Well, I planned to write this during my 13 hours of travel yesterday, but it didn't happen. I am safe and sound now, at home, but my blog needed an ending. So this is my evaluation of my semester:
I spent 128 days living in Europe.
My goal was to learn French, but I got more than I bargained for :)
I got to visit various cities in 7 different countries in Europe, I've taken 11 planes and more trains than I can count. Traveling was ABSOLUTELY amazing, and I have a better understanding of a lot of history now that I've had the chance to see where it took place. And I have around 7000 pictures to prove it :)
I gained a new world perspective by living in a different culture. My ideas and opinion changed, but my faith only got stronger, I think I've grown up a lot.
I've learned to deal with problems in a more calm rational manner. Once the train has left the station without you there is really nothing you can do about it, no amount of worrying is going to bring it back, so why panic?
I've also made some wonderful friends, both French and American. My host family became like my real family, and I miss them (and Miss Lindsey Whitfield) already! I now have friends ALL over the world, and I'm looking forward to visiting them again.
French. Hmmm, yesterday I had just woken up and the flight attendant walked by and I yelled after her in French without even thinking haha. Ok, so my goal was to become fluent, I don't think I am fluent, and I wouldn't call myself bilingual, but I speak French pretty darn well. Definitely enough to communicate easily and enough to impress any French stranger on the street, I still really love the language.
I had a list, of things I wanted to do in Europe, like visit Rome and London. Go see Emma, buy a beret, try foi gras. I did EVERYTHING on my list, except go skiing in the mountains, but I had a pretty long list, so that's not bad. And I am very content :)
Overall, I had a very full study abroad experience. Some things were exactly how I imagined, but most things were so much better :) The semester was incredible, I couldn't ask for more. It is a miracle that I'm home, on Sunday my plane was the only one to go to Paris, and on Monday my plane was the only one to go to Philadelphia. I'm so happy to be home, it is great to be in my house, with my family (and boyfriend too) again. And I've never been so excited about Christmas.
However, I will always carry a little piece of France around in my heart, a little part of me is very French now, and I really hope I can go back someday. In the meantime, if anybody wants to practice their French with me, let me know!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Ma Famille Francaise :) Blog 22
This blog is dedicated to my host family! I've spent a lot of blogs telling everybody about deep meaningful revelations, funny travelling mishaps and France as a whole, but I thought I would share a little about the people who have made the biggest impact on my study abroad experience.
I live with a host family, very close to the University where I go to school. I have a host mom and a host dad, as well as two host brothers ages 15 and 19 and a host cat. I also have a host sister and host brother-in-law, but they don't live with us, and I currently live in my host sister's old bedroom. And I also have a host grandma, who is sweet as sugar and tells me my accent is cute, while everybody else just makes fun of it (in a loving way.)
At first, I was really nervous about the idea of living in somebody else's house, especially because I've never had brothers before. But my host family was very welcoming and I was pretty comfortable. At first it was very hard, because I barely understood anything at all, and it is difficult to make relationships with people when you don't speak the same language. I was living with them, but for awhile we were all strangers to each other, except for the cat, she has always loved me, despite my lack of French skills.
Slowly but surely, my French started getting better, and as we could communicate more, things got better :) I bonded with the brothers by swapping youtube videos (you don't have to talk so much when you are showing people videos online.) My host mom was always the easiest to get along with, because she was an exchange student when she was 18, so she understands exactly what it is like. And my host dad...he is a character...always making fun of me, but when I finally got up the nerve (and learned enough French) that I could joke back, dinner time became very very amusing. Finally, I won all the kids over when I started passing out the silly bandz I had brought from the USA, and periodically making brownies and peanut butter cookies.
My host family has taken me in like one of their own. I do some chores around the house to help out, like emptying the dishwasher, setting the table, vacuuming and closing the shutters every night. And they take me everywhere with them too! We have gone to the movies, the Fair here in Pau, Christmas Tree shopping, over to Grandma's house for dinner, and I went to this really cool spa place with my host sister, and church every Sunday :) And I get to practice my French with them every evening, and enjoy delicious French cuisine for dinner each night :)
In the last couple weeks things have gotten even better, and they are really like my family now. It is kinda sad that just as my French is getting good enough to communicate, and just as I'm really starting to fit in, I will be leaving. But I know that my study abroad experience would have been so different if this family had not taken me in. I am so blessed to have people that would be willing to take in a stranger, and care for her like one of their own children.
