Thanksgiving!

While it was hard being away from friends and family for thanksgiving, instead of hanging around in London I took my last trip to Germany for the semester. Charles and I made our own humble Thanksgiving meal on Thursday. Charles even cooked our own little Turkey, all 4 pounds of it!
In total, we went to three German markets: Amberg, Regansburg, and Nuremburg. Regansburg was a big disappointment, so we headed back to Amberg (the city Charles lives in) and found that their market was much better! But I would have to say that the Nuremburg Market was by far the best! We got plenty of German treats during our walks through the city centers, we even got Gluewein (mulled wine) and a couple of souvenirs!
Today has been a very successful day! I have had grad-school deadlines looming over my head since I have gotten to London and they are coming up Very quickly. Instead of going out and doing Chistmas-y things, I stayed in Vandon house and got 3 out of four of my applications completed (Duke, LSU, and UW)!!! All that is left is my application to UT Houston and for my professors to send in their recomendations.
On another note, during my application process I stumbled across the daily announcements for TLU and found out that I am one of the 2009 Who's Who students at TLU! It was a complete surprise, I had no idea I had even been nominated, but no surprise to find out that it was Dr. Laird (my advisor) who nominated me. Anyways, I thought it was really exciting and a nice surprise during the stressful hours of completing online applications while the Internet was going in and out.
I only have two weeks left here, its bitter sweet. Tomorrow we are going to cambridge for the day, I think it was probably a good idea I got a lot of my school stuff out of the way todayso I wouldn't be stressed out the entire time thinking about it. This way I can enjoy the day!

Dublin, Ireland!

MY trip to Dublin was the first trip I planned when I arrived here in London. It has been marked in my calendar for almost two months now, so I was looking forward to Ireland for a while now.
We arrived at our hostel late Thursday night, I was still recovering from being sick and my roommate was sick as well so the four of us girls just stayed in and went to bed.
On Friday, we went on a 4 hour bus tour of the south east coast of Ireland and then ended up in the Powerscourt Gardens. The country side was BEAUTIFUL! It was everything you see in the movies (PS I love you). It is definitely beginning to feel like Christmas here, the weather was so cold!
One of my friends, Haley, that I go to TLU with is currently studying in Northern Ireland so she came down Friday afternoon and spent the rest of the trip with us! It was so nice to see a familiar face from home! Later that night we went out to this dinner and Irish Dancing show. The dancing was like River Dance... they moved their feet so fast I could hardly keep up just watching them! It was great fun and we also got to hear a little bit of Irish music after the show.
Afterwards we made our way down to Temple Bar, it is the most famous bar in Dublin they even named an area of the city after it (kind of like Austin's 6th street). Of course, I got a Guinness.
On Saturday we headed out to the Guinness Storehouse. We took a tour of the brewery and learned the process of how the beer is made. And at the top, we got a free pint of Guinness! It was the best Guinness I have ever had! Not that I had much to compare it to, but still... lol
The city was very expensive, but the people in Ireland were so friendly and welcoming. There was just this relaxing feeling the city gave off, kind of like being at home while we were there. The country was so beautiful, I definitely want to go back and spend more time and see more of the island someday.
I will post pics soon!

Neuschwanstein Castle

This past weekend I spent in Germany with Charles. He kept his promise and we went to the Neuschwanstein Castle. It is what Cinderella's Castle was created from. Since this castle is in the mountains I got to see a little snow!

The castle is in a small town in Bavaria about 3 hours from where Charles lives, Fussen. The town was so cute, one of the picturesque towns with old buildings and cobblestone roads everywhere.

We headed up to the castle early Saturday morning to get a head start on the day. We took a bus up the mountain and first went to a bridge that is supposed to look onto the castle. Well, we got there so early that we were the first ones on the bridge and at first there was too much fog to see anything! But after only a minute or two it cleared up enough to get a glimpse of the castle.
(Charles, the first one on the bridge in all of the fog)

We went on to tour inside the castle. It was like a fairytale castle! All of the walls were painted with Biblical scenes of landscapes. There were Swans all over the place, apparently it was King Ludwig's favorite animal. But I was disappointed by not seeing very much gold or very many jewels in the castle.

Being back in Germany was a nice little break again from all of the people in Vandon House. It was really nice to stay in a quiet place again and have access to American foods too! I like to think that going to the base in Germany is like visiting a mini-America... such a luxury!
By the time I got back to London on Sunday afternoon I was as sick as a dog. I somehow managed to make my way from Heathrow Airport back to Vandon House via the tube with out any energy. And then spent the rest of the night in bed.
By Tuesday I was still feeling terribly and I decided it was time to see a doctor. Luckily UK has a National Health care system so I was able to walk down to the National Health Services, only a block away, and see a doctor (for free might I add!). I am currently taking some medication the doctor prescribed for me, so I am hoping this clears up pretty soon!

