Half the clothes and twice the cash

     Last week my parents were here.  It was really great to see and spend time with them and finally share my life here with someone from back home.  We did a lot of walking (far more than they anticipated) and I am happy to say that both they and I got to see a lot of great stuff.  After picking them up from the airport and having their first (very long) tube experience, we got them checked in, went to Pret for some sandwiches and wandered the city.  Their hotel was right by Green Park, which connects to Buckingham Palace, so we went there, then through St. James Park and saw the Horse Guard Quarters, Westminster Abbey, Parliament and Big Ben, and then walked into Trafalgar Square to find a pub.  This was at about, well, it was before dusk anyway.  So we go in and get drinks, sit down and a very nice, very drunk man starts talking to us, particularly to my mother about the US and shepherds pie, at one point we thought he was actually going to order her one.  That night we ate at Wagamama's and then went down the street to meet some of my friends at the Sports Cafe because Thursdays are £3 wing night (20 of them!).  They got to meet Liz, Paul, Chris and Ben before they knocked out for the evening.

     Next day after class they met me at Wood Green so I could show them around where I live, we never got to my campus but no biggy because I don't spend much time there anyway.  Mother packed me an entire suitcase full of goodies, homemade cookies, pretzels, wheat thins, See's chocolates, clothes, toiletries etc.  I hope she knows how much that meant to me because I still look at my shelves stocked with nonperishable food and get really excited!  They got to see my 5 star accommodations (which, amazingly enough, lost hot water for 2 days right when they left).  We attempted to find dad a scarf at the Wood Green mall before heading to the Tower of London.  We got there and realized we wouldn't have time to see it before it closed so instead we walked (and walked) to Cafe Pacifico (amazing mexican food in Covent Garden), ate our hearts out and met up with Andreas for some Ben's Cookies before we parted ways so that Andreas and I could go see Chromeo at KoKo.  Chromeo put on a phenomenal show.  Their sound is very electro/funk type music, they're two best friends who claim they are the only successful Jewish/Muslim duo in the music industry.  Afterwards Dave 1 and P-Thugg (the two guys in the band... obviously) were signing autographs and if the pictures would load you'd be able to see the picture Matt and I got with Dave 1.

     Saturday we actually met at the Tower of London and had a fabulous audio tour before seeing the crown jewels.  That was my 3rd trip to the tower and I still learned new things, I love it.  Another bit of walking and we were at St. Paul's Cathedral where we spent a bit of time looking around before heading over towards Harrods.  Before going in we sat down for afternoon tea (I'm definitely going to miss clotted cream, so delicious!) and scones.  We ate and set up a meeting point with Dad so that he could go off and be spared a tour of Harrods.  Mom and I wandered the chocolate (thank God we were full so we didn't buy any) got some sweets and then spent a lot of time in the shoe department.  Typical. :)  If I recall we weren't very hungry after the tea and scones so we headed to Oxford Circus, dropped my Dad off at Bonds, which is where Liz worked (I say worked because that was actually her last night) and Mom and I did a bit of shopping along Oxford Street.  After that we went and ate at Bonds with Dad and they left while I waited for Chris and Paul to come hang out.  After Liz got off work we left and stayed up all night watching youtube videos, wild Saturday night.  

     Woke up at 6 on Sunday to meet the parents for our big day of bus touring.  First stop was Windsor Castle, which is very beautiful.  The Queen was expected later in the day but she wasn't in her apartments while we were touring, we got to tour the state apartments and caught the end of the changing of the guards there.  Mom and Dad took a not so silly picture with the not so silly guards.  Next stop was Bath to visit the Roman Baths, I found them quite interesting but I wish that I hadn't stayed up so late because I retained next to nothing as far as learned information goes.  The Romans were phenomenal with the things that they did, especially considering the time period (and they were everywhere!).  Last stop was my personal favorite (and my Dad's, I think) Stonehenge.  Mom was decidedly less impressed.  I've wanted to go and see Stonehenge for a very long time so I'm really glad that I finally got to experience it and do so with my parents (Dad wanted to see them since he was a kid so that made it even better).  We met Chris for dinner for sushi attempt #1, closed, so we went to Bella Italia for what was definitely the best meal of the trip.  After eating The Godfather Parts I and II Chris and I sent my parents on their way and headed back to Wood Green.

