I'm not much of a museum person. Still, I feel the need to at least drop by and say hello. I zoomed through a number of the exhibits but found them pretty boring. I had flashbacks to fieldtrips I took in elementary school where they would make you shuffle through museums for what seemed like forever, and I realized that museum-ing by yourself is way better because you can leave whenever you want! The best part of the museum was the Great Hall because the architecture and decorations were breathtaking (facebook pics to follow). After that, I was done and caught the tube back to campus where I tried to work on an essay but got very little done and fell asleep early.
Today, I woke up feeling a bit frustrated about getting so little homework done the night before, but I quickly got over that. Sarah, Kim, and I went to Asda to get food for our Christmas dinner, and that took up the morning and the first part of the afternoon. Poor Sarah was too sick to go out with us later, but Kim and I went to the city for the afternoon/evening. First, we stopped off at Leicester Square to see what kind of cheap tickets we could find. The deals weren't screaming at us, so we decided to check out the theater where the The Nutcracker is playing instead. I've found that just going to the theater a few hours before a show is the best way to find super cheap tickets. We got tickets for 10 pounds each (SCORE!), and then headed to Harrod's to kill some time. I'm not sure why that place is supposed to be so cool. Apparently it's aimed at a different demographic than any I fall into. It's way too expensive, and I'm not interested in most of the things they sell (possibly because of the price but also because of personal taste). That place is just plain overwhelming, and it's huge! We left pretty quickly to find some dinner before the show.
We landed at a lovely Italian restaurant where I had a nice glass of red wine, some delicious bruschetta, and a skimpy salad. It looked like they had run out of lettuce, but I didn't want to ask, haha. It looked like a plate full of stuff you would put onto crackers, not a place full of salad. Oh well, I ate most of it and we went to The Nutcracker.
I'm sad to say that I was very disappointed with the London version of The Nutcracker. Seriously, people what was going on? I'll begin my criticism by saying that I am not a ballerina, and I will never be a ballerina or a choreographer, but I think my opinion as a member of the audience carries some weight at least. The choreography was plain and often uninteresting, a number of the songs were too slow, the storyline was way different, so many of the dancer's movements ignored the cues of the music, and a number of the best parts were left out (such as the lady with the giant dress and the candy-cane dancers). I didn't even clap very much during the span of the show, but instead just sat there with a look of confusion on my face. It's hard for me to fathom that the Sacramento Ballet can put on a production that is 10 times better than one in London. That seems backwards, but it's true, in my opinion anyway for what it's worth. I left the theater laughing out of shock and disappointment. Good thing we only paid 10 pounds for those tickets. Kim and I got Haagen Daas again after the show to redeem the evening, and then we went back to campus.
Sorry this post wasn't particularly riveting. The creative part of my brain must have already gone to sleep. Or maybe it's in a sugar coma from the Haagen Daas :)
Prayer Request of the Day: That Heathrow would get their act together so my friend Ashley can get here next Wednesday morning!
Two of my American friends, Kim and Sarah, were finally back from Edinburgh! There were still recovering from their trip though, so I hit the city again by myself. Before I left, I sat down with God again and we had an interesting exchange. Instead of directly praying the whole time, I ended up writing down my thoughts about my faith as they came to me in the moment. Specifically, I wrote about what I would tell my new non-Christian friends if I could tell them anything just out of the blue. That's where the motivation for the piece came from. It was a liberating exercise, and I posted my thoughts in a note on facebook if you want to read it. The original rough draft went into a little red notebook that I keep in my wallet for moments of inspiration. I'm sorry to say that I don't have many of those, but God gave me one yesterday. Maybe He'll give me more and send some songs along with them. I'm still waiting for that.
