I do my work at the same time each day - the last minute.

Well, it's almost that time. That time… you know… where… I tell you I am leaving London. Yes its true, I am leaving tomorrow! Actually when I wrote that ("it's almost that time") I honestly did not know where I was going with that statement...it just kind of flowed out as I began typing. Pretty much I am procrastinating HARD CORE right now. I have a paper to write, a final to study for, and a bag to pack. Have I done any of these things? Nooo. What time is it? Almost bed time! Yep, things are not going according to plan at the moment. I just can't quite bring myself to study for anything. It is really quite annoying. Regardless of my productivity this evening, I am leaving tomorrow after my final. Melissa and I are going to Sweden for the weekend to visit Nina. We return Sunday night only to leave again Monday morning for the study tour. I have a lot of laundry, organizing and packing to do. Yay. But as you may have surmised, I am not doing any of that right now! Yes, I am writing a blog instead, playing around with photo-editing, making tea, counting my money (don't laugh, it's true...I counted it...and it is a sad sad little number!), and various other things that could not in anyway be called appropriate time management activities. But I think it is really for the best...you get an extra post that you would not have otherwise received!

So, Tuesday we took our BLC midterm. There was a multiple-choice section and a written part. The written part was easypeasy... I think I passed it... most likely.... but the MC section on the other hand will probably be something in the area of an F-... -... it was not pretty. But I take solace in the fact that everyone else did just as badly as I did on that section so I am not worrying about it! hahah As I'm sure you all saw (and read thoroughly!) in my last post, we FINALLY received the study tour schedule. We are going to have a jam-packed two weeks ahead of us! It should be fun. After receiving the schedule, one of the "Team Leaders" emailed us with the room breakdown for Newcastle, our first stop. We are going to be staying in a hotel split between three rooms: A quadruple, a triple, and a single. He ended the email with this: "Would you please confer with each other and decide who will be rooming with whom for the Newcastle part of the trip. I require a rooming list or breakdown. I am nominating Gabriel as the coordinator for this task. Gabriel - please confer with the group and email me with the rooming list no later than 5.oo p.m. tomorrow." First of all, Gabriel? Really?! Did he neeed to use my full name? MOTHER I blame you for giving me a boy's name!!! I had to go through the entire thing alll over again with the whole "yeah yeah whatever, yes it is really spelled like that. Yes, I know it is a dominantly male name. blah blahblah There is no angel Gabrielle in the Bible. I am authentic. yadda yadda yadda". Hahaha it's actually funny. ANYways... yes, somehow I have been nominated as the unofficial liaison for the SCU students. Whenever they need to contact one of us, who they gonna call? Yes, that would be me (not ghostbusters). I think it is probably because I am such an awesome person or maybe because I am just so responsible and smart…. I haven’t decided yet. It is amusing. So, as I had the power to decide who was rooming with whom and most importantly…who got the single, I made the most logical and fair decision I could think of: I gave myself the single! Hahah I did let people tell me what/where they wanted to go first…and surprisingly no one wanted to be in the single! Weird, I know. So the breakdown of the rooms is: boys in the triple, girls in the quad, and one girl in the single. I had no qualms with the end result. I get to have my own room for three nights. I am extremely excited about this…like…more excited than I should be. It is going to be AWESOME. People are under the impression that the single room will not be as fun because it does not have four people in it…. I however, think that they are wrong. When I wake up each morning bright eyed from a night of uninterrupted beauty sleep and see them stumbling blearily out of a room comparing notes on who snores the loudest, they will be sorry. I am really looking forward to Newcastle.

Well, what else can I say? Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, known here as Pancake Day. Yes, they eat pancakes. And by pancakes I mean crepes. Unfortunately, I did not get any of these said crepes. We did go out to dinner though- Punjab! I am not sure how Indian food was appropriate for the occasion… but it was good nonetheless. That was pretty much the extent of my celebration. Woo hoo.