So, I will enjoy my last two weeks here with my family, because even though they aren't related to me, they are definitely part of my family now. I really hope that one day they can all come visit me in the America, then I will be the one who can tease them about not knowing how to speak English ;) (evil laugh)
I live with a host family, very close to the University where I go to school. I have a host mom and a host dad, as well as two host brothers ages 15 and 19 and a host cat. I also have a host sister and host brother-in-law, but they don't live with us, and I currently live in my host sister's old bedroom. And I also have a host grandma, who is sweet as sugar and tells me my accent is cute, while everybody else just makes fun of it (in a loving way.)
At first, I was really nervous about the idea of living in somebody else's house, especially because I've never had brothers before. But my host family was very welcoming and I was pretty comfortable. At first it was very hard, because I barely understood anything at all, and it is difficult to make relationships with people when you don't speak the same language. I was living with them, but for awhile we were all strangers to each other, except for the cat, she has always loved me, despite my lack of French skills.
Slowly but surely, my French started getting better, and as we could communicate more, things got better :) I bonded with the brothers by swapping youtube videos (you don't have to talk so much when you are showing people videos online.) My host mom was always the easiest to get along with, because she was an exchange student when she was 18, so she understands exactly what it is like. And my host dad...he is a character...always making fun of me, but when I finally got up the nerve (and learned enough French) that I could joke back, dinner time became very very amusing. Finally, I won all the kids over when I started passing out the silly bandz I had brought from the USA, and periodically making brownies and peanut butter cookies.
My host family has taken me in like one of their own. I do some chores around the house to help out, like emptying the dishwasher, setting the table, vacuuming and closing the shutters every night. And they take me everywhere with them too! We have gone to the movies, the Fair here in Pau, Christmas Tree shopping, over to Grandma's house for dinner, and I went to this really cool spa place with my host sister, and church every Sunday :) And I get to practice my French with them every evening, and enjoy delicious French cuisine for dinner each night :)
In the last couple weeks things have gotten even better, and they are really like my family now. It is kinda sad that just as my French is getting good enough to communicate, and just as I'm really starting to fit in, I will be leaving. But I know that my study abroad experience would have been so different if this family had not taken me in. I am so blessed to have people that would be willing to take in a stranger, and care for her like one of their own children.
So, I will enjoy my last two weeks here with my family, because even though they aren't related to me, they are definitely part of my family now. I really hope that one day they can all come visit me in the America, then I will be the one who can tease them about not knowing how to speak English ;) (evil laugh)
Monday, November 22, 2010
The Challenge Blog 21
So, in studying abroad I've learned a lot about the history of Christianity. Between the end of the Bible and the time when Christianity would reach America there are over 1000 years, a lot happened in those years, and a lot of it took place in Europe.
I visited a Church, built in the times of the Roman Empire, and it is still standing today! But there was something about this church that I found disturbing... The center of the church had this room, or area, that was stunningly decorated and beautiful, but the average person was not allowed to go inside. That area, the middle of the church, was reserved for the Bishop and other important people. That struck me as very very odd...there is no heiarchy in Christianity...when Jesus died, the veil that separated the Holy of Holies (the place where only the priests could go) was torn, meaning everybody had direct access to God. There should not be a place where only the ''really good'' Christians should be able to go.
But it isn't just that. Christianity has a rough history. There are the Crusades, but the Bible says to love our enemies, to love sinners, not kill them. There was a time in the history of the Church where priests were selling forgiveness??? Grace is free, always, otherwise it isn't grace. It says that so many times in the Bible. And then there were all those Catholic/Protestant wars...could people be any more stupid? Half the prisoners who died in the Tower of London were there because they believed in the ''true Christianity'' whether it was Catholicism or Protestantism. The Bible clearly says that we should not fight over little differences like that, for some people it is ok to eat unclean food, not for others, so love eachother, be understanding and try not to lead your Christian brothers and sisters into temptation.
But I've figured it out. I know why Christianity got so off track = illiteracy. The people couldn't read for themselves what the Bible said, they had to trust the religious leaders to tell them. It's like playing telephone for hundreds of years, the story is bound to change. If the people could have read God's Word for themselves, maybe they would have seen what was going on, maybe history would have been different.
