Thinking of you, EN...

I've been trying not to write about anything other than London related news, but this necessitates commenting on. A woman in my law school class at home has had the worst "luck" since coming to law school: two brothers have passed (both at finals time), a fire decimated her parent's home, dealt with some pretty serious personal health issues, and now I just received word that her father passed away. This is all within the span of just over 2 years...less actually. And keep in mind she's trying to go to law school and raise her family at the same time. Please keep her, her son, husband, and everyone else affected by the terrible events that seem to relentlessly plague her family in your prayers. Thanks.

Sound of Music Pictures and Videos

I took some (probably illegal) pictures while I was in the Sound of Music Sing-a-Long on Friday. The pictures have been added to the "Popping in and Out of Chalk Drawings" Album. Links to the videos are below:

Sing along Video 1- We were told to make goat and sheep noises to make the 4 minutes of Alpine Scenery go faster. It was hilarious.

Sing along Video 2- It was a sing a long...so everyone sang along. Literally. I was pretty impressed at how well most everyone stayed on beat even though we couldn't hear the music because we were all singing so loudly. Go ahead...say it...I'm a nerd. :) (NOTE: I can't get the second one to upload. I'll try it again later, and then update the link if I'm successful.)

Sometimes the couch is just so nice

Don't have a whole lot to say: Saturday night's birthday party was fun. We ate Mexican food (yummy) and my cake turned out pretty good. Some people went out, but I wasn't feeling good, so I stayed in and "watched" the KU game on ESPN. ROCK CHALK! Sunday morning I definitely wasn't feeling good, so I pretty much stayed on the couch the whole day. I tried to get some school work done, but when it took me 20 minutes to read a paragraph and didn't understand what it said, I gave up and gave in to bad British TV.

As a result of Sunday, yesterday was a catch up day. Fortunately I was able to do so because I woke up feeling a ton better. I have a final paper coming due fairly soon, and since my next couple weekends are going to be busy, I needed to get started on that. This week is also going to be busy, so I needed to also get a bunch of my homework done so I can have fun with Rhonda when she comes. I also got to go running, and got the finishing touches for my Halloween costume. All in all, a productive, but relatively quiet Monday. Today will likely be the same because the next 5 will not. :)

And oh, in case you're wondering, Britain DOES have the an equivalent to daylight savings time. I don't quite remember what it is called, but we "fell back" last weekend. That means, for this weak, I'm only 5 hours ahead of you (central standard time). Crazy!

Ah! You're in a grave situation now, aren't you!?

I've been kind of absent this week, and for that I apologize. But, I do have some good stories and excuses as to why. The primary of those is that I had a final yesterday for the class I was in that spanned the first half of the semester. I spent a lot of time studying in the library this week which subsequently meant that there was nothing to write about. But, I had some fun the past couple days, so I do have info to fill in.

On Thursday night (yes, the night before my final where I should have been studying. It's okay....I know I passed the class, and I studied a LOT before that night. Anyway...) Andrew and I went on the "Jack the Ripper" walk around London. The walk took us to various spots significant to the famous serial killer and his 5 victims. We purposely went on Thursday because it was dark and misty, and being almost Halloween, we thought it would add to the ambiance of the whole thing. Despite my nerves about the walk, it really wasn't scary at all. It was really cool to see and hear about London-- how it was and how it has changed since then--but not too scary. In fact, I found myself being more of a legal nerd than anything else; there was a witness who found one of the victims lying on the ground with her garments over her upper torso. He, thinking she was passed out drunk, moved the garments back down to cover her lower torso. When our guide told us that, I thought "Oh no! You are ruining the crime scene! Stop!" (Insert ridiculous "you are a nerd" moan here.) They also talked about the autopsy's conducted on the victims and I thought, "hey! I know where that goes and what it looks like!" (For those of you who don't know, I got to witness an autopsy through my job this past summer.) All in all, the walk was good (not great), but definitely worth doing because it only costs £5 (one of the more economical attractions here in London.)

