Scotland!

Hey ya'll! Sorry I'm being such a slacker about updating and then writing really long posts haha. I'll give a brief overview of what I did last week....

I went to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which was really great, James Earl Jones (voice of Mufasa/Darth Vader) was the main character "Big Daddy" and he was really good. And in Art we went to "The Real Van Gogh" which was really cool and then this past Thursday we went to the National Gallery and saw a lot of Western European art including a lot of Monet, Renoir and a few by Van Gogh. We were supposed to go to a soccer game on Tuesday but it got rained out which was a bummer, but we're going to go to a different one, I'm not sure when yet but I'll let you know when I find out!

Alright so my trip to Scotland was amazing! It went by so fast and I am now exhausted but I had so much fun and it is absolutely stunning there. I literally felt like I was in a movie the entire time. We took an overnight bus there and back, so Thursday night we went to this Radio Show in London at the Globe Theater (which was hilarious, it was like an old time-y show where they make all of the noises and tell stories and it is actually on the radio in London). And after the show we went back to our flat and got our bags and took the tube to Victoria Coach Station (the bus station). I only took my bookbag for the 3 days we would be there, I was very impressed that I fit everything into one bag! Our bus left the station at 11:00pm and we got to the station kind of late so we all had to sit next to different random people on the bus, I sat next to a girl from China named Gogo (well im assuming that is how it is spelled haha) We talked a little bit but mostly she just slept and listened to music, unfortunately for me I couldn't fall asleep on the 8 hour bus ride, so I just listened to music the whole way there. We got to Edinburgh around 7am and we walked to our hostel which wasn't too far away from the bus station. When we got there we went to check in and I found out that I was in a separate room from everyone else in my group. We booked separately and we didn't think there would be a problem putting us into one room, but I guess they couldn't change anything around so I stayed in a room with 5 people I didn't know and it was a mixed dorm, meaning that there were 2 scottish men and 1 french guy and 2 other french girls, needless to say it was quite an interesting stay. If you want to hear more about it, just ask haha,I have plenty of good stories. I took a shower and got some coffee at the bar and then we headed out into Edinburgh for the day. The first thing we did was tour the Edinburgh Castle, which is built on volcanic rock, it was really cool.

At 1:00pm everyday they fire a shot from the castle across Edinburgh and so we stayed to see that and we also saw the Crown Jewels and old Prisoner of War chambers underneath the castle.

There was a really great view from the top! :-)

Afterwards we walked down the Royal mile which is the road that leads from the top of the road when the castle is, down through historic Edinburgh. We stopped in a few stores and a church and slowly made our way down the rest of the Royal Mile. When we got to the bottom we decided that we wanted to climb "Arthurs Seat" which is supposedly the best view in Edinburgh and I definitely would say that held true. It was formed from an extinct volcano and then was eroded by glaciers.

This is before we decided to climb it

The View!

After we did that we went to a place call The Worlds End for dinner, I had fish and chips (for the first time since I've been in Europe) and it was so good. We were all exhausted from the long day of traveling (I was going on about 36 hours of no sleep) and so we headed back to the hostel.

On Saturday morning we got up early because we were taking a bus tour to Loch Ness and the Highlands. Our bus drivers name was Gary and he liked to tell corny jokes and play lots of Scottish bagpipe music haha including this song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frCt63-v-9Y

But it was so much fun, we stopped at a place for coffee about an hour into the trip and saw a Highland Cow named Hamish, and it was his birthday.

Hamish :-)

And then we headed up into the highlands which were absolutely beautiful, there are a couple of pictures for you guys to see, but I really don't think they do it justice. We traveled through Stirling and saw where William Wallace (Braveheart anyone?) fought in the Battle of Stirling Bridge. We went to a ton of different places so I'll spare you the time it would take to write about all of it and just hit the highlights.

You can't tell in this picture but there are tears streaming down my face because it was so cold haha

We also went to Loch Ness and took a boat ride, it was really cool, unfortunately though I did not see the Loch Ness monster.

Picture from the boat on Loch Ness

We stopped at dinner in a really small scottish town, and the restaurant we ate dinner in all of the waiters were wearing kilts! That night when we got back into Edinburgh we went to a pub called "The Globe" which was a lot of fun, and we got to watch some of the Olympics which was fun. I have a funny story about when I got back to the hostel that night, but I don't feel like typing the entire thing out on here, so ask me about it if you want to hear it haha. Sunday morning we checked out of our hostel and went back into Edinburgh for our last day of touring. We visited Calton Hill which included the old National Monument that was supposed to look like the Parthenon from Athens, but they never finished it, so its just a half finished building.

If you can see in the picture on the right side along the bottom of the National Monument there is a little hill and it was very muddy and I slid and fell all the way down it,it was funny at the time, but my pants were muddy for the rest of the day, including the 8 hour bus ride back to London and I'm kind of sore from it haha.

Great view from the top of Calton Hill

After we went to Calton Hill we ate lunch and then went to Holyrood Palace, which is where the Queen stays during the summer, it was really cool and definitely worth visiting.

Holyrood Castle

Afterwards we got some coffee and did some souvenir shopping, I got a plaid scarf and a bunch of postcards! Then we went to dinner at a place called Monster Mash and had dinner, two of the people on the trip got Haggis and I tried a little bit of it, it wasn't too bad! You don't really want to know what's in it though. Afterwards we had a little bit of time left before we had to go to the bus station, so we went to The Elephant House and had dessert, which is where J.K Rowling wrote Harry Potter.

It was a really cute restaurant with a great view of Edinburgh Castle and we just hung out there until we caught our bus back to London. Our bus left around 10p.m and we got into London around 6:45 this morning. Oh and no trip to Scotland would be complete without a picture of one of the MANY men playing bagpipes on the street...

I took a long nap today but I'm still pretty tired, I'll try and add some more pictures and stuff later but I wanted to write about the trip before I forgot everything! I miss everyone so much and hope you had a great weekend!

Tea Time and Venice

Sorry I haven't updated in a week! I've been super busy, and this is going to be a very long update so brace yourself now, or if you want the abbreviated version you can just scroll through and look at the pictures instead of actually reading the entire thing! :-)

Ok so I'm gonna start with last weekend. It was sunny for 3 days in a row, which I think is a record so far haha. I went running everyday to Regents Park, which was so nice! It was a pretty laid back which was a nice change. On Monday I got to go to High Tea at the Ritz with my two roommates, it was so much fun! I felt like I was in a movie, they were playing the piano and served lots of little sandwiches, scones and desserts. I think I probably drank an entire pot of English Tea on my own and had about 10 scones, I was extremely full by the end of Tea Time haha.

This is a picture of us at our table

This is me with my tea!

This is the room that we had tea in, very fancy

And this is just a picture of some of the desserts and sandwiches and stuff

I had my first paper due for class on Thursday and I was trying to get that done so I didn't get very much sleep Wednesday night and then I had to pack for Venice because we were leaving right after class on Thursday. We left from class around 3:45 and rushed home and took the tube to the train station and then took a train to the airport. The train ride was about an hour long and then once we got to the airport we checked in and went to our gate. Our flight left around 7:30 and it was about a 2 hour flight to Italy. Once we got there we took a 30 minute shuttle ride to our hostel which was a little bit outside of Venice. The lady who was driving our shuttle was really sweet, and she had good taste in music, she was playing a CD with Ricky Martin and Michael Jackson on it. The hostel was actually a pretty nice place...

This is a picture of the lobby, we became good friends with Nenad, the guy who worked at the desk by the end of the trip haha. So once we got there we just got something to eat at the restaurant by the hostel, I got bruschetta and it was SO GOOD! The next day we woke up and got a shuttle into Venice around 10 and got some coffee and a little card that allowed us to use the Water taxi's while we were there because that is basically the only way to get around Venice. The first day (Friday) wasn't the best weather, it was pretty rainy all day long but we got to see a lot of cool stuff. We took the water taxi to a couple of the islands off the coast of Venice. We went to Murano first, which is famous for glass blowing and we saw a demonstration of how they blow the glass, it was awesome.

This is a picture from one of the main streets in Murano, where we also ate lunch (I had pizza and it was wonderful)

This is a picture of one of the guys who makes the glass.

I also bought a mask on Murano because it was Carnivale in Italy when we went, which is a really big deal and everyone dresses up and wears costumes/masks. But I'll talk about that more in a little bit. After Murano, we went to Burano, which was about two water taxi stops away and we got some coffee and walked around for a little while.

They are famous for all of their rainbow colored houses!

The last island we went to was Torcello, which only has 16 people that live on it, however there are still a lot of tourists that visit because of the church that is there,the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta it was built in the 600's.

Here's a picture of the church, we were almost the only people there.

We went back to the hostel afterwards because we were soaking wet and freezing, only to find out that the gas was broken, so there was no heat or hot water. Haha and so we had club sandwiches at the restaurant for dinner because it was the only thing they could make without needing the gas.

The second day (Saturday), we woke up and headed over to Venice to actually go into the City, we took a vaparetto (water taxi) to San Marco Square and went inside of San Marco Basilica, which was amazing

This is a picture of the inside of the Basilica

This is a picture from the outside

The entire square was full of people dressed up and wearing masks, and all of the little kids had confetti, so if they liked your mask or costume, they would throw confetti at you.

This is just an example of how extravagant all of the costumes were haha. I did not wear a dress like that, just a mask, sorry to disappoint.

Afterwards, we went to a little restaurant for lunch, and I had chicken and pasta. Later in the day we went to an art museum The Royal Academy Museum, and then got gelato afterwards. I got cherry, but don't worry I also got about 5 other kinds throughout the rest of the trip :-)

Then we rested in a little cafe, until it got closer to the opening ceremony for Carnivale. We went back to San Marco Square to wait for the show to start, it was really crowded in the square and definitely not what I expected for the start of Carnivale. They had music and then this play that was about an 80 minutes long, that apparently was very funny, however since I don't speak Italian I had no idea what was going on. But it was a lot of fun to see so many people dressed up in costumes and masks and there were lights strung all around the sqaure. We headed home after the ceremony and thankfully our heat was fixed!

On Sunday ( I know this is long, bear with me) we took the vaperatto, to San Marco again to see the Angel Flight, which was basically a lady on a zipline from the bell tower into the center of the square and it was quite possibly the most crowded place I have ever been in my life, even moreso then Franklin St. after the National Championship! On the way to the sqaure our water taxi got held up because there was a huge parade down the Grand Canal, which consisted of tons of gondolas with people dressed up and playing music, it was full of interesting characters, I saw one guy dressed up in a red onesie wearing a Goofy hat.

After that we spent a good amount of time trying to get out of the crowd, we escaped to another island for a while where we took a gondola ride, we went down parts of the Grand Canal and through some of the more narrow canals, it was beautiful.

This is me with our gondolier, Alessandro, he was so sweet haha

After our gondola ride we went to another church, Santa Maria della Salute and then we took a boat over to the Rialto Bridge where we had dinner and hung out for the rest of the night.

Rialto Bridge

Monday, we woke up and checked out of our hostel and spent most of the day on the island of Lido, we walked on the beach there

Me and my roommates on the beach!

and got lunch (I had pizza again) and then we went back towards San Marco and hung out there until it was time for us to head back. We met the shuttle at our hostel and got a ride to the airport, we ate gelato in the waiting area for about 2 hours until it was time for our flight to be board around 9:30pm but after we went through the Passport checking area, we realized that our flight was delayed, so we sat on the floor of the airport for about 2 more hours and played about 50 games of hangman. Our flight was delayed even further, so we didn't actually leave Italy until about 12:30am. This was a problem for many reasons, #1 being that both the tube closed after 12:30, as did the train that we were supposed to use to get to the tube station. When we arrived in London around 2:30 Italy time, 1:30 London time, we found a bus that came at 2:00 and took about an hour bus ride into the city and we got a cab the rest of the way home. I think I probably went to bed around 3:30 or 4, it was definitely an adventure to get home from Italy. Overall I had so much fun, I am still recovering from all of the traveling but I'm so glad that I got to go.

This week isn't as busy as last week, but I went on a tour of Parliament yesterday and I'm going to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof tonight, James Earl Jones (aka: the voice of Mufasa in the Lion King) is in the cast , so that should be fun! I miss you all very much hope everyone had a great week/weekend!

Whitechapel and Cambridge

Yesterday for class we went to an art museum in a part of London called Whitechapel, and also visited the Spital Fields Market. We stopped for coffee and tea before we went to see an exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The place we got tea was called Giraffe and it was so delicious. Sidenote: I got tea instead of coffee! I'm trying new things :-)

This is a picture of part of the market place we went to.

This is a picture of me and Sam, one of the other girls on the program! Please note the cute tea pot :-)

Then today we went on a trip to Cambridge, it was so much fun! However I didn't go to bed last night until around 3:30 so waking up at 6:30 to catch a train was not super fun. But we did take the tube to catch our train from Kings Cross Station (Where platform 9 3/4 is for all you Harry Potter fans, but i didn't have time for a picture, don't worry though, I'll make sure to get one before I leave!). The train ride was about an hour from London to Cambridge and we took a bus into the city once we were there.

This is a picture of the train station from our platform!

We toured the Fitzwilliam Museum, which is by far the most beautiful museum I have ever seen in my life. It was so cool because they had so many famous paintings, by people like Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh and drawings by Leonardo Di Vinci, it was amazing!

This is a picture of the outside of the museum

This is the lobby of the museum (You weren't supposed to take pictures so I only have this one haha)

I don't know if any of you like art or not but I have had a much greater appreciation for it since I've been in London and it was seriously so cool. I sound like a nerd. Haha anyway, trust me, it was awesome. The lady who gave us the tour was actually the assistant director of the museum, which was cool, and after the tour was over we got lunch at the cafe with her husband who is a former Dean at Cambridge (Clare College). So after we ate lunch, he took us on a tour around part of Cambridge, including Clare College and it was absolutely beautiful. It literally looked like something out of a movie.

This is a picture of one of the other colleges close to Clare.

He showed us the chapel and the dining hall which looked like the one from Harry Potter.

I accidentally got the waiter in the picture haha, but this is part of the dining hall.

He also showed us how the recently changed the previous crypt of the chapel into a bar and student lounge haha. Kind of creepy because there is still an actual tomb down there still.

This is a picture of the old crypt, now bar and student lounge haha

After that we just walked around Cambridge for a little while and went inside some of the old churches and looked at all of the other colleges. (Cambridge University is basically made up of 31 smaller "colleges") Cambridge is such a beautiful town, I loved every minute of it! It was established in 1209 if that gives you any idea of how old it is and how much history there was there.

This is just one of the streets at Cambridge near Kings College

This is a picture on the campus at Clare College

Picture off of one of the bridges around campus

We took the train back to London and apparently the train is basically like a school bus in England because there were hundreds of kids coming home from school on the train. The train went through a little bit of countryside on the way back and the sun was setting and it was really pretty.

View out of my window on the way back to London

It was definitely a really long day but it was so much fun, needless to say I am exhausted! Hopefully I'll catch up on rest this weekend, I hope ya'll had a great week! I hear that Chapel Hill (and Charlotte too I think) are supposed to be getting a lot of snow! I'm sad I'm gonna miss it so take some pictures for me! Love you all very much!

"I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints." Philemon 1: 4-7

Baby It's Cold Outside! (And Inside)

You would think that since I've been here for a little over two weeks that I would be used to the cold weather, but today felt like the coldest day since I've been here! Also, our heat is still broken and last night our space heater broke while we were asleep and so we woke up freezing cold this morning! I think that they are bringing over a new space heater, so hopefully that won't be an issue too much longer. Yesterday I did a lot of homework and made dinner with my roommates (Chicken and pasta mmmm) and we watched Aladdin afterwards, which was a lot of fun, it was really nice to relax all day.

I had class this morning and we went to another concert after our lecture at a local church that had tea and cookies, which was really fun. Then we had a walking tour of the Inns of Court, which is kind of like England's version of Law School, except it's completely different haha. They're called Inns because students who were training to be barristers (aka: Lawyers) would live there while they were in "training" instead of being at a "law school" but now they are mostly just used for offices

This is a picture of part of one of the Inns of Court, apparently its used in a lot of movies!

This is one of the largest squares in London, Lincolns Inn Fields

However I didn't wear enough layers for our 2 hour walking tour around London and my hands were numb when we finished. We saw a lot of really old buildings on our tour including a church that was built in 1150 and another that was built in the 1400's which is crazy because they existed before our country was even discovered!

This is the church from the 1400's

We also passed by the shop where all of the barristers/judges get their robes and wigs (YES they still wear wigs in court here, so weird, I had no idea they still used them) and the shop was established in 1689. Sorry for the history lesson, but it was really cool! I guess it's cooler when you are actually here haha. And I promise I will start to put pictures up that I am actually in, instead of just pictures of buildings and scenery :-)

And this is a picture of their Royal Courts of Justice (aka. the court house, everything has a fancier name here haha)

After the walking tour I defrosted by going grocery shopping where I met this lady who was also grocery shopping come up to me and ask me if I would like to model for a hair cut and that she would do it for free. She said she worked at a nearby salon and I guess she felt the need to stop her grocery shopping to ask if she could cut my hair haha. Not exactly sure how to take that but she gave me her phone number, so I guess if I need a haircut maybe I'll call her, but I don't want her to chop all my hair off!

Tonight we sat in on a class in Chapel Hill that was held by telecast from London with the guest speaker Sir Christopher Meyer, who served as Ambassador of the UK to the United States from 1997 to 2003, and he wrote a book called "D.C Confidential" about being the ambassador during the time of 9/11, and he was also the former press secretary and chief spokesman for the former Prim Minister John Major. So he's a pretty big deal. And he was a really great speaker, he had some cool stories to tell. It was a long day but I had fun, hopefully our heat works tonight! Say a prayer!! Hope ya'll are having a great week so far!

P.S GO TAR HEELS! BEAT STATE