Last days in London :( /First days back in America

On my last monday in London I woke up early with Ellie to go to the Gym that we found and work out before she had to go to work.
I was excited because she was goign to teach me some of her swim stuff... not that I would be any good at it, but I love trying new things and especially when the people teaching me are extremely passionate about what they are teaching. I love when people have a passion in life.
But when we got to the pool there was  A LOT  of people and WE didn't really have a lot of time because ellie had to go to work at some point, so instead of slowing down her work out I just went to the gym. I miss the gym. I stayed for about an hour after Ellie had to go to work. :)
during the Day i headed back to the Camden Market to a tempt and buy the last few souvenirs I needed and use the rest of my pounds with out having it get more before I left. And I was successful :)
That Night Ellie and I went to our newest favorite Pub "lock tavern" in Camden to check out a band that her company is representing and Also meet the Lead singer of Mystery Jets (who her company is also representing) because he was the DJ for the night. The Band was really good. And There was another girl from AIU there who has been a huge fan on Mystery Jets for a few years and it was soooooooo funny watching her meet the lead singer. I think meeting him was the highlight of her London experience. haha

tuseday was my last day and soooooo sad :)
I just finished finished packing and then hung out in regents park and read a book all day. :) like any true Londoner would do. haha
that night we went out to Welcome Jolene back, say goodbye to me, and wish Ellie and happy 21st birthday!!!! (it washer birthday on wed.) It was a very very bitter sweet night.
Somehow Ellie got off work next day so we all just bad a blast.
Of course we went to our two favorite pubs. Lock Tavern and Camden head.
at Lock tavern there was this ma who was fascinated with my blonde hair. not sure why he picked my hair out of all the other blondes at the Pub but he kept coming up to me and stroking my hair.... running his fingers through it and rambling about how beautiful my hair was. It was really weird and creepy. He would just sneak up behind me and start stroking my head. He was our cue to head out and finish the night at Camden head.
And at camden head i met another interesting guy. Haha his name was Darryn and he was extremely sad that i was leaving in the morning. "some one as beautiful as you should not be allowed to leave England." haha. So at first we tried to think of ways in which i wouldn't have to leave and then he proposed to me. hahahahaah! then we spent the rest of the night planning our wedding and the names of our children. haha! I probably wouldn't have entertained it so long if i wasn't leaving in the morning but it was really hysterical. I ended up giving him my number too... haha it wasn't going to be my number anymore in less the 12 hours... so I figured no harm done. And he ended up sending me a funny funny text later on in the night saying how sad he was that i was leaving and that he will always still be here in London and that he really thought i had something special I should should embrace it. haha those British boys know how to use their words. My self confidence is going to take a take a huge dive in America.

I has to wake up early on Wednesday to leave And i had decided to try and take the tube by myself to the airport. This was super tricky with my two suitcases and a carry on. Being a girl come in super handy a lot. :) I don't think I ever really had to carry my own suitcase when it came to the many stairs i had to walk :) thank you British boys :) I took about 1.5-2 hours (i was told it would only take 1 so I was bit behind)  for me to get to the airport. And then they had escalators so i could carry my own stuff.
I was about to step on the escalator when the Older lady in front of me must have tripped and fell backwards onto the escalator with her luggage tumbling on top of her. IT WAS THE SCARIEST THING! They stopped the escalator right away and everyone cleared off so the workers could help her. I felt so bad! she was all in a tissy and so worked up.... naturally.

Then i reached bag check in. I was a bit nervous because i only had an hour left before they closed bag check in for my flight and the lines were pretty long. Also I knew i had a bit of a weight issue... :) I was taking home mine and another girls art stuff which is very very heavy. I had plenty of room but those sketchbooks made it hard to keep my weight limit. I was able to pack under my weight limit for my checked bag but it made my carry ons pretty huge. SO i finally get to the front of the line and i have about 25 min left before bag check is closed. And the guy wants to weight my carry ons.... so of course i was over weight and he wanted me to pay lots of extra money... I wasn't really wanting to do that so i told him i would just try to go re-arrange and just pay for my checked bag to be over weight instead of all of them. So because i only had 15 min left I rushed through this process pretty fast and i'm positive that every one of my bags was over weight when i was finished. But because i had only a few min left to check in I found an attendant and she directed me to a line that just opened.. so i was the first one. Lucky me this nice lady didn't even weigh my bags at all. Not one of them. HAHA! YESSSS! :)

nothing too special happened on the plane. The beeper did go off on me in security and i had to get padded down... not too fun but at least it was a girl working.

lots of plane food and 8 hours later I arrived in Chicago :)
customs and baggage was fast and easy. I was out in no time.
My friend Anna surprised me at the airport with my mom and it was really exciting! :)
My mom thought it was funny that the first thing i noticed was how blue the sky was....
The sky is blue in London just not THAT blue and not ALL the time.
That night we went out to eat and I went to the Movie Despicable Me!!!! I was really excited to see this movie. It was hard to stay awake.... stupid jet-leg... but it was soooo good!