Today, I woke up sounding like a croaky frog— it is very attractive. I had my last Shakespeare class this afternoon. We went on a giant walk with the class. We started at Embankment by the Thames, then went to various locations where famous things have happened (like where Oscar Wilde was put on trial, where Charles Dickens worked, and where Scotland Yard Originated (which is where they worked on the affairs of one Mr. J Ripper ) ), as well as walking through Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square, and past where the original London Bridge used to be (all that is left is one tower… the rest of it is apparently in Arizona or something… because some rich guy bought it. Strange.) It was an entertaining walk and it was nice to be out and about in London for the day as it is likely one of the last times I will be walking around here. Sad!

That is pretty much all I have done recently. I am so proud of myself…I totally just wasted a whole 35 minutes—go me! I probably will not be able to post anything until Sunday night… and even then it is not a sure thing. I will do my best to keep things updated on here over the next few weeks—but it is going to be tough because I do not know what the internet situation will be whilst we are a-traveling. I hope everything is going good for you people back in the US of A. Send me emails with how you all are doing, being sure to mention how miserable you are without me of course =) Okay, enough procrastination for me. I need to get some work done. Blurgh. Maybe I will just go to bed. Ooh that’s a good idea, I like it. A lot. Hopefully tomorrow my voice will be less smoker-esque because despite what I said earlier, I am fairly sure it is not in fact attractive.

Study Tour Schedule!

Santa Clara Spring 2009 UK Tour
Monday 2nd March – Friday 13th March 09

Monday 2nd

9.30am Meet Tour Leader (1) John Pearson at Gloucester Road Tube Station
11.00am Depart London Kings Cross
1.55pm Arrive Newcastle

Accommodation – Royal Station Hotel, Neville St, Newcastle, NE1 5D11
T: 0191 232 0781 W: www.royalstationhotel.com

3.00pm Meeting with TL (1) & City Host (CH), Paul, in hotel lobby. Details of the
evenings Group Dinner will be confirmed at the meeting.

Tuesday 3rd

9.30am Meet TL (1) & CH in hotel lobby (HL) for a guided walking tour of Newcastle
Afternoon Project directed work followed by FREE evening

Wednesday 4th

9.30am Meet TL (1) & CH in HL for a guided day trip to Durham
6.45pm Meet TL (1) in HL to walk to St.James’ Park, home of Newcastle United FC
7.45pm Kick-off – Newcastle United v Manchester United (Premier League Football) .

Thursday 5th

Morning FREE
11.30am Meet TL (1) in HL and walk to Newcastle Railway Station
12.05pm Meet TL (2) James Cameron-Cooper and Depart Newcastle
1.38pm Arrive Edinburgh, Waverley Station

Accommodation – 53 Frederick Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1LH
T: 0131 226 2752 W: www.53frederickstreet.com

3.00pm Meet TL (2) in HL for a guided tour of Edinburgh by open top bus
6.00pm Group Dinner – The Dogs, 110 Hanover Street, Edinburgh
8.30pm ‘City of the Dead Ghost Walk’ from St.Giles Cathedral, Royal Mile .

Friday 6th

9.30am Meet TL (2) in HL for a guided walking tour of Edinburgh including the
Scottish Parliament and Edinburgh Castle
Evening FREE

Saturday 7th

Edinburgh – FREE DAY

Sunday 8th

Morning FREE
11.15am Meet TL (1) in HL and walk to Edinburgh Railway Station
Midday Depart Edinburgh, Waverley Station
12.55pm Arrive Glasgow, Queen Street

Accommodation – The Merchant Lodge, 52 Virginia Street, Glasgow, G1 1TY
T: 0141 552 2424 W: www.merchantlodgehotel.com

4.00pm Meet TL (2) in HL to go to Kelvin Hall, Glasgow
5.00pm Kelvin Hall – Scottish Rocks v Everton Tigers (Premier League Basketball)
7.30pm Group Dinner – The Left Bank, 33 Gibson Street, Glasgow

Monday 9th

9.30am Meet TL (2) in HL for a guided tour of Glasgow
Evening FREE

Tuesday 10th

10.00am Meet TL (2) in HL and walk to Glasgow Railway Station
10.40am Depart Glasgow 10.40am arrive Preston 12.50pm
1.10pm Depart Preston 1.10pm arrive Manchester 1.56pm - Meet TL (3) John Makey .

