Watch out England..Here I Come!! :)

Thursday, March 25, 2010

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

Monday, March 15, 2010

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 ;)

Thursday, March 4, 2010

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 )

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

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!