Tuesday, August 7th

Tuesday, August 7th... Home at last! I don't think I could even begin to describe how much I loved the city of London. The pictures don't even come close to showing you guys what I saw with my own eyes. I'm still in disbelief that this whole trip happened to me period. London, the Olympics, time to escape reality. Unreal. It was the best month of my entire life so far and probably the best month that I ever will have. I already miss it. So it's not "Goodbye, London!" it's "See ya later, London!". Here's to all the bus rides, tube stops, taxi rides, lost nights wandering around town, lovely English accents, being called "Love", hearing "Cheers!" instead of please or thank you, new friends from all across the world, kisses on the cheeks from everyone, the amazing sights and sounds that London has to offer, and to making new friends with some of the best people in the world. London was absolutely my dream come true and I can't thank thank all of you who were supportive and encouraging through all of this! Without that, I probably would've never done it. While I do love England and while I might say how much they've got their stuff together compared to US, I will still say that I am proud to be an American! Mushy, mushy. :)

Surprisingly, jetlag didn't set in nearly as bad as I would've thought. I caught up on sleep and woke up around 9am to get back to reality. I got unpacked, took a shower, got ready and headed to Shakamak to see what my work schedule was. Naturally, as I somewhat expected, there was no schedule for me. My less than favored manager hired someone else in my position saying that I was gone for too long... so I can't go back to work there this season but she said "we'll see you next year!" and it took all of my being to be nice and walk out. This had me all fired up at begin with, but I realize how much better things will be without working there during school. It's not worth the stress or the cost of driving from Terre Haute to this job. No one there likes her decision of hiring someone else which wasn't fair at all. She also terminated me stating that I quit with two weeks notice to return to school. Granted, that's better than saying I was actually fired, I still didn't quit. I had all intentions to return after London. Since her reason didn't happen, so I plan to look into seeing what I can do for her fibbing state official paperwork that will follow me forever. I left from there to go to Linton to talk to the Work One office about paying for my school books. Plus number one of the day! They're paying for my books which is nearly a grand! I left to go back to the park to get my stuff out of the gates I worked in. It was piddly stuff but I wasn't willing to leave anything behind. It was bittersweet to leave the park and buildings realizing that I won't be working there any more. But things didn't stay dreary for long.

I made it a point to stop and see my gramps and grandma. I didn't realize how much I had missed everyone! Then me, Becky, and my two favorite little ones made our usual trip to Terre Haute. I went to PetSmart hoping to at least get that job back. Of course, they said they would work me back in the schedule but that I wouldn't get many hours to start off with till someone leaves for school. I was okay with that. I talked to my PetSmart buddies and gave out their London goodies.  After we left, we went to play at Deming Park. I finally got the chance to talk to John and I told him what had happened with not being able to go back to Shakamak and that I had the whole week off till I could start back to PetSmart. Somehow, the stars aligned and we got me an impromptu plane ticket to Minot, ND to visit him for a few days before I go back to school! This is probably the most random, spontaneous thing I've ever done but boy am I excited!

Monday, August 6th.

Monday, August 6th... The worst part so far was saying goodbye to 2 girls who because my best friends after just a short month. Holly and Sam made this trip even more wonderful than what I could have been. They're both from Kentucky, so they're not far enough away to escape me! We plan to meet up in Columbus or Bloomington every so often just to keep in touch. But we unwillingly went out separate ways to board the coaches to the airport. Luckily, Sam and Holly got to fly together but I was a lone soldier. After pulling an all nighter, I don't know how I stayed vertical all day. We got all checked in to London Gatwick airport around 7am, went through security around 7:30, ate breakfast and found out that our plane which was supposed to leave at 10am was delayed about an hour. This was a bummer but it just meant a few more minutes on English territory! Fritz, I'm coming homeee! This plane eventually took off but was late to arrive in Charlotte. The plus was that every meal we had on the plane was delicious and we had tv to keep us company... but I slept for about 6 hours worth of the 9 hour flight. 

