All Good Things Must Come to an End.

Today is the day that we head back to where we hang our hats.  This trip has been life changing for me; it has only fueled my desire to travel to see the culture and history of the world.  The fashion world of London has also been quite inspirational as well; I feel so reenergized with life and love for passion of the arts! I have concluded that if ever I get to where I want in life London will be my hideaway to find inspirations, it really is a brilliant place!

xoxo b

Thanks for watching our trip unfold; even if it was a little late!  We will always have this as a peak into the adventures we experienced in lovely London!

xoxo a & b

Day 7-Last Day

Let there be rain! I was actually glad to have experienced a “typical” London day with cloudy skies and light rain! Just one of those experience kind of things! Though I do not think my lovely friend Allie felt that way.  Today we went to Taute Modern a large and in charge museum! Modern Art will never cease to amaze me, wither that be because it is truly artistic or sadly the complete opposite, either way it was very neat, and the perfect thing to do on a rainy day!  We also went in the entry way of Saint Paul’s Cathedral! It was magnificent, we learned that when there were bombings during the war everything around the church was literally flattened yet the church itself was still standing tall and strong, what symbolism?! *Note to anyone that admires churches; make sure you are in London for two Sundays because the churches allow you into services for free, including Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul’s Cathedral!  After coming home and Pac-Mancing it up (pack, nap, dance all in one word =]) We got everything all ready to head out in the morning, took a well earned nap and then went out to find a dance club, and let me tell you did we ever have to FIND one! It took us, I think, five tries to find something worth going to, but boy was it worth it! What a blast, a fantastic end to a fantastic trip!!!

xoxo b

Day 6-The Tower of London!

This was the one thing that I was super excited about for this trip! Mostly because of the Towers involvement with Elizabeth I and how she walked in there practically condemned and walked out one of the greatest Queens of England!! The time she was Queen has often been referred to as the Golden Age! That is how great a Queen she was!  So in the tower we hit the tail end of a tour which was being lead by a wonderful comedian, he made some of the most offensive jokes, in good humor of course, just a very amusing guy! We both learned a great deal from that little tour! After that we went to see the Crown Jewels!!! Brilliant, absolutely stunning!!! The history of the jewels alone is spectacular let alone seeing the massive jewels themselves?! What a treat!  There were other little areas we could explore including an exhibit about the two young Princes that vanished in the night years and years ago, rumor has it that they were murdered so that their uncle could become King instead of the eldest brother…their bodies were found buried later but it is still a mystery as to who actually murdered them, this may become the topic for my next research paper for my English class!! We also saw Tower Bridge, and the nursery rhymes London Bridge which was less than epic! Who knew it was just a normal little bridge? While literally less than five miles from it was this gorgeous Tower Bridge that has been there for ages! Interesting.  Than we finally went out dancing!!! It was fantastic!!!  I <3 London!!! 

xoxo b

Day 5-Paris!

PARIS, that is about all I have to say! Just kidding! I have loads to say about our Paris adventure, so let’s set the stage.  After a sleep filled previous day, therefore no sleep after last night’s Les Mis, and a schedule starting at 3:30 am one could easily assume we were headed for disaster.  No way we say! We did not miss a beat after the previous days…miss steps.  We got on all the right buses (first time riding the bus in London) to get to the train station, we got on our train with minutes to spare, then it was time for some well earned shut eye, 2 hrs and 45 mins worth to be exact. PARIS! We meet at last! The architecture alone is worth a trip; the Eiffel Tower was such a sight to see! Words cannot describe how breath taking everything in Paris was! After we got off the train we started on our way to that iconic monument when our stomachs gave us a lovely wake-up call, as well as our bladders! So it was definitely time to find a café, which we did with no problem! The wonderful waiter gave us passes to the bathroom without knowing that we intended to stay and eat, so kind! We got some coffee and hot cocoa and a great window seat, though we had intended on eating, nobody ever brought us a menu sooo that went out the window.  After hitting the road yet again for that icon in the sky we decided to get a cab and save our poor feet.  There she was more intricate then I could have possibly thought; beautiful! Then it was time for a little shopping and some real lunch time breakfast! We found a quaint little shop where we got some authentic crepes, that were ironically not as good as the ones we had in London, after which it was time to find a bus tour! Which we found along with an amusing gentleman that was hitting on me the entire time we chatted with him about the details of the tour, we were short on Euros at that point but the nice gentlemen allowed us to pay in Pounds then giving us back a ten in Euros for change when it should have only been two! How nice, and yet still slightly creepy! After the tour we headed back to the train station thanks to another taxi and got ourselves each a drink for the ride back, then it was through customs and we were on our way back to lovely and loving London.  Which I will end this entry with by saying I do indeed love London better! Especially those musicals!! Spectacular!!

