*sunrise on the plane while on the way over to london!*
We began our journey by going to see parts of downtown London such as Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus. The next day was New Year's and so we went and went to Windsor Castle and toured around the town of Windsor for the majority of the day and then came back and got ready to go out for New Years. We ended up meeting up with a group of people that go to LSE, one of which is a friend of mine, and we went with them downtown to watch the fireworks go off at midnight at the London Eye.. right by the river! It was lots of fun and I do believe that I could not have asked for a better way to bring in the year 2010! :))
*fireworks at the london eye! yay 2010!!*
The next morning we walked around Kensington Gardens, which is really close to my house. Beside the Gardens, there is a street that apparently has a lot of foreign embassies along it. As we were looking at all of the beautiful buildings and taking a few pictures, this older English man came up to us and started explaining that all of the buildings were, in fact, embassies and he then proceeded to ask us where we were from and to tell us a little bit about himself as well. After talking to him for a while, we headed down to the pond that is situated near the back of the Garden. On our way there, we ran across a whole bunch of runners that we later found out were taking part in a 10K race. After taking way too many pictures of all the swans and ducks that lived in the pond, we made our way out of the Gardens and to the tube, where we headed down to the Deptford/Greenwich side of London. We got off the train and I showed Katie the way I walk to school every day and was able to show her the outside of my school. I was somewhat disappointed, though, considering that the building was closed so we were only able to look at it from the street, but that was ok.. we weren’t planning on spending a lot of time there anyway. We then made our way over to Greenwich where we checked out a few shops and were hoping to look around at Greenwich Market.. but it was closed. We made our way up to the Royal Observatory where we were to find the famous Prime Meridian line! There is a whole section of the grand park that is dedicated to ‘Time and Space’ – there is one part that is a planetarium and another where the Prime Meridian (the place where time begins, as they say). Once we had looked around there and taken lots of pictures, including ones of us standing on the Meridian line, we made our way back to the train where we headed over to my friend Zara’s apartment. Zara is one of my friends from Laban and she invited us over for a New Year’s gathering. We spent the evening hanging out with Zara and a few of her friends, which was great fun! :)
*sunset from the royal observatory - i love this picture!*
*the prime meridian - where all time begins!*
*a view of the beautiful city I live in from the Royal Observatory!*
The morning of January 2nd (mom’s birthday!) I had some flowers scheduled to be sent from one of those online flower order places. I ended up getting a whole bunch of colored roses sent to her, since they are her favorite. They weren’t going to be delivered until the 5th.. but that was ok because they would still be a big surprise nonetheless. After placing that order, Katie and I made our way over to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace.. but by the time we got there we couldn’t see anything at all or even get anywhere close to the gates of the palace so we just decided that we would come back on one of the other days before she was to leave. We took our time walking back through St. James’ park and took lots of pictures along the way. We then went to visit Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye. We bought our tickets to go on the London Eye but decided to eat something at a buffet-style noodle bar before standing in line to get on the Eye. When we were finished and were heading towards the line, we thought it was not that long and that we would get through the line of people within a fairly short amount of time…. wrong. We were told that the line started way back past this other building. It did not end up being too long of a wait, though.. only about 40 minutes or so. It was fun to get to see the city from the London Eye, especially now that I know the city a bit more than the last time I rode it in 2003.
*westminster abbey is so beautiful!*
*classic picture of big ben!*
*thames river and the london eye!*
On Sunday, the 3rd, Katie and I headed to the airport to spend a couple of days in Belfast, Ireland. We were able to book the tickets relatively cheap and neither of us had ever been to Ireland so we thought it would be fun to go there while she was visiting. Well… getting to the airport was never such a crazy adventure. We got to the ticket office for the Stansted Express.. only to be told that the trains would be leaving from a different location that day. I thought it would be ok and that we could get there on time.. so we hurried to catch a tube line to get to that station. Turned out, though, that a lot of the lines were shut for the weekend and so we ended up having to go over halfway back towards my house and then taking a tube line all the way up to the other station. Once we got to the station, we thought we were clear and that everything would be fine from there. Wrong again. Once we boarded the train, we got about 10 minutes into our 35 minute journey when the train came to a complete stop and this lady came on the loudspeaker telling us that the train in front of us was faulty and that we couldn’t move until it was out of the way. We ended up finally getting to the airport about… 25 minutes before our flight was supposed to LEAVE.. and we ran to security, hoping they had not already closed the gate as they would in the States. We barely made it to our gate (sprinting the whole way). Thank goodness we planned in a whole bunch of extra time to get to the airport.. of course never expecting to go through as much as we did.. but at least we made it. Once we got to Belfast, we found our hostel, which turned out to be really nice, actually. We settled in and then went into the city centre where we walked around and went into a bunch of places to do some shopping. I had a lot of success in shopping, finding a really nice dress at H+M along with an amazing Puma bag that was on clearance for half off!