     Our last full day was a bit of a lazy day, I finally met up with my parents around 2:30.  Mom and I set up a meeting point with Dad at Covent Garden and Mom and I went to the National Gallery to meet up with Paul.  We did a quick walk through and then headed to Covent Garden to attempt some more shopping and really just ended up in a coffee shop until it was dinner time.  Sushi attempt #2, sushi joint was open to reveal the ultimate 7/11 of sushi bars.  We ended up having Spaghetti House instead before parting from paul to see Jersey Boys.   Jersey Boys was an absolutely brilliant production, the Brits nailed the Jersey accent (as commented on by a woman from Jersey in the bathroom).  The guy who played Frankie Valli had a wonderful voice and definitely brought the Four Season to life.  I'm really glad that we ended up seeing that instead of Les Mis.

     Our last day we met at Oxford Circus, walked a bit and then checked them out.  I was a bit sad to see them go but I'm so happy that they got to come and see London.  Now I'm on my last week of classes and then finals/final papers are due the week after that.  I have so much reading and writing to do it's insane!!!  But it will be great when it's over because a few days after my deadline I'm off to Greece!!!

Merci. De Nada.

     Okay, bare with me because these pictures, for whatever reason, didn't upload in order.  Right, now that that's been discussed we can move on amicably.  For the first time since I've been traveling I can honestly say that words cannot describe how beautiful my trip was.  The Loire Valley was beautiful in its entirety.  It seems that every town we entered, every chateau we visited, was more beautiful than the last.  I kept thinking that the next one would surely disappoint (and, my add getting the better of me, the last one did... but I think that was more my attention span's fault than anything else).  

     We arrived in Tours Monday and walked outside realizing we hadn't figured out how to get from the airport (so small that there was only one flight in and one flight out... we're talking middle of nowhere tiny airport, so cute) to our hotel.  Luckily I had Jenni with me and she speaks a bit of french.  We got a taxi to the main train station in Tours thinking that we'd have to take a bus somewhere and found out that our hotel was around the corner from the station, which was really convenient.  We immediately found some yummy French pastries to eat and dropped our stuff off before wandering the town for a few hours.  Like true party animals we ended up in bed and asleep at 7pm... how sad.  There were full intentions of waking up at 10 and going out, we just never actually got up when the alarm went off.  Needless to say we were well rested for our first full day of exploration.

     We attempted to prod the tourism office for wine tasting information and were largely unsuccessful.  While we received a map of vineyards as well as wine houses we didn't receive any information on how to get there or any tours that might run there.  We were actually told that the best way to do wine tasting, because of their spread out locations, would be to rent a car (who rents a car to spend a day with alcohol?!).  So we picked Saumur from the map, known for their red wines, and took a train there hoping to figure it out.  We got there and saw the Chateau Saumur from the station at the top of the city and it looked absolutely stunning.  We got a glass of wine in a local bar and found both liquor and wine tasting venues on our place mats so we asked the bartender how to get to them.  Before heading there we hiked to the chateau and walked around a bit.  After that we went to the liquor house, which turned out to be a really neat experience because we tried some local spirits and learned a bit about how the French enjoy their alcohol compared to how others do so.  I ended up buying a bottle of Fruits des Bois, which is a dark mixed berry liquor that is typically mixed with white or sparkling wines, delicious.  After that we realized we didn't have time to venture to the winery, which was a bit further away, so we just shared a bottle of wine at a bar before catching our train home to have crepes for dinner. (SO GOOD!)

     Our last full day was our big day as we'd booked an all day tour of the chateaus.  From 9:30 to 7:00 we took a van to 5 chateaus around the Loire Valley region.  It was really the most amazing experience.  Our first stop was probably my favorite because of the gardens.  The Chateau Villandry is also known as "Little Versailles" because the gardens were constructed to mimic those of Versailles.  Both places are typical of Renaissance structures in that they mimic the Greek/Roman styles by being very geometric.  The gardens weren't in full bloom but even so I could have wandered them all day.  The second stop was Azay-le-Rideau, there was a beautiful lake and Jenni and I got to sit and eat our gummy eggs on the water.  The nice thing about the morning tour was that we were the only two in the van so we left when we were done and got back to Tours to eat lunch and wait for the afternoon portion of the tour to start.  