xoxo b

Day 4-Shopping...kinda & Les Mis!

Today started out a bit rough, well rested!! But rough! We had an alarm set for 9:00 am and 9:30 am but alas the second one did not go off so of course we slept until about one in the afternoon!!! AH! This was the single day we had planned out almost hour by hour to get blogs posted, certain vintage stores visited, and back in time for Les Miserables! Alas we failed, BUT this is just how the day started off it ended quite splendidly!  After getting ready lickity-split we headed off to the internet café, we chose to leave my laptop at the house with the blogs and pictures on my extra sim card, we planned on loading those and locating key vintage shops.  ROAD BLOCK!!! They did not have a spot for sim cards, sooo it was off to vintage shop hunt! We were able to go to only one shop due to time constraints so we chose Radio Head, it was described to have 1920’s-1980’s clothing and accessories, and you know just our luck…HE DID!!! The shop owner Leroy had spectacular clothes! We each found things we are quite excited about to say the least! So after Radio Head we ran by T.K Maxx (aka T.J. Maxx) just to check it out and maybe find some swell articles of clothing as London Attire to bring back to the states, but we did not find anything spectacular enough for wither of our tastes.  Then it was off to Les Miserables; “spectacular, brilliant, what a musical!” That is my official newspaper review! The love stories within are heart renching and quite thought provoking! It was more then I could have imagined it would be, now I know why it has been running for twenty-five years straight!

xoxo b

Day 3-Westminster Abbey & Wicked!

a: So tired today! Ah! Very hard to wake up but then I thought- hey I’m in London, what am I doing in bed! The sun was shining ! we got up and rode the tube to Westminster abbey ! we saw big ben and Buckingham palace and parliament building and some other big buildings and some other really big buildings and went to the national gallery! It was soooooooooooo big, full of art! Some scarey art they had! I don’t like those paintings of naked babies :P no thanks! But there were some other really cool ones .. what I really want to know is how they made some of those paintings so darn big ! some of ‘em were huuuuuuge!!!!!! I don’t understand! Amazing! Outside this building were people with a bi!g poster for people to write messages to the people in japan! Brit and I sent some love from the u.s.of.a ! then we went back to the house to change and get ready to see WICKED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the musical! Ah it was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Really really liked it! Those who haven;’t seen it- must! I can’t wai to see les mis tomorrow! Today was a good day, lots of walking and site seeing! It really wears you out! Oh and there were tons of people in westmister today – we think the queen might have been coming! Not sure though. I can’t believe they have a queen. A real queen! One day… I’m going to be a queen ;)

xoxo a

b: Soooo tired this morning! Getting out of bed today was awful, it wasn’t until I was actually out of my bed and getting ready that I realized I could have easily slept the day away in LONDON!!! Who does that?! Today was filled with tons of sightseeing of brilliantly crafted buildings! It was spectacular!!! The Museum was really neat we saw lots of older art from around the world as well as some neat modern art!   So basically Allie summed the day up quite splendidly it is now movie and bed time!!!