*yayy we made it to the airport for our flight to ireland!*
*first look at ireland from the plane! so excited!!*
Monday was our full day in Belfast and we knew that we wanted to do the hop-on, hop-off bus tour so we could see all of the main sites and attractions. We also wanted to take part of the day to head to the countryside of Belfast, where there would be the hills I always pictured in Ireland (not so green seeing as it is January). We asked the guy at the front desk of the youth hostel who brought up this website that showed which busline to take up to Divis and Black Mountain. We wrote down all the information and thought it would be a perfect way to start the morning and that we would come back for lunch in the city centre before our bus tour in the afternoon. Perfect plan.. however I cannot say that the plan worked out so perfectly. We got on the bus to go up to the hills to be dropped off on the side of a mountain where there was nothing but a few houses, a road and a whole lot of snow. Before we could even really think about where we were getting dropped off or register that there was absolutely nothing like a place to go to take walks as the website had advertised… the bus driver pulled away and kept on his way going up the mountain. Great. Stuck on the side of a mountain for an hour until the bus was to make its way back down the mountain. We were told to be back at that spot 5-10 minutes before the scheduled time to be picked up so we didn’t miss it. We walked down this one street for a while and ended up seeing a whole bunch of really pretty sights and we even saw some horses in a field in the snow! It was really magical! We took quite a lot of pictures and eventually made our way back to the bus stop, making sure we were ahead of the scheduled time for the bus to come back down the mountain. We arrived 7 minutes before it was supposed to come. Twenty minutes later… no bus. Long story short.. we ended up having to wait for the next bus to come around to the stop… a nice two hour wait… ugh. While it was absolutely freezing, we managed to make it through somehow.. though I must admit that we ended up trying to find entertainment in some odd ways… like reading straight out of the tourist guide book we had picked up at our hostel and commenting on the cows that were in the field next to us. We finally made it back down the mountain after our two hour wait.. frozen down to the bones. We made our way into the town for a hot lunch at a local deli and then went to catch the bus tour. It was so cold outside that we had to sit in the enclosed top area of the bus so that we could stay semi-warm while getting some half-decent pictures of the sights in the city. After the bus tour, we found a little Irish tourist shop which I took advantage of by buying myself a cute mug, keyring with four-leaf clovers and green Ireland sweatshirt.
*city hall and the mock-london eye all lit up at night! the christmas tree is still up, too!*
*beautiful streets of belfast, ireland!*
*a creek among the snow in the mountains of ireland!*
*beautiful landscape!*
*haha.. yayy for killing time on the side of a mountain for 3 hours!*
*the horses we found along the way! so beautiful!*
*everything was so beautiful.. even though it was absolutely freezing!!*
Tuesday morning, we headed back to the airport to make our way back to London. Getting to the airport in Belfast was a much easier experience than in London, which we appreciated for sure! The flight back was smooth as well.. I slept the whole time, haha. Once we got back to my house in Notting Hill, we showered and got ready to go out and see a show with the rest of the IFSA-Butler program. We all went out to see the show Avenue Q which was really funny! It was also my first time meeting a bunch of the new students that had moved into my house. After the show, some of us walked around and found a pub where we all sat around and talked for a while, which was fun.
Wednesday morning, we headed out pretty early to get to the Changing of the Guard before the crowds were to arrive. It was snowing in the morning, which was pretty.. but not fun to walk through as it was really sloshy and slippery on the ground. We stopped and got Starbucks on the way, though, so we were at least warm as we arrived about an hour before the ceremony was supposed to begin. We found a spot right up next to the gates so we could get a great view and we could get pictures without always having to the the gate rails in the shot as well. The wait seemed like forever but it was worth it in the end. It was cool to see the Changing of the Guard again since I have not seen it since I came to England with my family back in 2003. Katie really enjoyed it as well which I was really happy about! :) After we were finished at Buckingham Palace, we made our way to the train station to get our tickets to head down to Brighton beach for the second part of the day. It was freezing and still snowing.. but we didn’t really care. Katie wanted to see the beach, so we went ahead and bought our tickets. It was interesting getting down to the beach from the train station in Brighton, seeing as the sidewalks were quite slippery and we were not exactly wearing the proper footwear (I was wearing my rainboots and Katie was wearing her Sperry’s!). Needless to say, it was quite funny to get down to the actual beachfront. At one point, Katie just started sliding along one side of the sidewalk down to the other side and it looked like she was surfing. Anyway.. we made our way out to the pier which was mostly closed (for good reason, I must say).. but it was fun to see anyway. We then found a nice fish-n-chips place to eat which was absolutely delicious!! As it was getting darker, we decided to make our way back towards the train station before it got too icy for the trains to be running – we did not want to get stuck in Brighton overnight! We stopped in a couple of shops on the way, though, and in one of them I found this lovely pair or pearl earrings that I bought for myself! I love them so much! :) We did make it back onto a train, thankfully, and were able to make it back into London.