Last night, however, has probably been the most enjoyable night I've had in London. It is again evidence of my musical theater nerdy-ness, but I don't care, it was great. "Tell me what you did
already!" you say? Okay! Val and I went to a sing-a-long showing of the movie "The Sound of Music." (Yes, they showed the words to the songs on the screen, but no, there was no bouncing ball to keep you all together. Surprisingly enough, most of the time, we did okay staying with the soundtrack even though we couldn't hear it over our own voices.) Many places in the US do similar things for "Rocky Horror Picture Show"; people dress up and come to the show, singing all the songs and adding their own commentary to various parts. This is exactly what happened last night. I've never seen so many nuns in one place at one time, and I've been catholic my whole life! There were also people dressed like Maria, and Uncle Max, and one dressed like a goatherd.

Before the show started, a drag queen came out and got the audience excited (like we really needed to be jazzed up...). She also instructed us on different sounds to make throughout the show, and showed us how to use our little baggies of goodies. For example, the opening shots of the movie are all the Austrian countryside. Apparently 4 minutes to be exact. In order to make this time pass, we were all instructed to make goat, or sheep or cow noises. Then when we saw Maria, we were to start waving and say hello. And anytime the words 'The Hills are Alive!' were said throughout the show, we were to stand up and "illustrate" the hills becoming alive using our arms. We hissed every time the baroness came on screen, and barked every time Rolf came an (although I don't quite understand the catalyst behind that action.) We booed the nazi's and "awed" at the children. Included in the goody-bags were little cards with a "?" and a picture of Maria that we held up when we sang "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" We also had invitations to the Captain's ball, and (my favorite of everything we did), were party poppers that we were to use when the Captain and Maria finally kissed for the first time.

People added their own commentary, too. One woman would scream "SEVEN!?!" every time they discussed the number of children, and we all threw our snotty little comments in at appropriate places. (I think I got a laugh from the crowd when I told Maria not to be sad when finding out the Baroness and Captain were getting married b/c the Captain really loved her, and she would get him back!) My favorite audience "add-on" was the scene where the Von Trapp family is hiding in the abbey graveyard and the nazi's come looking for them with flashlights. You can certainly see the beams of 4 or 5 flashlights on screen, and 4 or 5 members of the audience popped up with their flashlights and shined them around the room just like the nazi's would have. And everyone but one went down at the same time the beams died to one on the screen. It was perfect. If anyone ever has the opportunity to do that, I 100% recommend it.

Tonight we're celebrating yet another birthday. This time, I got to bake the cake! (Yeah! My first time baking in London!) We're also having Mexican food. YUM YUM.

Having fun and taking finals

I'll update tomorrow...I promise.

They really do roast chestnuts over an open fire

So, it's October 24...you know what that means...HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! Well, kind of. But not really if you're in the UK. It's October 24 and CHRISTMAS (yes, my favoritest of holidays that comes every December 25) is already in full swing in London. Stores have had their holiday displays up for a couple of weeks, the government is putting Christmas decorations along the streets, street vendors are selling roasted chestnuts, and coffee shops are playing Christmas music. Even I, lover of all things Christmas, think this is a bit excessive.

Despite my skepticism about all this Christmas jazz, I'm very excited to expereince Christmas in a big city, and in London in particular. Our program coordinator sent the following statement about what's going to happen in London for Christmas:

Towards the end of November Christmas events begin. (Notice she says "events"...not decorations or music). There will be carol singing in Trafalgar Square under the Christmas tree, and numerous church carol services. Ice Rinks will open at Somerset House in the Strand and outside the Natural History Museum if you fancy a spin (skates can be hired). Also the capital’s largest ice rink is now being constructed in Hyde Park which will be part of a Winter Wonderland which will include cafes, bars, a toboggan slide, a carousel and helter-skelter and a Winter Wonderland Wheel which will carry people 200 ft above Hyde Park. There will also be a traditional German Christmas Market.

I'm soooo excited. Expect a lot of pictures. :D

Speaking of pictures, my pics from Leicester/ the Robin Hood festival have been posted...or you can just click here. There were lots of adorable kids there and subsequently I took a lot of pictures of the adorable children. Hopefully I'll get to play with them on photoshop sometime and really make them look how I want them to look. :)

On a completely different note, we have no hot water OR heat in my flat, and haven't had for about 5 days. Fortunately its not that cold...yet...but it's getting to the point where its necessary. I've been able to shower in the other flats in my building (they're other kids from my program), so that's not a huge problem...just a mild annoyance. Someone came to look at our heater yesterday and apparently there was a minor explosion. We've been assured that we should have space heaters and extra blankets by later tonight, but our landlord company isn't that reliable. So, when you're enjoying your nice warm heaters and sweaters and blankets at home, remember me shivering in London.