Accommodation – Gardens Hotel, 55 Piccadilly, Manchester, M1 2AP
T: 0161 228 7287 W: www.gardenshotelmanchester.com

3.00pm Meet TL (3) in HL for a guided walking tour followed by Group Dinner
FREE evening (7.45pm Liverpool v Real Madrid – Champions League Football)

Wed 11th

9.30am Meet TL (3) in HL for a guided visit to the Lowry Centre & Imperial War
Museum North before getting the train to Liverpool
4.37pm Depart Manchester, Piccadilly
5.31pm Arrive Liverpool, Lime Street

Acc – Express by Holiday Inn, Britannia Pavilion, Albert Docks, Liverpool, L3 4AD
T: 0845 345 0000 W: www.exliverpool.com

FREE evening (7.45pm Manchester United v Inter Milan – Champions League Football)

Friday 13th

9.00am Meet TL (3) in HL to go to Liverpool Railway Station
9.52am Depart Liverpool, Lime Street, arrive Manchester, Piccadilly 10.41am
11.15am Depart Manchester, Piccadilly, arrive London, Euston 1.23pm

Water pics from Wales!

(Okay, so it may not look that high from this ANGLE...but it's a looong way down!)

(Kayaking!)

(The pretty cliffs we were paddling through...)

(Me in my kayak...it was very cold.)

(Melissa and I before heading out into the water.)

(Right at the end of coasteering. We were very happy to be done. I am pretty sure none of us could feel our hands and feet at that point...)

(Me jumping. Note the pink tennis shoes.)

(Melissa, Me, Jenna, and the instructor. Right after we almost died.)

here is the link to melissa's album: Facebook.com/album.php?aid=2092829&id=7304082&l=bb235

Enjoy!

Okay people I am going to try and make this quick. Next week is the last week of classes so all the profs are laying on the homework. Needless to say, I will probably be hiding in the computer lab all day tomorrow in an attempt to get my stuff done ASAP so I can still have some semblance of a fun weekend.

The craziness started about a week ago. As I mentioned in my last post, all the rest of my weekends are booked to the max with hardly any free time added in. I am super excited that all of the traveling is so quickly approaching… but I am also worried about my survival—I am pretty sure little to no sleeping is going to happen! This is my last free weekend, so I am going to try to take advantage of it and sleep as much as I can in between writing/studying and trying to do all of the last London-y things that we can fit in.

So, you all are probably wondering how Wales was. AWESOME! It was really cool to get out of London for the weekend and experience the extreme rural/country area that is around the coast of Wales. We drove up (by coach (bus) ) on Friday and got to Preseli Venture Lodge at about seven PM. The lodge is right next to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park—we could see the sea from the dining room window. It was beautiful! The weather was not exactly the kind that made you want to go jumping into the ocean… but that is what we did! Saturday morning was coasteering. We geared up in wetsuits, lifejackets, helmets, tennis shoes and gloves and headed out to the coast to rock climb, swim, and cliff jump. The water was sooooo cold; the kind of cold where you get in and you feel like you cannot breath because your body is instantly freezing the second you hit the water. Regardless, we swam right out from the beach towards the rocky/cliffy areas. It was actually pretty cool. There was one point however, that got a teensy bit scary…I was only praying for my life for a few seconds though, so it may not have been thaaat bad...only a minor near drowing incident. We had reached a cove area that had little islands of rocks scattered around. Our intent was to climb up onto the biggest rock and rest for a few minutes (swimming through the icy water with all of the wetsuit paraphernalia on is extremely tiring...). Unfortunately, right as the last few people in our group were climbing up (myself, Melissa, and Jenna included) a massive wave came and knocked us all down. When these waves come there is nothing you can do but let it take you wherever it wants you to go—if you try to fight it you will a. become way too tired to continue swimming and b. your sense of self preservation and hysteria can kick in when you realize that there is nothing you can do to get away from the wave. So we all just tried not to breath in too much water and attempted to steer away from the cliffs. It was a tiny bit terrifying. Right after the giant wave crashed on top of your head, and as soon as you came up to gulp in air, it would re-crash onto you after it had bounced off of the cliff walls. It was unfortunate that we all got caught in the rough waves because it kind of put a damper on the rest of the trek. I think we scared the instructor a little bit too! He kept coming over to us saying “You’re okay right? That wasn’t too bad? You’re alright!”. Haha he even commented that I looked extremely pale…I guess that’s what almost DROWNING will do to you! Anyways, after that minor incident things were smooth sailing for the rest of the swim. We climbed our way to a lagoon/calm cove area where you could climb up the various cliffs and slide, run, or jump off of them. It was actually really really cool. There were three jumps: a ten-foot, twenty foot, and a thirty-foot. I did the ten and twenty footers… but couldn’t quite bring myself to jump off the thirty foot one as by that point I was practically hypothermic from the cold. All in all, it was quite an experience. I am not sure if I’d do it again…but I can always say that Valentines Day 2009 I was jumping off cliffs in Wales!