And Thursday i was thrown back into reality whit having to clean my stuff and re-pack to go back to school and move into my apartment by next wednesday. Lots to do! and so little time....

One thing i must mention about America..... Air conditioning. There is none in London. Well some. but hardly ever. And I missed it while i was there but being back home it is sooooooo weird to have it. It doesn't need to be THAT cold inside a restaurant does it? seriously I was shivering..... I forgot what AC was all about.... haha.

I already miss London a lot and I need to start planning the next time i will go :)

Primrose Hill

Friday and Saturday were pretty boring. :) We pretty much just took walks around Camden and stayed in both nights with all of our flat mates. It was fun just to talk and hang out with the four of us.

Sunday morning Lisa and I got up early to go to service at Westminster Abbey.
This was an interesting experience. Lisa is not catholic so she wasn't sure what to expect, and the service was verrrrrryyyyy different than what i am used to. It was cute cause Lisa kept asking me for advice on what to do but I wasn't 100% myself so i never knew what to tell her.
Just to give you an idea of some of it.
-no singing at all
-he kinda skipped the homily all together...
-communion... you had to go up and kneel at the front and they served it to you.

The funniest thing for me was at the end we were sitting there, everyone is leaving and Lisa is just perfectly sitting there looking at the front like she was waiting for something else to happen. I tried to give her a moment, but I wasn't sure what she was thinking so I said "We can leave whenever ou are ready lisa."
and she said "wait what? it's over? that was it? you mean it's time to go?"
"I laughed and said yeah well we can stay and pray for a bit if you want but yes the service is over."
She was sooooo confused. haha. On the trip back home she had one million and one questions about Catholicism for me. I have my parents to thank for knowing the answer to every single one of her questions :)

later in the day i went with Ellie in search of a gym with a pool for her to join for the rest of her time here so she can stay in shape for swimming. She is on a scholarship for swimming at the University of Tampa. She has really been missing being able to swim, plus she feels that she is getting out of shape for the next season.
It took us a while to find a gym that had a big enough pool for her... Swimming isn't exactly a well known sport here. And the one we did find was closed on Sundays. but at least we found a decently priced one with a good sized pool for her.

That night we headed up to Primrosehill. It is a Park next to Regents park (the park that I walked through everyday on my way to school) There is a pretty big hill in this park and we've been hearing about how people go there at night and basically just drink wine a look at the London Skyline. So Ellie and I got our Bottles of wine and headed to the park to check it out.

 

you can't really tell from the pictures but there was actually a lot of people here. We were surprised but this... we thought that by going on a Sunday night we would have the hill to ourselves... haha.

 

farther down a group of people set off these mini balloons. Basically there were candles inside of them and just little paper balloons that floated off into the sky. It was really cool!

  

  

Industrial thingsss

I am realllllllly behind. Yikes.

sooooo last Tuesday while the girls were at work I attempted to go to the Design Museum. I walked there becuase walkign is my new favorite thing annnnnd i had all day :) haha. Only i forgot my map. :/ It wasn't a problem of getting to the area in which the museum was in cuase i allready knew how to get there and get back. But when it came to actually finding the Museum I had a LOT of trouble. And of course ever person on the street that i asked either did not know or gave me really confusing directions that just made me more lost.
so after three hours of helplessly wandering around The City of London I decided just to head back to the flat and try again the next day with my map and hand written directions that i can understand. :/
However my adventure was not totally pointless. I got to Witness 5 British men who were supposed to be working.... Singing and dancing and jumping around on the scaffolding. HAHAHA! It was straight out of a movie! lol They didn't even notice me watching them. I didn't recognize the song they were singing but i thought it was hilarious that they were actually singing and dancing on the scaffolding.
Later that night Krista and Lorrie Got back from Ireland and so we all went out for their one last drink at Camden head before they had to leave to go home the next morning.

When I woke up in the morning they were allready gone.
So I spent the morning carefully planning my route to the museum. :)
and this time i made it whit out any complications.

This Museum was by far the best Museum i have been to since i have been here. And that is probably due to the fact that it is an Industrial Design Museum... Weird that i would be so in love with a museum based around my major..... haha! I did have to pay £5 to get in but for me that was TOTALLY worth it. this place was my own personal playground.