Last completely random thought....I was in the computer lab the other day printing something off and the girl next to me was writing a paper. Our school building is a building owned by Florida State and a bunch of American schools host their international programs here. I think we're the only grad school program which in itself creates a divide (and immediate distaste) between us and the undergrad students. Anyway, the paper this girl was supposed to be an 4-5 page analysis of one of five plays there were supposed to see by now....and THIS GIRL WAS USING SPARK NOTES TO WRITE HER PAPER! Keep in mind, we're in London, one of the theater capitals of the world. I know that at least 2 (and I suspect all) the plays are playing here right now. You may be thinking "Oh give her a break...plays are expensive." Um, no. That is not an excuse. I know she could have seen at least one of them for £5. The rest probably have cheap student tickets. Plus, you're in London. When you come here, you know things are going to be expensive. As you can tell, I think this is an absolute abomination and is completely unacceptable.

Okay, I'm done with my high horse. :) Cheerio!

A monk is a bald chap who works in a church

So, I'm now back in London for a while and trying to get back into the swing of things here. But before I do, I'll update on this weekend in Leicester. Kristen and I had a lot of fun. First, let me comment on how awesome she was and prepared for my visit: her roommate was headed to Scotland for the weekend, so she asked if I could 1) borrow her bus pass, 2) borrow her meal card, and 3) sleep in her bed. The answer to all these questions was "yes", so I (should have) left Leicester well rested and fed. But we did so much, and the food wasn't all that great, that the best work for the weekend in general was just fun.

Kristen joined the Ultimate Frisbee team at U. of Leicester and on Friday night, I got to participate in practice. It was a lot of fun. I had forgotten how fun team sports can be, and although I'm not head over heals about ultimate, it really was a great time. After practice the plan was to figure out what to do on Saturday. Lucky for us we stumbled upon the OFFICIAL Robin Hood Festival that was taking place in Nottingham this weekend. So, Saturday we made our way there. It was great...it reminded me a lot of the madrigal dinners we used to put on; everyone was in costume/ character. There were little kids running around dressed like Robin Hood, there were a variety of different artists/ guildsmen selling their items, and a lot of really cheesy shows that each had it's own spin on the tale of old Robin Hood. It was also a gorgeous (although slightly chilly)fall day, so it was a picture taking feast. The trees and colors are what I expect New England looks like in the fall (but since I haven't been there in the fall-- or ever really for that matter-- I don't know for sure). BUT, I haven't had a chance to upload my pictures yet, so while I can talk about the colors, I can't share them just yet.

England was in the finals of the Rugby World Cup Saturday night, so we spent the evening enjoying the festivities there. For those of you who haven't been to Europe or who aren't all that familiar with Rugby and how popular it is over here, think of the excitement of the Super Bowl and the Olympics combined and you have your Rugby World Cup Finals. The Brits didn't pull it off-- they lost by a fairly big margin to South Africa-- but it was a lot of fun. A lot of Europeans can't understand why we like football so much better than Rugby- they thing it moves too slow and that the padding is silly. Well, I think the padding = safety. As for the flow of the game, I actually thought the rugby game was fairly slow. Although they don't blow the whistle as much as we do in football, they set up plays over and over again in the middle without a whole lot of action in between. Also, we play EVERY minute (or close to every minute) on the clock while they let the clock run during all the penalties, etc. I think I also thought it a bit slow because there was such little scoring. I would think it fair to say that in most games, there is scoring, or at least the excitement and apprehension of scoring, at least once a quarter; in contrast, most of the rugby action took place in the middle of the field. Now, all of my comments are not meant to say that rugby isn't a fun game to watch-- it most certainly is. However, I think I'll stick to my pigskin. :) (Speaking of...ROCK CHALK..KU is 7-0, ranked 9 in the BCS and 12 in the AP polls!! Who knew!?)

Back to Leicester-- well, there really isn't a whole lot else to say. Sunday was pretty relaxed...we played cards, hung out, met some of her friends and walked around the AMAZING botanical garden that is in Kristen's backyard. That was yet another opportunity for a feast of picture taking, but my camera batteries died, so I only have Kristen's pictures. I got back to London last night around 9 after a bus ride that was vaguely reminiscent of the bus ride into Cork.