Once in Charlotte, that plane kept getting delayed also. We didn't board till around 6pm when we were due to land in Indy around that time. We sat on the plane itself for around 45 minutes not moving. The captain eventually came over the intercom and told us that air traffic control shut down and they weren't letting anyone leave. All of us were quickly losing patience because of being in airplanes and airports all day. Then is started raining really hard, so it made sense as to why we were sitting there. After waiting and pretty much assuming that we'd be staying the night in Charlotte, the captain came over again and said that we were cleared for take off after the 4 planes in front of us. Thankfully, we did finally leave and make it to Indy about 2.5 hours late around 9pm. My dad, Phil and surprise guest Jonathan patiently waited for me to get there. I managed to stay awake on the ride home telling stories of London. I've got a lot of those! I got home excited to reunite with Fritz and the others. All the animals were so happy to see me that they didn't know what to do with themselves! It was cute. But, I was exhausted and hit the sheets ASAP and slept like a dead man.

Sunday, August 5th

Sunday, August 5th... Such a sad, sad day in my life!! The last day in London. :( I slept in and woke up in time to go to mass at Westminster Abbey. Yet another reason why I'd marry into royalty! That's where most royal weddings take place. Either way, the church as absolutely gorgeous. Holly and I got to sit with the choir which is considered an honor to them. It also made me miss high school choir and Ambassadors. We got done with mass, stumbled across our other comrades Becca and Sam and found some lunch. Of course I had my new favorite again, lasagna! Becca went to a play and the rest of us went back to Hyde Park to see what Olympic stuff was going on. Nothing special except we did get to see the official Olympic Torch and get our pictures with it. I've mentioned yoomoo frozen yogurt many times now... So I'll just say that the most exciting part of my day was that me, holly and Sam completely filled up our yoomoo loyalty cards an got a FREE YOOMOO!!! It was so exciting! That's a big deal to us! It's around $5 for a good yoomoo, so we went all out without free one. It was so delicious. 

After that, we returned to campus to catch up with people back home clarifying travel plans and we packed out belongings. I hate packing. This was the worse strike of reality that I've ever had. After we got done with that, we had to make our last night go out with a bang. We floated around to random lobbys and lounges on campus finding stuff to do with the people we spend the legendary month in England with. We played some card games for quite awhile which was really fun. We watched a couple movies, more YouTube videos, and even began to make a video ourselves but ran out of time. We eventually started settling down for the night (and by night I mean like 3am) when Holly finally commandeered me into putting on the god awful banana suit. BUT- I figured why not?! So it goes without saying that we had a good time with that. We all pulled all nighters together since we had to leave at 4:45am on coaches to get to the airport. It was a very fun night with all of the CCSA people, especially the few that grew to be best friends.

Saturday, August 4th

Saturday, August 4th... The harsh reality of the last full free day in London set in. We got up for breakfast after our girly sleepover. We ventured out to Europe's oldest Harley Davidson store out of London. It was awesome and quite different than any of our Harley stores that I've been in. They were so amazed to see an American in there, especially females. After questioning our knowledge of bikes, I realize that they expect every American to know everything about and own a Harley! Their bikes are about double the price of ours... I assumed because of the cost of shipment to Europe. We ventured back into civilization to a souvenir shop and rushed to Buckingham palace for another Olympic event. This one happened to be the walk race. The only way I can describe it is the single most ridiculous, hilarious looking thing in the entire world. The rules are; contestants can only speed walk. One foot must be on the ground at all times. They can't lift their arms or legs past certain points. It basically looks like a big wobbling race. It was quite comical and marked the 3rd Olympic event for me to see. I needed a nap because I could feel grouchiness setting in from the long past few days. So we returned to campus to refresh when I got a short nap then went downtown to explore the London nightlife. 

We met a group of locals and my all-time favorite comment of the night was when I told someone that I was from Indiana and he said "oh, right by Oklahoma. Beautiful southern accent by the way, love." I don't know how I didn't laugh but I also didn't correct him. I just thanked him and wondered how exactly I had a southern accent. Funny Englishmen. Geography must be an optional class in Europe! Europeans do however love out accents- even the ones that aren't southern. I don't know what made him think I had a southern accent but I also don't know the different between northern English and English accents so its fair.

We just kind of played it by ear that and went into random bars and pubs that didn't have cover charges. Then we bumped into some more people in the CCSA group who were looking for someone. We joined teams and ventured around town more. Most places close at 11pm there. Another girl and I had to use the restroom very badly but since everything was closed, we had no option but to ask a local where a toilet was. His statement was "No offense, but Londoners just pee on the street. Go pee around the corner there." and pointed to a VERY busy street corner where people were swarming around. I told him we were Londoners and that we weren't going to pee on the street. We danced around London for another hour before we found a toilet, and of course it was in Burger King. We then found a McDonald's to get some late night supper and then caught a bus back to campus. It was a really fun note to leave London on and I hate that time is running out!