After we de-wetsuited (which let me tell you, is not an easy task when all of your extremities are completely numb and useless and you are standing on a freezing foggy beach in only a swimsuit) we ate lunch and then went on a hike. Melissa and I opted for the 4 mile hike vs the seven mile one as we were both so exhausted from the coasteering. The hike was interesting. I have to say that I was not really in the mindset to do anything besides sleep and nurse my wounds from the morning (yes their were wounds…we all came out quite battered from our coasteering experience. Bruises and scrapes a plenty!) so a long and winding hike was not on the top of my to-do list. It was really pretty though. I got some great pics of the coast and surrounding hills and fields. We were slightly worried about making it through the hike without getting lost as the only instructions we received were fairly ambiguous. Basically they dropped us off and told us to find our way home. Right. Oh and the best part was when they said turn right through the gate when you pass a beach a reach a large green field. The ENTIRE hike was made up of beaches and green fields!!!! Those Welsh people…they crazy! We did end up getting slightly lost towards the end…but we eventually found our way home through an extremely muddy muddy path. It was an adventure =)

Sunday morning Melissa and I went sea kayaking. It was awesome!!! Amazingly, the sun was actually out for like a whole hour so we totally lucked out. We did the wetsuit thing all over again, minus the tennis shoes and gloves. The kayaking was so much fun. We paddled around the craggy cliffy areas, went through a few rough patches, but pretty much just drifted around for a few hours. Each of us had our own kayak so there was no worry of someone else tipping your boat over. One girl capsized within the first three minutes. I really don’t know how she did it so fast….it was pretty funny!

After kayaking we went back to the lodge, ate an amazing meal, showered, packed, and headed home. It was a really great weekend. Not only was it nice to do something different and mix things up a bit ( you know how I find near death experiences invigorating…) but it was amaaazing to have home cooked meals and dining room table to eat at. We all came back exhausted and slightly beat up… but very happy.

Anyways, this site is being stupid and the internet here is ridiculously slow…so I unfortunately cannot post pictures. However, I did manage to get them onto facebook, so if you would like to check them out, follow the links! The more exciting photos have yet to be developed… we brought a water proof camera along with us while we were jumping swimming and paddling… so hopefully a few of those turned out. I will post them as soon as I get them!

Here are the links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079393&id=7102721&l=77ef4

Melissa also posted an album… she is not here at the moment so I can’t get the link, but I will post that too probably later tonight.

Here is the link to another album, but not from Wales… it’s just random stuff that I never got a chance to post.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079392&id=7102721&l=9bc1e

A quick note...

Hola Muchachos,

I am off to Wales to go adventuring. Hopefully I will not freeze to death as it is supposed to be quite snowy. I probably will not get a chance to post on here over the weekend...sooo you will just have to sit patiently and wait until I have a free moment before you get to partake mentally in my adventures. We are leaving in about an hour- unfortunately it takes six hours to get there, so I'm hoping either for some quality sleep time or maybe trying to actually get a little bit of work done though, if I were a betting person I would go with option number one. The weekend will consist of sea kayaking, coasteerting, and hiking. We are all going to stay in the cute little lodge and get homecooked meals the entire weekend! I think it is going to be lots of fun...but just a teensy bit cold. Here is a link to the locations website if you wish to further peruse what exactly it is I will be doing until Sunday afternoon! --> http://www.preseliventure.com enjoy!

Okay, I believe that is all for now. When I post pictures of this weekend I will also go through Wed and Thurs night here as well (if you recall, those two nights were the Five Pound night at the Union and the Jack the Ripper Tour, which actually was not in fact a Jack the Ripper Tour...)