Now, like I said, it's back to work here in London. I have a final on Friday that ends one of my classes which has caused me to put in more work today than I have put in all semester (okay, not 100% true, but not that far off either.) I don't have any more travels planned (as of now) until Thanksgiving weekend, but there will certainly be adventures around London. I'll continue to write, so continue to check in. I already have some "discussion" topics in mind. :)

The window needed washing anyway!

So I suppose I should update before I head off for more adventures. France, more specifically Angers and Saumur, were lots of fun. First, Angers--Rhonda had class in the morning, so it allowed me some time do to some exploring myself. Really, I just wandered around the Angers Cheateau (castle) and had a lot of fun taking pictures (if you look at my France pictures link, you'll see there are multiple shots of pictures I took of myself trying to be artsy...sorry. :)). It was also nice to just spend some quite time with my thoughts...I don't get to do that a lot over here. Then we met up again to discover Angers. We went and saw a beautiful cathedral, enjoyed a pastry, sipped a cup of coffee, explored the little shops, and were enchanted by the town that is Angers. That evening we had dinner with Rhonda's host family. It wasn't quite as "French" as I thought it would be, but it was wonderful (and challenging) to have dinner with them. Because dinner didn't start until 8 p.m., and didn't end until about 9:30, by the time we were finished, it was time to go out! (yes, on a Monday night). We made our way to a Cuban Bar (remember we're in France) that served Tapas (typically Spanish food) and had pictures of Che (Argentinian) all over. I think the pub is going through an identity crisis. Fortunately that didn't affect the quality of the sangria we had.

The next day we hopped on the train to spend the day in Saumur, a smaller town about 1/2 an hour away from Angers. We pretty much repeated what we did in Angers the day before, with a few exceptions. We played in the leaves a little bit, and also took a tour of a wine cave. During the tour we got to learn a little bit about the wine making process, and see all that is done to go from grapes to you. A small wine tasting was included with our tour, and as a result we ended up buying a bottle of their specialty sparkling wine (funny side bar...we must have done a pretty good job of shaking up the bottle on the way home...when I tried to open it later, I nearly broke her host family's window b/c the cork shot off so fast. I also gave the walls a nice sparkling wine wash. Oops.) We found some delicious chocolate to go with our wine and spent the evening much like we would back in Kansas...watching a movie, drinking wine and eating chocolate. It was wonderful. (By the way, we watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I'd seen it before, but forgotten what an absolutely fantastic movie it is. You should watch it. Right now.)

My plane back to London flew out of Nantes. My friend Jenna (who goes to Wartburg, but I know more so from Ankeny) is studying abroad there, so I met up with her for lunch. Then I wandered around Nantes a little more, not realizing that it is apparently the 5th largest city in France. Who knew!?

I made it back safely to London at about 8:30 last night. Of course that was only after our plane circled the airport for about 15 minutes, nearly touched down and went right back up because another plane got in our way, circled the airport for 15 more minutes, and then waited on the plane for 20 minutes because there was no ground stuff to greet our plane and let us off. The flight cost me 16 euros, so I guess you get what you pay for. :)

Since it is still fall break, I decided to do a couple of things I've been waiting to do since getting here. (I have no good reason for waiting, just hadn't done them.) This included a long awaited trip to "Neal's Sandwich Shop" for a cranberry, bacon, and brie panini, and going to see the play "Shadowland,"-- the story of C.S. Lewis and how he came to know and marry his wife. The play was absolutely amazing, and lucky for you, apparently there is a movie version starring Anthony Hopkins. If you're looking for another good movie to rent, this one is also fantastic (and I think it won a couple of Oscars, so I'm not the only one with this opinion)...

Sorry if the details in here are sparse...I'm lacking motivation to write tonight, but know i needed to update. There is a new link to my France pictures on the side, and also here. The"highlights" version is to facebook where some of the pictures are captioned. The "full length" version includes all the ridiculous pictures I took of myself (mentioned above) and all my artsty stuff. You can choose...or choose both.

Tomorrow I'm off to see Kristen in Leicester for the weekend. I'll update again when I return on Sunday.

People who snore should not be allowed to sleep in hostels.