xoxo b

Day 2-Windsor Castle

a: so remember in those fairy tales our parents (or Walt Disney) used to read us when we were young with the big castles and kings and queens etc etc? well today- I saw a REAL CASTLE in which lives a REAL QUEEN !!!!!!!!!!!!!! how crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Insane really, because this castle wasn’t even just a castle- it was a whole fortress! With a moat and walls and beautiful beautiful big  buildings- huge ! wow. Today we went to Windsor Castle, the longest and oldest inhabited castle in the world! Not in fairy tales! The pictures don’t do it justice, and we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside-which was truly gorgeous. Gold everywhere! Gold everything! Huge paintings and rooms just full of paintings and everyroom was a painting itself! I really don’t kknow how people built this stuff! I don’t know how it’s humanly possible! Kinda like those pyramids…. Anyways, we went on a very very long audio tour through the billions of rooms in just part of the castle, then walked around Windsor (city) a bit.

b: So Windsor Castle was spectacular! It was even more grand then I could ever imagine! The fairy tales certainly don’t do it justice even those mental pictures don’t seem real! Especially the real life painting of Miss Elizabeth I when she was thirteen, I have a light…well…large obsession with The Tudor Family but most particularly Elizabeth the first who I could go on about for ageeees!!! She truly is my hero!!

a: Then we met up with the sister of the man whose house we’re staying in. she was soooooooo nice and cool! And had a sweet accent! We got icecream =) mmmmmmm I love icecream.  Okay so then we walked more saw the beautiful guest entrance to the castle … wowowoow… then had to take the long train ride back home. Apparently there was a big rugby game today in one of the towns that the train stops through… so on our way back when we got to that stop a TON of people got on the train… a ton of drunk people! And a drunk Scottish man in a kilt who  I’m pretty sure wasn’t wearing anything under that judging by the look on the girl’s face who was standing next to him and turned around and covered her eyes! I believe she said something along the lines of “did you get an eye-full too?!” but it was more English and in a thick accent! But anyways this big group of drunk guys were singing/yelling tons of songs- including queen’s bohemian rhapsody ! it was toooooo funny! Our free entertainment for the evening ! hehe!

b: Oh my goodness! Drunkin Scottsman, poor girl sitting across from him! The guy he fancied talking to had a huge gash on his forehead to drunk to understand looked like he had had a hell of a night.   Though the Londoners were the ones singing all the radical songs we found out later that the Scottish were who won the rugby game! But overall today was ahmazing! It just feels so unreal!! 

Day 1-Exploring/Greenwich

a: SLEPT – this house is – well not really a house as I know it. We are staying in a real londoner’s home! Which means – a three story, kinda-sorta-what-I’d-call-an-apartment-but-not-really-an-apartment, old, brick building conjoined in a long line of basically exactly the same houses. This is how almost all the houses look! It’s very interesting!

b: Oh how wonderful sleeping was! Sadly though we slept when we should not have, bad idea I really hope this doesn’t come back to haunt us! This house is pretty great; though it is built totally vertical with super steep stairs it’s pretty nice! So wonderful of the people to let us use it!!! After getting some not supposed to sleep we were awoken to hit the road…literally, we hit the road and started walking in search of an entrance to the tube! We found one and then off we were to Greenwich. *this is where Elizabeth I spent a lot of her childhood after her mother’s death.  We also went the point of 0 longitude which is where the precisely start measuring East and West! And Allie is adorably quirky!

a:  hehehe! We walked and walked! Until we found the tube – the underground trains that connect London and make it possible for us to get anywhere and everywhere (within zone 3, 2, and1) and the trains are totally nineties! 1996 to be exact! Me and brit- as she loves to be called- took notice of this while standing on one of the trains as we headed back to Tooting Bec – pronounced like “totting.” It is interesting to listen to the people talk on the train! Ah the accents! Sooooo so soso cool! As we were walking around in Covent Garden looking for a place to eat dinner with my dad’s friend from work, we walked up to the doors of this restaurant – after following these signs that said “entrance this way à” – and we were greeting by an older woman who asked us if we were here for the wedding! Ha! Of course we were not. So we asked these two guys who were with the lady to recommend some other good places to eat. Im sorry did I say two guys? I mean two way-to-drunk-for-a-wedding-that-hasn’t-even-started guys! Couldn’t understand a word they were saying with those accents on top of slurslurslursing ! although I did catch the one guy talking about how texas is “bullocks!” following this he said “and by bullocks- I mean the best!” waving his hand high up in the air. Ha! This man also just quite intrigued by what was written on my dads sweatshirt and pointed at the words inquisitively. You might be able to guess what happened next – my dad looked down and the guy flipped up his finger to tap my dad’s nose – fake out! He got him good! Haha! Why this man did this I will never know, but he sure got a kick out of it and so did I!

