Cheers!

It's Friday!! WOO HOO!! :)

Well, on most days we wouldn't have had class today but unfortunately we did because it was a make up day since we are missing class at the end of this month for Ireland. So, I had to wake up at 7 this morning to get ready. I eat breakfast more here than I have ever done before. While I went to Western you better believe I didn't set my alarm an hour earlier to wake up for Breakfast, are you kidding?! But here...I do. Dunno what my problem is, but oh well. England has changed me!

This week has flown by and there isn't a whole lot to say about it. Class continues to drag on. I did finish reading for British Studies ahead of schedule which is good, however I'm lacking in other areas. I need to start preparing my presentation which is due in a few weeks, plus I need to start researching Anne Boleyn for my big term paper! Gahh, so much to do and yet it feels like I have absolute no time to do it. These weeks here at Harlaxton are going to fly by. It's already at the end of my 2nd week and to be honest, I'm rather sad. The girls I've known for 2 weeks feel like my family and I don't know how I've gotten by without them. It's definitely going to be a really sad departure in December.

I've also gotten sick already. I have a cold, or at least, i hope its just a cold. Starting yesterday, I've been getting coughing fits. I had one in the middle of class and then woke up last night with one. Its terrible! So now I've been carrying water with me everywhere and had to pee like crazy haha. Just thought I'd share...

The food is actually not too bad. Unfortunately, my appetite has come back so I eat. They try to give us American food, or food that we are used to. For instance, we had a Mexican night last night! It was really good. We had like a chili dip with chips...crisps, I mean...and then we had tacos and a fried banana taco, which was pretty interesting to say the least. They had salsa for the chips as well but no one liked it because it was extremely sweet. Some days we have mini pizzas, hamburgers, chicken pattys, etc. But you can almost always bet there will be potatoes at any meal. It's okay with me because they are good, but there are a few ways they make them that makes them a little questionable, haha.

I'm pretty excited about tonight though, because we reserved a lounge tonight and we are going to order either pizza or chinese, watch a movie and paint our nails :), and then tomorrow a few of us are going to Cambridge to see the college and just the small town which has a lot of awesome buildings. We can even punt down the river! We stand on the back of a long boat, and we have these really long poles that you have the push off the bottom of the river in order to move. apparently its pretty difficult, so perhaps i'll have someone do that for me :). But the person can give us a historical aspect of each of the colleges we pass (since they are all on the bank of the river). But before we get there, we are actually stopping at an American cemetary for the Americans that died in WWII, so that should be pretty interesting.

My group is also debating where we should go over Thanksgiving weekend. I really want to go to Lisbon, Portugal. The hostel looks flipping AWESOME and its not real expensive. I've even found all the prices for trains, flights, and the hostel. But then Adrienne suggested going to Grenada, Spain. Eghh.... I mean, its spain so thats cool but I would rather go to Madrid or Barcelona. So Jessica said she'd go with me to Lisbon even if no one else wanted to. Hopefully I can pursuade Meghan into coming as well. :)

Guess we'll see...

This next portion is the small piece i wrote for my travel writing class talking about my trip to London. Hope you enjoy. Talk to you soon! Love you!

Grogginess, confusion, loneliness, pain, frustration, excitement, nervousness, and feeling utterly helpless were just a few of the emotions I experienced in London. How does one person encounter such a wide range of feelings within a two and a half day time frame? Well, fortunately for everyone there isn’t enough time in one day to explain the journey that began Friday morning.
A few things I did notice about my trip to the heart of England were there are always two things I could count on: poor directions and rain. Right, right, left, and then one more right is not the best way to give a small town girl from Kentucky directions to see Big Ben in a big city. I need landmarks; signs, specific stores, the color of a certain blade of grass, anything that would let me know I was still going in the right direction. Even though Big Ben is 300 feet high, it is still possible to miss it completely. They should have told me to “look up.” However, I kept my eyes plastered on the ground to avoid big puddles and because the rain would obviously have some terrible effect on my face if it actually touched my skin. So, as a result, four of us girls walked around in a really small circle seeing nothing but expensive souvenirs shops and China town.
By the time exhaustion had engulfed my body, we were on our way to the big, old manor I now call home. Other than the fact that my friends and I ran all over the city on Saturday trying to make up for lost time; got rained on, on numerous occasions; had multiple clumsy moments; and walked around in high heels for over 5 hours trying to find somewhere fun to spend the evening; my London experience was satisfying. All I needed was approximately one week of complete relaxation to regain my energy in order to repeat my adventure each weekend but in a different place. Unfortunately, school work has interrupted my time for peace and recovery which makes me wonder how the next 3 months will be, while I try to balance school and travel. Although, I always hear that it’s about the journey, not the destination which makes it all worthwhile, but after hearing that all I can say is, “Oy, what have I gotten myself into?”