It's been a long time; haven't felt like this, my dear, since I can't remember when

okay i know its been forever since i've written on here & thats only because I havent been in the country! We got back from Italy on April 3rd (last saturday) and it was ABSOLUTELY AMAZINGGGG!!!! I loved every town we visited: Milan, Florence, Venice, & Rome :) I kept a journal throughout the trip but its just too much to write it all on here so just check my pictures on facebook to get a glimpse of everything that happened. We walked along the canals of Venice, saw the expensive stores in Milan, listened to the Pope from about 30 feet away in Rome, & had our breath taken away by the beautiful views in Florence :) It was a fabulous trip!

The day after we got back, my family came for a week! They stayed here for the day & then we left for Paris this past Monday :) It was definitely an adventure because my dad rented a car (he rented it in the UK so the wheel was on the other side, but in France, the roads are the same as the US...that was interesting) and we seemed to get lost almost every day. Roads and highways are not clearly marked as they are in the States! But Paris was gorgeous :) We couldnt have asked for better weather and we were able to go all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower which was amazing! We spent all day there and then on Wednesday we left for London until Friday morning. London was gorgeous as usual and we went to a lot of different places that I had never been before so that was great :) I'm putting up pictures on facebook now so check that out ;) My family leaves tomorrow, but we had an awesome week and I am so grateful that they were able to come out here!

As for me, I leave tomorrow for another adventure :D Bring on southern France & Spain! Honestly, I feel a little crazy for all this busyness and my body is tired but I just cant get enough of Europe! I just want to be a big ol' sponge & soak it all in because who knows when I'll be back. Hopefully we can find some internet access while we're gone so I can keep everyone updated, but I'll be back on Saturday the 17th :) Keep us (me, Suzie, Jess, Bethany & Brittany) in your prayers for safe travels and nice weather! i love you all!

ITALYYYY!!!

okay so no cool lyric title for this one (i know i know dont be too sad) because im literally writing this 15 mins before i have to leave for ITALY!!! ahhhhh!!!! I'll be there with Brittany, Jess, & Bethany for a whole week!

We'll be seeing Milan, Rome, Venice, & Florence & seeing some amazing things along the way :) Check back on facebook for updates! i love you all!!! <3

With friends like these, well who needs enemies?

Last Sunday (not yesterday, i know its been awhile since I've written!) Laura and Tara came to visit! Its so weird because i had been looking forward to their visit ever since i got here in January & it always seemed so far away but they really came! :) we had such a great time together!

Brittany and i picked them up from the bus station in town at around 2pm and we were so excited to see them that we literally ran across the street! It was amazing to see some familiar faces from home :) We helped them carry their suitcases to our building, which was sorta difficult because our area gets super busy on the weekends because of the horse races up at the racetrack. It was probably pretty overwhelming because there are literally people everywhere, but its not normally like that on the weekdays so that's good. They were pretty tired from traveling all night so we just showed them around the hall and just hung out for a bit before taking them to Tesco to buy some groceries. The bought some things to eat for breakfasts and lunches because Brittany and i both had class on monday and tuesday. Watching them with the different currency reminded me how confused i was when i first got here with the money, i always paid with wayy bigger notes just because i couldn't figure out the coins! Cashiers must have loooved me haha ;) Anyway, we brought their groceries back to my room and we just sat around and talked until dinner because they were too sleepy to do anything else (& i definitely don't blame them!) At 6, Brittany and i went to church and Laura & Tara stayed behind to get some rest, and when we came back at almost 9, they both had fallen asleep! We decided that i was going to sleep on an air mattress in Brittany's room so that we both could get up and get ready for class without waking them up. It was a good arrangement because Sunday night they both went to bed at 9 and Brittany & i stayed up late talking and reading. It was like we were back at Messiah again! :D I miss our roommate bonding time! Monday I had class all day, but the girls slept in and then Brittany took them to Gloucester to visit the cathedral for the afternoon. I'm really glad that she was able to take them there so that they weren't just sitting in my room while i was in class :) We all had dinner together & then it was time for our BCA class so the girls just hung out here and checked their facebooks. We decided that we wanted to take them out dancing because it's such a fun thing that we love to do, and Monday night was the only night we could. I was a little worried because that's the busiest night for students to go out, so i knew it was going to be a lot crazier than what we're normally used to. But we had already planned on going, so at around 11pm we all were dressed up and ready to go :) We took them to The Place, which isn't where we normally go but its really popular on Monday nights, which unfortunately meant there was a longgg line to get in. But we just talked while we waited (and laughed at the drunk people around us) and eventually got in. It was extremely busy inside, but we luckily found a little pocket of space on the dance floor and ended up having a great time! I really appreciate going out dancing with my best friends because i know they will protect me from guys who get too close ;) We got back around 2am because it took forever to get in, and we all just went straight to bed.
Tuesday I had class again at 11:15 and Brittany had class all day so after my class i came back and had lunch & then took them shopping. Of course, we went to my favorite place, Primark, which is basically heaven for bargain clothes shoppers :) All the clothes are really cute and actually affordable! I've gotten shoes there for 2 pounds, a headband for 1 pound, and lots of other cute things. Laura & Tara loved it too! They both bought a lot of really nice clothes and shoes and didn't even spend a lot of money so that was great. After that we just window shopped in some of the more expensive stores and then i took them to meet Brittany at our FCH campus so they could see it. We brought them to the library so they could print out some tickets they needed & then we headed back to the dorm. oh & we just had to pass the cute boy from my religion class on the way haha i didn't plan it i promise! When we got back, they put on some of their new clothes and we met up with Bethany & then went to Wetherspoons for dinner. I was excited because i had never eaten there before and the food was really great! Plus it was a deal for Tuesdays so that made it even better :) We all were definitely stuffed by the end, so the long-ish walk back was perfect. Right away we got into our comfy clothes and played cards & made cookies for the rest of the night :)
Brittany & i got up super early to bring them to the bus station on Wednesday and i was so sad to see them go! It was lots of fun having them here and i wish they could've stayed longer :/ But they spent the rest of the week in London so that was really cool!
Wednesday night, Brittany & I went out with Bethany to Boogie lounge like we normally do :) Unfortunately they didn't play very good music so we didn't stay very long, but it was fun anyway. After wednesday until now (monday) i haven't really been doing anything too exciting. I've been tackling my assignments that are due the week after spring break because i won't have any time to do them before that. I actually wrote a list of all the assignments and taped it to my laptop to hopefully motivate me to do them (unfortunately i taped it right where my wrist goes..so its pretty much covered up most of the time ;)) I did get one paper done last night so that was great! I don't really have anything going on this week so im gonna be good & get lots of work done :) Well, Friday night, most of the girls from our flat had gone home, so Suzie Brittany & i decided to make a video at 1am. We put a lot of time into acting it out and it turned out really cool! Suzie did a great job editing it, so hopefully we can put it on facebook or youtube soon :) Saturday night, i was convinced to step away from my paper and play dutch blitz with Brittany, Suzie, & Nate. I said i was only gonna play for twenty minutes..but it turned into six hours!! don't worry..we didn't play for the whole six hours haha It was really fun but i sorta regretted it when i had to finish my paper yesterday :/

Oh! it was mother's day in the UK yesterday & i got to talk to my "mum" for a bit so that was nice :) She was all excited because now that means she gets two mothers days haha we'll see about that ;)

if you're still up when the ship's in the port, prepare to set sail; comb the beach and put those blue flowers up in your ponytail

okay i can't put this off anymore haha I'm not even exactly sure why i never feel like writing on here...I'm always like "I'm not in the mood" but what mood do you have to be in to write a blog?? I dont know, it just seems like I've been lacking a lot of motivation lately, which is a big problem because i have lots of assignments to do! I'll just keep reminding myself that in just under 3 weeks ill be jetsetting around Europe with my friends & family :D cant wait!

hmm where did i leave off? oh yeah, dinner with the murderer ;) well last saturday (whoa it really has been a week since Ive written! sorry!) we all got up and met downstairs at 8:30..which seemed tragically early because we stayed up super late the night before. Our whole group, which is about 40 people, loaded onto our bus and we started off for Stonehenge. Mostly everyone fell asleep, and I dozed off here & there for the almost two hour trip. The Monday before this trip, we had a class all about Stonehenge and its significance from an archaeologist. Honestly, I didn’t find what he was talking about to be very interesting because to me, it’s just a bunch of rocks. I don’t really care how they got in those positions! Haha there are so many theories about how they got there..some people believe it was aliens (that personally has my vote…yup a bunch of little green men came down to earth & all they did was stack some rocks in England..yeah that’s it) and some people believe that it was our ancestors who stacked them in some sort of ritual. My guess is that it had really no significance and they would just laugh at us if they knew that we’ve spent all this time theorizing and rigorously observing the rocks to find out their purpose ;)

Anyway that’s my little rant about Stonehenge haha so when we got there, we stood in line for tickets because that’s the only way you can even get close to the rocks. The sun was shining at that point but it was still a little chilly. Basically, there is a roped off path going all the way around the rocks and you just walk around and take pictures. The part I was a little bummed about is that we weren’t even close to the rocks! But I guess that’s realistic because if we were allowed to get closer, people would probably carve their names in the rocks or put graffiti on them. Bummer. So we pretty much just walked around in a giant circle, taking pictures from every possible angle…though im not sure how many pictures you can actually take of rocks and have them look different. My mom was looking through the pictures and she said that I have more of me and my friends acting crazy than the rocks ;) Since it’s basically in a big field with not much around it, it was veryyy windy and it ended up raining a little bit. So our hair was blowing everywhere and we were walking around in the mud. Oh well..it was pretty fun anyway ;) After we spent some time there, I stopped and got hot chocolate because the guy who spoke in our class said that it was amazing there (and it was really good!)We all met back at the bus and started off for Salisbury where we were going to have some time to explore on our own & eat lunch. It was a cute little town with an outdoor market filled mostly with useless things and happy people :) I walked around with Brittany & Bethany and as we were walking to the cathedral, we suddenly heard the most amazing voice singing love songs. No, not an angel, but a beautiful musician named Jimmy Hall...and yes, i know his name. We stopped and listened to him for a long time and took some pictures and video haha that sounds so creepy! but it wasn't i promise..other people were too ;) anyway, he literally sang all my favorite love songs and was very attractive while doing it hahaha it started to rain a bit and i just wanted to hold an umbrella over him! he kept playing though, and eventually it stopped. I'd like to believe his voice made the bad clouds go away :) As we were watching, we saw an older lady go and buy a cd from him that he had in his backpack for 5 pounds. of course we wanted one, so we set off to find somewhere to break our bigger bills. We stopped at the cathedral for a little bit though and took some pictures (i think its really funny because our director said that we needed to go there because its beautiful...but we ended up watching the musician instead ;) We got the money and wrote him a little note that said "you already have American fans, facebook us!" with our names at the end. Looking back, it doesn't sound like a good idea..but he doesn't seem like a psychopath. We went back to where he was playing and got a cd in between songs & he talked to us for a sec! it was very exciting :) We left and got some lunch and then went to meet the group. Oh! i stopped at a candy store where they had imported mountain dew from America!! i got two cans :) sooo good!