More sightseeing yesterday! I started off at Green Park which is right next to Buckingham Palace and then my way over to the Palace, of course, for some pictures. Even though I had my handy-dandy map, I still got a bit turned around and took the roundabout way toward Hyde Park. I came across a number of monuments on my way, most of which were war memorials. It was like being in D.C., only the British version. Hyde Park is putting on what they call "Winter Wonderland" which is basically a Christmas carnival and market. It reminded me of the Christmas markets in Vienna actually, minus the amusement park part. (Vienna is better.) Kensington Gardens is right next to Hyde Park, so I decided to make the walk. It was much farther than it looked on the map, but I had time. There is a little lake/pond between the two grounds called The Serpentine which was frozen over, that's how cold it was. There were all kinds of ducks and geese and swans and pigeons swimming in the small edge parts that weren't frozen or else they were just chillin' on the ice. It was a nice but long walk to Kensington Gardens where I didn't actually encounter anything that looked like gardens. I must have missed something, but the whole place just looked like a huge, cold park. Yes, I saw the Peter Pan statue (and totally thought of Winning London, Blee). I wanted to see the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and the Palace too but it was getting dark and I was getting a bit tired of walking.
Instead, I walked past the Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial toward the Natural History Museum where I could warm up and walk less. Apparently, this place is supposed to be pretty cool, but I've already told you that I'm not much of a museum person. Still, I feel the need to at least drop by and say hello. I zoomed through a number of the exhibits but found them pretty boring. I had flashbacks to fieldtrips I took in elementary school where they would make you shuffle through museums for what seemed like forever, and I realized that museum-ing by yourself is way better because you can leave whenever you want! The best part of the museum was the Great Hall because the architecture and decorations were breathtaking (facebook pics to follow). After that, I was done and caught the tube back to campus where I tried to work on an essay but got very little done and fell asleep early.
Today, I woke up feeling a bit frustrated about getting so little homework done the night before, but I quickly got over that. Sarah, Kim, and I went to Asda to get food for our Christmas dinner, and that took up the morning and the first part of the afternoon. Poor Sarah was too sick to go out with us later, but Kim and I went to the city for the afternoon/evening. First, we stopped off at Leicester Square to see what kind of cheap tickets we could find. The deals weren't screaming at us, so we decided to check out the theater where the The Nutcracker is playing instead. I've found that just going to the theater a few hours before a show is the best way to find super cheap tickets. We got tickets for 10 pounds each (SCORE!), and then headed to Harrod's to kill some time. I'm not sure why that place is supposed to be so cool. Apparently it's aimed at a different demographic than any I fall into. It's way too expensive, and I'm not interested in most of the things they sell (possibly because of the price but also because of personal taste). That place is just plain overwhelming, and it's huge! We left pretty quickly to find some dinner before the show.
We landed at a lovely Italian restaurant where I had a nice glass of red wine, some delicious bruschetta, and a skimpy salad. It looked like they had run out of lettuce, but I didn't want to ask, haha. It looked like a plate full of stuff you would put onto crackers, not a place full of salad. Oh well, I ate most of it and we went to The Nutcracker.
I'm sad to say that I was very disappointed with the London version of The Nutcracker. Seriously, people what was going on? I'll begin my criticism by saying that I am not a ballerina, and I will never be a ballerina or a choreographer, but I think my opinion as a member of the audience carries some weight at least. The choreography was plain and often uninteresting, a number of the songs were too slow, the storyline was way different, so many of the dancer's movements ignored the cues of the music, and a number of the best parts were left out (such as the lady with the giant dress and the candy-cane dancers). I didn't even clap very much during the span of the show, but instead just sat there with a look of confusion on my face. It's hard for me to fathom that the Sacramento Ballet can put on a production that is 10 times better than one in London. That seems backwards, but it's true, in my opinion anyway for what it's worth. I left the theater laughing out of shock and disappointment. Good thing we only paid 10 pounds for those tickets. Kim and I got Haagen Daas again after the show to redeem the evening, and then we went back to campus.
Sorry this post wasn't particularly riveting. The creative part of my brain must have already gone to sleep. Or maybe it's in a sugar coma from the Haagen Daas :)
Prayer Request of the Day: That Heathrow would get their act together so my friend Ashley can get here next Wednesday morning!