            What to eat what to eat – we walked around for way too long, none of us able to make a decision of where to eat. Poor brit in her heels… yes high heels… trampling about all day! how great is she! The fierce explorer that she is! I love her! All the way up the steep hill to reach the exact point where we being to measure east and west longitudinal lines! How cool! We stood at exactly 0 degrees ! we were neither east nor west for a moment in our lives! Anyways – back to dinner – we decided on a restaurant who’s name I’m currently blanking on. with only a little trouble, we were able to enjoy quite a tasty meal! and by a little trouble- I mean my dad accidently insulting our waitress by asking if she was Romanian! Appearantly- she was from a small country right next to Romania – a country that Romania hates for whatever reason- so she said it’s a big insult to be called Romanian! she walked away and we never saw her again! Ha! Silly Romanian waitress lady! So I ate some wild boar! Mmmmm!

            Now it is time  for me to try to catch up on much needed sleep ! – although we are getting up in six hours or so to go to Windsor castle tomorrow! Yay for London!

xoxo b&a ;)

Airports Galore! Part 2

I don’t want to talk about the stupid lady at the airport.

Or how I went through security twice.

Because it’s a much less interesting story than it sounds – that is, if that sounds interesting to you.

Actually – all of yesterday/today (depending on what time zone you’re in) was wasted in airports and on airplanes and shuttles and in cars with the steering wheel on the opposite side. it was all filled with excitement despite the boredom and discomfort of sitting up straight for seven hours that made it impossible to sleep when all I wanted was to lay down and sleep on the floor after only getting three hours of sleep the night prior. But you know what I just remembered – I’m in London !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4229 miles away !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so none of what I’ve been talking about matters in the least because wowowoowwo I’m in London so I can’t really complain!! I mean I really can’t!

xoxo a

Airports Galore!

Though my flight did not leave fort wayne at the scheduled time of 7:01 I still managed to get to Atlanta by 10:52 with plenty of time to chill, do hw, aaand get this blog started!  I just talked to Allie not to long ago she was in the airport waiting on her flight to come see me! Then we shall be on the same flight to London with her dad!
Back tracking a bit on how all this came about I owe tons of thanks to some great people first of all Allie's dad rocks for letting me tag along, second Allie for inviting me and third my mom who in a quite wonderful adventure went to Detroit, Michigan with me last Friday (we got our road trip after all and my first trips to a Casino and an Ikea) to help me get my passport, shocking part of the day trip was getting to the place in Detroit and expecting DMV status customer service, or lack there of, and getting treated like just the opposite!  We got a nice kick out of the security guy; on the way in he listed for us what we could not bring in, he forgot to say camera so once I read the sign inside that said NO CAMERAS I had to run down to the truck and put mine away, on my way out he said I knew I would catch you for something and I said its only my camera no big deal, all in good humor.  Then Speedy confirmed my passport I walked out of there on cloud nine! I am going to LONDON! Then on our way out we pass the nice security officer, he tells me,"don't forget your camera!" So of course I did not forget my camera =] Here is my first photo for our trip to London...just got a text from Allie her plane is boarding and I will see her in about 2 hours! so EXCITED!! I hope London is ready for us =D
xoxo b

Intro!

A little background on miss Allie and I: We played softball together for three years on the beez team (shout out to you lovely ladies). We also went on a week long trip to Michigan with the wonderful class of ecology! As well as weekend adventures in Allie's current home town of IU! We are scheduled to meet up where I am blogging from now which is the E gate of the Atlanta Airport around 4:00 pm then we will officially be headed to the city of London at 5:40 pm.  We shall greet London for the first time at 8:15 am their time! Our plan is to update this lovely blog once a day, so sit back, relax, and hit refresh.  Soon you will be seeing the sights of London through eyes of two adventurous small town students!

xoxo b