So that brings us to today...when we are literate, educated, and probably each own a Bible, or two, or three, I think I have five or six actually.
But how much do we read them? We are so privelaged to be able to study God's Word for ourselves...we are so blessed...
So that is the challenge: Let's prevent history from repeating itself by knowing what we believe and why we believe it. Let's commit to read, whether it be everyday or every week. The horrors that the church has commit in Europe are unbelievable, and should never happen again, this is serious business, let's get serious about our faith!
I visited a Church, built in the times of the Roman Empire, and it is still standing today! But there was something about this church that I found disturbing... The center of the church had this room, or area, that was stunningly decorated and beautiful, but the average person was not allowed to go inside. That area, the middle of the church, was reserved for the Bishop and other important people. That struck me as very very odd...there is no heiarchy in Christianity...when Jesus died, the veil that separated the Holy of Holies (the place where only the priests could go) was torn, meaning everybody had direct access to God. There should not be a place where only the ''really good'' Christians should be able to go.
But it isn't just that. Christianity has a rough history. There are the Crusades, but the Bible says to love our enemies, to love sinners, not kill them. There was a time in the history of the Church where priests were selling forgiveness??? Grace is free, always, otherwise it isn't grace. It says that so many times in the Bible. And then there were all those Catholic/Protestant wars...could people be any more stupid? Half the prisoners who died in the Tower of London were there because they believed in the ''true Christianity'' whether it was Catholicism or Protestantism. The Bible clearly says that we should not fight over little differences like that, for some people it is ok to eat unclean food, not for others, so love eachother, be understanding and try not to lead your Christian brothers and sisters into temptation.
But I've figured it out. I know why Christianity got so off track = illiteracy. The people couldn't read for themselves what the Bible said, they had to trust the religious leaders to tell them. It's like playing telephone for hundreds of years, the story is bound to change. If the people could have read God's Word for themselves, maybe they would have seen what was going on, maybe history would have been different.
So that brings us to today...when we are literate, educated, and probably each own a Bible, or two, or three, I think I have five or six actually.
But how much do we read them? We are so privelaged to be able to study God's Word for ourselves...we are so blessed...
So that is the challenge: Let's prevent history from repeating itself by knowing what we believe and why we believe it. Let's commit to read, whether it be everyday or every week. The horrors that the church has commit in Europe are unbelievable, and should never happen again, this is serious business, let's get serious about our faith!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
I Just Had To Smile :) Blog 20
France and America are not the same, haha. I mean, I've known that for a long time but when you live somewhere for long enough everything starts to feel normal, then all the sudden something weird happens and you remember that you are living in FRANCE!
So today I went to church and was so excited because I understood the WHOLE sermon, yay! Then afterwards, the pastor ended by saying "bonne aperitif" which is like saying "enjoy your appetizers..." Which confused me a little bit, but as always, I just went with it. The aperitif in France comes before meals and is usually finger food and a drink...so when people started walking around with trays of finger foods and drinks I understood. The church was having a little bit of fellowship time, and taking the first course of the traditional French meal, then everyone could go home and eat lunch. So I grabbed a plastic cup of white grape juice and an egg and ham finger sandwich. But as I took a sip, I quickly realized it wasn't white grape juice, lol!
And there we have it. Someone had handed me a glass of alcohol, in CHURCH! Haha, at first I was shocked, then I decided it was extremely amusing. My church back home doesn't even serve wine for communion, and the thought of handing out wine or champagne or whatever it was, in the church, just to drink, was just beyond my imagination! And that is how I know I'm living in Europe. Wow. Life is just different over here I guess. It's all how you view things I suppose.