All forty of us loaded back into the bus and drove for about an hour or so until we stopped in Portsmouth. I was just about to doze off when we stopped, and our director told us to all hurry off the bus because we were only going to stay for about 15 minutes. I was a little flustered but we all went outside to see that we were at the beach! :D I was sooo excited! I think its really cool that its still the Atlantic ocean, just like back home :) somehow I felt connected to everyone in the states because of this. By this time, it was sunny which made the water look even more beautiful and we spent most of the time there taking pictures. I of course had to feel the water and it was super cold! I definitely didn’t wish I brought my bathing suit haha I loved just staring out at the water, watching the sailboats pass by and thinking about how beautiful God’s creation is! Well we only stayed there for a little bit, & then it was time to go and check into our hotel. Yup we were staying in a hotel for the night! It’s the little things like that which make me excited haha I was in a room with Brittany and Bethany, and they graciously let me have the single bed since I don’t like people very close to me ;) Our room was pretty normal for a hotel, with a tv (!) and comfy beds with big white pillows. All of us BCA kids were pretty much near each other so that was fun to just hang out with everyone. After resting for a little bit, we decided to venture into the city and shop, which of course I am never opposed to do :) Suzie & Jess went with us & went in lots of stores that i couldn't afford, but that was okay because i didn't waste any of my money. Then we met up with some more people and went to the Pizza Express for dinner and i got this delicious pasta dish that was sooo yummy! After that, we all were pretty tired and didn't feel like going out, so we just went to a Tesco nearby and got some junk food to bring back to the room. Everyone met in our room and we pigged out on desserts and watched the olympics on tv :) it was definitely a great night!

After going to bed early and getting a great nights sleep, everyone got ready and checked out by 10am the next day. We all loaded into the bus again and drove for literally 5 minutes down the road to the dock where the HMS Victory is held. We probably could have walked there, but it was raining pretty hard so i was grateful for the ride. Then, we went on a tour of the ship, which was nice because we could go at our own pace and take pictures the whole time. It was really cool! it looked like it was out of the pirates of the caribbean movies and was the original ship from Henry VIII's time (i think thats the right henry..but I'm not really sure). I wish i could have had some background on the history of this ship, because to me it was just a really cool boat. We were able to go deep into it, where the crew slept & ate, and all the different rooms which served lots of different purposes. After wandering around there for awhile, we all met at a museum down the street, which was all about the captain of the HMS Victory. Honestly, it wasn't really interesting to me because i didn't know much about him and it was a pretty small museum. We didn't stay there too long before going to another museum, which had artifacts from this ship that sunk in the 1400's, stayed underwater for 400 years until it was discovered and brought up. I thought this one was really cool because all the artifacts were over 600 years old and had been in the ocean for so long! Its amazing to see how they could still remain intact. The actual ship though, is in a warehouse where its sprayed with a wax mixture everyday and inspected by scientists to keep it preserved. Okay, my favorite part of the day: after the museum, we all left to find lunch, so Bethany, Jess, Britt & I found this ADORABLE little cafe that was sort of hidden by the bigger restaurants. It was owned by a man and his wife who were in their late 60's I'd guess, and she cooked while he took orders and brought the food to the tables. It was sooo cute! I literally felt as if i was sitting in their kitchen :) He called us dear and love when he took our orders like a grandfather, and kept checking back to make sure everything was alright. I wanted to stay there longer but it was soon time to meet our group again. Once we met up, we headed back to Cheltenham.

Hmm what have i done this past week? Well, it was my sisters birthday on monday! :D Tuesday we watched the bachelor finale and went to wetherspoons for the amazing chocolate cake (I'm so upset about who the bachelor chose, but i wont rant about it here) Other than that, Ive been just going to class and getting some work done. Tonight (Sunday) i went with the girls from my flat (and bethany ;) to see the new alice in wonderland movie in 3D. It actually was really good! It definitely draws you into another world for two hours and it kept me very entertained for the whole time :)

Right as i type this, laura and tara are in the air flying to England!! :D tomorrow we're going to pick them up at the bus station at 2pm and they'll be here until wednesday! I'm soo excited! I'll try to blog more during their visit so i wont be bombarded at the end...because then I'll never do it ;) Cheers! (that's a British saying..it sorta means thank you, goodbye, and anything else you want it to mean...i think ill be ending my blogs with it from now on :D )

This is a lovely way to spend an evening; I want to save all my nights and spend them with you

Last Friday night, I had dinner with a murderer. He killed my ex-boyfriend.

Okay before you go off & have a heart attack, don't; because it was only for our murder mystery dinner ;) Bethany was the hostess since it was for her birthday, and she assigned each guest with a character that we each had to be for the night. Mine was "Denise Divine", a glamorous soap opera star who was very beautiful, talented, and thinks that the whole world should be in love with her. Typecasting perhaps? ;) haha jk! We weren't really told what to wear but after reading my character description, i was instantly inspired by that famous Audrey Hepburn picture where she's wearing the modest black dress, a simple string of white pearls, and big black sunglasses. I was super excited to be someone else for a night, especially after seeing Wicked and really missing the stage. Suzie, Brittany & I shopped Friday morning for the final details of our outfits (we got into it a bit more than other people did ;) haha) and i couldn't wait to try it all on. We came back and i began the complex and time-consuming caterpillar-into-a-butterfly transformation of becoming Miss Hepburn. I had my hair curled and pulled back, a string of pearls (fake of course!), bright red lipstick, fake eyelashes (man that was a scary process..i don't know how people do that all the time!), a black dress & black high heels. When i walked into the room, i threw on my black scarf and giant sunglasses to top it all off :) At the party, there was a flamboyantly gay psychic, a posh English socialite, an opinionated talk show host, a filmmaker, a cleaning lady, a security guard, a reality tv "star", a famous pop singer, the victims Greek mother, and a feminist radio show host. Suzie made a delicious dinner that looked like it was out of a cooking magazine and we were given our booklets that contained our "scripts" for the night. It was really fun to have dinner with all my friends, while we were all pretending to be someone else. Each character was somehow related to the murder victim, but it was our job to figure out who killed him. I felt like i was in a marykate & Ashley movie..."we'll solve any crime by dinner time!" haha We all tried to stick to our scripts but i had a hard time following the conversation so unfortunately i didn't say much. It was hilarious though, and we ended up laughing most of the time :) At the end, we all made our choice for the murderer and were surprised when it turned out to be Nate's character, the filmmaker! (i secretly wanted to be the murderer, just because it would be fun to try to get everyone to think it was someone else ;) haha) It was a great night!

After that, we all cleaned up the kitchen and turned back into ourselves; off came the fake eyelashes and on went the sweatpants. just the way i like it :) Just when most of us were settling into our rooms to go to bed, we had another fire alarm and had to go outside and wait for the firemen. That sorta woke us up and we came back inside and played some poker until around 1:30am. The next day we woke up early (and kinda regretted our decision to stay up late!) and went with the whole BCA group to Stonehenge and Portsmouth for the weekend. I'll write about that trip a little later because its time for dinner :)

oh by the way...the title is from a frank sinatra song because i felt like i was channeling that era during the dinner party :) you should look it up because its a great song!

As we wait in this winter storm, so we snuggle close in the darkness & keep each other so warm

So its a little dorky how excited i get when i find the most perfect lyric for the titles of my blogs :) but seriously you would be excited too because this one was just SO perfect!