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
December 20-21
Yesterday was a blur. My knee was really bothering me when I woke up, so I decided to stay in for most of the day. I'm pretty sure I ended up taking a nap after breakfast (lame) and doing a lot of nothing for awhile. I looked through a bunch of fine print on easyjet's website in hopes of getting a refund on my Edinburgh booking, but that got discouraging fast (hence the nap). I tried to call them, but I couldn't get through and my phone was really low on minutes. Eventually I got around to working on some homework and actually did make some progress. Pretty quickly, I became distracted by the sunshine outside my window. Everything's still covered with snow, but suddenly I wanted to be outside enjoying a rare spell of sunshine. I needed to go to Tesco to top up (reload) my phone, but I took a little detour which you might appreciate when I get home. With my camera in hand, I recorded a video tour of the campus so you all will have an idea of these grounds I stomp from day to day. The file is too big to put on facebook (I think), so you'll just have to watch it on my computer when I get home. Be forewarned, it kind of feels like you're on a rollercoaster because I was walking most of the time and the video is jerky. It's will probably be one of the most exhilirating/dizzying video tours you will ever take! After the tour, I actually enjoyed my walk up and down Snakes Lane because I had been huddled up in my room all morning. Thankfully, my knee didn't bother me. The snow and the sunshine made everything look unusually beautiful, and I was happy for the pleasant break from being a hermit.
I had leftover pizza for dinner last night and watched Jim Gaffigan videos to cheer myself up. I'm not gonna lie - I was lonely. Thank Jesus for Youtube! I found a few Kristen Wiig SNL skits too and had some good laughs. It was just one of those days when you don't want to do anything but eat and relax, so that's what I did for the rest of the night. My friend Marta hooked me up with a few movies before she left, and I decided to watch one. Here's a blast from the past - SPICE WORLD! I loved that movie in 3rd grade, but I'm not exactly sure why now that I've watched it again. It's sooo cheesy! But then again, I loved Mary-Kate and Ashley movies too and those are no better. Whatever. Good times. After my healthy dose of cheesy chick flick, I still wasn't feeling like being productive. What to do . . . ? Make it a double feature and fall asleep to White Christmas. It was very pleasant, except the part where I wake up to someone screaming in or near the halls. I don't understand what the deal is over here, but I feel like that has happened a lot. The other night I woke up with my heart absolutely pounding out of my chest because of these blood-chilling screams I heard outside. I have never heard anything like that before, and I didn't know what to do. I'm talking slasher flick creepy. After I heard the screaming last night, I went down to the security office to see if anything was up. The security guard didn't hear anything, but I told him about the screaming the other night and he said it was probably the foxes. That made sense because I've never heard humans make those sounds. Let me just say that I'm glad we don't have wild foxes in Sacramento. So far, I haven't heard any news of people actually getting hurt or attacked at night, so maybe English people (and foxes) simply find it liberating to scream in the middle of the night just for good measure. Interesting fetish.
Determined to spend way less time on my butt today, I made plans to hit the city. Before I did, I found myself praying for quite awhile. Do you ever have those days when prayers just start pouring out of you and you wonder, "why can't I pray like this everyday?" Well, I had one of those days today, so I just went with it. God and I had a very good conversation, and I felt way better all around afterwards. My plan for the day included any or all of the following: the British Library, the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, and Kensington Gardens, but I only made it to the British Library and the British Museum. I saw some incredible stuff like tons of manuscripts of the Bible in Latin and Greek, Jane Austen's writing desk and notebooks, a number of Shakespeare's works, Leonardo di Vinci's notebooks that are written in "mirror writing" (from right to left and backwards - darn lefties), the original manuscript of Handel's Messiah (why does this piece keep haunting me? Handel wasn't even English), original scores by Purcell, Mendelssohn, and Beathoven, Beethoven's tuning fork, handwritten Beatles songs, stuff by Coleridge and Wordsworth, the Rosetta Stone, the Magna Carta, tons of Egyptian mummies, and a bunch of crap, ehem, I mean (trivial) artifacts from ancient Rome and Greece and wherever else people dig up stuff in the dirt (I don't get the point of a lot of the displays like that. Honestly, I could probably find stuff like that in a thrift store somewhere. Was that too harsh . . .?). The British Library had a really neat exhibit going about the evolution of the English language. I was surprised at how interesting it was.