So then we all returned home, and I looked in the kitchen and there was a pumpkin pie! And a huge thing of corn, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and a big cooked bird (a chicken, there aren't turkeys in France til christmas time.) The sights and smells were extremely familiar, and it felt a lot like, THANKSGIVING! Yeah, my awesome host mom had made thanksgiving dinner for me :) I feel so special :) So we ate, and I prayed for the meal, and I was in the process of thanking God life, family, food, and for protecting the early colonists and such, and blessing America, and I realized I should probably pray for France too haha. So I added a blessing for the Europeans :) I shared with my host family a lot of my traditions for Thanksgiving and over all, it was a GREAT meal :) A nice mix of French (we started with pate) and American culture :)
So I grinned a lot today, just thought I'd share it all with you :)
So today I went to church and was so excited because I understood the WHOLE sermon, yay! Then afterwards, the pastor ended by saying "bonne aperitif" which is like saying "enjoy your appetizers..." Which confused me a little bit, but as always, I just went with it. The aperitif in France comes before meals and is usually finger food and a drink...so when people started walking around with trays of finger foods and drinks I understood. The church was having a little bit of fellowship time, and taking the first course of the traditional French meal, then everyone could go home and eat lunch. So I grabbed a plastic cup of white grape juice and an egg and ham finger sandwich. But as I took a sip, I quickly realized it wasn't white grape juice, lol!
And there we have it. Someone had handed me a glass of alcohol, in CHURCH! Haha, at first I was shocked, then I decided it was extremely amusing. My church back home doesn't even serve wine for communion, and the thought of handing out wine or champagne or whatever it was, in the church, just to drink, was just beyond my imagination! And that is how I know I'm living in Europe. Wow. Life is just different over here I guess. It's all how you view things I suppose.
So then we all returned home, and I looked in the kitchen and there was a pumpkin pie! And a huge thing of corn, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and a big cooked bird (a chicken, there aren't turkeys in France til christmas time.) The sights and smells were extremely familiar, and it felt a lot like, THANKSGIVING! Yeah, my awesome host mom had made thanksgiving dinner for me :) I feel so special :) So we ate, and I prayed for the meal, and I was in the process of thanking God life, family, food, and for protecting the early colonists and such, and blessing America, and I realized I should probably pray for France too haha. So I added a blessing for the Europeans :) I shared with my host family a lot of my traditions for Thanksgiving and over all, it was a GREAT meal :) A nice mix of French (we started with pate) and American culture :)
So I grinned a lot today, just thought I'd share it all with you :)
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Lost, unLucky, but still Lovely, London Part III (Normandy). Blog 19
We had one day left, and had the brilliant idea to visit the Beaches of Normandy on our way back to Pau. We took a bus to the harbor, spent every last pound we had on a taxi (that we didn't know we needed) to get to the ferry (because the harbor is like 5 miles long.) We slept on the ferry, as it floated across the English Channel for 9 hours, it was a rough night, but we managed.
Sunday morning, we got off the ferry and took a shuttle to the train station, where I attempted to find a bus to Omaha Beach. Which we then discovered was almost 3 hours away. Wow. So, we took the next train and we were there by 2 o clock (which wasn't exactly how we had planned to spend our day.) Then we found out that the buses don't run Sunday, so we payed an outrageous fee to take a taxi to the site.
However, once we arrived (and left our suitcases behind the front desk) we had a profound couple of hours. We were visiting an American commemoration museum, paid our respects at the American Cemetery and walked along the beaches that our soldiers once fought to take, to regain France from Hitler. It was powerful, really hard to take in. The memorial was so beautiful, it was hard to picture such tragedy in the same place. But I am so proud of our Armed Forces, for not only defending freedom in America, but all over the globe.
We were quickly zapped our of our reflective state when we discovered the museum closed at 5 and it was 5 and we were on the beach, a 20 minute walk from the museum, and our suitcases were inside. I called the museum and they said that everyone leaves at 5 there was nothing they could do, but they would inform the security guards. That was a moment of panic, sheer panic. Everything we had was in those bags, our train tickets, our clothes, everything. We ran back. We abandoned the path and cut our own way through the uphill undergrowth, getting very muddy along the way. I felt sick at the top from the pace we had been travelling but we got there in under 10 minutes. The museum was already closed, but we knocked on the glass and got the attention of the security guards, who were very kind and gave us back our bags.
And after this, we slept the whole night on the train, arriving at 6:14am and going to class. No wonder I'm sick.
So what have I learned from all this?
1) London is kinda hard to navigate, it's easy to get lost
2) Visiting a "region" like Normandy is SO different from visiting a big city like London or Rome
3) We could have been better prepared for parts of this trip
4) I'm still young, there are a lot of times that I really don't know what on earth I'm doing, I can admit that
5) I am not the person I was when I came here
Standing out on the street, with my suitcase and nowhere to sleep was a weird feeling. But it wasn't a panicked feeling. There was no adrenaline rush, there were no tears. I wasn't breathing heavily and my mind wasn't racing. I was calm, and tired. I understood that we were in a rough situation, but worse things could have happened. We weren't in danger, just out of our comfort zone. Lindsey felt the same way, somehow, we weren't anxious. It's not like we sat around and accepted our fate, we DID something about it, but it was almost if we finally understood (after 19 years of life) that worrying will not change anything.