First of all, its by owl city who we SAW in LONDON last thursday! ehh no big deal..its not like it was even good or anything............JOKES! it was seriously soooo amazing!!! We left on the 9:45 bus & I spent the entire ride there with every owl city song on shuffle and trying to take a little nap :) We got there around 12:15ish and by that time we were pretty hungry (both of us not surprisingly woke up later than we should’ve and chose to spend more time getting ready than eating breakfast) so we ate in the coach station at one of the fast food places. The night before, I had checked the weather and it said that there would be rain until noon and after that it would be pretty warm and partly cloudy. I told that to Brittany & we both decided not to take umbrellas since they were kinda hard to fit in our purses anyway. Bad idea. It was raining the entire time we were there. When I tell people this and expect some sort of pity or at least an “aww”, instead I get “you do realize that you’re in England right?” I know I know, I should have expected it to rain, but I guess I just wanted to have a little faith in weather.com. So, we walked in the rain to the station where we could buy our underground tube tickets because the club where the concert was gonna be was on the complete other side of the city. I’m so lucky that Brittany pretty much knew how the underground system worked & how to read the tube maps because to me, they just looked like a confusing maze of pretty colors and dots ;) We finally figured out how to get to the closest station to the club and after switching trains a few times, we to the right side of the city. Let me just say that I am not a fan of riding trains or subways, theres just something about them that creeps me out. Plus im always so scared that the doors are gonna close on me and im gonna get stuck at the station all by myself :( Fortunately that didn’t happen! When we got to the other station, we then tried to read our map (very much looking like tourists) and find the Electric Ballroom. We wandered around this busy intersection for a bit until we saw this HUGE sign for owl city! The club was literally right down the street from the station! That was so great :) The really funny thing about this part of the city was that it was basically where the punk rockers are. I felt like I needed a Mohawk and bright colored clothes to fit in haha there was a piercing and tattoo place on every corner and each store was full of neon and plaid outfits…definitely not my thing ;) So we went to the club to pick up our tickets and the very tough looking security guard pointed at this random girl awkwardly standing on the sidewalk and said, “theres the line”. Okay, so this is at 2:00pm and the concert doesn’t start until 8pm..and there was already someone waiting in line! In the rain! We were shocked and sorta didn’t know what to do because he said that we couldn’t pick up our tickets until the doors opened at 7. So we found a place to eat and dry off and then we went and shopped for a little bit. There were lots of street vendor-type places that had lots of cute clothes so Brittany and I both got scarves and dresses :) (mine actually turned out to be a shirt..wayyy too short to be a dress!) Around 4:30ish we went back to the club and realized that there were about 20 more people in line, so we decided that we should get in line too. At this time, it was raining pretty hard and very cold, but in order to get a good place near the stage (there wasn’t assigned seating) we had to wait. We kept ourselves occupied by watching the interesting people walk by and the funny guys with Mohawks try to advertize their tattoo parlor with big signs and flyers. It was hilarious to watch people’s reactions when they tried to hand them the papers..im not sure if I would take anything from them either! So we waited. And waited. When it was close to 7, it started to feel like I was standing on a block of ice and I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore. You know that feeling when you’re super cold and it starts to hurt really bad? Yeah that’s where I was. Finally, after 2 & a half hours of waiting in the rain and getting soaked (note to self: peacoats are NOT waterproof..they are pretty much sponges) it was finally time to go in! I have never been so excited to go inside a club in my entire life. Once we got in, we went to the ticket office, picked up our tickets, & then ran to the stage to get a good spot. We were about three people away from the stage & right in the middle :) I took our coats and our bags to the coatcheck counter but by the time I came back, there were so many more people that I couldn’t find Brittany anymore! I really hate those people who try and shove their way to the front at a concert, but I had to be one of them. I felt so awkward trying to make my way to her and I thought that I was gonna get beat up! Haha not really but I still felt really bad! ;) Anyway, I got up to her and that’s when my personal space became veryyyy small. Everyone wanted to get near the front obviously so they were pressing in on all sides and I could barely move! If you know me at all, you know that I have a very large personal space bubble and don’t like to be very close to people. Yeah, that was a problem. I literally had my feet together and my arms folded the entire concert haha I have never been so close to people in my entire life. But it was SO worth it because the concert was AMAZING! The opening act was a girl called Lights, who ive never heard before but she was really good. She was sorta like Owl City because she was electronic-y and had pretty interesting lyrics. She played a couple songs & then it was finally time for OWL CITY!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! He was so great! He played all my favorite songs and was just so adorable and quirky :) I felt really bad though because you could definitely tell that he was sick, because he would cough during some of the instrumental parts and during one song he held a cup of tea :( I just wanted to give him a hug! We had such a great spot in front of the stage, and I got some amazing pictures. It felt like he sang for two minutes because it was over so fast! I could have listened to him sing all night. After the concert, I was so excited to just be able to move my feet & my arms and have my personal space bubble back haha But after standing in the rain for 2 & a half hours and then standing during the 3 hour concert…it really felt as though we were hit by a truck! I was completely exhausted but somehow we made it to our bus station again. We both instantly fell asleep on the bus back because it was about 2:30 when we got back to Cheltenham. Im really surprised that I didn’t write about this sooner because it was such a GREAT day! A little wet, but still great :)

I spent the rest of the weekend working on a paper, yes i actually do work here! ;) I had a hard time getting a hold of the book i needed though, well, i put a hold on it but the previous user never brought it back :/ So i desparately asked my friend emily for her own copy of it and thankfully she let me use it, but then i only had one day to write the paper! So all day Sunday i worked on it and finally got it done :) Here, turning in an assignment is such a strange process..you dont just hand it to your professor. You have to put this confusing cover page on it and then go through this maze (okay its not really a maze, but it sure felt like one!) to the assignment room, where someone signs off on it and places it in the box with the right class name on it. soo weird. I guess the whole thing is just to make everything anonymous (haha it took me so long to figure out how to spell that!)..we don't even write our name on the paper!

Anyway, this is getting pretty long so ill wrap things up. I turned my paper in early on Tuesday because Wednesday a bunch of us were going to london to see the show WICKED!!! It was me, bethany, greg, brittany, kelly, & Danielle...all American students :) we got on the 9:45 bus again and of course, listened to nothing else but the Wicked soundtrack the entire ride! We got there and went to the theater to get our tickets & then found a great place to eat. We were all dressed up because i think its sorta an unspoken rule to get dressed up for a broadway show so we ate at a pretty fancy restaurant called Ha Ha :) After lunch, we headed over to the theater again because it was almost about to start. Our seats were soo good! we were on the floor (not literally on the floor, we had seats ;)) so we could see everything perfectly! From the moment the music started and the actors came out...all 6 of us had our mouths wide open. I literally had chills because the singing was SO AMAZING! I loved everything about it..the set, the costumes, the attractive lead character ;), and especially the music! If you dont know the story, its basically the story before the Wizard of Oz, like how the Wicked Witch became wicked and everything like that. I knew the entire soundtrack by heart but i was absolutely blown away by the talented singers! It felt like you were up there on stage with them and part of the story :) The show went by SO fast though, i never wanted it to end! It has always been a dream of mine to be on broadway someday and that show just made me want that even more :) After the show, we got some dinner and then caught the bus back home. When we got back, everyone convinced us to go out to Boogie Lounge with them, so we all just changed our clothes and went back out. It was so fun! I love just dancing like a crazy person with everyone..its definitely one of my new favorite things to do :) We actually went out last night (thursday) too! haha

Tonight we're having a murder mystery dinner & we all have fun characters to act out so check back here later & ill tell you all about it :)

If you've anything to tell me, it had better be tonight

So i can definitely add blogging to my list of things I'm not good at. Yup, it goes: whistling, any type of math, directions, playing the flute, cartwheels, and blogging. Honestly, i just get so behind and then i just never feel like tackling the project & actually sitting down and writing everything down. I'm not sure if you got the lyric reference i put as the title (an amazing song by the way) but basically i told myself that it had to be tonight that i crossed this off my to-do list :) I don't mind though because I'm comfy & cozy in my pj's with my buddy frank sinatra serenading me in the background, could life get any better??

The past week (and a half) has been pretty normal, with the usual ups and downs and a trip to Hogwarts haha okay maybe that part's not normal unless you're Hermione ;) Sunday, our university had a superbowl party so that was pretty cool but since there's a 5 hour time difference, the game wouldn't start until around midnight, so i didn't end up going. I was a little bummed because i would have liked to go and hang out with everyone, but i probably would have been up till 4 or 5am and Monday is my busiest day. Plus, i wasn't too concerned about either of the teams this year. I did though, check online before my first class on Monday to see who won just in case anyone asked haha I definitely decided that my Health class is absolutely my least favorite class of the week. First of all, its about 15 mins away by bus so i have to leave a lot earlier than normal which leaves me hardly any time for lunch. But the main reason is that i have never had any sort of health class before and its not really related to my major at all because its about policies and government documents so i usually am completely lost the whole lecture. It just makes me really uncomfortable not knowing what the professor is talking about and having everything go over my head, especially when she has us do group work and present to the class. Last week i was totally honest with my group members and told them that i had no idea what we were supposed to be talking about, but they said that i had to say something anyway during the presentation. I'm not really sure what i said, but it was really short and probably made no sense. I'm hoping that things get better for me in that class because i don't know how much more useless babble i can come up with for each presentation ;) Monday night, we had our BCA class about British Culture. Of course, it was boring, so Brittany and i entertained ourselves by planning our majorly epic, gonna-tell-our-grandchildren-about-it-someday, super awesome spring break trips! :D haha i like that name. I wont tell you guys about it yet because its not totally finalized but once we figure everything out (which could be awhile..it takes A LOT of planning! i now know how amazingly talented my dad is because he always plans great vacations for our family..my husband better be like that too haha) So ill just keep you in suspense for now ;)
Wednesday I slept in, which is always my favorite thing to do, and later that night we all got dressed up to go to Boogie Lounge. I just want to clear something up though, that when i talk about this place, it is a bar but i have never gotten anything to drink there. I literally only go there to dance with my friends :) My idea of a good time does not include passing out, not remembering what happened, and being sick as a dog the next day. No thanks. Anyway, thursday I had my favorite class and we had a speaker from a school for children with special needs and she talked to us about Autism. It was super interesting because she gave teaching techniques that help benefit children on the Autism spectrum, which is something that i found really useful. I felt like my pen couldn't write fast enough to catch everything she said! We're going to her school in a few weeks so that will be really great :)