Me and Charles by the castle, we aren't very good at self portraits with my camera... its a work in progress :)
On a side note: I will be home one month from today... this semester has gone by so fast!

Parliament and fireworks

IT is beginning to look a lot like Christmas... I love it! Two nights ago, London had a big lighting ceremony on Regents Street in front of Hamleys, the well know London toy store. It is hard to believe that I only have 6 weeks left here. They had the band McFly turn the lights on, so it was neat seeing them.

Yesterday after a huge Indian lunch that our program had for us, we went on a tour of Parliament! It was really neat being able to walk through the House of Lords and the House of Commons. We got to see where the Queen will be on Dec 3 for the opening day of Parliament. We also got to see where Winston Churchill would stand as the Prime Minister and argue with other members of Parliament and got to feel where he would bang his fist down on the table to get his point across. It was kinda weird though... our tour was at 4:00pm and it was bright and sunny (an unusual occurrence for London) but by 5:30 (the time our tours was over) it was completely dark outside!
after...

This weekend is the celebration of Guy Fawks day and the UK's version of Memorial day. Lots of fireworks have been going off and will be until Sunday. But I will have to admit, I haven't seen any as good as the ones back home. I went with friend down to Millennium Bridge to see the fireworks over the Thames river. IT was cold and wet, but it was fun!

Election Day 2008

As we all know, the 2008 elections made history. To be honest, I am just glad they are over with.
Since I have been in London, I have seen and heard more news coverage about the US elections than I would have back home. I am not saying that there is more media here than back home about our presidential election… it is just easier to escape it back home.
The labor party is in power right now in the UK which means that most of the people living in London are liberal. So when people ask me where I am from in the US, they hear Texas and automatically assume I am conservative and then want to start a conversation about politics (mainly Bush, McCain and Obama). They then usually let me know that they are Obama lovers and how aweful McCain is.
I couldn’t even count how many times people would ask me who I was going to vote for (like it was any of their business anyways!). This happened all the time and now I am hoping that people won’t be so interested in it now that the elections are over.
On Election Day, everything went on as usual until about 10:00 pm. Everyone in the house/hotel became glued to the TV. I, on the other hand, had a test the next morning. So being the studious person I am (haha), I was off studying in my room. This became a mixed blessing for me. Instead of being increasingly frustrated about other people’s comments on the results of the election, I was able to concentrate on something else and not even hear who won until the next day!
Here’s to the next four years!

Germany :)

Being able to spend a few days in Germany was great. Charles picked me up from the airport in Nuremburg late Thursday and we headed back to his house in Amberg about 40 miles away. It was so nice to stay at a normal house again with out 40 other people running around the place. I had my own room and I only had to share a bathroom and kitchen with one other person! It was amazing!
Halloween just didn’t feel the same in Germany. We went to the base that day to go grocery shopping. I was so excited to see all of the American brands that we have back home. I know it probably sounds silly but I even bought a bottle of Ranch Dressing and Skip peanut butter to take back to London with me!

The base that Charles is stationed at used to be a German base before WWII. There was this old German style tower there and I think Charles was telling me that it was where Hitler used to go over his orders/diaries... I thought it was interesting.

We went out Halloween night (no costumes for us this year) and it seemed like most of the people who were dressed up were the Americans. On Saturday (Nov 1st) we went into town to go shopping but everything was closed. We didn’t realize why until we got back to his place… it was All Saint’s Day. Apparently it’s a big holiday in Germany, but we had no clue.
It was a quick and relaxing weekend. I know that all of my other trips are filled with things that I did and saw but Nuremburg isn’t really a town with a lot of exciting things to do. And that really wasn’t what I was planning on doing. But, I think next time I go back we are going to go see Cinderella’s Castle!

See, he lives by farms... and I found out the hard way that if you roll down the window... it smells really bad!

When in Rome...