The British Museum was so overwhelming that I ended up missing a lot and just glossing over a lot of what I saw. Museums have their place, but there's a point when I just want to enjoy my own life with its interesting "artifacts" instead of trying to appreciate those of cultures gone by. Those people are dead, and I am alive. I win.
I felt a similar disillusionment when I was in Athens. Ruins are cool when you read about them, but after a day of climbing the Acropolis, walking through the Ancient Agora and seeing whatever other ruins you come across, you realize they are overrated, and you just want to get to living your own life and forget the ancient past. Who knows, maybe the Ancient Agora was the equivalent of Walmart to certain Greeks. I don't know about you, but I think that a Walmart exhibit in some museum in the future would be dumb. People glorify things too much. Let's glorify God instead.
NOTE: I'm pretty sure most of my professors would want to slap me if they read this post, so I'll just hope they don't read it.
Moving on. My feet were hurting by the time I made it out of the British Library, so I found a cafe and chilled for awhile. I must say I was very pleasantly surprised when I ordered a "large" latte and actually got a large (defined by Starbucks standards) portion. "Large" on most espresso/coffee menus over here usually translates to "Oh, I ordered a large. What? This is a large? Are we rationing coffee now? Where's the rest of it?" Just kidding, I've never said that, but generally "large" is small by American standards. With my latte, I grabbed a seat in the coffee shop and read through some of C.S. Lewis' "The Four Loves." That man was intelligent. I have trouble following him sometimes.
It was dark when I left the cafe so I decided to call it a night and head back to campus. It should be noted that the shuttle bus didn't give me any grief today. I probably waited only 10 minutes for it, total. Thanks, God. When I got back, I chatted with Natalie on facebook and we empathized over our situation. Meanwhile, I managed to get a full refund for the hotel in Edinburgh that I had booked for this week. All in all, I got back about half of what I paid for the whole Edinburgh trip. We still had to pay for the flight, but it could have been worse. For dinner, I had pasta, and I watched some more Jim Gaffigan as I ate. Wow, that man is funny! After talking to my friend Sarah about her trip to Edinburgh and doing some homework, I am just about ready to crash for the night.
Aaaaaannnnddd, the musicians are still going at it downstairs. It's midnight, and they have a drum set this time. The drummer is stuck on the same rhythm, and clearly he hasn't had much experience with a kick drum because he's all over the place with it. The snare sounds horrible too - like a garbage can or "rubbish bin" as they say over here. Maybe if I stomp hard enough, they'll get the message. Hmmmm...
Prayer Request of the Day: That my knee would heal.
I had leftover pizza for dinner last night and watched Jim Gaffigan videos to cheer myself up. I'm not gonna lie - I was lonely. Thank Jesus for Youtube! I found a few Kristen Wiig SNL skits too and had some good laughs. It was just one of those days when you don't want to do anything but eat and relax, so that's what I did for the rest of the night. My friend Marta hooked me up with a few movies before she left, and I decided to watch one. Here's a blast from the past - SPICE WORLD! I loved that movie in 3rd grade, but I'm not exactly sure why now that I've watched it again. It's sooo cheesy! But then again, I loved Mary-Kate and Ashley movies too and those are no better. Whatever. Good times. After my healthy dose of cheesy chick flick, I still wasn't feeling like being productive. What to do . . . ? Make it a double feature and fall asleep to White Christmas. It was very pleasant, except the part where I wake up to someone screaming in or near the halls. I don't understand what the deal is over here, but I feel like that has happened a lot. The other night I woke up with my heart absolutely pounding out of my chest because of these blood-chilling screams I heard outside. I have never heard anything like that before, and I didn't know what to do. I'm talking slasher flick creepy. After I heard the screaming last night, I went down to the security office to see if anything was up. The security guard didn't hear anything, but I told him about the screaming the other night and he said it was probably the foxes. That made sense because I've never heard humans make those sounds. Let me just say that I'm glad we don't have wild foxes in Sacramento. So far, I haven't heard any news of people actually getting hurt or attacked at night, so maybe English people (and foxes) simply find it liberating to scream in the middle of the night just for good measure. Interesting fetish.
