The Last Hurrah!

Wednesday 10th

We had our classes that day and a quiz in theatre which was a waste of time. This was the last time we would be in that class together since our teacher would be in India the falling week. We did an exercise in class which is a theatre game people use to warm up. One person was the 'car' and one was the 'driver.' The car would close their eyes and the driver would put their hand on the cars back to make them move and place would tap them on the head to stop. It was actually quite an amusing exercise of trust. I really enjoyed being the car more than the driver because you had to do more of the wondering and trusting that they wouldn't run you into other cars.

In the evening we headed over to the London Eye courtesy of London Met to eat dinner and then ride the Eye for free. We had a three course meal but had to order weeks ahead of time which could be risky since your palate might change between the ordering and the actual meal. I lucked out with a 'soup of the day' appetizer. I feared what it might be but ended being a cheesy sort of soup which I liked. For dinner, I had spaghetti and meatballs. They were okay but better once the cheese was grated over it. I sat with a lot of the people on my floor, my roommate included. But two other girls from theatre class, Amber and Crystal sat next to me at the end of the table. I had talked to Amber before and thought she was nice but never with Crystal. Where had these two been on semester? They were so nice and we got along better than we did with anyone else in our class. Dessert was served and I had tiramasu. It was okay, but I wouldn't eat it again.

Afterwards I ran into my friend from editing class Sara. She was also a study abroad student but she was from California. We hit it off really quickly in class and we were delighted to have found it each other so we could hang out for the evening. We stayed inside the restaurant longer than the others since it was cold outside and not yet time to go to the Eye. We were finally asked to kindly leave by the waiter and so headed over to where our next event was. For those of you who don't know this is the London Eye:

At Night!

A Holiday in Devon

Friday 5th

I met Kim in the evening at a tube station and then we went to her car. The drive was about three hours but with a few coffee breaks and a steady flow of conversation we made it there with little complaint. We arrived at her house which was quaint and located in a nice quiet neighborhood. Her parents were lovely and greeted me with immense hospitality. After talking for a while and getting oriented with the place, I went to bed.

Saturday 6th

We got up early and all went out to breakfast where I met some of Kim's family friends. I tried blood pudding; it was actually good. Kim decided to show me the country side of Devon. It was only about a twenty minute drive when we arrived at a little abbey in the middle of lots of green pastures and farmland. Buckfast Abbey is a functioning church where real Monks learn to be religious men of the faith. There was a school just next to the gardens where they would study. This abbey is known for its amazing stain glass window inside. When Kim was little, her school came to this abbey to see the giant window with Christ on it.

Sadly, it is winter so the gardens were not at peak but they were still nice to walk through and look at. They had so many arbors on pathways to walk through and rose bushes that would have been marvelous in the spring time.

We drove around some and she showed me some places such as the church she was christened in and houses that she had visited in school. It was a relaxing time and the drive was simply beautiful. The landscape was picturesque English countryside with sheep running around in the meadows. She told me that her name Windeatt is a local family name and has a deep rooted history in the area. It dates back several centuries which I think is pretty cool since nothing is that old in America unless you have a native background.

We stopped at a place called the Darlington Estate which her grandfather used to be a guard for. This land was owned by the Darlingtons and even housed those that worked for the mansion. Even today, people that work for the Estate--gardeners, cleaners, guards--all have housing provided for them. We stopped to see the large mansion and its massive 'backyard.'

This picture only shows one angle but this building wraps around to the space behind me. It was simply massive. The area behind the house was even bigger. Land spreading far beyond sight would allow extended the boundaries of the estate. It was beautiful and green and I could have spent the rest of the day walking around here. But she had more to show me.