I've always known that God is in control of my life, and my future. I trust Him, but I have always had a problem with worrying. I prayed that God would use this trip to force me out of my bubble, and lean on Him completely. This entire experience I have been edging towards that, slowly handing my burdens and problems over to Jesus, surrendering. It may be a constant struggle for me, in my life, but I now know what it is like to be in a situation and have no control, but to not be afraid. If I could live my life like that, always, that would be awesome.
Sunday morning, we got off the ferry and took a shuttle to the train station, where I attempted to find a bus to Omaha Beach. Which we then discovered was almost 3 hours away. Wow. So, we took the next train and we were there by 2 o clock (which wasn't exactly how we had planned to spend our day.) Then we found out that the buses don't run Sunday, so we payed an outrageous fee to take a taxi to the site.
However, once we arrived (and left our suitcases behind the front desk) we had a profound couple of hours. We were visiting an American commemoration museum, paid our respects at the American Cemetery and walked along the beaches that our soldiers once fought to take, to regain France from Hitler. It was powerful, really hard to take in. The memorial was so beautiful, it was hard to picture such tragedy in the same place. But I am so proud of our Armed Forces, for not only defending freedom in America, but all over the globe.
We were quickly zapped our of our reflective state when we discovered the museum closed at 5 and it was 5 and we were on the beach, a 20 minute walk from the museum, and our suitcases were inside. I called the museum and they said that everyone leaves at 5 there was nothing they could do, but they would inform the security guards. That was a moment of panic, sheer panic. Everything we had was in those bags, our train tickets, our clothes, everything. We ran back. We abandoned the path and cut our own way through the uphill undergrowth, getting very muddy along the way. I felt sick at the top from the pace we had been travelling but we got there in under 10 minutes. The museum was already closed, but we knocked on the glass and got the attention of the security guards, who were very kind and gave us back our bags.
And after this, we slept the whole night on the train, arriving at 6:14am and going to class. No wonder I'm sick.
So what have I learned from all this?
1) London is kinda hard to navigate, it's easy to get lost
2) Visiting a "region" like Normandy is SO different from visiting a big city like London or Rome
3) We could have been better prepared for parts of this trip
4) I'm still young, there are a lot of times that I really don't know what on earth I'm doing, I can admit that
5) I am not the person I was when I came here
Standing out on the street, with my suitcase and nowhere to sleep was a weird feeling. But it wasn't a panicked feeling. There was no adrenaline rush, there were no tears. I wasn't breathing heavily and my mind wasn't racing. I was calm, and tired. I understood that we were in a rough situation, but worse things could have happened. We weren't in danger, just out of our comfort zone. Lindsey felt the same way, somehow, we weren't anxious. It's not like we sat around and accepted our fate, we DID something about it, but it was almost if we finally understood (after 19 years of life) that worrying will not change anything.
I've always known that God is in control of my life, and my future. I trust Him, but I have always had a problem with worrying. I prayed that God would use this trip to force me out of my bubble, and lean on Him completely. This entire experience I have been edging towards that, slowly handing my burdens and problems over to Jesus, surrendering. It may be a constant struggle for me, in my life, but I now know what it is like to be in a situation and have no control, but to not be afraid. If I could live my life like that, always, that would be awesome.
Lost, unLucky, but still Lovely, London Part II. Blog 18
We got back to our hostel to find another person sleeping in Lindsey's bed. The three of us went downstairs to the pub (because all London hostels are over top of pubs) to clear things up with the concierge/bar tender. There was a booking problem. Part our fault, part his fault, and he called the manager.
That is how we found ourselves at midnight, standing on the street (well, sidewalk actually) in London, with our bags, nowhere to sleep, because there was no place for us in the inn.