Determined to spend way less time on my butt today, I made plans to hit the city. Before I did, I found myself praying for quite awhile. Do you ever have those days when prayers just start pouring out of you and you wonder, "why can't I pray like this everyday?" Well, I had one of those days today, so I just went with it. God and I had a very good conversation, and I felt way better all around afterwards. My plan for the day included any or all of the following: the British Library, the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, and Kensington Gardens, but I only made it to the British Library and the British Museum. I saw some incredible stuff like tons of manuscripts of the Bible in Latin and Greek, Jane Austen's writing desk and notebooks, a number of Shakespeare's works, Leonardo di Vinci's notebooks that are written in "mirror writing" (from right to left and backwards - darn lefties), the original manuscript of Handel's Messiah (why does this piece keep haunting me? Handel wasn't even English), original scores by Purcell, Mendelssohn, and Beathoven, Beethoven's tuning fork, handwritten Beatles songs, stuff by Coleridge and Wordsworth, the Rosetta Stone, the Magna Carta, tons of Egyptian mummies, and a bunch of crap, ehem, I mean (trivial) artifacts from ancient Rome and Greece and wherever else people dig up stuff in the dirt (I don't get the point of a lot of the displays like that. Honestly, I could probably find stuff like that in a thrift store somewhere. Was that too harsh . . .?). The British Library had a really neat exhibit going about the evolution of the English language. I was surprised at how interesting it was.
The British Museum was so overwhelming that I ended up missing a lot and just glossing over a lot of what I saw. Museums have their place, but there's a point when I just want to enjoy my own life with its interesting "artifacts" instead of trying to appreciate those of cultures gone by. Those people are dead, and I am alive. I win.
I felt a similar disillusionment when I was in Athens. Ruins are cool when you read about them, but after a day of climbing the Acropolis, walking through the Ancient Agora and seeing whatever other ruins you come across, you realize they are overrated, and you just want to get to living your own life and forget the ancient past. Who knows, maybe the Ancient Agora was the equivalent of Walmart to certain Greeks. I don't know about you, but I think that a Walmart exhibit in some museum in the future would be dumb. People glorify things too much. Let's glorify God instead.
NOTE: I'm pretty sure most of my professors would want to slap me if they read this post, so I'll just hope they don't read it.
Moving on. My feet were hurting by the time I made it out of the British Library, so I found a cafe and chilled for awhile. I must say I was very pleasantly surprised when I ordered a "large" latte and actually got a large (defined by Starbucks standards) portion. "Large" on most espresso/coffee menus over here usually translates to "Oh, I ordered a large. What? This is a large? Are we rationing coffee now? Where's the rest of it?" Just kidding, I've never said that, but generally "large" is small by American standards. With my latte, I grabbed a seat in the coffee shop and read through some of C.S. Lewis' "The Four Loves." That man was intelligent. I have trouble following him sometimes.
It was dark when I left the cafe so I decided to call it a night and head back to campus. It should be noted that the shuttle bus didn't give me any grief today. I probably waited only 10 minutes for it, total. Thanks, God. When I got back, I chatted with Natalie on facebook and we empathized over our situation. Meanwhile, I managed to get a full refund for the hotel in Edinburgh that I had booked for this week. All in all, I got back about half of what I paid for the whole Edinburgh trip. We still had to pay for the flight, but it could have been worse. For dinner, I had pasta, and I watched some more Jim Gaffigan as I ate. Wow, that man is funny! After talking to my friend Sarah about her trip to Edinburgh and doing some homework, I am just about ready to crash for the night.
Aaaaaannnnddd, the musicians are still going at it downstairs. It's midnight, and they have a drum set this time. The drummer is stuck on the same rhythm, and clearly he hasn't had much experience with a kick drum because he's all over the place with it. The snare sounds horrible too - like a garbage can or "rubbish bin" as they say over here. Maybe if I stomp hard enough, they'll get the message. Hmmmm...
Prayer Request of the Day: That my knee would heal.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)