     In the afternoon there were 5 others with us, two sisters from Australia were among them and were really fun to hang out with and talk a bit with later in the day.  We visited some of the bigger and more famous chateaus in the afternoon.  First we went to my other favorite, (mainly because of it's really rich history) Chenonceau.  It's also called the Chateau of the Dames because of the many famous women who, at one time or another, lived there (including Diane de Poitier and Catherine de Medici).  One of the most interesting rooms was Louise of Lorraine's room where she stayed after the assassination of King Henry III.  It was her mourning room and it was decorated entirely in black: black walls, ceiling, bedding, rug... yeah, everything.  She was known as the White Queen because, as customary for royals in mourning, she was always seen in white.  Anyways, point being... the room was pretty amazing.  This particular chateau is built over the water and has archways allowing the water to flow through, very beautiful.  Jenni and I went running through the maze in the forrest, she beat me out.  The fourth house was the Chateau du Clos Luce, which was Da Vinci's place.  There were replicas of a lot of his inventions all over the gardens and it was so interesting to read all about them.  The man was such a genius!  Last we went to the Chateau Roal D'Amboise, where there is the bust of Da Vinci in the garden.  The view from this place was amazing but by then it was unfortunately a bit cloudy.  At the end we had a mini wine tasting session that was included with the tour but we weren't impressed by the wines.

     We got home and relaxed a bit, had pizza for dinner and drank a bit more wine.  We figured since we missed the wine tasting we'd make up for it by independently sampling the local wines throughout our vacation... none were all that good (clearly because we didn't buy any to bring home).  The weekend wasn't without minor incident, really more just minor embarrassment (because when do I NOT embarrass myself somehow?).  So we went to a pizza place for dinner the last night and I had to use the toilet so Jenni asked where it was and relayed that it was the second on the right.  So I go into the other room and the first door says toilettes above it, so I turn the handle and it doesn't open.  Remembering Jenni's words I continue walking and turn the corner rather fast and run straight into an antique stove that was clearly there just for decoration.  Not so bad, but as I turn around our waiter takes my arm and guides me to the bathroom, where he opens the door for me as though I'm one of the dumbest people he's ever met (which, at that moment, I might be).  I sat down and told Jenni we should leave... but instead we stayed for dessert.

     Which reminds me, last week I went out with Phoebe for high tea and left her at Tottenham Court Road station.  I walk down the stairs into the station and somehow decided that the last step didn't exist and I kid you not I did a complete face plant during rush hour in the middle of a huge central station, skinned my knees and everything.  I'm pretty sure I was laughing before I even hit the floor.  Unfortunately, no one I know was there to see it, although hundreds of people I DON'T know got a very clear view.  Enjoy my minor misfortunes!  In other news, I came home to an email from Nike saying that I have officially been picked to be in the Nike women's marathon in San Francisco on October 19th so I'm super excited to start training for that!  Mom and Dad get here next Thursday and I can't wait to see them.  I'm pretty sure Jenni got sick of me mentioning how excited I was every time I thought about it... On to the pictures!

This is Jenni and I in front of Chenonceau, aka the Chateau of the Dames.
The back of Jenni in front of Da Vinci's country home.  There were children everywhere screaming like banshees... grrr.
The Chateau Royal D'Amboise.  This is where my attention span failed me, I blame the weather...
One of the town squares in Tours where we had most of our evening meals.  It seemed that most of the young people were here either in the restaurants or bars so it was a great place to be and the building were so neat!  You can't really see, but just to the left there was a really neat black building in the corner of the square, very cool.
My snobby-flared-nostril-wine-tasting face.  Too bad we weren't ACTUALLY wine tasting. :)
These are some beautiful tulips outside the Chateau Saumur, they were such a vibrant red and looked wonderful surrounding the grey stones of the chateau walls.
My favorite, Chateau Villandry, none of my pictures even do this place justice.  It's not fair that not everyone gets to see a place like this, I was in absolute awe.
The Chateau D'Azay Le Rideau.  Also wonderful.  The ceilings above the staircases had faces carved into it... creepy. 