Bonjour from France!!! Rhonda has scampered off to classes for the morning, leaving me in her cute little French house with her computer. Thus, I will update! The basic summation of the weekend is that we conquered Paris. Now for a little more detail...

I got into Nantes on Friday evening, and I met Rhonda, we found some food, found the train to Paris, checked into our hostel, and passed out. Not too exciting, I know, but we knew Saturday was going to be a big day, so it was necessary. The plan was to get a lot of sleep, but one of the guys in our hostel, who we affectionately named "Johnny Snores-a-lot", did just that-- snore...a lot. Where as the plan was to get about a good 8 hours of sleep, I ended up getting about 3-4. We did everything, within reason, to get him to stop snoring: I would flash the light for a couple of seconds, or ask him to roll over, and I even resorted to throwing a pillow at him a couple of times. Every attempt would work for about 20 minutes, then he'd start up again. It's not worth elaborating anymore on here because the sounds he made just can't be captured via words. But ask me sometime in person, and I will do my best to impersonate Johnny snores-a-lot.

Nevertheless, we got up the next morning and set out to discover Paris....and discover Paris we did! We started off at the "Sacre Couer", a beautiful Byzantine church very near our hostel. It is the highest point in Paris, so it also provided a great view. There was a celebration of something or other going on this weekend, so after the church, we wandered around the area for a bit looking at the different vendors and shops that lined the streets. Then we visited the Monamarte Museum. We thought there were going to be paintings from different impressionists there, but unfortunately we were wrong. There was some cool stuff-- original posters advertising different Cabarets (including the Moulin Rouge), and Renoir did live there at one point and time -- but all in all it was a disappointment.

Then it was on to the Louvre. We spent about 4 hours at the Louvre and only saw a portion of what was there. We, of course, saw the Mona Lisa, the Wedding at Canna, and Venus de Milo, but there was a lot left undone. A hard part about Louvre is that the building itself, once a palace, is also astonishing to look at. So, by the time we took in all the beautiful paintings, some sculpture, and some egyptian art, it was time to move on.

After that we made our way down the Champs Elyeisses (sp?). It's (according to Parisians) the most beautiful street the whole world. I have to give them credit because it is pretty incredible...trees, with their leaves changing colors, line both sides of the street. Right in the middle at the end of the street is the Arc de Triomphe. It was nice to stroll and just to watch people going about their ways.

Then we made our way to the Eiffel Tower. Its really weird to finally see something in person that you've seen in pictures your whole life; it didn't seem like it was any big deal to be there, but at the same time, I was astonished that I actually was seeing what I was seeing. We decided to climb up to the highest point you could reach by stairs. I'm not sure what this is in feet or meters, but I estimate it was about 1,000 stairs. Fortunately, the view was worth it.

Because we were only in Paris two nights and this was the second of the two, we decided to stick around the Eiffel Tower until dark so that we could see it both in the day and at night. Because we're Americans and have no rugby radar, we completely missed that the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup were taking place in Paris this weekend. (To be fair, we noticed that a lot of people were walking around with Rugby jerseys, there were some dudes at the nantes train station handing out rugby stuff, and because we've been in Europe for a while, we knew it was going on. But, it's been going on for a month, so neither of us knew it was STILL going. Only after we figured out it was still going did we notice the giant rugby ball in the middle of the tower and the jumbo-tron that was strapped to one side.) So, not only was the Rugby World Cup going on IN Paris, but France was playing England that night (it's big like KU v. Mizzou or K-State, and IA v. IA-St. big). So, in our waiting time, we stumbled upon a beer garden for the rugby world cup and decided to join in the party...sort of. We got in there and pints of Heinken were 7 euro each. Not cool. So, we each had one can (at 3.50 euro), sang "The Gambler," "Country Road," and "Piano Man," with a bunch of Brits and French, and then carried on our merry way.

We were planning on going out Saturday night, but because of our lack of sleep and the fact that we had been going pretty solid since 9:30 a.m., our going out turned into sitting in a little restaurant to 'watch' the England beat France, receiving the worst service ever, and then going back and passing out. (If you're wondering, yes, Johnny Snores-a-lot was there again the second night. However, I remembered I had some Tylenol PM, so I took it and was able to sleep).