On Friday, Brittany, Bethany & i went to Gloucester for the day because none of us had classes and its only a town away from us and less than a pound for the bus. We went out to lunch first at a little place in town that has great food and then went to catch the bus. Unfortunately Bethany had to pay the full adult price because she forgot her student id but for Brittany & i it was less than a pound so that was great! We weren't totally sure which stop to get off at and considering my amazing sense of directions (ha!) i was pretty worried that we would get lost. But, obviously enough, we could see the cathedral (it is really big) from the bus so we got off at one of the stops and walked over to it. When we got there, we were asked to make a small donation in order to take pictures, so of course we all gave a little bit because it was too gorgeous not to take pictures! I am really starting to love old cathedrals; everything is quietly beautiful with amazing architecture that has lasted for centuries. You just don't get this kind of stuff in the states! One of the cool things about this cathedral was that you could get a free tour by one of the workers and if you ever get to go here, definitely do it because we learned sooo much from our tour that we never would have noticed otherwise. He told us about the history behind the different monuments and what some of the many beautiful stained glass windows were images of. One window was the size of a tennis court! So, although this cathedral was packed with historical significance, probably my favorite part of it was turning the corner and walking straight into Hogwarts! It was sort of funny because our tour guide turned to us and quietly asked if we were harry potter fans...ha! if he only knew ;) Yup, part of the first, third, and sixth movies were shot in the cloisters within this cathedral. They make up some of the hallways in the movies..& it was SO cool to be walking them just like the characters did! I felt like hermione :) Brittany & i had a duel with our pretend wands while Bethany laughed and took pictures (shes not really interested in harry potter..i dont even know why i'm friends with her). It was a lot of fun to wander around there and imagine parts of the movie taking place. After staying for awhile longer taking pictures, we walked around the town of Gloucester for a bit and shopped until we caught the bus again to come back. That night, we all had bought lots of candy at the "dollar store" aka Poundland, so we were super hyper and full of energy. We watched the latest harry potter movie so that we could see parts of the cathedral, but then afterwards we were all too scared to go to bed! Since we were still on our sugar high, we decided to have a little dance party in the kitchen at 2am and made funny videos for our friends back home. It was hilarious and if you want to see one of the videos, just ask me and ill send you the link :) We finally got to bed around 4ish but we had such a fun time just dressing up in crazy outfits and dancing around the hall (don't worry..all my flatmates had gone home for the weekend)

Sunday was valentines day, and if you know me at all, you know that it is not my favorite holiday (but i wont get into that here ;) Most of my friends here are single, so we decided that it would be fun to throw a little singles party and celebrate our independence haha The boyfriend of one of the girls on our flat was coming to surprise her so we all dressed up so that she would too, & he took her out for a nice dinner. It was fun to get dressed up and just hang out with friends for the night :) We just played poker and our own version of twister that we made up the night before, with the dots on the floor and on the wall. Monday was Bethany's birthday and our night class was cancelled so some of us went out to see the movie Valentines Day, which was really good, and then out for dessert afterwards.

Last night was a big night for drinking in our town, with the event called Carnage. Basically, you pay a certain amount of money for a t-shirt and you go from bar to bar to bar all night until everyone is really really drunk. Of course, none of my friends were going, so we planned our spring break trips and watched the Bachelor :) Around 4:30am this morning, a big group of really drunk people came onto our floor screaming and running around and woke up our whole flat. It was really crazy but they eventually left. Its things like this that make me appreciate Messiah a whole lot more. Today I didn't really do much because i slept in really late but we had a little girls night instead of going out :) We made homemade facial masks out of bananas, honey, and lemon juice (it ended up looking like vomit which was disgusting,but it really worked!...my sink is still clogged with it though :/). Then we exfoliated our hands and feet, ate some ice cream and junk food, and then painted our nails while watching Beauty & the Beast :) It was so much fun!

Well, i really should go to bed because TOMORROW IS OWL CITY IN LONDON!!!!! ahhhhhhhhhh!!! i am sooooooooooo excited!!!! :D :D Check back here on Saturday and ill tell you all about it :) goodnight!

She was like a princess straight from a dreamy castle in the air

So today we visited another place where the queen lives sometimes, the Windsor Castle...aka my future home :D It was about almost a two hour drive and most of us dozed off because we had to meet at 8:30 (of course i was the last one downstairs haha) We got there and had to hurry up and get our tickets to get in the castle because we really wanted to see the changing of the guard at 11. The security was pretty much like an airport and we had to go through metal detectors and have our bags scanned. I don't know why, but i always get nervous walking through the detectors, even though i don't have anything illegal in my pockets. I usually hold my breath when i walk through. Anyway, we went through security and all that and made our way to where the changing of the guard was happening. I was so excited to see the guards actually wearing the funny fuzzy hats because we had missed them at Buckingham Palace a couple weeks ago. When i first saw them, i just had to laugh (as did most of my group) because they looked so hilarious with those hats on! I decided that they looked like Qtips. My friend told me that they were made out of bear fur which made me really want to touch one because they looked sooo soft! Some of the guards looked like they could have been in high school and were really short and awkward :) I took a picture of one because i couldn't even see his eyes! Well, they stood there for a bit and did some routine marching things and then a band came into the courtyard. They were all dressed in red coats and had their own funny hats (wouldn't want to be left out i guess) & they played a couple songs and marched around. Then more guards came out and marched with swords and yelled some stuff that sounded like another language (special guard code language perhaps?). Probably the funniest part - okay i shouldn't be laughing, it probably had a lot of historical significance, but it was hilarious - was when they would all march in a big pack, stomp their feet, and then shuffle with really really small steps to the side. I really wish you could have seen it because we couldn't help but laugh out loud! It just all looked so silly with their fuzzy Qtip hats and shuffling all around. After we stood there for awhile watching and then left for St Paul's Cathedral because it was closing at 1pm today. I got super excited when i found out that it was closing early because of a wedding!! :D & i decided after seeing how beautiful it is, that that's where Prince Harry and i will get married. Well, either that or Westminster Abbey ;) I'll let him decide. When we got there, we were given headsets so that we could hear all about the history of the cathedral, which was actually pretty cool. We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside (and i didn't sneak any this time) but it was absolutely beautiful! I could have stared at the ceiling alone for hours, with its intricately decorated arches covered in gold trims. The cathedral had such historical significance, containing tombs of past rulers and military leaders and artifacts from hundreds of years ago. It was killing me that i couldn't take any pictures! :( Well after we stayed in there for awhile, we all realized how hungry we were, so we set off to find a good place to eat. We walked all over and some places were too busy, some were way to expensive, and some had pictures of naked people on the walls (yeah, you think I'm kidding...there were even little children eating in there!). Eventually, we found this little pub, which turned out to be really good! After eating a delicious meal and relaxing for a bit, we ventured out again into the sunshine & blue skies on our way to the castle. We had to go through security again and we got our headsets back. The first place we went was into the room that held the queen's dollhouse. This was the coolest thing because it wasn't meant for little children, but actually the queen collected miniature items and were placed into this dollhouse. It had working plumbing (!), wooden tables and chairs, a tiny piano, electric lamps, tiny plates and silverware, and anything else you could imagine. It was soo cool! Brittany snuck some pictures in there so check her facebook soon ;) After that, we went into the state apartments which is the part of the castle that is actually used. We still couldn't take any pictures, and i cant really describe how gorgeous each room was. The history of everything was overwhelming, with the original paintings, chairs, tables, and decorations that were there hundreds of years ago. Everything was ornately decorated with gold and classical paintings of past rulers and children of the kings. I really wish i could have taken pictures because i feel like i cant even start to talk about it. The coolest part for me was getting to this one room with a big dining table because it is actually used now by the queen to entertain really important leaders and royalties (I'll be there someday ;) Well, after spending a lottt of time in the castle, we realized that we were almost out of time and had to start heading back to the bus. The blue sky made a great backdrop for all the pictures i took walking back :)

I had a nice little nap on the way home because i was exhausted (staying up till 2:30am the night before wasn't a great idea). We came home and Suzie made our favorite meal, chicken ceasar wraps, which were sooo yummy :) Then Hannah, a girl from our flat, invited us to a water polo match because she knows someone on the team. So we walked over to the pool, which was past our FCH campus a little ways, and cheered on our colleges team :) It was cool because i had never seen water polo before, but i still don't quite understand all the rules. Seeing tons of boys in speedos was a bit awkward though. Yuck. Anyway, it was fun and we laughed the whole way back to our dorm, where we cleaned up the dishes from dinner and all went back to our rooms to relax. I'm probably gonna watch a movie soon & then head to bed early because Brittany & i are trying a new church in town so we have to leave a bit earlier. Goodnight! :D

My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room.

So wednesday night is apparently when everybody goes out (i think thats strange, its a school night! ;), so Suzie, Jess, and i got all ready and were gonna go out with some of our flatmates. The plan was to go to this one dance club called Dakota before 10pm so that we could get in free, which was perfect because i wasn't planning on drinking so that meant a free night for me :) But, the girls weren't ready before ten of course, and since we didn't know how to get there on our own, we decided to meet up with some people we knew who were going to another club nearby. The bad part was, that this place didn't have a dance floor so we just sat and talked while they all drank their super expensive mixed drinks. 5 pounds for a drink? yeah, no thanks. Then they all decided that they wanted to go to Dakota, which would cost 4 pounds to get in because it was after 10. The deal is that it costs that much to get in, and then the drinks are pretty cheap, but that was sorta a rip off for me. So Suzie, Jess & i left and went to the Tesco grocery store (all dressed up, so that was pretty funny) and bought ingredients to make pizza back at the dorm. that's my idea of a good night: sweatpants, great friends, homemade pizza, and being able to remember it ;) So we all went to our rooms to go to bed around midnight, but i couldn't fall asleep until around 2:30. I was dreaming about something until, at like 3:30 after only being asleep for about an hour, my flatmates came onto the hall drunk out of their minds screaming and talking really loud. They finally quieted down for a bit and i was just drifting off to sleep when i was woken up by the most shrill noise i had ever heard. Yup, it was the fire alarm at 4am. It scared me so much that i jumped out of my bed, luckily remembered to grab my keys, and stumbled out into the hallway, where most of my flatmates were doing the same. I asked them if we really had to go outside, and one said that she was just going to hide out in her room but i just needed to get away from that noise so i went outside with everyone. It was pretty funny to see everybody from our building gathered into the courtyard because you could definitely tell who was actually sleeping at 4am and who was just coming in from the club. So there were some in their pajamas with no makeup on & their hair all messed up and then there were others who were still all dressed up with high heels and skanky dresses. (yeah, thats a great way to get a guy's attention, wear the least amount of clothes possible, he'll definitely be interested in your personality) Anyway, we stood out there for about 20 mins until the firemen (i thought they were good looking at first, but considering it was 4am, i was greatly mistaken once i looked again). I was sleepy and didn't remember to grab a coat or shoes so i was happy to get out of the cold when they finally let us back in. One guy from the 2nd floor actually took his mattress with him, which i still don't fully understand, but if you knew him, you would know not to ask questions. It took me awhile to fall back asleep but i was thankful that my class on Thursday didn't start until 3:15 so i was able to sleep in a bit. I did have to get up and do some reading for it but that wasn't too bad.