Woop-Gobbles

     I had a very educational weekend, or rather, made a very valiant effort to give myself brain food.  Chris (the british version) and I went to the Natural History Museum on Friday because he had off work (as did everyone else), despite the crowds (because everyone had the same idea) we had a great time going into the vault and looking at all of the gems and reading their stories.  After that we skipped the dino exhibit, which had about an hour wait, and looked at all the giant recreations of different prehistoric and modern animals.  Chris had a lot to say about it all, come to find out he's a closet reader of random science magazines (cough, nerd, cough).  Afterwards we went and ate at the most wonderful English version of a Mexican restaurant that I've ever been to.  I was the happiest little California girl in the world at that moment, steak fajitas... delicious.  Next day we met up to go to the Science Museum where I read a bunch of stuff about rocketry that I'll never remember and then moved on to the "into the future" exhibit where I got to play computer games against little kids... much more my style.  Did you know that it's now possible for men to be pregnant?  Well... it's still extremely risky so they don't do it, but still... POSSIBLE!  Had Wagamama's for the second time in a week for dinner... so delicious.  Earlier in the week Andreas and I met up with our friend (well, originally his friend Phoebe from their church) and we had Wagamamas and then went to her parents house for tea and board games.  I got my bunz kicked at boggle by a 16 year old... how embarrassing.

     Easter day I woke up at 2pm and Paul came in on his way to the shower to wish me Happy Easter... after that I sat around feeling like it didn't feel like Easter at all, until I talked to my parents and saw the kids and their Easter presents.  After that I went to a really nice service at HTB (originally planned on going to Westminster Abbey as well but clearly that didn't happen).  Next morning I woke up intending to go running for the first time in 3 weeks, opened my window and it was SNOWING!!!  I've never woken up to it snowing outside my window before, I ran down the hall like an idiot knocking on Chris and Paul's doors telling them to look outside (Paul is from Philadelphia and really didn't care... but Chris enjoyed it).  That didn't stop us though, (well, it stopped us from running, but that's irrelevant) Paul, Chris, Liz and I went out walking around the city all day, so fun!

     We all spent the night in (except for Liz who had to work) and Tuesday Paul and I decided to go to the John Soane museum.  He is a famous architect, best known for his work with the Bank of England.  He was an antiquarian to the extreme and collected a lot of old sculptures, paintings by Hogarth and also had an extensive library (jealous!).  We walked around the Holborn area and ended up down the street at the Lincolns Inn which is the first of the four Inns of Court, established sometime around but before 1422.  Basically a very prestigious group of lawyers and their students.  To my luck, there were tulips of all colors planted all over the gardens of the property.  Beautiful!!
    This picture is Lincoln's Inn... originally we thought it was a church but there is a church for the members of Lincoln's Inn behind me.  In the past most of the barristers (lawyers) lived inside the building so there was a church down the street that they could go to.
     We came back from our day out and got ready for Liz's 20th birthday party.  We had SUCH a good time!!!  We bought her a cake and sang happy birthday in the kitchen before heading to the Absolut Icebar.  The entire bar is made of ice, the cups are ice, the walls, everything.  You wear these amazing ponchos inside and you're only allowed to stay inside for so long because of the temperature (surprisingly it didn't FEEL that cold... unless you're an idiot like me and don't realize that there are gloves attached to the poncho so you try to keep hold of your ice drink barehanded... stupid).  Here is Chris and I being excited about our Absolut drinks.
      We then went to a bar called Candy Bar before heading to the Roxy, where we spent the rest of our night dancing away.  Here's a picture of "the gold team" doing what we do best: acting ridiculous.  
     Today was a nothing day, I read a lot, got my FAFSA stuff done with dad and, most exciting of all, booked a 7 night cruise to Greece for May!!!  Paul is going to fly out and go with me and I'm SO excited to see him!  Liz and Erica also booked a room, it was only $150 a person.  Basically it's more of a traveling hotel than a cruise in that food and housekeeping are not included.  However, the ship docks every day around 9am and doesn't leave until somewhere between 2 and 4am the next day so you essentially have the freedom to do as you will everywhere you go... I anticipate it being a fabulous trip, we see a different island every day!  Plus, we're going to fly to Athens a night or two before the cruise leaves so that we can see the mainland.  Other than that, Jenni and I leave for the Loire Valley on Monday and in the meantime I'm enjoying exploring London and reading at my leisure!  Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!!!