I took A TON of pictures. but i will just show you a few of my favorites :)

  

Hope Chandelier - Fancisco Gomez Paz and Paolo Rizzatto

Designed for the Italian Lighting Manufacturer, Luceplan. It is made of molded polycarbonate leafs with a glossy external surface and a textured internal surface treated with a series of concentric micro-prisms. Each leaf is mounted on a thin stem and then these stems are fixed to the light metal structure, also available in different sizes. haha :)

  

Extrusions - Thomas Heaterwick

Graduated for the Royal College of Art in the UK

After graduating Thomas was determined to find a machine that could produce the legs, back, and seat of a chair or bench using one process/step. And this is what he found. The Extrusion process, in which the metal he used was pushed/squeezed through a chair shaped die. I am not too sure how else to explain this process to you. If that does not make sense...

It is soooo exciting for me to see things i have been learning about the past two years at school and seeing how they directly relate to what i want to do with the rest of my life. :)

  

Soma, Tel Aviv - Ayaia Serfaty from Israel

hand crafted light installation with ‘lampworked’ layers of tinted transparent glass veins. basically it is a delicate skin that she webbed over glass strictures. It gives the vibe of an ocean florr landscape. she did a lot of research through the company she created with her husband Aqua Creations Lighting to create the material and vibe of her installation.

Okayyyyyyy this one was the most fun thing in the world!!!!!

I want one! I seriously stood in front of this thing for probably 45 min straight.

L-E-D-LED-L-ED  by Dilight from Japan

  

It is an Interactive LED bead Installation. Which means i got to playyyyy with it!!!! :) hence why i played for 45 min. haha

   

   

peace, love and happiness :)

haha I did more stuff with them as well. but after the 45 min of me playing i noticed that their was a short line of kids waiting patiently and quietly (probably why i did not notice them before) to have their turn and i felt really bad cause i was being a hog. so i let them have their turn. but i realllly did not want to leave!

anyways this is how it works

LED beads are strung along wires. An electronic current is passed through the wires and generates light. The magnetism is reconverted into energy by coils inside each bead.

Pretty awesome if you ask me! :)

  

sorry I do not have info on this one cuase my mom called while I was the museum and distracted me. :/

but it still is a pretty cool chair!

   

again thanks to mom i do not have as much info on this bike. but i do remember that it folds up and fits inside of a little suitcase that you can carry around with you... and it is supposed to be light weight as well.

  

Blown-Fabric Lanterns - Nenda also from Japan

Nenda used a material called smash to create this light installation. It is a long fibrenon-woven polyester that can be manipulated using hot press forms technology. she used this fabric to reminisce the vernacular Japanese chochin paper lantern. the Smash fabric allows for this traditional lamp to be one piece of seamless material similar to blow glass. The manufacture aspect of making these particular lamps is impossible to control. So each lamp is unique and no matter what there will never be two identical lamps made in this way.

so after i forced myself to leave this wonderful place i started on my walk home.
while walking along the river i noticed this huge boat with people hanging from the main mast.

can you see all the people? It was kinda hard to miss them considering they were also chanting some type of song and they floated down the river. I convinced myself that they were pirates cause that is so much more of an exciting story. but i do not know what they really were anyways. so i still say pirates. :)

as i kept walking i was able to see the tower bridge as it opens to lets ships through. COOL!

i get to see some of the best things when i am just wandering around by myself. :)

It is such a pretty bridge!

 

again while looking at this bridge i wondered what the London bridge was if this was Tower bridge. It makes sense that this bridge would be called the Tower bridge... however it is in the town of London Bridge... and I knew that there was another bridge that was considered the London Bridge.. but I have not yet seen it. At first I thought it may have been the millennium bridge/the wibbly wobbly bridge (also the bridge used in a harry potter movie) I only thought this because when the millenium bridge was first built it wibbled and wobbled and they had to close it to continue construction so I assumed that this is where the song london bridge is falling down came from.
But on one of our pub tours I learned that this theory of mine was wrong.
"London Bridge is falling down" is because the London bridge was originally made of wood and did exactly what the song suggests. It feel down numerous times and they continued to re-build it using wood. And this bridge eventually saved the town of London during a war. The opposing side thought they were being really clever and decided to tear down the famous London bridge. (i guess the fact that they had a bridge at this time was impressive or something) but the opposing side forgot to first use the bridge to get to the other side and fight the war before they tore it down.. so then they had no way of getting across the river...

so anywaysssss because i was so confused about what the London Bridge actually was and looked liked i decided i was going to figure it out.

annnnnnnd then i found it!

yeap. It was nothing spectacular at all. It was actually pretty boring.
I was hoping that maybe I was still looking at the wrong bridge... but nope this one has it's name engraved in it.

can you see the name? no mistaking that this bridge is the London bridge.....

it was probably the busiest bridge i have ever seen......

that night ellie and i attempted to go see one of the comedians that her company was representing but we were a bit late getting out so we ended up just goign to our favorite pub Camden Head.