We started off Sunday, by going to mass (in French) at Notre Dame. Then we went and saw Sainte Chapelle, got lunch, and then toured the Siene on a boat ride. We finished the day by touring the part of the Champs Elysisses what we hadn't seen yet, and then slowly made our way to the train station to come to Angers.

Because I'm on Rhonda's computer, I don't have any pictures to post yet, but I took a bunch, so when I get back to London on Wednesday, I'll post them. For now, we're hanging around Angers and having fun here! :)

I'll give you Picadilly and Oxford Street for your Trafalgar and Leicester, plus unlimited amnesty.

Last night we played British Monopoly. It's basically the exact same as American Monopoly, but the names of the streets are changed to big streets around London, and you technically pay in pounds rather than dollars (there is no adjustment for the relative strength of weakness of the dollar to the pound at any point, just in case you were wondering.) Those of you who know me well know that board and card games are right up there next to food, water, shelter, and running for things I need to maintain sanity, so playing was very much "needed."

BUT, I've never played with a bunch of lawyers before. We threw elements of contract, business associations, and other various legal elements into buying and trading properties. We granted each other asylum on monopoly colors, and combined places to build houses and ultimately ended up splitting the profits. At least one person had amnesty on each monopoly and for a while, the money basically traveled from one person to the next in a cyclical fashion. We did ultimately end up having a winner (or someone we thought would win) simply b/c she either owned or had amnesty on over half the board. I love board games. :)

Fall break...a week long fall break....starts in about 1 1/2 hours. That means I'm off to meet up with my friends Rhonda, Jenna, and Kristen (all individually). Rhonda is going to meet me at the Nantes airport and we are going straight to Paris. We'll be there until Sunday when I'm going to go back to the town where she is at (Angers) and stay with her and her host family for 3 nights (for free...rock on.) Her host family is also going to make me a traditional French dinner on Monday night. I'm really excited. On Tuesday we're going to take a day trip to some other little town around Angers. I fly back to London on Wednesday, but I'm going to spend most of the day in Nantes and hang out w/ Jenna. I get back to London on Wednesday night and am then going to see Kristen (who was in London a couple of weeks ago) in Leicester for the weekend after that (Oct 19-21). It's going to be a busy couple of weeks, but it will be fun. That being said, don't expect frequent updates over the next week or so, but I'll try my best.

Third time is a charm???

I made another attempt today to go and see the boys choir at Westminster Abbey. If you recall, the first time I went, the boys choir was on summer vacation. Although I checked online to make sure they were singing today, I must not have done a very good job because they apparently have every Wednesday off. Sheesh. Hopefully I'll catch them on my third try...whenever that is.

What? One mussles, two people? We are no snack! We are restaurant! NO! You must leave! *CRASH*

Okay, so finally an update about Belgium. It started off, as every good trip does, with me almost missing it. We had to be at the bus station at 2:30 a.m. to catch the bus to take us to another bus to take us to the airport. The plan was to wake up at 1:30 and be at the bus station in plenty of time, but when my alarm went off, I pressed the snooze button (or what I thought was the snooze button) and didn't wake up until 2:06 a.m. Be proud of me, however, because I was at the bus stop at 2:24 a.m., which included me taking a shower. Phew! We saw our bus about 5 minutes after I got there and it just flew right by us without stopping. So, at that point, we freaked out a little, but another bus came in time to get us to our coach to the airport. (oh...when I saw "we", I mean my friend Andrew and I. I think I mentioned who i was going with in an earlier post, but I figure I'd tell you again just to be safe.)

We flew into an airport that is supposedly "just south" of Brussels, but really takes about 50 minutes to get to by train. (That detail really isn't important except to portray my skepticism of the airport name.) Anyway, we got in and made our way to our first stop: Antwerp. We spent a couple of hours there, checking out the sites and just getting a feel fro the town. Antwerp is a pretty modern town, apparently a fashion mecca, and second in diamonds only to some other town I can't remember. :) The weather was gorgeous, so we also got to sit outside and enjoy a Belgium beer (of which they have more than 700 varieties). The plan was to hang out in Antwerp for a while and then go to Burgge, BUT...we didn't quite ration our time correctly and had to run a good portion of the way to the train station. After going back and forth between thinking we were going to make the train and then miss it, we eventually did make it and made our way to Burgge.