Friday, August 3rd

Friday, August 3rd...  Final exams! I was sooo happy to get that out of the way and to be done with it. I studied a lot but I felt like finals pretty much kicked my butt. So much stress relieved at once. Although it was still sad because this was the mark of the end of our trip. More importantly, I was done with that atrocious psychology professor!! After finals, I left to enjoy the evening in London. Which of course involved more shopping, sight seeing, and touristy stuff. Now that the Olympics are in town, you can easily tell who is American. I've decided that the European's view that we are the most god awful embarrassing, rude, arrogant, stuck up population in the world is correct. Americans there give us such a bad name. Obnoxiously walking down the streets with American flags tied around them. Talking very loud. Not "minding the gap". Even the way we walk gives it away. That being said, me and some fellow Americans (Holly and Sam) went back to campus and had a slumber party! It was probably the most fun I've had in the whole trip! Granted with it being the night after finals, I'd probably be fibbing  if I said we were entirely pin needle sober. We watched more funny YouTube videos and had the typical girly chats. These 2 girls really have made my trip thousands of times better than what it could have been! The last weekend here will definitely be a fun one!

Thursday, August 2nd

Thursday, August 2nd... The last psychology field trip, thankfully. Closer the end of me having to ever see that man again in my life! We went to Chichester. It was a cute little down but an absolute waste of our day. We did not do anything except walk around and eat lunch. It didn't tie into psychology, philosophy, whatever at all. But somehow, even though we did nothing, we were still late getting back to campus. We all missed dinner which is irritating because we have to pay for it ourselves when we miss the campus meal. This man has cost me so much money already. But while in Chichester, one positive thing that I will say is that their pub had amazing lasagna! It was probably the est lasagna I've ever had. 

After lunch, We went to some roman ruins place in Fishbourne where we paid a ridiculous amount of money to see well...ruins. Literally piles of dirt where they claim Romans were. My inner criminology says they're full of crap and that we wasted a lot of money. "And this is the area where we believed that their dining quarters might have been, but we do not have any significant proof of this" .... yeah, I definitely paid the equivalent of $30 to hear about what they DIDN'T know. I could've been more educated by a 5 year old playing in a sandbox and making up stuff that at least made sense. Anyway, us girls kept entertained by playing dress up, cooling and doing kiddy stuff! Fun! Then we had to take a taxi back to the train station. Yet another extra, unnecessary cost due to my professor's unpreparedness. The taxi service was not legit and ended up paying around 12 pounds each... which is about $22. Flames were shooting out of my head by this point, and it just got a little better by having to sit by this man on the 2 hour train ride back to London!! I couldn't have gotten off that train quick enough. Then, Brittany (my neighbor girl) and I went to get cheap pizza and returned back to campus to study for this awful man's final.

Wednesday, August 1st.

Wednesday, August 1st... It's reality that it's now August and that means I'm forced to come home soon. It's very bitter sweet and that's something that I'm not exactly too thrilled about. Today was the last day of classes.  I was VERY happy about that. My 2 classes were very stressful. As a reward, my psychology teacher that I've been cursing so much for the past month had the decency to take us on a tour of Buckingham palace. This confirms my idea of wanting to marry in to the royal family. It was so amazing that I can't even begin describe the inside. We had a rare view that most don't get. Amazing! Of course, this couldn't be a simply enjoyable visit to the palace. We had to consider how the queen felt and how the people who worked for her probably viewed her from a psychology standpoint. Yay, crazy psychology teacher...

I finally left from Buckingham with the idea that I was going to meet my friend Holly at the O2 center music arena in Greenwich which is where some Olympic events took place. More importantly is the music arena itself. To say the least, Led Zeppelin played there in the mid 1970's so I was game! They had a ramp put over the O2 center where you climb over it and back down. Sounds easy and silly but don't be fooled! It was very steep and also very high. Me and Holly wanted to go together, so I bought the tickets the night before, which was the first mistake. We agreed on a place to meet in the Olympic park, obviously forgetting that there would be hundreds of thousands of people there, mistake #2. We each allegedly waited in the meeting place for an hour each and we never found each other. Since, I paid for both of the tickets up front, the box office wouldn't let her on without me. This was really disappointing that I had to gear up in dorky climb gear and go by myself.  And even more disappointing that she would have to pay for something that she didn't get to do. She didn't get to go which really upset me. Despite having to go alone, it was an awesome view! I could see all of the river Thames, the actual Olympic park, and even saw the Olympic mens rowing team on the river. So unique! I loved it. The climb down was less than thrilling because if you lost your footing then you had quite a tumble, regardless of the wire support holding you up. I made it down without any issues, but not everyone in my group was as fortunate. I did the American thing and got McDonald's before leaving down simply because I wanted some collector Olympic Coca~Cola glasses. Then I returned to campus after this and studied my butt off for upcoming finals. Bummer!