I was really excited for my Special Ed class because we were having some students come from the National Star College come and give a presentation. I had no idea what this college was until yesterday and it is an amazing place. It's a college just like any other one except that it is for people who have special needs, physically or mentally. I got really excited about it because i had never heard of a college like that before in the states, but i really think there should be a lot more of them. The students there can either live there in dorm-like housing or commute from off campus. They are placed into vocational training courses of their choice, ranging from healthcare to sports management to creative arts. They're typcially enrolled for up to 4 years, but it usually is about three, like the college i'm at now. It has all the typical college activities like dances and a campus bar (well that's only typical over here ;) as well as therapies for those who need them. The students who visited us had a variety of disabilities; some were in wheelchairs and seemed to have cerebral palsy, others i think had learning disabilities, and two had speech impairments. I probably looked pretty funny because i was smiling the whole class because these students just made me so happy :) They talked to us about their college experience and we were able to ask questions about the college and other things. My professor asked one of them about whether or not he thought that society was getting better about adapting to people with disabilities. He said that for the most part he was very able to do what anyone else can, but there are some room for improvement of course. One thing that sort of convicted me was when he said that the one thing that makes him upset is when people talk to his mom or whoever he is out with instead of talking to him directly. He said, "Just because I'm in a wheelchair doesn't mean i cant understand you. I have a voice too!" That really struck me because i think we all think that sometimes. We think that just because they might walk with a limp or use a wheelchair, that their minds wont be able to comprehend what we're saying, which is completely wrong. These students spoke eloquently and clearly and were mostly able to answer all our questions. One girl, who couldn't speak at all, used a device on her iphone, where she would type in what she wanted to say and it was played through a little speaker. I am so amazed and grateful for the assistive technology that is available right now, it has helped so many people be able to communicate who had much difficulty doing so before. After their presentation, we were able to mingle and chat with the students, which was a little intimidating at first, but soon i felt as if i was just chatting with a friend. I sat down next to a guy named Alex who was in a wheelchair and seemed to have cerebral palsy, but i'm not quite sure. He is the president of their student union, so we had a great time talking about that with him and he asked us questions about our college as well. He asked me what i wanted to do once i graduated and i said that i would love to teach special ed in the primary grades overseas. He said, "That's going to be one of the most challenging and most rewarding jobs you could have. The little support and attention that you give the children will have such a huge impact on their lives." That was one of the most encouraging things anyone could say to me, especially from him. He also told me that i should start my own Star College in the states because i don't think college like that exist there. How cool would that be?! I seriously could go on and on about how much i loved that class but this is getting to be pretty long. It really did affirm to me about how much i was meant for this major and how excited i am about my future career. Those students encouraged me so much and i left that class with a huge smile on my face :)

Sorry that was so long! haha i couldn't help it ;) Well, last night i played some poker with Suzie, Steph and Kelly, and i actually won some rounds! I don't think i could ever play with real money though haha Today I've been just basically doing nothing but starting to look into my upcoming assignments and getting organized for them. Tomorrow we go on a BCA trip to the Windsor Castle so I'm really excited for that! Check back here tomorrow night or Sunday for stories about that. I'll put up pictures on facebook too :)

So many sights to see so wake up like an early birdie

I'm back from Wales! :D it was an AMAZING trip and i had sooo much fun! It was filled with castles, sunshine, muddy pants, cute Welsh boys (i decided that Wales has the cutest boys, must be somethin in the water...i'm planning on moving here ;), and lots of laughter :) I'll be putting up pictures soon on Facebook (i took a lotttt) so check them out!

Well we left veryy early Saturday morning, when it was still dark and stores were just getting ready to open. We took the bus to the train station and got on the 7:20 train going to Bristol. After about a 40 minute ride (which felt like 10 minutes) we had to get off and switch trains really quick. The next one took us about an hour to the city of Cardiff, Wales. Since we were staying in a hostel and we couldn't check in until around 2 in the afternoon, we had to walk the whole morning with our backpacks and everything on. That was sorta a pain because they were pretty heavy and awkward but it wasn't too bad. We had a group of 10 total, some from Messiah and some from other colleges, so it was great to have this trip to meet new people :) Danielle was named "Mama Bear" because she planned basically the whole trip, having written down all the times and prices of everything and she always kept a close watch to see if we were all behind her. I know that we would have had a lot of trouble if it weren't for her, so that was really great. So after we got off the train, we went and got day passes for the bus, so that we could just use that instead of having to pay each time. It wasn't a lot of money so that worked out really well. We then took the bus to this beautiful cathedral that was pretty close to where we were. I honestly can't remember the name of it, but it was absolutely gorgeous! The sun was shining so we walked all around it and got some amazing pictures inside and out. It was huge so I don't even think i saw the whole thing. After spending some time there, we were all pretty hungry so we stopped into this adorable little tea shop in town and got sandwiches for lunch. It was really nice to come inside from the cold and finally take off our backpacks! Then we took the bus again to the town centre (i hate spelling it like that, but thats how they do it here!) and found this historical marketplace that has been running since the 1890's. It sorta reminded me of a flea market because it was filled with cheap useless stuff that no one really wants, except for these amazing pastry vendors. I got a veryy sugary donut that i never ended up finishing because it was so sweet and a traditional Welsh cake. It was sorta like a really really dry version of a silver-dollar pancake with raisins but it was pretty good. Then we took the bus to Cardiff Bay, which was right on the water, and it was soooo beautiful! The sun was really warm (i felt like i could have gotten a tan!) and made for some great pictures. I probably could have spent hours there taking pictures and basking in the sunshine :) There were sailboats in the water and lots of historical sites so it was definitely one of my favorite places we went. After that, we were getting pretty tired of carrying our backpacks so we went to check in at the hostel. It was not sketchy at all (as my mom was worried about) and was pretty much like a hotel because it was really clean. It had a full kitchen, tv room with wireless internet, a game room, and a bar-like area. We had booked two rooms, one for 6 people and the other with 4. Luckily, our group never had to share a room with people we didnt know so that was a blessing :) I was in the room of 6 people, with Suzie, Bethany, Steph, Greg, & Kelly and we pretty much spent the whole time together laughing. The room was really plain, with 3 bunkbeds, and the bathrooms were across the hall. We had to share the bathrooms with other people down the hall (we think they were french), but it was never a problem or anything. After checking in, we just relaxed and rested our tired feet for a bit, and then went off into the town centre for some shopping and dinner. It was really nice to not wear our backpacks for the rest of the night! After we found something to eat and shopped for a little bit, we went back to the hostel and played some card games and just hung out. Around 9pm, we were bored and didnt really want to go to bed that early, so we ventured out to find a pub. This one street that had tons of clubs and bars was i guess the cool place to be because it was soo busy with tons of people all dressed up (we felt really out of place with our sweatshirts and sneakers, and just really looking like tourists). We decided we didn't want to be there so we went a little further and found a pretty nice pub where we stayed for awhile and hung out. After that, we went back to our rooms and showered & relaxed and all fell asleep around midnight.

The next day, we woke up around 8:30 because the hostel provided a free breakfast of toast, cereal & tea (exciting i know!) and that ended at 9. Then we got ready and checked out at 10. Unfortunately we had to carry our backpacks again, but we got pretty used to it. The plan for today was to go to the National Museam and the Caerphilly Castle, which we could get to by bus. But, we somehow confused the bus schedule and closing time of the museam, so we only made it to the castle, which was totally fine with me. We actually had to take the train there, but it was really inexpensive and got us there a lot faster. And it was soo worth it because the castle was beautiful!!! It was surrounded by a huge moat and green grass and had this amazing historical essence about it. I probably could have taken thousands of pictures! We paid the little bit of money so that we could go in it, and it was awesome because we got to just wander around the grounds wherever we wanted to go. There were catapults and bridges that have withheld destruction and time and are still usable, which is so cool. Inside were tons of little rooms and hallways with spiral staircases made of stone so i definitely could have gotten lost in there (and i probably would have been fine with that ;) Probably my favorite room was this Great Hall that was probably used for big feasts because it had really tall ceilings, a big fireplace, and a really long wooden table. We took a "family" portrait there with the whole group & i cant wait to see how it came out :) Oh! so if you could use a laugh, you're in luck because i did something really embarrassing today (i know, its not really surprising right?) Well, everyone was looking at this deep cave-like thing with walls of rocks and i stayed at the top of the hill to take pictures of them. I was wearing my super-cool new sunglasses (if u saw them, you would think they were super-cool too) and snapping pictures & not really looking where i was going. So i was climbing up the small hill to get to the path when, in my head i was thinking about how the sunglasses made my perception really wierd, right then i fell flat on my face in the mud. Of course, some people from my group were able to see this act of grace and were nice enough to laugh at me. Okay, i was laughing pretty hard too. When i got up, my hands were totally covered in mud, as were my jeans and coat. Also, to add to the moment, my hair was everywhere so before i realized how much mud was on my hands, i proceeded to push my hair out of my face...and getting mud all over my forehead. Yup. I'm just that coordinated. It was a pretty funny moment except when i realized that i had to walk around for the rest of the day with mud all over my pants. I think it just added to the hip backpacker look ;) Anyway...after spending a lot of time at the castle, we left and got lunch/dinner at a pub in town and it was delicious. Then we caught the train right before it was about to leave, which meant that there were no seats, so we had to awkwardly stand in front of the bathrooms and doors, right where people needed to get to. It was an interesting trip back but some of us were able to find seats so that was really good :) We made it back to Cheltenham and after stopping at Wetherspoons for their amazing chocolate cake, i'm now cozy in my dorm, changed out of my muddy jeans and looking forward to climbing in my bed.