Brugge is now my most favorite city in the whole world. It's a little town-- only 120,000 people-- but it's fantastic. It has all the ambiance of an old medevil central European town, but feels a bit like Italy at the same time because it's a city of canals. Add in the element of fall and the leaves changing, and you can understand why I filled my camera's memory card. We got into town, walked around for a bit, found the hostel and had an amazing dinner there....Andrew continued to comment on how good the ribs were several days after the fact. Then we wandered a little more, found out KU beat K-State, (ROCK CHALK!!) and then hit the sack. (Keep in mind, we had been going since at least 2:30 that morning, and Andrew hadn't slept at all.)

The plan for Sunday was to get up, walk around a bit, head to mass, walk around a bit more, and then head off to Gent. That plan got thrown off because in setting my phone as an alarm, I forgot to adjust for the hour time difference between London and Brugge. We were out the door by 9 a.m. as planned...but that was London time. All ended up being fine...we got some cool pictures of the dense fog that covers Brugge in the morning, went to mass in Flemish (interesting expereince), and then continued with the plan henceforth. I mentioned before that Brugge is a city of canals, and because it wasn't too expensive, we took a boat ride on the canal...probably the best $8 I spent the whole trip. After that we took a brewery tour, walked around in a former convent, and (finally) got the most delicious waffle I've ever had. Its hard to describe the immense joy my tastebuds had from this waffle; it seems the waffle was deep fried rather than made on a griddle, and you could taste the sugar granules in the batter. Plus, we got ones drizzled with chocolate. AMAZING. After realizing it really couldn't get any better in Brugge, we headed out before any of the charm could dissipate.

The next stop was Gent (or Ghent). We spent more time in Brugge than we were planning on, so it was nearly dusk when we arrived. At that point we also weren't sure if we were going to stay there or go on to Brussles for the night, but since it was dark and we JUST made it there, we decided to stay. Gent is also a canal town, so it had some wonderful night shots and some bigger buildings b/c it was about twice the size as Brugge. However, unlike Brugge, it's not a tourist town at all, so it wasn't as "nice" and didn't have as much to do. So..we (again) walked around a bit, and then found the most amazing Thai food I've ever had. (My turn to talk about the food for days.) The plan was to head back to the hostel b/c it was again a long day, but a cute little bar/ pub caught our eye on the way home, so we went in. Both when we entered and left, the people in there applauded, and one of the guys there was playing an accordion. It was delightful. The whole time we were there, Andrew kept saying that he thought everyone in there (which was only about 20 people) knew each other and that maybe we were crashing a private party. I kept saying no, that it was a small town, on Sunday night, and it's probably just a gathering of regulars. Well, turns out he was right...the bar tender told us so as we were leaving. Oops.

Monday morning we went an explored a refurbished medevil castle that was surprisingly able to maintain much of its character (including the smell of the latrine.) We wandered around there for a while, explored a church, ate some delicious fries (Belgians are obsessed with fries as much as waffles, chocolate, and beer) discovered that all the statues around the town had had green rubber balls placed on their noses overnight, and then made our way to Brussles.
Brussels was nice...we were only there a short time, but got to see a fair amount of things. One of the big draws is a statue of this little boy peeing. Yes, peeing, and every stupid tourist shop around town has some sort of commemorative memorabilia so you can take the statue home with you. Weird.

I know this is long, and since there isn't anything too exciting to say about what happened the rest of the trip, I'll leave you here. Of course there are lots of little stories that I can fill in here and there, but I'll wait to tell you in person. Moral of the trip: Belgium is spectacular...go there!

One tired cookie

I'll write more about Belgium later, but suffice it to say that it was a great weekend to one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. To keep you content until I'm able to write about the weekend, here is a link to my pictures. (Know that a lot of them are "artistic" type pictures I tried to take, so while they may seem boring right now, after a little enhancement, they will be amazing. :)).

I don't discriminate agianst any form of carbohydrate.

Off to Belgium for chocolate, beer, and waffles this weekend!

I'll be back with plenty of pictures and stories on Tuesday.

GGRRRRR sports cafe. You are not my friend.