Tuesday, July 31st

Tuesday, July 31st... My criminology class had our last field trip today and we went to the houses of Parliament. We got to go inside and your the house of commons and house of the lord. It was an awesome opportunity. I must say, their government buildings put ours to shame. Although most of the cathedrals and such are beginning to look the same to me. Our class field trip got done early and I had some time to waste. I got off at a random tube stop which happened to be Liechster Square. I glanced over to see none other than the Jersey Boys theatre. Of course I couldn't resist. I bought a ticket to see it again. Yes, I'm enough of a fan that I went alone to see them. I ended up with even better seats than the last time... (I was within wink range of my favorite one ;) ) and I loved it just as much! The only downfall this time was that the main character (Frankie) was an understudy and not the original. Bummer. But he did a good job. 

Ironically, I sat next to an older gentleman who made small talk with me. We both instantly noticed each others accents (or lack of) and realized we were fellow US Midwesterners. Even better, he was just from evansville! I told him Farmersburg and he instantly quite proudly said "cornfields, dairy queen and meth labs." I just laughed and told him he was definitely thinking of the correct town. Anyway, he was there because his wife was president of University of Evansville and UE has a college in London. He implanted it in my head that if I loved London do much then I need to look into a similar program. He said I was the most fascinating young person he's ever met and that I liked music from his generation. Speaking of which, I'll briefly explain what this Jersey Boys hype is all about anyway. It's a musical about 4 guys who are trying to get their big break in music in the 50's. It's Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons. They sing famous songs like "Walk Like A Man", "My Eyes Adored You" etc. Other than dashing good looks, they're all incredibly talented and put on the best running show for the past 7 years in London. Most shows only run for a couple months. Needless to say, they're the shizzle. I could go on about them for hours obviously so I'll leave it at that. For now. 

After the musical, I just enjoyed the time in solitude. That's something I don't get much of in London and something that I definitely need some of occasionally. It was nice to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and not having to worry about anyone else. But I eventually returned to campus for my dear new friends to give me crap for seeing Jersey Boys again. Whatever! After taking the heat, me, Sam and holly went and got our usual yoomoo frozen yogurt and blueberry muffins from the store. I'll miss frozen yogurt and English muffins so much! After yoomoo, my and my new compadres hung out in my room for awhile. Definitely always a good time! I realize how close I've gotten to these girls and I'll miss them a lot when we're gone in a few short days. :(

Monday, July 30th

Monday, July 30th... Potentially bitter blog ahead! Beware! It was just another full day of classes. I can't wait till the day that I can say goodbye to this psychology teacher! He gets on every last nerve of mine and definitely has it out for me. I have literally gotten the lowest grade on everything in that class... and what's bad is that my neighbor helps me with everything and she does great and I get straight C's. This man makes me want to rip my hair out. Days are slowly winding down and I'm very bitter sweet. Or maybe just bitter right now. One somewhat plus to the day is that my psych professor picked the coldest, windiest, rainiest day of the week to make us was to Regent's park for a 3 hour outdoor class session. His class is dreadful to begin with, but this put the icing on the cake for my disliking. He also teaches philosophy instead of psychology. Want to pay for a psychology class and learn psychology? He's the man for you! So irritating. I'm beginning to get lost in all of these philosophy assignments, but I've somehow managed to not lose my mind yet. Finally, I got my stupid, waste of a time psychology philosophy PowerPoint final project over Francis Bacon done with my partner Malorie. I gladly shared a lot of sarcasm in this PowerPoint making it clear how annoyed we were having to waste 2 days in London gather info that didn't even exist. We learned more about Francis Bacon just this weekend that we cared to know. After a very frustrating day, Holly, Becca and I went for a quite necessary drink at good ole wetherspoons.

Sunday, July 29th

Sunday, July 29th... Finally a much needed lazy day! Sam  and I slept till 11:30 am and left just in time to walk to get lunch. We decided on a famous little crepe store for a traditional English crepe. You can't go to England without getting a crepe, a jacket potato, and fish & chips! I had a banana and Nutella crepe which was awesome. It's basically a flat pancake stuffed with goodies. They have sweet crepes (like the Nutella, chocolate, strawberries, etc junk food) and savory crepes (ham and cheese, streak, etc).  After a satisfying crepe, I went back to do psychology homework of course. My psychology teacher is ridiculous! His homework took up a good 6 hours and it wasn't even done. But we went for dinner at the cheap whetherspoon restaurant down the road.  Sam loves that place, so it's where to go most! The women's beach volleyball Olympic tournament was on when we got there so that was a plus for former player, Sam! After supper, Holly felt left out and mistreated since she had been gone in Edinburgh all weekend, so we had to Skype John again so she could "'meet" him. Talk about a pair nonetheless! There's a reason I like them both! It was a great, memorable weekend with Sam. I wish I could have taken one more weekend trip like was planned, but I'm glad the trip to Barcelona didn't work out. Spain began taxing flights shortly after we booked ours, so we ended up cancelling the flight for a full refund. We used that money instead to do some Olympic events that weekend. I'm glad it ended up that way, even though the beach in Barcelona would've been great too!

Saturday, July 28th

Saturday, July 28th... Another early morning! Sam and I got up, took advantage of our free breakfast and headed out for the day. We went to the London Bridge Experience which is like a year round haunted house. We got in 2 for 1 thankfully because it probably wasn't worth that much. I know it isn't what the common Londoner would've done with a Saturday afternoon, but it was fun nonetheless. After the Bridge Experience, we rushed down to Camden markets which I'm not a big fan of. It's way too busy, too many questionable shoppers and too make pushy "salesmen". It's basically one huge flea market. You can't simply walk through and get what you want because there's always that one annoying shopper who stops right in front of you taking up all of the crowded aisle... or the one annoying shopkeeper who will try to bribe you into buying their product for double what it's worth and double what you could get it for down the road. It's quite possible the biggest market district I've ever seen. We finally got what we needed and got the heck out just to rush to Buckingham palace so we could see the Olympic mens cycling event. 

Basically, we stood in a huge, pushy crowd (which I've already stated that I don't enjoy) for around 2.5 hours just to see nothing besides 20 seconds of bikes blowing by. And shoving crowds. "Rushed" is the key word in London. Everything  and everyone is such a huge hurry. There's no leisure time! So much to do in so little time. Anyway, regardless of how grumpy I was at the race from the crowd and feeling like we wasted half the afternoon on it, it was still cool to be able to say that I did attend an Olympic event!  It was heavily guarded by the British military, which is another thing I have a bone to pick with shortly. Some Olympic officials opened a gate and let people through to watch the winner's ceremony on a big screen. Apparently they were not supposed to because the British military quickly formed a human barricade around us and wouldn't let us go any further. Which is when I discovered the bone that I need to pick with them. These men (and yes, they were all men and no women) are technically on leave from deployment. They all took their leave to go home and be with their family, but they are now having to do security for the Olympics. Yeah, that's part of being in the military life. But the fact that they're giving up time with their family and are standing around for 16-18 hours a day and then sleep in a huge room, many without beds, are rarely get the required meal or rest times. I guess this is just a soft spot for me because of John, but I think it's crap. Again you're probably thinking "Please tell us how you REALLY feel!"... that's enough of that.  

After the race, we went back to the British museum yet again to try to find my info for the psychology project. It still didn't work. I got to prove it to my teacher by taking him a signed letter that they indeed do not have the display that he says was there FOUR years ago. Frustrating! Sam then wanted to go to a pub that was feature in the movie "Shaun of the Dead" which of course had to be in the most ghetto part of England that we could've stumbled across. Of course, we got out there (borderline scared for our lives) and there was no pub in existence. Another few hours of the day wasted on said "pub" but oh well. We defeatedly ate at a China buffet in China town before returning to campus. A fun fact about restaurants there...  they can and will charge you if you waste food! We returned to campus a few hours later than planned and then Sam finally got to meet the infamous John via Skype and of course we also stayed up a lot layer than planned! Interesting day to say the least.