As you all know, it is illegal in America to walk the streets with an open bottle and be drinking. But here this is a Legal and VERY common thing. We see people walkign with their beer or wine at all times of the day. However being American we were very skeptical of this rule and usually do not walk around with open cans or beer or bottles of wine, or we go to great lengths to try and hide it. So this night Ellie and I were walking with our cans when we noticed two police officers walking around. Not being 100% sure about how their drinking law works we were a little scared. We arrived at the pub and walked around the corner to finish our cans before we went it. around the corner is this little ally way. and as we were approaching it some homeless looking lady stumbled by us and mumbled something to us but we both just ignored her and stood in front of the alley. With in second after this lady talked to us the Police officers walked by and then down the ally and then approached us. haha we were kinda scared. Sitting there on the street talking to Police officers with our cans of beer in our hands. They simply asked us what the lady had said to us. And we told them that we didn't know cause we ignored her. At this point the officers realized we were American and laughed at us a bit saying "Oh well that lady who talked to you is a crack head and a big dealer... you girls do realize you are standing in the exact spot where the most crack is sold in all of London...."
Yeap so needless to say we instantly moved. haha. And in hindsight I bet that lady was trying to sell us some.

oh and they never said a word about our beer.. which was super weird for us. haha.



On Thursday I had planned to Visit the Royal College of Art :)
I had been planning on going here for a while and after going to the Design Museum and seeing the a good amount of the work inside was done be people who have graduated from this university I was VERY excited to go to it. I was hoping to get some information on the school itself and maybe see a little bit about how it works and such. after doing some research however i saw that there are only two days a year where people who are interested in the school and come and check it out... and the next one is in the fall... they do not even have the actual date set yet. :(
However they did have a fine arts show going on that was open to the public, so I went and was hoping that I could maybe get my foot in the door and talk to someone who could tell me more about it.
since being here in London I have fallen in Love with pretty much everything and I really would like to spend more time here. So I had been trying to find some schools that had my program and this one does! It is also a very prestigious school... Their List of successful and impressive Alumni is AMAZING! (in the art world anyways) Mostly everything they offer is a masters program. So I am thinking ti is something i am most definitely interested in.

The show was VERY cool! it was also awesome to know that I was looking at some of the famous artwork of our future. :)
I was really upset that there was no information about the school itself on display. That's what i really wanted! I asked the Receptionist and she said that i would have to come back for one of the two "open days" I informed here that this was not possible and I would really appreciate begin able to talk to someone more about the school or if she cold direct me to an administrative building so I could get information. But of course being the summer she said everything was closed and there was really nothing she could do for me. grrrrrrr. it's okay though i probably have a lot of other things in my life i need to figure out before i figure out if this program is even possible for me.


Thursday Night we decided to go out because Ellie did not have to work in the morning! YAY!
We first stopped at a Local pub to watch  band who someone we met knew someone who knew someone who was in the band. ahha that's confusing but we somehow knew someone in the band, and we were meeting the girls who knew them at the pub. Honestly thy were awesome! I'm pretty sure that it was just one of the guys who works at the bar playing with his friends. they don't even have a name, but they had all original songs and they were allllll amazing! Ellie and i were so impressed, Ellie even talked to them after trying to get contact information from them to give to her boss so they can get themselves out there. haha.

After the band was done playing we went to meet up with a kid from on of Ellie's classes, Seth. Seth's friend somehow has awesome connection and and scored a table and bottles in a club called "the pent house" for the night. And they wanted us to come.... and I guess we were supposed to get in for free. We were informed that the part of the club that we were getting into was usually £50 per person (general admission is only £10 but we were in some VIP thing).... and we were goign to get in for free and be in a VIP room with free drinks all night.... so of course we had to go! We invited all the girls at the first pub to come with us. So when we showed up with 9 girls instead of 2 Seth and his friend were a little surprised. haha :) We felt a little bad but they didn't mind. haha 9 American girls.... They were more happy than upset. haha! However we were not abel to get in for free anymore.... we each had to pay £5.... still a big difference!

We were up in this skyscraper. The room was lined with floor to ceiling windows that over looked all of London. We could see the London eye Big Ben and everything! There was a Table with a few couches around it reserved just for us! There was also two areas of the room we were in.. the dance floor which was CROWDED! and the Lounge room. where our table was. And there was a rope with a bouncer in between them. You had to have a bracelet to get into the lounge area. It was way cool! I wish i had my camera! This place was amazing!
Of course we had an awesome time!

ALDO

Sunday was the first day that it was just me and Ellie... so sad that the other girls were gone! we didn't do much in the morning because we were going out for the final world cup game! and we were Holland fans for the game HUP HOLLAND HUP! Keven Ellie and i attempted to go to a popular Dutch pub to watch the game but by the time we got there it was full and we weren't able to get in. so the bouncer directed us to another nearby dutch pub. However we ended up just goign into a random pub that didn't look too crowded... we wanted to watch the game... not be packed in a room with a bunch of people. Also Keven reallllly dislikes heat... lol she grew up in Canada... The pub we ended up in was fun because there was an even amount of holland and spain fans.. so it made for an energetic crowd.

no our view of the screen was horrible. we didn't take any pictures so i made one to give you an idea of what over half the pub had to deal with... probably why it wasn't that crowded. haha.

 

clearly this is not the pub we were in but that is about how big the room was in width and those lights are pretty accurate as well. The room was just a  bit longer and there was a pool table under the lights. and we were standing behind the pool table so this is what the screen looked like from where we were standing. SOOOOOOO ANNOYING!

I tried talking a gut into wrapping the cords of the lights around each other so they the lights were out of the way but he did not understand what i was saying. So i had to wait for ellie to get back from finding her friend so that i could fix them myself. and as soon as they did i set on my mission to fix the lights.

I had to walk to the other side of the table to get close enough to the lights cause the farthest light wasn't hanging over the table but instead over the people in front of the table.

None of the people in the pub new what i was doing. And the lady in front of the table thought i was trying to take her seat and she was not cooperating with letting me climb on top of the table at all. And the guy who i tried to get to fix the lights before was annoyed that i was trying and kept telling me it wasn't worth it. but i was determined. I wish Someone would have gotten a picture of me in the process of this cause ellie said it was quite hysterical. I'm standing on top of this pool table swinging lights around and everyone in the pub is just confused and annoyed that I am blocking their view even more. So I FINALLY  get the lights to hang how i want them to. and i turn around and the whole bar starts cheering. I felt pretty special haha. It went from everyone hating me to everyone loving me in a second lol.

the rest of the game was so much more pleasant to watch without any obstructions. The pub wasn't too happy with me... but they really shouldn't place lights right in front of the screen.....

Sadly Holland lost :( so we walked home and called it a night. Ellie also had to get up for the first day of her internship in the morning.

So On Monday when all of the girls, that are still here, were at their first day of work I decided to do some shopping at the Camden Market. It is right down the street from our flat and It is basically a year round flea market. Open air shops. bars clubs and restaurants line the streets and it's huge! It reminded me of  the boutiques you would find at state fair or summer-fest. and it's just a wholeeeeee big area of Camden. You can haggle with the retailers for cheaper prices and everything. It's kind of awesome.  They have some brand same shops on the street before you get to the market as well so on my way home I happened to stop in an ALDO. (shoe store that is popular in the states as well) This ALDO was AWESOME! They were having a 50% sale on the whole store. so i was hoping to find something. I LOVE shoes.... thanks for that gene mom! So i am rummaging through this table of shoes... none of them were matched up. I found a cute pair of oxford style flats. I love oxford styled shoes! and I've always wanted a pair but never find ones i want to pay for. I'm not too sure how i found both pairs in the pile of miss match shoes. But they were two sizes to small anyways.  I assumed that because they were on the mismatched table that they were the only ones left but as i was about to put them back and lady came over and asked if i needed a different size. I was surprised and asked if they even had more. She said I'll go check.... I got really excited. But was confused because all she did was walk tot he center of the room and look at the ceiling where there was a balcony. after a while i went up to her and asked if there was something i was supposed to do.... And she said no, just a second. All I was thinking was why is she not going into a back room or something.... Then there was a guy on the balcony who yelled down to her some different sizes. She asked me what size i needed and then told him and the next thing i know a box of shoes was flying through the air from the ceiling into her hands. HAHAA! it was soooooo funny! possibly a little dangerous. but awesome! All shoes stores should operate this way. It was soooo cool! I was really happy that they fit and I liked them cause after that experience i felt compelled to buy a pair of shoes. I asked her to double check the price because The price on the box was crossed out and written again at 50% less than the original price. Because of the 50% off sale i assumed that was the final price. and i wasn't sure if i wanted to spend that much. But when she came back and told me the price it was another 50% off! yaho! I was sooo excited!  Best shoe shopping experience ever!

Then i came back to the flat and waited for the girls to come home and tell me about their first days at their internships. Keven and Lisa are working for Fashion companies and Ellie is working at a small PR company..... The one that made Dane cook Famous..... yeah! They are also responsible for a lot of other successful bands and comedians, and guess what!? Ellie gets to go to some shows of new bands and comedians that the company is putting on! AND SHE GETS TO BRING ME! I'm kinda upset we you tubed some of the people she is gonna get to see and most of the really good ones are after i go home but it's still pretty cool to know that i'm potentially going to be one of the first people to see some bands that may become famous with in the next few years.!!! :)
I forget the names of the companies Lisa and Keven are working for but i remember being really impressed that they got to work with some pretty intense companies in the fashion world.

I am a bit jealous of the awesome opportunities that they are getting from the internships and wish that i would have been able to do the same thing.

That night Ellie and i were grocery shopping When we got a call form her friend who was at a bar close to our flat and wanted us to come out. It just so happened that the bar was on our walk home from the grocery store so we decided to stop in with our groceries :) It was quite funny

Both of us were dressed pretty scrubby which is a huge no-no in London.

If people see you on the street in athletic shorts or sweatpants and a t-shirt they do not stop staring. It's almost like it is unacceptable to be walking the street if you did not "get ready" for the day. And this goes for males and females. The only people who do not get stared at are the ones going for a jog. So for us to be in a bar holding groceries and practically in our PJ's was pretty funny.

and then on top of it all there was this drunk guy who kept coming up behind me and sniffing my hair... yeah sniffing my hair..... it was way creepy.. a few times he tried to dance whit me too. But we left fast cause we had to get our groceries in the fridge.

Then we just watched a movie and went to bed. :)

London never seizes to amaze me.

Thursday was my Survey exam. So I spent the morning finalizing my paper, studying my notes, and cleaning/ doing laundry before we had to move out of our flat on Saturday morning. I feel like my exam went well. I am not too sure how they give us our grades here so I do not know when I will actually find out what my final grade was....
After the exam we had the last cultural activity wt the AIU group. Cultural Drinking. Basically we went to four different pubs in the City of London. I do not like to bring my camera out with me so i have to pictures and I also missed most of the information because I  was first late arriving due to forgetting my oyster card and having to go back to my flat to get it, and then I was chatting with another professor and student on the tour in the back so I didn't hear much of what tony had to say about the pubs.
But i did learn some cool things about the City of London.
- We saw part of St. Bride church. This is the church that inspired the traditional tiered wedding cakes. I forget who the first cake was made for, but the Lady who was about to get married commissioned a  baker to make a cake for her wedding. The baker was not sure what type of cake to make and he was wandering down the street when he looked at the steeple of St. Bride's church, and he then used the design to make the Lady's wedding cake. Therefore being called The Bride's cake. I wish i had a picture of it :(
- We walked down the street that Shakespeare lived on and saw his apartment.
- We walked by the Globe theater again and got a little bit of history on it. When it first opened It only cost a penny to stand in the gallery and two pennies to sit in the surrounding structure. It would be crowded and people would just show up with there pennies.. there was no tickets. In order to keep a system there were men who waited at the entrance collecting the pennies in boxes. They had no where to store these boxes so they built an office for storage of them... Creating the first Box office.... pretty cool!

We did not attend the last pub because we wanted to get up early the next morning and we weren't going to any particularly special pub.

Friday
Krista, Lisa and I got up earlier than the 0ther girls and went out to St. Paul's Cathedral. I was sooooo excited to get back here. I absolutely LOVE the cathedrals. They are soooo magnificently beautiful!

  

Of course I was not allowed to take pictures inside :(

The no picture rule is probably the worst rule anyone ever came up with. However in Ellie's opinion "pictures are for people who can't remember". haha.

a lot of the artwork on the ceiling in this cathedral was mosaic... There was tons of it! I can not imagine how long it must have taken them!

While we were at st. Paul's we were able to have some reallllly awesome experiences.

First we were able to go down into the Crypt! This was sooooooo freakishly awesome! It was really spooky and eerie. It reminded me of the movie Da Vinci Code when they are running around in the basements of the cathedrals. SOOOOOO COOL!

We were also able to go to the top of the dome! (528 total steps 278 feet above the cathedral floor) There are three level's on the way up.

Level one: 257 steps, 98 feet from cathedral floor, The Whispering Gallery

This Level is still inside of the cathedral. It was AMAZING! To be able to see the paintings at the top of the dome up close and personal was astonishing!! You can see in the diagram the smaller arch... that is the ceiling of the whispering gallery/ the inside of the cathedral. There is a little walk way and bench that surround the inside of the wall. This level was sooooooooo cooool! If it is quite enough and not too many people up there at the same time you are able to whisper next to/into the wall and it will travel around the entire room! You do not even have to press your ear to the wall to hear it. On the other side of the room you can hear what someone said as if they were right next to you. Krista, Lisa and I had a lot fun whispering to each other!

Level two: 119 more steps, 75 feet higher, The Stone Gallery

The staircases were all spirals the whole way up... and they got more narrow with each level as well!

 

this level was really pretty and it was outside! so you could see for miles! It was just a teaser of the next level.

 

Millennium bridge...

 

sooooo beautiful!

Level three: the last 152 steps, and 105 feet higher, The golden Gallery

 

This view was absolutely AMAZING! It made me very very sad that i did not get to see Paris from up high. We were able to walk around the whole thing so i tried to take a picture from every view point... but it was hard because it was crowded and they were herding us around so they could keep people moving through.

I was in love with this :)

Then we had to go down :(

Going up i didn't have a problem. But going down... i felt sick! It was sooooo steep and when you are traveling in a constant circle you get a bit dizzy as well.... not a good combination.

It was also about lunch time... so our next stop was food! :)

There was a Paul right outside :) and I have been craving one of those olive bread tomato mozzarella sandwiches i got from the Paul in Paris so I was hoping they had it because the one close to our school does not. And i was in luck!

just look at how awesome it is! you can seee the olives! YUM YUM YUM!
it made me sooooo happy :)

Then we walked over to tate modern.

and i was able to get my pictures of the ones i had missed during my class.

Métamorphose de Narcisse - Salvador Dalí

 

It is the story of Narcisse (more greek mythology). He was a hunter who was known for his beauty throughout the land. Girls would fall in love with him as soon as they saw him. He was very proud of being known this way and walked all over the people who fell in love with him because of his beauty. He had so much vanity that when he first saw his own reflection in the water he fell in love with himself and could not stop staring at himself in the water... so he sat there starting until he died.

The Three Dancers - Pablo Picasso

 

It is a personal story of Picasso and his friends on a night in Paris. They met a performer (girl in the middle) who Pablo's friend Carlos Casagemas fell in love with. This outing ended in the suicide of Carlos because of his envy and the triangular love affair the performer was involved in.

This is a better picture of the tree!

 

I thought this was sooooooo cool because the artist carved the tree from the block of wood. The only way you are even able to tell is when you see the block at the bottom and the up close marks of his carving where the tree part connects to the block.

 

pretty awesome....

Ithaca Mirror Trail - Robert Smithson

 

Okay so this was probably my favorite thing. I am not sure why it was drawn to it. I've never heard of this artist before, and we did not learn about it in my survey class, but i reallllly liked it. I think it is hard to see in the picture but It is eight pictures of a mirror placed in nature. On a trail in Ithaca, New York. The map in the middle is the trail with markings as to where is placed the mirrors. I was really intrigued by how the mirror was used. It was not intended to record the sites but rather to let the beauty of nature reflect back at itself. 

Just another picture when Leaving the Museum.

 

I also thought this was hilarious.

 

The Thames river is pretty dirty looking... but in reality is very clean. Salmon live in it and they can not live in dirty water.... It probably helps that they have these rubbish eating contraptions haha!

After our morning of fun we headed back tot the flat. We had to clean everything and finish packing to move out the next morning. this was soooo weird to think about! It was our last night all together. :( Krista and Lorrie were leaving at 3 am to go to Ireland for a few days and Emily was leave at 6:30 am to go to Chicago for  a night the to Vegas with her family. Ellie is staying here another 5 weeks for an Internship and I am moving into her flat for the next week and a half. Krista, Lorri, and I had originally planed to go to Italy for 5 days and then to Ireland and Scottland for the remainder of our trip. But they got a little spooked out about not knowing Italian and rumors of men who have no decency at all. Plus they wanted to save some money. So when they decided to go to Ireland and then fly home early I decided to stay in London because I would have rather gone to Italy and Germany. I was hoping I would be able to find some girls who were staying here for the next 5 weeks to go with me on a weekend somewhere but they all have internships that are starting this week so they want to sick around London. My mom also entertained some ideas of sending some family our here to travel with me but nothing worked out being so last minuet. I am not heart broken though. There is still so much of London that I haven't seen! So i'm sure I will have plenty to do while i'm here :)

Then to celebrate our last night together as a group we headed to Abbey road. The famous cross walk on the cover of the Beatles album, right next to their recording studio. Of course we had to attempt the picture....

 

No one was ready.... and The traffic was pretty busy... but at least we tried :)

We left our mark on the wall outside of the studio as well :)

Because it was our last night together we all went out to dinner.

As we were walking and looking for a place to eat we witnessed a very scary accident. I am extremal surprised that no one was injured. A Pizza hut delivery boy on a moped was driving straight when a man in a delivery van turned right into the back end of the moped and did not stop. He kept driving until the wheel popped off of the moped... and was stuck under the van. The poor delivery boy was thrown off the moped and thankfully in the opposite direction that the man was driving. The man in the van got out and started yelling at the boy. WHAT?! telling the boy to look where he was driving. The boy was so confused! saying "what?! you could have killed me!" A few of the men around stood up for the boy and told the delivery man that it was most certainly his fault and he is lucky that the boy is not injured. Then they are started yelling at each other. We left at this point figuring that the boy had enough people on his side... and we were all pretty shaken up.

We ended up finding a very cute little restaurant for dinner and then headed back to our favorite Pub in Camden. Camden head.

 

 

bouncers and random British people....

Krista and Lorrie Obviously left early so that they would be able to catch their cab at 3:15 Am.

We started a conversation with the security guard this night and found out that he body guards for people like Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and ACDC when they are in London. We were clearly skeptical but he proved it showing us some wrist bands and telling some stories. He was really nice! and we asked him why he was at Camden Head and he said simply becuase it is his favorite pub in London.
haha cool! it's our favorite too! :)

This is our new favorite body guard....

 

It was entertaining to talk to him because he would be in the middle of a sentence and then all of a sudden he was gone taking care of someone who was causing problems. He never missed a thing. And while we were talking to him some girl decided it would be a good idea to hit me with her purse as she was walking by..... Yeah she seriously took her big purse and swung it at me.... I guess she thought ellie was looking at her funny.... Silly girl did she not realize I was becoming friends with the body guard.?.. He kicked her out immediately. haha.

It was realllly weird and sad waking up to an empty flat. I just had to do some last minuet cleaning and move all of my stuff into ellie's flat. There is a girl living in Ellie's flat that is here at AIU for another two years and she has already been here for about 5 months. Jolene, she occasionally hangs out with us and is a really sweet girl! Just to give you an idea of how sweet she is... She went home this week to visit her family. So because she knew I didn't exactly have a place to stay and was crashing with ellie she left her room open for me! along with her key to the building so i can come and go as i please instead of relying on the other girls who live here. She also left her fan out for me because it gets so stuffy and hot in these rooms.... no air conditioning in London.. seriously something they should look into... it's unbearable most of the time! However I can not believe she did this for me! It was completely unnecessary but I am very grateful! :)

When I got to Ellie's, Emily was still there.... Her phone died in the middle of the night so her alarm never went off and she had missed her flight to Chicago! I felt so bad for her! She was very upset about it and we spent a lot of time trying to help her figure out her cheapest options to cancel flights and hotels and get her to Vegas so she wouldn't miss her vacation with her family. As sad as it was for her that she missed her flight Ellie and I were selfishly excited that we got to spend another day with her. :) hehe.

It was very relaxing day, which was nice because the day before was soooo busy.

Keven Lisa and I headed to The Odeon ( a cinema) to see Eclipse. We were all a bit curious as to how seeing a movie would be different in London, or if it would be exactly the same.

It was different. We went early just in case it would be crowded. (eclipse only came out at midnight this Thursday over here.) But we were the first ones there. I am not too sure Camden is a typical place for people to go to the movies... Once seated inside we thought it was cute how they tried to attempt the feel of a theater rather than a cinema. Big curtains covering the screen, with spotlights. They played some music for a while and then the curtains opened for commercials. We haven't been watching any TV here so seeing commercials was really funny. Non of them really stood out though. After the commercials were the Previews. You know how when you go to a movie in America when you arrive the commercials are already playing and the previews start either at the time of the showing or a little bit before... Well here the commercials do not even start until the showing time.... And you are allowed to bring your own food. So there were families around us basically eating dinner. It was kind of cute. When the previews finally finished (20 mins after the start time) the curtains closed again.... huh?! the three of us were a bit confused but everyone else wasn't fazed at all so we just waited. and a few minuets later they reopened. Annnnnnddddd more previews came on. haha. we were a bit sick of previews at this point. But there was only two or three this time and then the movie finally started.

It was bad... but that was expected. Twilight is just one of those sick obsessions. You go into it knowing and expecting it to be horrible. And it is exactly what you expected, but you are still excited to see it and can't wait for the next one. It's so horrible that it's actually really good...

We didn't do much else. Just hung out and decided to stay in.... I was able to call my dad and wish him a happy birthday :) and we wanted to make sure Emily made it to her flight the second time...