I know this was super long and i hope people actually made it to the end (congratulations!) but it was an amazing trip and it was really hard to write everything down. If you wanna know more details or other funny stories, just skype me! :) goodnight everyone! <3

If my heart was a house, you'd be home

I decided to put owl city lyrics as the title of this one because i just bought tickets to see him in LONDON!!!!! ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! :D :D I really wish you could have seen me when i saw that 2 tickets were available because i was jumping up & down and bolted across the hall to tell Brittany :) I've been searching for tickets to see him for the past like two weeks and they've all been sold out. I knew the whole Ticketmaster routine, change the amount of tickets to two, click find tickets, type in the stupid word picture thing that makes sure I'm human (what else would i be??), & then the screen comes up saying that there are no tickets available. I had done that soo many times so when i tried just one more time for the London show i was definitely expecting that same screen again. But i got them!! :D :D yayyy! Its Feb 18th so its not even that far away! oh & if you have no idea who owl city is...pleeeease look him up right now because he's amazing! :)

....but I'm really not that excited about it hahaha anyway, i haven't written on here in almost a week so sorry about that! i honestly just forget to do it when theres nothing really exciting to talk about. This week has been pretty good, same old thing with classes & such. I decided that Monday is my least favorite day because i have 3 two-hour long classes :/ yuck. I go to New Religious Movements at the FCH campus ten blocks away at 9:15 til 11:15 then i run back (well not literally run..i cant even remember the last time i even walked fast ;) to meet up with people to get the bus to the Oxstalls campus 15 minutes away. Then i have my health class from 1:15 to 3:15 and then get the bus back. I have a little bit of time to eat & relax and then i have our BCA class at the FCH campus again about British history and culture from 5:45 till 7:45. We cant even skip that one (which i would never do haha ;) because that's when we get our food money! Ugh. What a long day! i was soo tired afterwards and couldn't wait to just go to bed :) Tuesday i had my Geography-ish class which i actually don't mind because i like the professor. He's pretty funny. I cant remember what i did tuesday night, but i probably just hung out & watched movies like normal haha Wednesday I didn't have any classes so i got to sleep in pretty late & then a bunch of us went to buy train tickets for Wales this weekend! yayy! The train station was pretty far away from where we live which we weren't expecting, but it was a nice walk because it was actually sunny out :) After deciding to the get the bus back, Brittany and i went shopping at these little shops that we've never been in before, and we found these mall-type places that had lots of expensive stores. A little window shopping never hurts :) She got these awesome Barbie-pink heels for 2 pounds on clearance and i got some purple tights to wear with the black dress i bought last week. Wednesday night apparently is when lots of people go out, so Brittany, Suzie & i met up with some girls from the fourth floor and we got all dressed up & went out to find some dessert ;) Unfortunately, all of the places we went to stopped serving food so we never found any. So we went to this place called Revolution, which is in an old church (weird, i know) and its sorta a club i guess, but we just hung out there for a bit. Then we met up with some other people from the fourth floor at Boogie Lounge, which is another club and headed straight for the dance floor :) they played great music so we all had a blast just dancing like idiots haha One thing i learned though, is to definitely wear flats because my feet were killing me afterwards! On the way home, i walked barefoot, which felt a lot better. It was a fun night and we might go again next week :) Thursday I didn't have class till 3:15 so i slept in again because i had gotten to bed past 2am the night before. I really enjoy that class because the professor is great and the other students are really funny and nice :) I have some entertaining stories from that class but maybe i'll tell them another time. Last night, Brittany and i went out to eat at this American-type restaurant called Frankie & Benny's which was really cute and had great food. They played music from Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra so i totally loved that. Then we went back to Regency and spent some time skyping friends and watching movies of course ;) Today I accidentally slept in (for real! i really didn't mean to haha) and then Brittany and i went out to run some errands, and get Auntie Annes Pretzels! Yes they have them here!! you have no idea how excited i was when i found that out! yummm :D

Well, tonight i'll be packing because early tomorrow i'll be on my way to Wales! A whole bunch of us, which keeps growing haha, are taking a train 2 hours and will be spending all of saturday there, sleeping over in a hostel, and then coming back Sunday night. Honestly, i'm not sure what exactly is there, but i heard that the castles and old buildings are absolutely beautiful so i'm looking forward to taking lots of good pictures. Check back here Monday or Tuesday and i'll blog about the trip :)

Oh! a quick funny story from today: So britt & i were walking back from the store and i looked up and thought it had started to rain a little bit. But then, we realized that it wasn't rain, but it was snow! Only this wasn't your ordinary snow, it was hard and didn't really melt or stick to the ground. It seriously looked like the Dots ice cream that you get from amusement parks! It was like a blizzard of Dots for about 2 minutes and then stopped. Weirdest thing ever. I wish i had taken my camera!

I'd walk a thousand miles just to see you tonight

So if i ever wanted to know what it felt like to be hit by a truck, i now know. Don't worry, i wasn't actually hit by a truck, but walking around London all day it sure felt like it. I still am really sore and it feels like i ran a marathon (not that i have any idea what that feels like) but it was sooo worth it! :D

We got up super early and got the 7:45 bus to London and tried to sleep on the 2 hour ride there. I dozed on & off a little but mostly was awake the whole time. When we got there, we weren't exactly sure what to do or where to go, but followed a map to Buckingham Palace. There were tons of tourists around (i didn't hear a British accent alot so that was sorta funny) but the palace was gorgeous! It was a lot bigger than i thought with gold gates surrounding it. The flag was up on top of the building and Tyler said that that means the Queen is there, but I'm not sure that's right haha It would be pretty cool if it was though! We were all sorta disappointed because the guards in red coats with the funny hats weren't there and i really wanted a picture with one. I'm not sure why they weren't there that day, but my dad told me that the city was on alert for some terrorist thing yesterday so maybe that's why, but i didn't get any feeling that people were afraid at all. (though, i am glad that i found out about that after i was back at school ;) So we took tons of pictures there and at the fountain across the street for awhile, then we noticed a bunch of guard-looking guys wearing helmets and carrying swords on horses were trotting down the street and all the tourists rushed to the road to take pictures. I got really excited because i thought it was a motorcade (or i guess a horse-cade in this case ha!) for the queen or the princes but then realized that the cars behind the horses were just ordinary taxis and street sweepers and just wanted to get around them. We realized later that the guys on horses were headed to this other building (we still didnt know what it was) for some sort of changing of the guard thing. We just saw a huggge crowd of people surrounding a roped off area where the guys in red were lined up facing these guys in black all on horses. They just stood there for awhile & then at exactly 11:30..more guys in red came, got in line, and then they all left. I'm still not sure what this meant, but it seemed pretty exciting! We Then we walked to Westminster Abbey which was soo beautiful! we got tickets to go inside and i was pretty bummed when i found out we couldn't take pictures. Brittany and i still snuck some though ;) The inside of it was absolutely breathtaking and i really dont think pictures would have done it justice. The coolest part for me was walking around the rooms with all the graves of past kings and royal people. As we were looking at the graves, i was thinking about how cool it is that these people were so important that people like us today want to take pictures of where they're buried. How cool is that?! I can't even imagine being that prominent that tourists are paying to see my grave. Whoa. Maybe it'll happen someday when i marry prince harry ;) So we stayed in there for a long time and then left to take 9837459834 pictures of Big Ben. I felt like I needed to take pictures of "him" from every single angle and ended up with a bunch that looked exactly the same haha We then went to the London Eye, which is like a big ferris wheel (the biggest in the world actually) but there are like 30 people in each "pod" and you can walk around in it and take pictures. We had ordered tickets for it ahead of time so the line wasn't too long. It took us about 30 mins to get the whole way around and it was soooo cool! No matter how many pictures i took, i just couldn't capture how beautiful the view was. After our ride, we walked along the river for a long time and saw mimes and other street performers and also the millenium bridge (which u can see in the most recent harry potter movie :) and the globe theatre. By this time, it was dark so the view of London was gorgeous. We decided to walk all the way back to where our bus was going to pick us up and then have dinner, but it was a veryyy long walk. We were starting to get kind of grumpy and tired by the time we found somewhere decent to eat. Ironically it was called "The American Steakhouse" or something like that, but i got my cheeseburger that i was craving for so long so i was okay with not eating somewhere British. Then we ran to catch our bus and collapsed the second we got in our seats. Brittany googled it when we got back to school and we had walked over 10 miles the whole day and i was definitely feeling it. I was very sore and tired and couldn't wait to climb into bed :) I slept for a really really long time!