Nobody Wears Pajamas on a Moonday

     Ireland was amazing!  Well, let's be honest, I went for St. Patty's Day so of course it was going to be that way.  We started out with a lot of traveling as cheap flights out of small London airports means the airport isn't actually in London.  This time we flew out of Gatwick which is about a 1 1/2 hour bus ride away, flew to Dublin (only an hour!!) and then got on a 4 hour bus from Dublin to Galway.  At the bus station there was this guy, I'm guessing he was quite drunk, trying to get a bus ticket to Dublin.  Catch that?  HE'S IN DUBLIN!  The guy at the window was just laughing, and kept saying, you're in dublin and the guy would respond "yes, Dublin, I want a bus to Dublin."  Finally his coworker got super angry and walked to the window and said "you want a bus to Dublin?  We don't serve Dublin, get the hell out of here."  I walked up to the window next and the guy just said "Welcome to Dublin."

     Once we got into Galway we had a full Irish dinner, which meant lots of food.  After that we just went to bed since we'd all had about 4 hours of sleep the night before because we decided that despite early travel plans we wanted to go out to a club.  Always a good idea.  The next morning Ben and I were the first ones up so we went, got bagels, and took a walk to the lighthouse.  It was cloudy but so beautiful.  We actually walked back later with Andreas and Dani (Dani also goes to Chapman and is studying in Glasgow).  After that we walked into Galway, which is very quaint, it has a very small town feel.  The nice thing about being in Galways versus Dublin was that, though there were a lot of travelers there, it was far less touristy than Dublin would have been and, as a result, far less expensive.  

     Later we met up with Dani and Andreas to purchase our St. Pattys Day shinanigans, ie hats, tattoos, and flags.  We met these guys from Seattle as well who have been hitchhiking Europe for 3-5 months (depending on which one you talk to) and ran out of money so they started playing street music.  They'd been in Galway a couple of days so they told us the good pubs to go to.  Around 5 or 6 we ended up at the King's Head and spent the night there with Guinness and a local beer called the Galway Hooker, which I quite enjoyed.  (hah) We met up with the hitchhikers there and hung out with them the rest of the night.  We also met some Irish girls studying in Belfast who had never celebrated St. Patty's "in the city."  Lots of new friends and fun that night.

     St. Patty's day morning Ben and I were again the early risers and went out for our big meal of the day.  We all figured that we should get a fair amount of food in us before the parade so Ben got a huge Irish breakfast and I got a giant crepe and, since I couldn't decide, eggs on toast as well.  I finished some of Ben's food so we were both absolutely stuffed.  We met up with the lazers and watched them eat after that.  The parade was from about 12:30 to 1:30 and it was fabulous.  You could tell that it was a smaller town because it was really just little non-profit groups making up shakey dance moves and dressing up really silly but it was really entertaining.  Oh right, and because I put a picture up I should explain that the stick-on tattoos should really be called lick-on tattoos because we had no water so we decided to use spit... genius, right?
     Here is our ridiculous group photo from the parade.  Ben, Chris, Traci (Chris's girlfriend currently studying in Spain), Dani, Andreas and I.  We girls look fairly normal but those boys and their hats were ridiculous.  I couldn't look at Chris without laughing.
     After the parade we went to Taaffes Bar (James Joyce award for authenticity, legit!) for our first Guinness of St. Patty's day (see a pattern?) and basically spent all day and night bar hopping.  Well, I suppose you could use that term loosely as we really spent the majority of our time in the King's Head again (well, Ben, Andreas and I did, we lost Dani, Chris and Traci half way through).  At one point we were at an ATM machine and this guy behind us started talking about his girlfriend, who was with him and how "Nobody wears pajamas on a MOONday unless they have downs syndrome, nobody loves her because of her pajamas so I have to love her," the ridiculousness of this entire conversation was hilarious.  We did a lot of running back and forth to the grocery store to buy ciders for cheap rather than spending money on it in the pubs.  This caused Andreas and Ben both to go to bed at the striking hour of 9:30, I was then left to my devices with the Irish girls from the previous day and we had a lovely evening.

