Comin' home soon. It's about that time...I'm ready.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
We survived! My first completely independent vacation was a success. Paris was absolutely beautiful. We stayed in a hostel near the Sacre Coeur cathedral, and it turned out to be pretty nice. It wasn't exactly the best part of town, but considering that basically all we did was sleep there, and the subway station was about 1/2 a block away, it worked out great. Our train left Oxford at 5:20 in the morning, so our trip there was early and long. Once we braved our first subway experience, which was an adventure in itself because we had no idea what we were doing, we took a nap for a couple hours before we decided to venture out again. That evening we wandered around our neighborhood for awhile, went to the Sacre Coeur, and got dinner, which was a somewhat unpleasant experience just because we had no idea about the language or customs or anything. Once we got back, we went to bed early, but not before we took some time to learn our essential French phrases, which absolutely saved us for the rest of the trip.
Friday we went to Versailles and the Louvre. Versailles was incredibly beautiful and extravagant, and we spent a lot of time wandering around the acres and acres of gardens on the property. The Louvre really does require an entire day or more if you really want to experience the whole thing. I think we got through maybe half of it before we went outside for a break, and then decided we were too tired to go back in and keep going. It was still definitely worth what we saw, though. Before heading home, we walked from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower...which was a longer walk than we thought...and spent a little bit of time there. Saturday morning, our plan was to meet some other girls at the Eiffel Tower...but we never actually found them. It was a more realxed day that we spent mostly shopping, and we went back to the tower after it got dark. It's beautiful when the tower is lit up at night...we used nearly an entire roll of film just on pictures of the tower, so hopefully I got some pretty good ones. Sunday, our trip was already coming to an end, but we still had most of the day in Paris. There was a great little street market right outside our hotel, so we shopped there for awhile and made some great purchases. Then it was on to Notre Dame where we fed the birds outside and then went inside during Mass. Our last big stop for the day was the Musee D'Orsay, where most of the impressionist art is displayed. I think it was one of my favorite experiences because I absolutely love Renoir, Degas, Monet, VanGogh and the rest. I could spend hours examining every piece of their artwork.
Gotta go for now...we're headed to Stratford upon Avon (Shakespeare's birthplace)...that's the meat of the trip...minus all of the many interesting exeriences that we encounterd...hopefully I'll get to those later.
Friday we went to Versailles and the Louvre. Versailles was incredibly beautiful and extravagant, and we spent a lot of time wandering around the acres and acres of gardens on the property. The Louvre really does require an entire day or more if you really want to experience the whole thing. I think we got through maybe half of it before we went outside for a break, and then decided we were too tired to go back in and keep going. It was still definitely worth what we saw, though. Before heading home, we walked from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower...which was a longer walk than we thought...and spent a little bit of time there. Saturday morning, our plan was to meet some other girls at the Eiffel Tower...but we never actually found them. It was a more realxed day that we spent mostly shopping, and we went back to the tower after it got dark. It's beautiful when the tower is lit up at night...we used nearly an entire roll of film just on pictures of the tower, so hopefully I got some pretty good ones. Sunday, our trip was already coming to an end, but we still had most of the day in Paris. There was a great little street market right outside our hotel, so we shopped there for awhile and made some great purchases. Then it was on to Notre Dame where we fed the birds outside and then went inside during Mass. Our last big stop for the day was the Musee D'Orsay, where most of the impressionist art is displayed. I think it was one of my favorite experiences because I absolutely love Renoir, Degas, Monet, VanGogh and the rest. I could spend hours examining every piece of their artwork.
Gotta go for now...we're headed to Stratford upon Avon (Shakespeare's birthplace)...that's the meat of the trip...minus all of the many interesting exeriences that we encounterd...hopefully I'll get to those later.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Oww!
I have never walked so much in my life! Monday was our 11 mile walk along the Thames River, and it was absolutely exhausting. My feet had never been so sore.
We hit up a show in London last night...saw Mel Brook's show The Producers. It was absolutely hillarious. The whole London underground/train thing was a bit of an adventure too.
Took our test today...at least it's over.
Tomorrow we're off to Paris, bright and early. I'll be back late on Sunday...so until then...have fun and stuff....I knowI will.
We hit up a show in London last night...saw Mel Brook's show The Producers. It was absolutely hillarious. The whole London underground/train thing was a bit of an adventure too.
Took our test today...at least it's over.
Tomorrow we're off to Paris, bright and early. I'll be back late on Sunday...so until then...have fun and stuff....I knowI will.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Wow, so it's been a little bit harder to get kept up with this thing every day like I wanted to. And of course, when it's been three days, it feels like a million things have happened. Friday was London, Saturday we got most of the day off in Oxford, and today we went to Woodstock.