Hopefully I can talk to you soon and if not, well I hope you appreciated this post. It almost didn't happen =)


<3 Gabby



PS- Happy Valentines day tomorrow! I love you!!!!!!

I've been busy, I'm sorry!

This week has gone by extremely slow…yet very fast at the same time. Monday and Tuesday I didn’t have class due to the snow, but I was also sick so the days off were not taken advantage of in an ideal way. They mostly consisted of sleeping and sniffling (as I may have mentioned in my earlier post). Wednesday was class as usual- no snow, just a lot of ice everywhere. Ice in my opinion is very annoying. You have to walk like a crippled turtle (slow and goofy…) in order not to fall. I only learned this after I had in fact slipped on my way to class. It was a very smooth fall though, if I do say so myself. It probably just looked like I decided to go down on one knee suddenly…at least that’s what I’m telling myself. While it was only my knee that hit the ground, it was still very very not fun. I have a MASSIVE bruise on the top of my kneecap and a tiny bloody spot. I think I bruised the bone. It hurt a lot. But I’m thinking that it’s likely I will survive, so no worries there.

Wednesday night we all decided to go to the Union (Imperial College pub). We (Melissa, Jenna, Mary, Danni, and I (all of the SCU girls) ) all hung out in my room for about an hour chatting and listening to music and what not before heading over to the Union. Wednesday night is usually very crowded because all pints are only 1.50 a pound (which is a NICE deal compared to how much they are at other places i.e. 4 pounds…. which is A LOT). Anyways, my point is it was very crowded, but fun. All of the football players (soccer players…you get yelled at if you say soccer here) are obsessed with this game called matchbox. It is a very confusing game with lots yelling and seemingly never-ending amounts of rules. Basically, as simply as I can put it with my limited understanding of the game, it consists of tossing a matchbox over the top of your drink in an attempt to have it land on one of its sides or making it into someone else’s drink. It is extremely entertaining to watch…but I refuse to play due to my hypersensitive gag reflex. Yes, I am allergic to chugging and that does not go over well if you play the game. All in all, the night was very amusing.

(Melissa, Jenna, Me, Mary, and Danni)


Thursday was a long day. We were all very tired from staying out late the night before so sleeping in was a necessity. At 1, we had our Design class which I HATE. Again, I’m going to say that if it were taught any other way by any other professor it would be immensely interesting. But no, it is taught by a woman who looks (and talks) like Professor Trelawney from Harry Potter. She pretty much thinks that her class is the most important thing we will be experiencing while we are in this country. … I do not even know how to respond to that. Because we missed class for the snow day, she is trying to convince us all that it is necessary to stay an extra hour after all of the remaining classes we have. This would make the already painful three-hour class into a death sentence of four. I will refuse. To make matters worse, I went and got a coffee during the break and brought it back to class in hopes of making the remaining hour somewhat bearable. I had also not yet had my caffeine for the day. As soon as I sat down… she (the soul-sucking professor) walked over to me and said I could not drink my coffee because nothing besides water is permitted in the building. !!!! . While technically this is true, it is not enforced by any other person in the entire building. One of my other professors is the co-director of the entire program, and he brings coffee with him every day and encourages us to do the same. I was not happy. This could possibly be part of the reason why I dislike that professor so much. This, and the fact the she’s evil.

On a lighter note, Thursday night was the Shakespeare play. My whole class went to see Twelfth Night and it was amazing. I am so glad that I was able to go! Apparently one of the leading actors is pretty famous, and is actually winning the highest British award possible for a stage actor. It was pretty cool. The theatre was very beautiful also. It was old fashioned and tiered, with narrow rows of seating. There was no legroom at all, so I felt bad for anyone taller than me…but it was still definitely worth going.