     The bus ride back to Dublin the next day was absolutely stunning.  The Irish countryside is so beautiful, rolling grass fields, a lot of livestock and small hilly areas, plus it was a gorgeous day out!
     Once we checked into our hostel (which, unlike the first hostel, actually had locks on the doors, safety first!) we basically headed straight out to the one site we decided we were going to see... the Guinness Factory.  We waited about an hour to get in and went through a really neat self guided tour, making our way to the Gravity Bar on the 7th floor where you get a free pint and a beautiful view.  This picture of Ben, Andreas and I doesn't really do the view justice but it was (save for the elevator) a 360 degree view of Dublin.  It was so wonderful to hang out up there for a bit.  Later we walked around Temple Bar, which is basically the night life area and had some great Indian food and gelato.  
     Ben and I went roaming around the city the next morning before we caught the bus back to the airport and got very lost (thanks Ben) despite Ben having a map and ended up seeing a lot as a result.  We saw the House of Lords, Trinity College, the Church of Ireland and a very nice little park.  We finally ended up at the James Joyce Center, our original destination, to find out that you had to pay to get in (I had, at this point, exactly €2 in my pocket for the bus and refused to take out more money), you had to pay to get into the Writer's Museum as well so we ended up in Tower Records reading until bus time.  Now I'm home and, once again, I have a bit of a cold... stupid immune system hates me!  But at least I'm on spring break now and don't have any travel plans for a whole 10 days, so I'm guessing I'll be fine by then and ready for the Loire Valley!

Smell My Mush

     Last weekend was an amazing weekend.  Paul, Liz, Chris and I booked a £7 round trip bus ride to Dover, a coastal town in Kent.  The town boasts of beautiful white cliffs as well as Dover Castle.  We left Saturday around 1:00 and got to Dover around 4:30, at which point we basically dropped off our things at the bed and breakfast we'd booked and went to find something to eat.  We ended up at the local Wetherspoons (there happens to be one a block away from us at Wood Green) and had some paninis and beers.  Well, Paul and I did, Liz had her usual garlic bread (subsequently followed by an impulse buy of ribs... she liked the bbq sauce, so much so that she got it all over her jacket).  I suppose I should mention, at this point, that Liz is a notoriously picky eater, we call her 3 things, because she eats about 3 things (bread and butter/garlic bread, steak, prunes).  We walked around the town a bit and found this church below, absolutely beautiful!!!  After that we pretty much just headed back to the hotel room and entertained ourselves with various shinanigans including a very violent pillow fight (because we're 9 year old girls at a sleep over).