The hi-lites of London were seeing the Globe Theatre and The Tower of London. Got to see the crown jewels and the biggest diamond in the world...as well as a whole bunch of really cool old castley stuff that goes right along with our class. I ate fish and chips for the first time for dinner that night...good...just greasy. The Globe was a really cool experience, because after taking the tour in the morning, we decided that we would come back that evening to watch a performance. The tickets were only£5, which is a really good deal...you just have to stand up the whole time. But that's just part of the authentic experience. Even though this building is only about ten years old, it was built using absolutely all of the historical specifications they had of the original Globe, with an open floor area where the 'groundlings' stand, and the balconies up above. We saw The Tempest, which I have actually seen before, but that was like 8th grade, so I hardly remembered it. It was a really interesting performance because three men played all of the characters. I was completely lost for awhile, but eventually figured out most of the plot.
Needless to say, by Saturday morning when we were in class at 9:00, we were exhausted. Luckily, we had the afternoon off, so almost everyone took a nap, and then I wandered around Oxford for awhile with a few from the group. We stopped by the Ashmoleon museum, shopped for awhile, and then went to Eagle and Child for dinner. It is the pub where CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien often met together and wrote and whatnot. After giving up on going out, we came back and watched a movie, and ended up watching Elizabeth. We felt kinda nerdy, considering that we had just talked about Queen Elizabeth in class, and we were way excited to watch the movie, and we were constantly trying to figure out if it was accurate or not. It was actually very good, although I don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much if I didn't know the history behind it.
Today, a few of us went to church at St. Aldates in Oxford. It is one of the only churches in Oxford that is actually thriving. I guess you could call it an Evangelical Anglican church. I really enjoyed the service. This afternoon, we went to Blenheim Palace in Woodstock. It is the residence of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough (who have some relation to Princess Dianna) to this day. Winston Churchill was also born there. The palace was absolutely beautiful, but the best part of the experience was all of the gardens and grounds around the palace. We didn't even have enough time to wander through all of them, but it was a great place to just stop and lay in the sun on the great lawn.
I would love to post some pictures, but so far I haven't used my digital camera at all. I have, however, used 5 or 6 roles of film so far....if I ever do pick up the digital, I'll definitely try to get some pictures posted.
Tomorrow, we take our 11 mile walk along the Thames River, so I need to get some sleep.
The hi-lites of London were seeing the Globe Theatre and The Tower of London. Got to see the crown jewels and the biggest diamond in the world...as well as a whole bunch of really cool old castley stuff that goes right along with our class. I ate fish and chips for the first time for dinner that night...good...just greasy. The Globe was a really cool experience, because after taking the tour in the morning, we decided that we would come back that evening to watch a performance. The tickets were only£5, which is a really good deal...you just have to stand up the whole time. But that's just part of the authentic experience. Even though this building is only about ten years old, it was built using absolutely all of the historical specifications they had of the original Globe, with an open floor area where the 'groundlings' stand, and the balconies up above. We saw The Tempest, which I have actually seen before, but that was like 8th grade, so I hardly remembered it. It was a really interesting performance because three men played all of the characters. I was completely lost for awhile, but eventually figured out most of the plot.
Needless to say, by Saturday morning when we were in class at 9:00, we were exhausted. Luckily, we had the afternoon off, so almost everyone took a nap, and then I wandered around Oxford for awhile with a few from the group. We stopped by the Ashmoleon museum, shopped for awhile, and then went to Eagle and Child for dinner. It is the pub where CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien often met together and wrote and whatnot. After giving up on going out, we came back and watched a movie, and ended up watching Elizabeth. We felt kinda nerdy, considering that we had just talked about Queen Elizabeth in class, and we were way excited to watch the movie, and we were constantly trying to figure out if it was accurate or not. It was actually very good, although I don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much if I didn't know the history behind it.
Today, a few of us went to church at St. Aldates in Oxford. It is one of the only churches in Oxford that is actually thriving. I guess you could call it an Evangelical Anglican church. I really enjoyed the service. This afternoon, we went to Blenheim Palace in Woodstock. It is the residence of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough (who have some relation to Princess Dianna) to this day. Winston Churchill was also born there. The palace was absolutely beautiful, but the best part of the experience was all of the gardens and grounds around the palace. We didn't even have enough time to wander through all of them, but it was a great place to just stop and lay in the sun on the great lawn.
I would love to post some pictures, but so far I haven't used my digital camera at all. I have, however, used 5 or 6 roles of film so far....if I ever do pick up the digital, I'll definitely try to get some pictures posted.