*changing of the guard!*
*on the way to brighton! yay snow!*
*back in the fall i took this same picture - it was neat to see this boat covered in snow!*
* IT'S SNOWING!!!!*
Thursday, we made our way to Oxford which I was particularly excited about since I had not been to Oxford yet. We decided to do the bus tour where we could hop on and off as we pleased throughout the day. We ventured into the Alice Shop which is the original shop for the story of Alice and Wonderland. I bought a mug there that has a Cheshire Cat on it – when you put a hot beverage in the mug.. the cat’s body and head disappear, only to leave it’s big grin. So cool! I love it! We then walked around and took a whole bunch of pictures, stopping along the way to buy some classic Oxford University t-shirts. We then got back on the bus tour and saw a lot more of the colleges and sights of the town. Once we were near the end of the bus tour, we hopped off and decided to get some food and to shop a bit more. We ate at this little pub called the White Horse and I ate Yorkshire Pudding for the first time! Crazy!! It was really good, though. However, I could not finish it because it was SO much food! We then made our way to all the shopping stores, where I was able to find these amazing zebra print heels that have blue trim.. can you say amazing?? I fell in love with them and just had to buy them. They were only 15 pounds, too which was even better! :) After shopping, we ended up having to walk back to the bus station because apparently it had become too icy on the roads for all of the buses to be out and about. We were keeping our fingers crossed that there would still be trains running back into London since a bunch of trains were getting cancelled even earlier in the day. Before we headed to the platform to wait for the train (which we luckily were able to catch before they started cancelling everything), I stopped to get a hot cider and Katie got a Chai Latte. We then headed back to London, where we changed and got ready to head out for a nice dinner in Covent Garden to celebrate Katie’s last night in England.
*beautiful landscapes on the way to oxford!*
*one of the colleges at oxford university!*
*so beautiful!*
*the pub where we ate lunch!*
*creative shot of some ice*
*so pretty! they look like gingerbread houses!*
*my new shoes... amazing, i must say!*
Friday morning, we got up and headed out for the airport. I was sad to learn that I could not go to the gate with Katie.. but we were able to eat breakfast and hang out for a while in the airport before she went through security. I was really sad to see her go – but we had such a great week and we made many memories that will last us a lifetime!! I am so thankful that it was able to work out for her to come visit me! Yay!
A recap of everything from the time that Katie left won’t take too long.. I was sick in bed with the flu for the majority of it. I went into the hospital to see a doctor on Sunday because I was fairly sure that I had the flu.. but needed an official confirmation to tell Laban since I was going to need an extension on a paper I had due Monday. Getting to the hospital was not exactly easy since the tube lines to get there were closed for the most part.. but I figured out the buses to get there and asked the bus driver who let me off right at the hospital.. which was nice. Once I was able to see a doctor, they told me that I for sure had some version of the flu but weren’t sure if it was the regular winter flu or if it could be swine flu. Regardless, they told me that my pulse was rather high so they needed to do some other tests. I found out later my pulse was raised because I was partially dehydrated. As I was getting an IV put into me, though, I had a slight panic attack since I am terrified of all needles.. it was NOT fun. Anyway.. they drew some blood, did an EKG and gave me a bunch of IV fluids. I was not prescribed any medicines, though.. they just told me to take Ibuprofen.. lame! Last time I checked.. the medicine for the flu was Tamiflu.. not Ibuprofen. Anyways.. I spent the next four days in bed feeling awful. I was able to go into Laban on Thursday to watch classes and to turn in my paper, so that was good. It was really nice to see everyone as well. Friday I went in to classes for the afternoon and participated in the audition for the Rep class that is taking place this term. We find out those results on Monday.. would be fun to do but it won’t be the end of the world if I don’t end up in the piece. :)
So I know that is a LOT of information in one blog.. but I felt I needed to start it up again since I got so busy last term that I let blogging fall to the side. More to come soon.. cheers :) mk