The hostel owner had pointed us in the direction of another hostel, and we started walking. We arrived and asked if they had any open beds. The owner looked at a list and frowned, "We do, but it's not the best situation" He proceeded to explain that there were 2 free beds, in a room with 7 guys. So in a matter of 30 minutes we had gone from being Mary and Joseph to Snow White...considering living with 7 men, because we had nowhere else to go. We were going to do it. It was 12:30 and we were exhausted from a LONG day of touring. But just as we were about to agree something changed, and all the sudden there was no room for us at this hostel either. Thankfully, this hostel owner was much nicer than the last, and he called another hostel for us. And within the next half an hour we were riding one of the famous London Double Decker Buses to a hostel ironically called "Surprise." Yep. But at least we had somewhere to spend the night, and by 1:30 we were checked in and in bed.
The next day we toured the Tower of London, with is really cool. A castle, a prison, the home of the biggest diamond in the world and a few ravens, it was truly amazing. We walked back across London Bridge, which thankfully didn't fall down...and we toured Shakespeare's Globe Theater, which was indescribably awesome. Thank you to all my English teachers for helping me learn to love Shakespeare. And then we checked out the Andy Warhol exhibit at a nearby art museum, thank you to my elementary art teacher for telling me who Andy Warhol is :) And that finished our time in London...
But ah, the troubles were not over yet....
That is how we found ourselves at midnight, standing on the street (well, sidewalk actually) in London, with our bags, nowhere to sleep, because there was no place for us in the inn.
The hostel owner had pointed us in the direction of another hostel, and we started walking. We arrived and asked if they had any open beds. The owner looked at a list and frowned, "We do, but it's not the best situation" He proceeded to explain that there were 2 free beds, in a room with 7 guys. So in a matter of 30 minutes we had gone from being Mary and Joseph to Snow White...considering living with 7 men, because we had nowhere else to go. We were going to do it. It was 12:30 and we were exhausted from a LONG day of touring. But just as we were about to agree something changed, and all the sudden there was no room for us at this hostel either. Thankfully, this hostel owner was much nicer than the last, and he called another hostel for us. And within the next half an hour we were riding one of the famous London Double Decker Buses to a hostel ironically called "Surprise." Yep. But at least we had somewhere to spend the night, and by 1:30 we were checked in and in bed.
The next day we toured the Tower of London, with is really cool. A castle, a prison, the home of the biggest diamond in the world and a few ravens, it was truly amazing. We walked back across London Bridge, which thankfully didn't fall down...and we toured Shakespeare's Globe Theater, which was indescribably awesome. Thank you to all my English teachers for helping me learn to love Shakespeare. And then we checked out the Andy Warhol exhibit at a nearby art museum, thank you to my elementary art teacher for telling me who Andy Warhol is :) And that finished our time in London...
But ah, the troubles were not over yet....
Lost, unLucky, but still Lovely, London. Blog 17
It's been a week since I was in London, and I think I'm finally ready to write about it. Just kidding, it wasn't awful, Lindsey and I had a wonderful time, there were just a few bumps along the way. And I'm still getting over the cold that I seemed to have gotten as a punishment for all the school I skipped.
Lindsey and I arrived in London in the late afternoon on Thursday, November 11th, Armistice Day. Our last trip together had been in Rome, which was a total success, and we were anticipating a similar experience. As we got off the bus, to begin the search for our hostel, it was already dark, even though it was only 4:30! We then realized that daylight savings time would really rob us of several valuable touring hours.
Anyways, we found our hostel, and hit the streets! London was decked out for Christmas and SO beautiful with all the lights. We walked through the shopping district and through Piccadilly Circus (the Times Square of London) on our way to find the World Premier of HP 7! We got a little turned around because we obviously don't know how to read a map, so we finally asked for directions. A Londoner pointed us up the street we had just come from...ok...so we walked down that street and asked another person, who preceded to point us in the direction where we had been...Another person pointed us back the opposite way. At this point, we thought we would never get there, but FINALLY we got directions from someone who actually knew what they were talking about. As we walked we began to hear a sound that can only come from fans who have been waiting a decade for a very special film...it was loud and it was packed! We couldn't actually see any of the stars, but we listened to the interviews through the speakers and watched the actors and actresses enter on the red carpet on a giant screen. It was pretty sweet, it was just a bummer we couldn't actually see the movie :( After that we decided to complete our movie night with a visit to King's Cross, which actually isn't nearly as cool as it looks in the movie. But we took our pictures at Platform 9 3/4 and I ate a Pasty for the first time in my life, and it was delicious.