     Next morning we got up (an hour too early because we set our clocks forward inaccurately) and had our free english breakfast before we checked out and left for the day.  The woman at the bed and breakfast was kind enough to let us leave our things there while we hiked or we would have had some issues!  We began our trek to Dover Castle (which is on a hill, but we hiked it like the champs we are), on the way we found this little area where we decided we'd take prom pictures.  Here is a picture of Paul and I looking lovely together.
     Once we got to the castle we took a tour of the Secret Wartime Tunnels that were run by Bertrand Ramsey during WWII.  It was from there that he managed the evacuation of Dunkirk in France.  It was really interesting to see how so many soldiers were able to live inside these tunnels throughout the war, though it wasn't as suffocating as I thought it might be.  The picture below is of some of the white cliffs.  The castle is on top of the cliffs so from the south side of the castle you get a great view of them.
     Being that the castle is on the coast, the weather in the morning was typically foggy, but not too cold.  We spent about 6 hours wandering around the grounds of the castle, watching the different movies and doing all of the different little activities they have for you.  There was a section on Henry VIII and his wives (which reminds me, saw the Other Bolyn Girl tonight, always an interesting story).  There was also a section on Henry II and Henry III.  Apparently in 1216 Prince Louis of France invaded Dover and very nearly overtook the castle, which is quite a huge event.  Anyways, the castle is full of almost a millennium worth of history, so much to soak in.  The whole place was beautiful as well.  Below is the 4 of us in front of the castle.
     Aside from the castle there was a Saxon Church on the property as well as a Roman Tower (which has since turned into a bird cemetery due to the netting inside... so gross).  The church had some amazing stained glass inside and was, as most old churches are, very beautifully decorated.  The view from any one point on the castle grounds was amazing, you could see the whole town, the ocean and the cliffs depending on where you were.  We had so much fun taking pictures, dressing up, climbing towers and just wandering.  One of the best parts was that by around 2:30 in the afternoon the sky began to clear and by the time we left there was hardly a cloud to be seen.  This, of course, made the view even more breathtaking and everything looked absolutely spectacular.  The picture below is of the castle as we were leaving, there was a postcard in the gift shop that looked just like it!
     After we left the castle we picked up our things and headed back to Wetherspoons for some much needed refueling.  There was a Sunday dinner special so Liz, Chris and I jumped on it  (where as Paul just opted to purchase two meals).  Bread, veggies, chicken, gravy, stuffing balls and potatoes, plus a drink.  Then we all had chocolate icecream bombs for dessert.  By the time I got on to the bus I felt like crap and 24 hours later realized I'd gotten food poisoning, I just started feeling better this afternoon and my tummy is still a bit fragile.  All part of the adventure though, right?  At least I didn't have class the last two days, that made it a bit easy to just lay around feeling sorry for myself and eating crackers.  While we were at the castle we all bought English Heritage memberships (we get free admission to over 400 historical sites throughout England, pretty sweet).

     This afternoon when I began to feel better I went with Paul to the Apsley House near Hyde Park for our first English Heritage excursion.  This house is where the first Duke of Wellington lived (and all of his descendants have lived there).  It is the only site that has been turned over to the country that people still live in, which means that only part of the house is open to the public.  The man had an amazing art collection so it was really neat to see all of that.  Plus, you get a free audio tour so of course there is much to learn about it all.  After that I met Liz at the London Dungeon to use our tickets that we'd bought when we went to Madam Tussauds.  I don't recommend spending money on it as it's quite expensive.  For the deal we got though I'm glad we went, I just wish that we'd gotten more information about everything.  You basically get a really interactive tour which means that you get really surface level information about Sweeney Todd, Jack the Ripper, the Black Plague, etc, but nothing that you haven't heard before.  It is perfect for international tourism though.  We tried to go to the London Eye afterwards but it wasn't operating, hopefully we can get on tomorrow!  Point is, it was a wonderful weekend and has been a wonderful week so far.  Hope everyone else is having as great a start to their week as I am!!  Love you all, not sure that I'll have anything exciting to say before I leave for Ireland on Saturday so if not, Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Regents Park

     This first picture is of the very tailored part of the park, the topiaries and fountains were wonderful, I can't wait to go back in the later springtime when the garden is in full bloom, I'm sure I'll faint from amazement (and maybe then I won't come home with numb fingers).

This is one of the two squirrels I watched for a while, the first one was burying a nut, which was super cute, but this one, for whatever reason, just kept running around the lawn stuffing his face with grass.  I thought it was hilarious.
This is one of the many patches of daffodils, there are daffodils all over the city, it's wonderful.
The lake