Today, after getting up at almost 2pm, i went to the store with Britt to get food because tonight i was making dinner! We came back, made the shepherds pie and popped it in the oven right before we went to church. The service was pretty good, although we didn't sing any songs i knew, which bugs me a little bit. Next week we're going to try the earlier service to see if we like it more. We got back and dinner was delicious :) it definitely reminded me of home! Well i should head to bed because i have a veryyy busy day tomorrow, complete with 3 two hour classes, so I'll need all the energy i can get. Sorry this is so long! goodnight :)

Can't read my p-p-pokerface ;)

Well I'm feeling better! haha I was actually feeling a lot better monday night and went to my geography class on tuesday, but i havent written on here since then. Sorry about that! The reason I've been putting this off was because i havent really anything too exciting lately. It's something that I've really had to get used to, because back at Messiah i usually don't even have time to let my feet touch the ground, running from meetings to rehearsals and class, of course ;) So its definitely different, I've had a lot of time to think (which can be dangerous for me sometimes) and get myself organized (which also can be dangerous, especially when i hit my head on low pointy shelves...that happened to me about 20 mins ago actually). Anyway, i still have a lot of adjusting to do with all my free time and hopefully i'll find something worthwhile to do with my time haha that's kinda funny because right now as I'm writing this..I'm also watching youtube videos and painting my nails both of which i find very worthwhile.

Well, Wednesday night a bunch of the girls from this flat and i went to the movies to see Up in the Air. I actually had no idea what it was about except that George Clooney was in it, so that was enough for me. Seriously, i decided that it is critical that my future husband looks like that when hes older. I'm allowed to let myself go and eat whatever i want and never do my hair but nope, he has to look exactly like george clooney all the time. The movie was pretty good and entertaining and it was cute up until the veryy end when it dropped off the depressing cliff. I only like to leave movie theaters either laughing or feeling inspired to be a better person..but that just left me sad. Eh, it was fun anyway :) Yesterday, I went to my class (at the right time this week yay!) and it was really interesting. This is the only class that i actually look forward to, mainly because i pretty much know what the professors talking about and i didnt feel dumb like in my other classes. We watched a kinda strange video made by people who are disabled and in it there was a lot of swearing, which is weird for me because that really wouldn't happen at Messiah. But I learned a lot and actually participated in the discussion, which is also new for me :) Last night, i played spoons and poker with some people from the fourth floor and it was a lot of fun. I actually won some rounds of poker! :D Mostly by luck..aka not knowing what i was doing at all..but i think I'm finally starting to understand it.
Today I slept in pretty late by accident because i never heard my alarm. I didn't really have anywhere i needed to go, but i really need to get out of this habit of sleeping until noon. I got up and went to go do laundry but apparently all the cool people do laundry on Friday mornings so they were all full :/ I'm really glad that no one was in the laundry room when i first went down there because i was sooo confused! First of all i couldn't tell which were dryers and which were washers, so i was scared that i was just gonna dry my dirty clothes instead of washing them. Also, i had no idea how to pay for them because the machine is super confusing. (By the way, it cost me 5 pounds to do laundry today! soo annoying!) But eventually i figured it out...okay i made Brittany show me how to do it haha Then she and i went with Bethany from the 4th floor to this store called Matalan down the street which is sorta like a target but only for clothes. They have some pretty nice stuff and some pretty hideous stuff, and we all picked out an ugly outfit for someone else to try on haha i got stuck with this awful sequined shirt the color of pennies which scratched my arms and was super uncomfortable. I ended up buying a really cute black dress that looks like its from the 50's for only 8 pounds! :) We ran some other errands and came back to a yummy spaghetti dinner. Later tonight, Brittany, Suzie, Jess & i went to a pub called Wetherspoons for dessert, which was really fun.
I'm super excited because tomorrow I'm going to London! Britt & i are going with Michelle & Tyler and we're catching a very early bus so that we can spend the whole day there. We're planning on seeing Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, and probably a whole bunch more. So check back here tomorrow night because I'll tell u all about it :) I should probably head to bed because my alarm will be going off wayy too soon...Goodnight!

I am 14 going on 15...

Nope, not my age, that's just the amount hours i have spent in bed since midnight last night. & its not because they are super comfortable - they're actually not at all, i can feel every spring and wake up every morning holding my back like i belong in a nursing home - it is actually because i've caught the stomach bug and was sick all last night.

Yesterday i slept in really late, so i blamed the fact that i wasn't feeling the best on that. I didn't really do much, just wasted a lot of time on the computer because i didn't feel up to doing anything else, even though the weather was absolutely gorgeous outside! :( At dinner, Suzie made this amazing stir-fry and I felt so bad when i couldn't eat everything she gave me because she thought i didn't like it, which i really did. After that, Tyler, Michelle, Britt & I went to a local Baptist church for the evening service which reminded me a lot of Lifepoint back home, well except for the accents ;) Brittany and i were saying afterward that it was really hard not to sing the songs or recite the verses in a British accent haha I think next week we're going to try going to the morning service; the only reason we didn't this week is because we thought that evening services are sometimes more casual and contemporary, but really there just weren't a lot of people there. After we got back, I started to talk to Nate on skype, but felt the need to lay down instead because i was getting really nauseous. I'll spare you all the great details from last night but basically I was up every hour and couldn't even keep down a sip of water. I was scared to get out of bed this morning, or afternoon, because it seemed like i would get sick if i even sat up, so my amazing friend Tyler went to the store & bought me some Coke. I'm really bummed that I didn't make it to either of my classes today, its the only day that i have more than one, because we were told that it is important to go to each class because our director had to try really hard to get us in those classes, so it's rude to not show up. I emailed my professors and apologized, so hopefully it will be okay.

Well I think i might turn on a movie and relax a bit more (i know, soon I'll become a part of this bed!) so i don't overdo it and get sick again. Oh, & this blog wasn't supposed to be me complaining about everything but just so certain people, ahem my mom, knows whats up.

A Foggy Day in London Town

well..not really London, just a foggy day ;)

I guess Ive been slacking off when it comes to these blogs..i just sorta forget about them sometimes. It's not like I'm super busy and never come back to earth for a half hour to write one, its actually quite the opposite. It's definitely like the strangest thing to not have classes all day everyday which means i have a lot of free time. Normally, i never would have thought I'd be complaining about that, but i get soooo bored sometimes! I know that it won't be this easy and we've only had the first week of awkward introduction classes, so I'm sure that I'll have a lot more school work to do later on.

Hmm where did I leave off? Well, on Thursday, i was soo excited for my special ed class that i showed up 2 hours early. Ha! yeahh right. Well i was really excited about it but that's not why i got there so early. I actually misread the timetable sheet i had written out (dumb 24 hour clock) so I thought that it started at 1:15 when really it was at 3:15. I was super happy to find some other BCA students in the lobby leaving at 1 for class too because then i would have some people to walk with, which is always nice. When i got to the building, i found my classroom pretty quick, but there was a lecture going on! I must have looked really confused because the maintenance man that was standing there asked if i needed any help. He showed me on the door a paper that had the schedule for that classroom and yup, my class was not for 2 whole hours. So i walked the 10 blocks all the way back to my room, but i guess a little exercise never hurt anyone ;) I wasted some time on facebook until it was time to leave again and walked back to the campus. This time, i asked the students in the classroom if i was in the right place, which i was :) Anyway, i am sooo excited for this class! Not only am i learning about something that i love and is really interesting but we get to go on field tripsssss! :D i really hope we take a school bus...that would be the best day ever. The class is basically about the history of special education in England, which is super interesting, and we're gonna visit some local schools throughout the semester. yay! Oh funny British saying i've learned recently: Instead of saying "How are you doing?", sometimes they say "Are you okay?" To me, I consider saying Are you Okay when someone is clearly not okay or hurt or something. It was pretty funny when i walked into my Thursday class, i was already really nervous to go in the classroom but when i sat down, one girl turned to me and asked if i was okay. I thought in my head, Man i must really look flustered or embarrassed! But i just replied.."um..yeah I'm okay...." I asked some girls on my flat how i should have responded and they said that most people say "I'm doing fine, how are you?" Guess ill try that instead next time ;)

I had friday off, so i slept in pretty late & then britt and i walked to the campus library to figure out some stuff and then to the bookstore in town so she could get her books. That night, some of the girls on my flat were going to salsa dancing lessons, but it cost some money and I didn't really feel like going so i stayed here. I'll probably go next time because it sounded like it was a lot of fun! Jess Britt & i stayed here and played some dutch blitz and just hung out.
We were gonna go to London to visit Kendall today (Saturday) and i was sooo excited to see her, but it was just wayy too complicated and expensive so we decided not to go. I was a pretty bummed, but Michelle and Tyler (my friends from Messiah) had planned a trip to a town called Bourton on the Water which is like 30 mins away from here, so Brittany & i went with them. We had heard great things about this town, people saying how beautiful it was and how amazing everything is there. Yup pretty much like its streets were made of gold and everything. haha jk ;) After trying to figure out the bus schedule, we made it there and did not find gold plated roads or sidewalks covered rose petals, but a very ordinary town. There was basically nothing to do there. Sure, it was pretty but because of the weather, it just looked dreary and empty. One really cool part on the bus was that there was soo much fog that everything around us was pure white. It was like we were going through a cloud :D We were planning on staying there for the afternoon, but after taking some pictures and walking the one busy street back and forth, we left after an hour. It was okay though, it was nice to see something different and take some good pictures :) After that we ate lunch at this cafe down the street which was sooo yummy and really inexpensive.
Later, we got some people together to play some card games in the kitchen. First, we played Bull**** (i wont put the whole word here haha) which i am terrible at. I guess I'm just a really bad liar, but i don't necessarily think that's a bad thing ;) Then, they taught me how to play poker and we got together some candy to use as chips. I paired up with Brittany, but she ended up playing the whole thing for me because I just didn't get it. Looks like my career as a dealer in Vegas is gone ;) We got a little bored of poker so we taught the British people how to play spoons, which is one of my favorites. It was hilarious and we ended up laughing the whole time. It was really nice to meet some new people tonight and i hope we will hang out again :)