The Girl Who Lived in Deutschland

Thursday 27th

I arrived on a small plane to Germany at about 11 am. I was surprised by how fast the time passed compared to my flight from the states. Since this was only my second flight, I was still in wonder when we took off. It was daytime so I could actually watch the clouds passing and the world down below. I had a window seat this time which I was quite pleased about. It is incredible to watch the clouds in layers passing you by as you fly above them. They look like a snow landscape once you're on top of them. I did not get any kind of motion sickness this time which was nice. I have to mention something humorous that happened to me while going through security. I was pulled aside because they found a sharp looking object in my bag that could be a weapon. Upon opening it up and examining it, they discovered it to be my Harry Potter wand. Won't make that mistake again.

When I landed, it took me some time to find my Germany family but once I did, we were headed to the Mueller household. I will warn you now, there isn't much sightseeing and photo documentation of this trip because it was more like just visiting a friend's house then being a tourist. Eileen's family was so nice and I particularly enjoyed talking to her mother as we did often. Eileen was on the tail-end of a cold and therefore was tired most of the day. I was just fine with lounging about in a foreign household after the intense weekend of Paris and my few days of preparations for Germany. We mostly ended up talking for hours, most conversation sparked from things in her room like her book collection. One entire wall of her room was just a book shelf filled with classic literature, popular novels, manga and comics. It was incredible. We also ended the evening by playing a game that I am now in love with: Lego Harry Potter. Why I have not yet played a single Lego video game is beyond me. We went to bed at a decent hour since I had gotten up at 5 to catch an 8 am flight. I was exhausted.

Tour de Paris 2

Friday 21st

Allie went to an art gallery as I slept in, weary from all the walking the day before. It was difficult to get out of bed since I had slept funny and now had more sore muscles than I had previously. I managed to get ready in time for when Allie returned. We were going to go on tour of Paris today, one of those free tours they do in every country. The plan was to do this tour, then go to Notre Dame, Saint Chapelle, the Christmas Markets and the Louvre in the evening. Another full day...

We arrived at the meet spot in a square that was technically located on an island in the Seine River.  Turns out the tour was actually going to be three hours long. Well this threw a curve in the day since it was already 1 pm. Our guide was extremely enthusiastic and was Italian. I won't recap the whole tour since many of the sights we saw were what we'd seen the day before except with history thrown in which I've already recounted. An interesting stop we made was to the famous Love Lock Bridge.

The bridge is so full of Locks that it is actually considered structurally unstable. They cut off all the locks every two months but the practice is so popular that it doesn't help. We were some of the last people to see this bridge with all the locks on it. They are going to make the sides of the bridge out of glass instead of chain link so that people can't put locks on it anymore. But as I said, the practice is so popular that its started on other bridges now as well.

Tour de Paris

Thursday 20th

We got on a bus wed night to head to Paris. We stopped once at the French border to make sure we were legal. We stopped a couple hours in to board the ferry that would take us further into France. It was an overnight trip and little sleep occurred. We finally arrived at 6 am.
After finding the metro station, we stopped at our hostel to check in. We couldn't actually go into our rooms yet but for two euros we could place our things in a locker. Relieved from the extra weight we headed off to the Eiffel tower. We snapped pictures as we went being extremely touristy. There were so many nice parks and tree areas that looked beautiful. We followed the seine river all the way to the tower and were dwarfed by the iron giant. We snapped several pictures of ourselves in front of the tower and then raced to see where the line was. We realized we still had 45 mins until we could go up. So we walked around the green behind the Eiffel Tower and were bombarded with people selling miniature Eiffel Towers that Allie bought, and people with clipboards wanting us to sign and donate. We discovered later that these adamant clipboard-wielding do-gooders were actually gypsies. 

We finally got to get in line to have our bags checked and were relieved to be inside. It was so cold out that were sovereign shop-hopping in order to abuse their heating services. The high was only about forty. When we packed into the elevator, an employee informed us that we would not be able to go to the summit since the elevator was broken but that we could get a refund. Allie and I were bummed. We could still go up to the second floor (which was still high up) but not all the way to the mythic peak. After we were done on top the tower, it took us just as long to find the place to get our refund.