It's the only way to eat muffins, really

     Goodness, I had such a wonderful week!  Liz and I joined Andreas and his two friends, Dani and June at the theatre Saturday to see an afternoon showing of The Importance of Being Earnest.  It was a really good production and, of course, Oscar Wilde is sharp in his prose so just the dialogue in itself is entertaining.  After that we walked through St. James park and to Buckingham palace to show the girls some of the city and wandered our way to Wagamama for dinner.  Trevor, this totally made me think of you!  The two of us ate there when Breanna and I went to visit them.  This time I had some much longed for soba noodles with veggies, shrimp and chicken (why do I always describe my food like other people care what went into my belly?).  Whatever because it was delicious!  As planned we headed home to get ready to go to 4th Floor, which was rather empty compared to a usual Saturday night but we still had a good time.       I wonder if I've ever explained the night bus before.  Typically we take the N29 home, but we can also take the 243 home.  Either way, as is probably expected on a late night bus ride, we always manage to come home with a story.  This particular evening we caught the 243, which isn't as frequent as the N29 so we waited quite a while, engaged in the usual kebauchery while we waited and pounded on the side of the bus as it drove by us without stopping despite our very obviously flagging it down.  Once we got on the next one (about a half hour later) we sat down and a very crazy woman speaking a very bad mixture of languages started heckling Paul.  She looked at June and shouted JAPANESE! (which she's not) and then among the mumbling shouted CRUISE MISSILE!  It was great.  

     Sunday was spent in writing a paper and then meeting Jenni to go to church at Holy Trinity.  It was a really neat message this week about "What are you doing with what you've been given?"  Meaning a lot of things, money, time, other resources, your self in general, etc.  One of the things the pastor mentioned was addiction and how, among other things, the city is addicted to constant stimulation (which seems ironic since I'm writing a blog) which can come in the form of feeling the need for text messages or facebook messages or any other form of instant gratification.  Considering how much time I spend on a computer, it gave me a good deal to think about.

     Monday was much the same as Sunday up until 4pm when my paper was due.  Monday also marked the day when I started possibly the most radical diet I've ever been on (shocking considering what I was eating 2 winters ago).  I decided for a little health boost I'd do a 7 day detox diet (which, due to an overnight trip to Dover this Saturday will now be a 6 day detox diet).  This means I'm eating nothing but fresh fruits and veggies, brown rice, raw nuts, plain yoghurt, beans (no added salt or sugar), and fish (which I don't do because I'm afraid I won't clean it properly and end up sick as a dog... not exactly the point, right?).  It's been really interesting and hard but it's 6 days of my life so I can't complain too much.  Plus my body needed a break from chocolate, bread and beer (all of which make me blow up like a balloon).  Sorry, as is customary, whenever I'm on a diet all I can talk about is food... moving on. :)

     Tuesday was probably the best day of my week so far, I woke up early and took the tube to Oxford Circus and decided to just spend the day walking, from about 11 to 3 I walked around, down to the Thames past parliament (where I saw a giant pig as part of a protest on ham prices).  Then I retraced my steps until I ended up in Regents Park and it was the most stunning place (as far as cultivated landscape goes) that I've ever seen.  I was completely in awe the entire time I was there; it definitely trumps St. James Park and Hyde Park by a long shot.  The picture/s below is/are from Regents Park, I don't know what's wrong with my uploading system today but for some reason only one of the pictures shows up for me so perhaps I'll have to make a separate post again.

     I've spent the last couple of days mostly inside, catching up on reading and booking an overnight trip to Dover on a whim.  Dover is in the southeast off the coast and is home to Dover Castle, famous White Cliffs, and a whole lot of retired people.  Paul, Liz, Chris and I are going to stay Saturday night in a bed and breakfast and despite the laughs we get when we tell people we're going to Dover, we anticipate a good time.  Plus it was cheap and we have nothing better to do here that we can't do any other weekend so why not?!  Tomorrow night I am going out with Chris again (sorry daddy) for sushi and a movie (sashimi and edemame are the only loopholes I could find in my diet so we really had few choices for cuisine... not that I'm complaining).  Should be loads of fun.  Afterwards if we get done early I may go meet up with everyone from here because I think they're going to some big traveling karaoke thing (I'm not sure exactly what it is or I'd explain it better).  Next week is my last week of school before spring break and I'm SO excited to leave for Ireland!  Fun times lay ahead (after I turn in one last paper on Monday that is!)  Love you all!