Tomorrow, we take our 11 mile walk along the Thames River, so I need to get some sleep.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Oxford...Trout...Warwick
The last couple days have been so much fun and so very busy. The first evening we were here we took a walking tour of Oxford, but it wasn't exactly the most beneficial to everyone because we were so jetlagged. I went to bed at 8:00 that evening, so now I'm pretty much recovered from that. Yesterday evening, we took another walk to the outside of Oxford through some gorgeous fields and a couple small villages to see St. Margaret's church, a very old, very small little country church. After that, we went to The Trout restaurant and had some tasty English food.
Today was a great day, definitely my favorite so far. We took the train to Warwick and got to see a gorgeous church and tour the Warwick castle. It was great fun and we took lots of pictures. It was really nice because we got to do our own thing for most of the afternoon at the castle on our own. Afterwards, we got a tasty dinner and headed back on the train.
...so i'm not terribly detailed at the moment, but I'm getting sleepy and losing my train of thought...so...that's all for now.
Today was a great day, definitely my favorite so far. We took the train to Warwick and got to see a gorgeous church and tour the Warwick castle. It was great fun and we took lots of pictures. It was really nice because we got to do our own thing for most of the afternoon at the castle on our own. Afterwards, we got a tasty dinner and headed back on the train.
...so i'm not terribly detailed at the moment, but I'm getting sleepy and losing my train of thought...so...that's all for now.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Thursday, May 05, 2005
4 Days until England.
God's timing is kinda funny sometimes...but I have a feeling He know what He's doing.
The End.
God's timing is kinda funny sometimes...but I have a feeling He know what He's doing.
The End.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Kah-Reer!
Wow, I'm leaving for England in 5 days! Wow. And I officially decided today that I'm gonna go to Paris on our weekend off. Super thrilled about that one.
I also found out today that I don't have to pay rent for June and July. Super thrilled about that one too.
In the meantime...my room (actually the entire upstairs) is an absolute pit right now. I have absolutely no organization or motivation for packing and moving and whatnot. I FINALLY got a couple boxes from Tortuga tonight (hopefully no one minds too much) so now I can maybe pack slightly more efficiently.
Got the Bet Lat Soundtrack today...and a new copy of Grayskull Soundtrack. YES!
One final tomorrow, two on Friday...and I could care less about any of them. Ready to be done.
Not ready, on the other hand for people to be leaving or for me to be leaving and not seeing everyone for 3 months. (not to mention some of the people who are graduating, who knows when I might see them) Pretty freaked out about the fact that I'm gonna be doing the graduation thing in a year...yikes. At least I know that I'll have another year of an internship...if not more if I decide to do grad school...another scary thought. After that though...wow, I'm clueless.
We had a great night of impromptu ultimate. Lots of old schoolers showed up and it was good times. Then Curdit busted Phil's head open...ouch....it was a pretty gnarly gash. So most likely, Phil is going to have a face full of stitches (or at least a super-glued cut) for graduation. It was pretty hard-core...and he seemed pretty okay. (I just used the word 'pretty' three times in two sentences...pretty bad at this word variation thing)
That's about all I got left in my train of thought...I don't really feel like going to sleep right now...maybe I'll go look at Facebook...Stupid Facebook!
I also found out today that I don't have to pay rent for June and July. Super thrilled about that one too.
In the meantime...my room (actually the entire upstairs) is an absolute pit right now. I have absolutely no organization or motivation for packing and moving and whatnot. I FINALLY got a couple boxes from Tortuga tonight (hopefully no one minds too much) so now I can maybe pack slightly more efficiently.
Got the Bet Lat Soundtrack today...and a new copy of Grayskull Soundtrack. YES!
One final tomorrow, two on Friday...and I could care less about any of them. Ready to be done.
Not ready, on the other hand for people to be leaving or for me to be leaving and not seeing everyone for 3 months. (not to mention some of the people who are graduating, who knows when I might see them) Pretty freaked out about the fact that I'm gonna be doing the graduation thing in a year...yikes. At least I know that I'll have another year of an internship...if not more if I decide to do grad school...another scary thought. After that though...wow, I'm clueless.
We had a great night of impromptu ultimate. Lots of old schoolers showed up and it was good times. Then Curdit busted Phil's head open...ouch....it was a pretty gnarly gash. So most likely, Phil is going to have a face full of stitches (or at least a super-glued cut) for graduation. It was pretty hard-core...and he seemed pretty okay. (I just used the word 'pretty' three times in two sentences...pretty bad at this word variation thing)
That's about all I got left in my train of thought...I don't really feel like going to sleep right now...maybe I'll go look at Facebook...Stupid Facebook!