Friday, almost everyone in our end of the hall (and pretty much everyone else in the entire building) went away for the weekend. Jenna went to the north end of England to visit some family friends. It was just me, Melissa, and Josh (another SCU student) left. Melissa and I went shopping Friday afternoon. We found a mall. I have no money left. Just kidding! Kind of… But yes, we found a mall and it was huge! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mall that big before- it was a bit overwhelming. The architecture was very modern as well- all of the maps were touch screens and the ceiling was made out of wavy blue glass. It felt like we were in some sort of mix between a huge airport and a fish tank. It was cool. Friday night, we tried to go to a movie, but unfortunately it was sold out =( However, the night did not end on a sad note due to the arrival of a GIANT heart shaped box full of See’s Candy, compliments of my mommy =) I have been enjoying them immensely and even shared a little bit.

Saturday Melissa, Josh, and I went to the London Eye which is definitely a must do thing. It is one of those, you HAVE to do it at least once, but you will probably never do it again. It is a giant ferris wheel type thing that has viewing pods that can fit about fifteen people. From the top, you have an amazing view of London. It is right on the River Thames directly across from the House of Parliament and Big Ben. You can even see St. Paul’s Cathedral and Buckingham Palace in the distance. We went right as the sun was going down so the view was spectacular. After The Eye we followed the river down to St. Paul’s Cathedral. It is a massive church- it’s dome is the second largest in the world after Saint Peters in Rome. A less historical reason to recognize the Cathedral is known to those who watch Marry Poppins. Yes, this is the church where the “Feed the Bird’s” song takes place. I didn’t see any birds though…=) We stayed for a little bit to hear the choir sing which was very beautiful.

(At the top of the London Eye. Big Ben in background as wells as Westminster Bridge and the River Thames)

(The viewing pods...)

(Our pod. Melissa, Josh, and I are standing on the bench in the back.)

(Waterloo Bridge and St. Paul's right along the Thames)

(What is special about this sign??)

(They love me so much here... they've even named a wharf after me!)

(The London Eye and Big Ben)

(St. Paul's Cathedral)


Saturday night, we attempted to branch out of the Kensington bubble to find a pub a bit farther away. We looked up a place called “The Palm Tree” online and which was supposedly a cool place to hang out—live music, good atmosphere, cool building. Unfortunately, we had a difficult time finding it. We walked down the road it was on with no luck and finally asked a girl if she knew where it was. She said yes, she did but she had no idea why we wanted to go there, as it was not very lively. She invited us to go with her, to a place called the Angel Arms. Unfortunately, when we got there, there were only about two other people in the entire place. It was actually kind of funny. We ordered a pint, played a game of pool, and went back out to find the other place. We had to ask for directions again because we STILL could not find it. Eventually, after being directed to walk through a dark and empty park, we saw it. It is an old old building situated in the middle of the park off the main road. How they ever expect people to fin this place is beyond me… but I have to admit it was pretty cool looking. At this point it was about eleven. It had taken us too long to find the pub so all we did was walk in and walk out because we had to make it back home before the tube closed at 12 (it was definitely a necessity to take the tube as this place was far away and Melissa and I are notoriously bad at navigating ourselves through the bus system). All in all… the night did not go as originally planned, but was entertaining and was definitely and adventure.

Sunday was a lazy day. I slept in, went to the grocery store to buy food, cooked a GIANT pot of spaghetti which was amazing if I do say so myself, went to church at 7, did homework, and then went to bed. Nothing too exciting there.

Monday I was basically in class all day. And had a lot of work to do when I got out at 8. It is really annoying that the professors actually give us a lot of homework… you know, its not like we have anything better to do right? Hehe anyways, Monday night I could not fall asleep, I have no idea why. It was horrible. I work up this morning feeling like a train had run me over. Seriously. But I had class at nine, so I had to be a good student and wake up. After class I was beautifully able to take a nap before heading over to the Student Travel Center to get my International Student ID (which gives me discounts on planes tickets, hotels, food at some places, etc). I then booked my trip to Paris! I’ll go into more detail about that in a minute.

After the STATravel arrangements, Melissa, Jenna, Josh, Mary and I all cooked a giant feast together. We made burritos, like hard core burritos—meat, rice, beans, homemade salsa, soured cream (yeah…weird, but they don’t have regular sour cream here), green and red peppers and onions cooked with taco seasoning and cilantro. Mmm it was very tasty. But now I smell like onions and peppers. Anyways, that’s about it now for the updates on the past week or so.

Soooo, the next few weeks are going to be insanely busy. Pretty much every free minute of time is booked up. Here is a general rundown of what it supposed to be happening:

‡ Feb 11:
o Morning: Geffrye Museum for class. (The Geffrye Museum is one of London's best-loved museums. It shows the changing style of the English domestic interior in a series of period rooms from 1600 to the present day blah blah blah or as the English say, waffle waffle waffle)
o Evening: All you can eat/drink for 5pounds at the Union.

‡ Feb 12:
o Morning: Class field trip to Tate Britain (museum; home of British art from 1500 to the present)
o Evening: Jack the Ripper walking night tour. Yes I know, this sounds horrible…but apparently it is supposed to be very interesting. I probably won’t be sleeping too much Thursday night…

‡ Feb 13-15 (Fri-Sun):
o Wales: Adventure Weekend (will consist of Kayaking, Coasteering, Bike Riding, Hiking, and trying not to freeze to death)

‡ Feb 19-22 (Thurs-Sun):
o Was supossed to be the Paris weekend… however, we did not book things soon enough and all the good deals were taken, we are going to go later instead. Which leaves this weekend open. I’m thinking I am going to do my best to either go to Cambridge or Oxford. That’s my goal for the weekend. I also think that we are going to try to get the last few London touristy things out of the way…as this is really our last chance to do so.

‡ Feb 26- 1st (Thurs-Sun):
o Sweden to visit Nina.

‡ March 2-13:
o Study Tour with British Life and Culture Class. Details have not yet been given to us, but we are going to be touring through the Northern parts of England and part of Scotland.

‡ March 14-16 (Sat-Mon):
o Paris! And all of the things to do around that area that can be done in two days…

‡ March 16-18 (Mon-Wed):
o Last three days of BLC class.

‡ March 18-24 (Wed-Tues):
o Ireland. Visiting Irish friend Grainne and Melissa’s Irish relatives. Will be going to multiple locations of which I’m not yet sure—but Dublin is definitely one. We fly back to London on the 24th and will have to either get a hotel room or go to a hostel…I am not sure what we are going to do with all of our stuff during that week, as the dorms are closed… We will probably try to find a cheap place to store them.

‡ March 25 (Wed):
o FLYING HOME!!!


So yeah, there you have it. A brief outline of what is going to happen over the next few weeks. Most of these are already booked so there will not be too much change. There is plenty of stuff going on during the week over our remaining three weeks of classes…so I am pretty much going to be go go going for the rest of my time here!

melted snow = lots of puddles = very wet uggs

Apparently praying really does work- class was canceled this morning! haha and it was a good thing too because I most likely would not have gone because I am STILL sick. It's getting quite annoying. I've pretty much lost my voice at this point. But yeah, my professor lives about 35 miles away and all of the trains were still shut down this morning. He called my phone (somehow I was the designated person to contact...) at about 8:30 saying class was not going to happen. We were all able to go back to bed and I actually fell asleep for about three more hours =) As nice as it was to have yet another day to do absolutely nothing...I started to go a bit stir-crazy-cabin-feverish and decided it was necessary for my sanity to leave the building no matter how cold and blustery it was outside. I slushed my way to Starbucks, got a latte, and starting walking through the park. Although the snow was beginning to melt it still looked quite pretty-the trees and ground had a nice layer of white. I walked around for about an hour until my nose started to drip disgustingly down my face (sorry TMI) and then carefully, trying very hard not to slip or step in puddles (which i FAILED at...my uggs are soaked unfortunately) I made my way back home. It was a nice little outing and I even managed to make a friend (who I will post a picture of below). In retrospect...going out in the cold and walking around in non-water proof shoes was probably not the most inteligent decision I have ever made- but hey, I can't be a genius all the time! Besides, it was worth it. My mental stability is not in danger any longer =)

love from London =)

People take snowman-making very seriously here...

Birds chillin' (literally) on the frozen pond...

My new friend! He even posed =)

The slushy path back home...


I have more pictures posted in an album on facebook. Here's the link if you want to check them out: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2078183&l=865ed&id=7102721

SNOW DAY =)

SNOW!

Its ch-ch-ch-chilly outside! And apparently it's going to stay this way for the next week. We are all going to be walking around looking like marshmallow-poofy-jacket monsters!!