Our next stop was the Arc de Triomphe. We walked a while to get there but on our way, we stopped for a crepe. I got Nutella and banana. It was so yummy! We continued on and finally saw the giant arc but were unsure of how to bridge the gap to get to it. If you've ever seen pictures of it, its surrounded by a circle of about five lanes of traffic that all radiate out in different directions into the city. During a tour that will be mentioned later, we were informed that this area of Paris is the only place that a motorist is not insured because of the high accident rates. We walked all along this crazy motorway looking for anywhere that was safe to cross. I offered to play chicken but Allie didn't seem to think it wise. After a time, we found a set of steps that looked like it led to the Metro but actually was a tunnel underneath the roads leading to the arc. How perfect. Once there, we got to see the Eternal Flame which were told was only put out once. First, an Australian drunkenly urinated on it; they deported him immediately. The other time was some Germans I believe that roasted a hotdog over it, squelching the flame. They were also not invited back. 

Enhancement Week

My Professor Trevor Norris

Enhancement week is a time that the students have off from classes at London Met in order to study, work on assignments, and attend special workshops and events scheduled by the university. It is meant to "enhance" your learning experience. Many kids just skip out and use it as vacation. But I didn't and here's what I did with my week.

Monday and Tuesday I had off. I was supposed to see a play on Tuesday, but due to some miscommunication I missed it. Wednesday was the only that I had a class because Theatre of London is an international class and not a British student class, it is governed by different rules. It was fun though because we ended up doing so improv activities after the lecture which was very amusing. This was the week that I had three different projects due; it's kind of like their midterms week when all projects are due. Which is why I hadn't had much to report lately since I've been working.

Our Totally Awesome Weekend Adventure Part 3 (Comicon)

October 25th

Maka from Soul Eater

Our day started by getting into our cosplays and then hurrying for the train that would take us to the convention. We had change stations on the DLR several times to get the one that would take us straight there. I knew we were in the right place too; there were several people dressed up as anime, comic book and video game characters. It was so much fun just watching everyone and trying to guess who they were dressed as. The train finally came and we all piled on, people staring at us funny as we took our places on the train. Quite a few kids pointed at the two of us exclaiming, "Look mommy its harry potter!" Clearly we were not but we were from the world and that was enough for us.

As we neared the station, the driver came on over the intercom, "Next stop Comic Con. If you are going to Comic Con get off at the next station." Eileen and I giggled since that was NOT the name of the next stop but he knew so many of us were going there. He then continued, "Please make sure that you have all your swords, axes and guns with you when you leave." The train roared with laughter. "But really guys, you all look amazing in your costumes; have a great time today at the convention." We all gave the man a round of applause and then exited the train even more excited then when we'd gotten on.

Our Totally Awesome Weekend Adventure Part 2 (Shakespeare edition)

October 24th

Eileen and I woke up early to catch a train to Stratford-upon-Avon, one of the places I want to see before I die. Walking around was astounding since a lot of buildings are as old, if not older, than Shakespeare's time, the 15th century. It took us a while to find our way around since we couldn't find any maps. While walking, we happened upon a little carnival taking place in the middle of one of the streets. It was so nice. They had lots of rides, games, and food, and let me tell you the food smelled so good! Fries, cotton candy, doughnuts, yum! But unfortunately, we kept walking since we were here for Shakespeare not cotton candy.

We finally found an intersection with signs posted that pointed in the directions of the attractions we wanted to go. Eileen was very excited and decided we should head to the RSC first. I agreed and we headed that way. It wasn't until I got there that I realized what we were seeing. The Royal Shakespeare Company. We hurried inside eagerly to see Shakespeare stuff. They had so many elaborate and detailed costumes from many of his shows like Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar and many more.

I think this was a Fairy Queen.

We continued walking around until we saw everything they had on display, which honestly wasn't as much as we were hoping for. So afterwards, we left and headed back the way and found a bunch of cute stores: Peter Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, Magic Shop and this: