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.

Friday, July 27th

Friday, July 27th... this was the day that Sam and I were originally scheduled to go to Barcelona. Thankfully, this trip did not work out becuase Spain started taxing flights so we decided to save money, get a refund, and spend the weekend in London for Olympic festivities. Let the games begin! We had a very early morning to go out to Big Ben to hear the bell ring. This is the first time the bell has rang except for time in over 50 years! Likewise with everything else, that was an awesome experience! Then we walked around searching for a traditional English breakfast. We ended up at the Cat & Cucumber for some tea, eggs, sausage, beans, chips (fries) and bacon (ham). It was quite delicious but I still miss the states bacon and pancakes! We got to walk across Tower Bridge a couple times which is another thing off the bucket list. We toured the Tower of London for about 4 hours. It was pretty cool but got boring after awhile. We had an extra pep in our step for some reason and decided to take on the fire memorial which was 311 steps up. I definitely got my workout for the day. We made it to the top for a few minutes and then went to find Pudding Lane where the fire of London started in 1666 which destroyed nearly 5/6 of the town. Enough with the history lesson. We also ventured down to Drury Lane! Yes, I do in fact know the muffin man! After that excitement, we returned to campus for a short 20 minutes just to get at it again. We were back to Tower Bridge to scope out seats for the fireworks of the opening ceremony for the Olympics. We gave up said spots to go supper and a drink from Wetherspoon. As I've said before, it's good cheap food! We walked so much that day and was exhausted. But we went back to the bridge to see the fireworks. Honestly, the fireworks were slightly disappointing but still an awesome experience. Some English guys told us that it was only a small taste of fireworks and that would would be happening a little later.... then he walked away most likely thinking "dumb Americans..." because no more fireworks ever went off! Thought we did have a bit of a bonus by seeing the boat with the Olympic torch on it and supposedly David Beckham was on that boat as well! We returned to campus after a long day of walking and went to bed. 

Big Ben during the bell ringing.

 Walking over Tower Bridge

 At Tower of London in a guard hut.

Tower Bridge and part of Tower of London

 The fire memorial and certificate

 Muffin Man!

 Fireworks at Tower Bridge with Olympic Rings

Sam and I after the Olympic ceremony fireworks.

Thursday, July 26th

Thursday, July 26th... today was by far my favorite field trip yet! My criminology class went to Windsor Castle and Runnymede. Windsor Castle was exactly what every little's princess dream would include. It was beautiful! The weather was also perfect so it worked out well. I also met a guard and got to see changing of the guard!! We all ate lunch together a a delicious pub with more great lasagna! Then we found our way via bus to Runnymede. This wasn't that exiting to me because it was basically just a big field to me. Although we did get to walk a trail and get out of the city for awhile. We saw a JFK memorial placed there by Americans and also a Magna Carta memorial, also by Americans. Then yours truly heard that there was a Royal Air Forces memorial "slightly up the hill" from the Magna Carta memorial, so I drug my dear classmates up what ended up being a 6 mile long hiking trail.Good thing I get along well with them or they probably would have been upset with me. The views up there were gorgeous and the best thing I've seen yet. We made our way back down through a cow pasture (literally... I wish I could have recorded the little Chicago girls whining abot cow manure) and made our way back to the bus and train to London. A few classmates decided we did not want to be good students and do our homework, so we went to see the Lion King musical instead. This was awesome! Jersey Boys was my favorite still, but the way the portrayed the animals and the amount of talent that Lion King required was awesome! 

 Windsor Castle

 Changing of the Guards at Windsor

 I made a new human friend!

 And then it shouldn't surprise anyone that I spotted a cat in the garden at Windsor and became instant friends too.

 A view from Windsor.

  Windsor Castle

 JFK memorial

 Magna Carta Memorial

 Air Forces Memorial... note the awesome blue sky!

 AF memorial

Views from the Air Force memorial.

Wednesday, July 25th

Wednesday, July 25th... BEST DAY OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!!!! Hands down. I had class all day... but after class I went to see the Jersey Boys musical with a friend/classmate Ashley. I am absolutely in love with it! I was lucky enough to stay by the stage door the the genuine stalker fan that I am... and I met 3 of the 4 Jersey Boys! I loved it so much that I will probably see it again before I leave. I could go on and on about how much I loved it... but I think the pictures speak for themselves

 

 Ryan Molloy who played Franki Valli

 My new hunk of a celeb crush! John Boydon who played Tommy DaVito

 I can't remember his name to be honest, but he's still a Jersey Boy!!!