Somehow someone in the Tulsa program got the hook-up with the British Olympic Committee and set up a meeting for people in my program to go and listen to the head legal council of the 2012 Olympics speak. The presentation basically gave us all the background on the different committees/ organizations that are working together to put on the games in London in 2012. This included discussing everything from the Olympians themselves, to copyright infringement/ brand protection, to acquiring the land and getting all the buildings built in time. I know that probably doesn't sound too interesting to all the non-lawyer folk, but for us nerds, it really was. We also got information about how a city puts in a bid to get the Olympics and got to watch a video about the London process. The Olympic spirit is really amazing...I could feel it through all the videos... and I hope that they are able to recreate the spirit from the video when the 2012 actually rolls around. I don't have any pictures b/c 1) there wasn't that much to see (we didn't get to tour anything...just sat and listened to presentations) and 2) we weren't allowed to take pictures of the building where LOCOG is located...it's top secret. SHHHHH.

Tonight, however, was not nearly as fun as the Olympic thing. We FINALLY made it back to the Sports Cafe for wings. But this time, it was awful. No one actually got the flavor of wings they ordered, the service was awful, and the wings were cold. They told people in my group that there were no more bottles of a certain kind of beer to be had anywhere in the building, only to see them bringing more not less than 5 minutes later. The worst part was this: my favorite drink at home is diet coke with a flavor shot of grenadine in it, so I ask for that here. Well, apparently grenadine here is a liquour, and so they not only charged me £1.95 for the coke (keep in mind, that's $4), they charged me for the grenadine as well. And they decided the nice fair price for that shot of what is apparently alcohol (but tasted just like at home) is £3.10. Yes, my one glass of pop cost me $10. I don't think I've been so pissed off...ever. I tried to talk to the manager about it, and well, lets just say I don't have any nice adjectives to describe him. Because of that I had to come home, sit down, and cool off. I'm just now going to bed (12:30 a.m.), when I should have been there an hour ago. GGRRRRR sports cafe. You ar enot my friend.

Show me those pearly whites!

New Photos!!!!

Day Trips (including the latest from Oxford and Blenheim)

Around London (Notting Hill Market and stuff with Kristen)

Everything else should be contained in the "London Photos" link to the left. (I had to start sending you facebook links b/c I ran out of free space in my picassa web album. That means you have to look through multiple albums if you want to see the pictures, but I suppose that's just the way it goes sometimes. :)).

How long does it take to decide where to go for a weekend trip? Us: nearly 12 hours...

I can tell that I am finally feeling settled and comfortable here in London....rather than having to tell myself that the days have been good, they just actually are. A large part of that (I think) is founding a good friend in a girl in my program named Val. Yesterday was her birthday, so we did a bunch of random fun stuff to try and make it special over here. She's been looking for a coat, so we spend the first part of the afternoon doing that (she found one! Woo hoo!). After that, we made our way out to Kew to go and see the botanical gardens there. Unfortunately we got there when there was only an hour left for it to be open, and it cost something like £13 to get in. So, we walked around the town a little bit and then headed back home. The town was absolutely charming...although technically still in London, it felt nothing like the city. There was an inner peace discernible from every corner of the town and I would definitely chose to live in that part of London.

We got back from Kew and Val's roommates had cooked up a tremendous Italian dinner for her. It was spectacular and delicious; a feast for both the eye and the palate. After that cake, and then to a sports bar to watch the Colts/Broncos game. It was just a really great day with really great people and was really a lot of fun.

On our way to Kew, we found out a water main broke outside of our apartment. It actually flooded a bit of the girls' room in the bottom flat, and ultimately caused our water to be shut off. Val's roommates actually made the entire meal w/o running water, substituting bottled water from the store where necessary (which makes the feast all the more impressive). We didn't know when it was going to come back on, so I took my toothbrush to the bar where we watched the game (and went the bathroom about a hundred times...I just didn't know when we were going to have water!). Fortunately it was back on this morning, so no more worries. :)

That's all I have for now except for two things: 1) church yesterday was amazing. I loved it. It was at the simple little church near my house, but they did it up right with an amazing organ, a children's choir, traditional hymns and lots of lovin' for the big guy. 2) My friend Andrew and I are going to Brussels this weekend. I had a minor freak out last night/ this morning realizing that there are only so many weekends left here and I haven't really taken advantage of the travel mecca that London is. So, I had a moment with a spreadsheet and a few search engines to figure out where to go and when, and here we are! Woo hoo to a weekend of chocolate and waffles. :)