Tomorrow we're going to sleep in a bit but later go to a night service at a nearby baptist church so it should be really cool :) I'll try to put up pictures from today up on facebook soon.

ps another music reference in the title..this one is superrr easy. if you don't get it, I'm sorry we cant be friends ;)

well, considering the time differences, I have been going to bed pretty late every night skyping with people and chatting on facebook. not that I'm complaining..i look forward to those conversations all day! :D So it was really nice today because I didn't have any classes..or modules as they call them here (although i think that sounds very space-y like it should be a part of a spaceship or UFO or something). I slept in really late, which could have been a mistake because i was very lazy the rest of the day. I wasted lots of time on facebook after getting up and watching the american idol episode from last night, which I was really really excited to find. Around 3ish, Brittany came to my door and i glanced in the mirror before answering and noticed that i was still in my pajamas and still hadn't showered haha oh well. After we chatted for a bit i finally got ready and soon enough it was time to eat. Tonight's menu consisted of yummy crepes with mint fruit salad to put on top. Yup, we eat a five-star restaurant every night. Jealous? ;) After that we really didn't want to sit around bored all night so we got some girls from the flat together and went to see It's Complicated in the nearby cinemas. The movie wasn't as awkward as i originally thought and was actually really funny! It was nice hanging out with the other girls, they are super sweet and we really get along great. It was about 11pm when we came back so everyone went to get ready for bed and I skyped with my mom and dad for a bit & then I was soooo excited to talk to Chrystal for awhile! <3 I have one class tomorrow at 1:15 and it should be pretty interesting because it's about the history of special ed in the UK so I'm excited :) Well its 1:30am here so i should head to bed. Goodnight!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! :D :D i love youuuu!! xoxo

just a day, just an ordinary day :)

Well today was pretty normal, nothing too exciting happened, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I like normal, it gives me time to recharge and get myself organized because its on the crazy days when i start to unravel. I got up around 9:30, got myself ready and then met a couple people to walk to our Geography class. We got there early of course (like dorky Americans) and i felt a little dumb when we all sat next to each other in a long row because it was a pretty big classroom with lots of seats haha. Other students came and sat in rows behind us, so even though we didn't want to sit in the front..we sort of ended up that way. The class wasn't really what I expected, mainly because I kept calling it Geography (like i did earlier) but it's really Living in a Global World. So i assumed we would be learning where Moldova or Kazakhstan really are (i still have noo idea) but really its about current globalization of the world and specific countries. This lecture was about food, so we learned about the food chains and the growing fast food infatuation and how that affected the populations. It was sort of funny because the lecturer kept asking our row about different customs or facts about the US so I feel like i need to read up on some current US happenings to make sure i say the right answer ;) Anyway, after a lonnng 2 hour class, we walked back to Regency in the freezing cold weather and turned on the heat in our rooms right away. I ate some lunch, toast with Nutella and scrambled eggs (yum!) and then took a lovely 2 hour nap. I think that's a pretty good system...two hour class = two hour nap :D Soon it was time for dinner..and Suzie had bought things to make chicken caesar wraps which were sooo good! we'll definitely be having those again. I spent some time emailing and Skyping with my mom & Lys and then Brittany and i went grocery shopping. I bought a lot of things and only spent 13 pounds! sweeeeet. Then we just hung out and i cleaned my room finally. That's pretty much it so I guess I'll head to bed even though i have no class tomorrow! yayy!

ps pray for kendall because she leaves early tomorrow morning! :) I'm really excited because Britt & i might be able to see her in London during her layover on saturday!

oh, and bonus points if you can name the song i quoted in the title ;) its an easy one.

don't worry...i'm still alive

okay okay i know its been forever since I've written on here, but so much stuff has been happening so i got a bit overwhelmed. But tonight I'm wide awake at midnight as usual and weirdly, no one is skyping me or facebooking me so i figured i should cross this off of my to-do list :)
Where did I even leave off? haha well, we were taken on a tour of one of the campuses on Thursday afternoon which was really exciting because basically i'm now going to Hogwarts. No really, it looks just like it! Buildings are beautifully old with vines and trees growing up the sides and doors that have probably been there for many, many years. It was a little weird (okay side note: i definitely have been spelling the world weird wrong for basically my entire life..thank you spellcheck) to be there knowing that this was my new school, and knowing that i wasn't going to be walking into a Boyer or Frey buildings anytime soon. On the tour, i felt pretty comfortable getting around, even though we just went through the library, or learning centre as they call it, because everything is pretty well labeled. I was able to take lots of pictures of the campus without feeling awkward and touristy because no students were actually there yet ;) Oh! funny moment from before the tour: during orientation that day we were put into groups and had to list our hopes and fears about this trip. My group decided that the main fear would be running out of my or not fitting in and I decided that my biggest hope would be to marry Prince Harry :D even though u probably already knew that! haha our director got a kick out of that one. After our tour, Jess, Suzie, Britt & I went on our first shopping trip for groceries with our list of the dinners we wanted to make. Oh, and by "we" I really mean Suzie..shes an amazing cook and is definitely saving us from a diet of frozen pizza and cereal. That night, she made chicken that was marinated in a curry-like sauce on top of white rice. It was so good!
I guess I should be blogging more because I really can't remember what happened on Friday haha But I was really excited for Saturday to come because we were going on a group trip to the city of Bath. I honestly didn't know much about the city, but once I got there, I absolutely loved it! The architecture of the buildings was stunning and I loved walking around a town with so much history and beauty to offer. I really couldn't take enough pictures to really capture it all. The city is basically known for the Roman baths, which take place in a natural hot spring and were used by the ancient Romans as a place of worship and relaxation. We were able to walk around them and learn more about the history of them which was really cool especially because it still uses all the same stones and linings as it did back then. We also went to a the Sally Lunn house, which is the oldest house in Bath and widely known for its tea and the Sally Lunn buns :) We were all soo excited to have real English tea, which was actually pretty good! That's saying a lot because I'm not a tea drinker at all haha The buns we had for breakfast were pretty much like a giant English muffin but were like 80000 times better! yummmm! After that, we were given time off to just walk around by ourselves so Britt & I spent the day exploring and taking tons of pictures :)
Sunday was a great day because we didn't have anything planned as a group so we were all able to sleep in late and catch up on some much needed rest. Brittany and I went to the FCH campus to find the classrooms we had to go to on Monday but unfortunately they were all closed. That made me soooo nervous about the first day of classes, and if you talked to me at all Sunday night, you would know that haha
Phew. Now we're up to date. Right now, its Monday night and I have officially made it through my first day of class! :D yayy! it really wasn't as scary as i thought, of course. I woke up pretty early just to check if they were canceled because of the snow, but they weren't so i got ready as normal. Luckily, i signed on facebook real quick and Jess asked me if i wanted to walk with her to the campus, which was a great relief. Once i got there, i found my first class fairly quickly, New Religious Movements. There were about 15 students total, which was pretty surprising but i was soo excited when 3 other girls i knew from our American group were in the class too. It sounds like its going to be really interesting because we're talking about topics i've never heard before. After that class, i ran back to my room, made a quick sandwich because my stomach was growling like a monster and then met a bunch of people headed to the farthest campus. We took the bus there (a little scary) and had a little tour of the building. My next class, Public Health, seems like it will be a bit boring but the other people in it are really entertaining and loved to ask us questions about the US. I felt like a celebrity ;) haha jk! Anyway, we took the bus back and then Suzie made us nachos for dinner and we all just hung out. Some girls on our flat went out to a club but we decided it would be best to just stay here and we watched the bachelor instead ;) much better decision.

Okay so I'm really sorry that was so long and crazy! i promise I'll stay up to date from now on...haha yeah right ;) I'll do my best! well i have one class tomorrow at 11:15 so i get to sleep in, but im gonna go to bed now & catch up on my sleep :) goodnight!

& the orientation begins...

Thankfully, we were able to sleep in today and were supposed to start orientation at 10am. The directors had a whole schedule for us including breakfast at the university, which is about 10 blocks away from our dorm building and then doing some other stuff there. But, since no one here is accustomed to the snow, everything was shut down; most of the shops and the university. Our directors had to go out in the snow and buy us breakfast foods like dry cereal and bread and we ate it in one of the floor kitchens. Then, we had a shortened version of the orientation stuff they needed to go over like the rules and expectations & also helpful information about traveling. It was sort of interesting when they brought up the subject of alchohol because here you're allowed to keep it in your rooms because the drinking age is 18 and apparently thats what all the students do. I'm not planning on drinking while i'm over here but it is really different because its actually legal for me. After the short orientation, we were split up into groups and taken into the town of Cheltenham where the university is, which is soooo cute :) There are tons of little shops everywhere and the iconic red telephone booths and it was a lot of fun to finally interact with the local people here and of course hear their accents haha. We were able to buy anything we needed and walk around for a couple hours, so I bought a cheap blanket because my room is like a freezer during the night. I thought I was in England, but apparently its really Antarctica. Needless to say i'll be sleeping in a sweatshirt and sweatpants tonight. After we got back to the building, we then met up and took a double-decker bus(!) to a restaurant called Zizzi's for our welcome dinner. It was the coolest place: it was in an old catholic church built in the 1800's and 8 years ago it was turned into a restaurant. The funny thing is, where the altar should be is where the kitchen is, which is all exposed and we can actually see the cooks make our food. The food there was amazing, I got a fetuccine dish with bacon mixed in (it sounds really wierd but it was soo good) and a melted chocolate cake thing for dessert with vanilla gelato. yummm :) We were all stuffed after that so luckily we got to walk back to the building instead of taking the bus. We didn't have anything else scheduled for the night so i spent some time organizing my stuff and talking with some pretty cool people online ;) Unfortunately, we had a ton of things to do at the university campus tomorrow but it's closed again due to the weather so I'm not sure what's actually gonna happen. Anyway, its bedtime for me so goodnight all! <3