Warning: Very Long Post…just skip the words and look at the pics if you want :)
Going to Italy was a learning experience. There was so much that I will try to separate it out by each day.
Day 1: Arriving in Rome
My plane landed in Rome around 9:30 in the morning, but my traveling partner’s plane didn’t come in until 12:30 so I had the pleasure of sitting at an airport for a long while! I noticed that as people from the EU went through passport control, they would simply flash their passports while they strolled on through the gates… me on the other hand, I had to stop, answer a few questions, have my passport screened and then was allowed to go on through. Getting through security wasn’t any more difficult than usual for me; I had just never seen how easy it was for EU citizens.
When Britanny finally arrived, the first thing on our agenda was to find our hostel and check in. As soon as we checked in, the man at the desk told us we weren’t actually going to be staying there but in another building. So we nervously followed this guy to where we were actually going to be staying for the next few days. It turned out that we were getting to stay in a two bedroom apartment with a fully kitchen and bath, so it was much nicer than we anticipated.

my first taste of gelato! yum!!

We found a nice little Italian place to eat dinner, or so we thought. We were eating outside and talking while all of the sudden this woman two tables away from me begins screaming at the top of her lungs while everyone at the table gets up as quickly as they possibly could and ran away. At first I thought that there was a bug or something gross in her food. But, it turns out that there was a man who had gotten down on his knees and crawled to the edge of the fence surrounding the restaurant and grabbed this woman’s purse and ran off with it! It was a good thing that this woman was screaming her head off as she chased him down the street because someone else heard and got the bag back for her. But it was just a really scary thing to witness. The rest of the night the two of us couldn’t stop thinking about it, we were so scared being in that city for that night. I think we checked the locks on every door and window in our apartment twenty times that night!
Day 2: Coliseum and the Forum
We were able to start the day fresh and have a better outlook on Rome after a good nights sleep. We went to the Coliseum and the Forum. We spent so much time in these two places… we looked at everything and went everywhere we could.

Just some old ruins..

THey also had drinking fountains all over the city where you could fill up your water bottles for free! I did a very good job of staying hydrated!

While at the Forum, we stumbled across this rally being held just a little ways away from us. Of course we were curious, so we went to check out what all the fuss what about. There were all of the signs and flags for the Democratic Party and other signs saying something like “Another Italy is possible”. We wanted to find someone to ask what this was all about, but before we could, it began to rain.

Day 3: Vatican
When in Rome, you must see the Vatican! And on the last Sunday of the month, entrance to the Vatican Museum is free. We heard that there wasn’t much of a line to get into the museum, and we also wanted to get blessed by the Pope at noon in St. Peter’s square, so we arrived at the museum about 10 AM. We quickly learned that we were not the only ones who knew the museum was free today. After waiting in line for nearly 2 ½ hours, we missed the Pope’s blessing and only made it into the museum 8 minutes before the last entrance. We knew that our time was limited in the museum so we quickly passed most of the museum and headed straight to the Sistine Chapel. This room was astonishing! I had assumed that since we were able to take pictures at everything else in the museum with out a flash, that we would be able to take pictures in hear as well. I began snapping shots casually until all of the sudden I noticed a laser pointer shining right on my face and in my eyes…initially I thought this meant he thought he saw my flash go off… but no, it meant no pictures at all in here. Apparently, instead of putting up proper notices around the entrance saying absolutely no photography, they think it is better to shine laser pointers into people eyes! I found this to be so ridiculous that I just kept on taking whatever pictures I wanted, just more secretively! I’m a rebel I know! Haha!
Getting lost seems to be a tradition that Britanny and I have going, so there is no need to stop now! On our way to the Trevi fountain, we somehow managed to get turned around and find ourselves on the Spanish Steps and then eventually made it to the Fountain. Then while we were in the area, we decided to stop by the Pantheon as well!
Day 4: Markets
For some reason, since I have arrived in Europe I have been really interested in going to markets around town. There was this well known market called "Campo di Fiorre" that was first on our list. It was the cutest Italian fruit and vegetable market. We picked up some peaches and explored all of the new vegetables I had never seen before.
We also found this very picturesque market close by where they sold paintings and musicians played their music for all who passed by.
We eventually made it to this huge monument that now houses the Italian version of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This place was so big but it was also so beautiful!
Day 5: Last Day
At this point, Britanny and I had walked basically everywhere in Rome atleast once from all the times we had gotten lost. It was definitely a long day for us. As soon as we walked out of our hostel, it was raining. Silly me, I thought we had left London, I didn't bring an unbrella. The rian continued all day while we were just walking around and taking in our last few hours of Rome. I am pretty sure we made a stop for our last taste of real gelato.
Since the day was a bit dark and gloomy, we headed to the airport early to relax and not have to worry about being on time. It turned out that our flight was 1 1/2 hours late so we have PLENTY of time waiting. When we got back to London it was SNOWING! It wasn't a huge amount of snow... it was more like a Texas snow. It was just such a surprise because we were coming from 80 degree weather in Rome back to freezing weather in London. It was also the first time that it had snowed in October in London in like 60 years...