Day 2, sight seeing! We headed up to the London Eye, the biggest Ferris Wheel in the world! It didn't open until 10 though, we had 1 hour to spare...so we decided to walk over to the Covent Gardens, which didn't look far on the map. We never actually found them, we looked all over the place, I'm convinced that there aren't actually any gardens there, they are fake, it is all a ruse. So, after spinning around the London Eye we jumped into a free tour group led by a man who intends to become the next King of England! He says he is going to marry Princess Beatrice, who is 4th in line for the throne...It was really a wonderful tour and we learned all about the way London, and England too, works, with its history, and its monarchy, and its part in Europe. Afterwards I had a traditional English lunch/dinner of sausages and potatoes in a bread dish, SO GOOD, and perfect for filling up your stomach and keeping you warm outside in the cold London winter.
We ran over to the British Museum, but didn't walk around for long. I know it is awful, but I've seen so many museums...you can really only see so many statues of naked greek men before they all start to look the same. So we left and stopped at starbucks (I know, so American, but it's been months and I had a serious craving) and then we were almost late (because every time we tried to go anywhere we got lost) to see THE LION KING on London Broadway! It was pure art, that is the only way to describe it. They flawlessly weave traditional african culture into a moving story line, with old songs and new songs. The costumes aren't realistic, but they are so beautiful and they fit the story wonderfully. The sets were magnificent and I loved the show.
After that fantastic show, that's when it all went downhill.
Lindsey and I arrived in London in the late afternoon on Thursday, November 11th, Armistice Day. Our last trip together had been in Rome, which was a total success, and we were anticipating a similar experience. As we got off the bus, to begin the search for our hostel, it was already dark, even though it was only 4:30! We then realized that daylight savings time would really rob us of several valuable touring hours.
Anyways, we found our hostel, and hit the streets! London was decked out for Christmas and SO beautiful with all the lights. We walked through the shopping district and through Piccadilly Circus (the Times Square of London) on our way to find the World Premier of HP 7! We got a little turned around because we obviously don't know how to read a map, so we finally asked for directions. A Londoner pointed us up the street we had just come from...ok...so we walked down that street and asked another person, who preceded to point us in the direction where we had been...Another person pointed us back the opposite way. At this point, we thought we would never get there, but FINALLY we got directions from someone who actually knew what they were talking about. As we walked we began to hear a sound that can only come from fans who have been waiting a decade for a very special film...it was loud and it was packed! We couldn't actually see any of the stars, but we listened to the interviews through the speakers and watched the actors and actresses enter on the red carpet on a giant screen. It was pretty sweet, it was just a bummer we couldn't actually see the movie :( After that we decided to complete our movie night with a visit to King's Cross, which actually isn't nearly as cool as it looks in the movie. But we took our pictures at Platform 9 3/4 and I ate a Pasty for the first time in my life, and it was delicious.
Day 2, sight seeing! We headed up to the London Eye, the biggest Ferris Wheel in the world! It didn't open until 10 though, we had 1 hour to spare...so we decided to walk over to the Covent Gardens, which didn't look far on the map. We never actually found them, we looked all over the place, I'm convinced that there aren't actually any gardens there, they are fake, it is all a ruse. So, after spinning around the London Eye we jumped into a free tour group led by a man who intends to become the next King of England! He says he is going to marry Princess Beatrice, who is 4th in line for the throne...It was really a wonderful tour and we learned all about the way London, and England too, works, with its history, and its monarchy, and its part in Europe. Afterwards I had a traditional English lunch/dinner of sausages and potatoes in a bread dish, SO GOOD, and perfect for filling up your stomach and keeping you warm outside in the cold London winter.
We ran over to the British Museum, but didn't walk around for long. I know it is awful, but I've seen so many museums...you can really only see so many statues of naked greek men before they all start to look the same. So we left and stopped at starbucks (I know, so American, but it's been months and I had a serious craving) and then we were almost late (because every time we tried to go anywhere we got lost) to see THE LION KING on London Broadway! It was pure art, that is the only way to describe it. They flawlessly weave traditional african culture into a moving story line, with old songs and new songs. The costumes aren't realistic, but they are so beautiful and they fit the story wonderfully. The sets were magnificent and I loved the show.
After that fantastic show, that's when it all went downhill.
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