Daily Half-Marathons

This last weekend, I adventured to Brussels, Belgium to visit Elizabeth, who is studying abroad there for the semester. I took the Eurostar train from London to Brussels which was very odd. I didn't want to think about the fact that I was on a train underwater while I was on the train, so I still don't even know exactly how it worked! It was a quick journey (2 hours) to the city and I arrived around dinner time in Brussels. Elizabeth had been working (she nanny's for a family in her neighborhood) so she wasn't able to meet me at the train station, but gave me directions to her apartment. It was very odd upon arriving because I realized I was in my first country where English was not the preferred language! Good thing I took enough French to know the basics of reading the signs and being able to ask simple questions! I made sure to also practicing saying "I speak French really badly!" just in case.

Elizabeth's apartment was very simple to get to and I got to take many forms of transportation to get there. The city was huge and had tons of things to look at. Elizabeth lives in an upper-end of Brussels so when I got off the tram, I was surrounded by high-end stores. I easily found her apartment and was greeted by one of her friends that also lives there. The apartment has a few rooms that are taken by people in her program. I hung out with her friend, Brielle, until Elizabeth returned home from nannying. That evening we spent hanging around her apartment, making dinner, and catching up! We had both finished an exhausting week so it was very relaxing.

Elizabeth and I in front of the historical arch I forgot the name of...

Elizabeth's roommate, Catherine, also had two friends visiting for the weekend, so the apartment was full starting Friday morning! Elizabeth had one last class to go to Friday morning so I hung with her roommate and friends. I felt much more American in the city than I had in England, simply because everyone was speaking French. One of the girls with us is studying in France (the other, in Prague) so she was much better at communicating than the rest of us. Elizabeth met up with us while we were out and we headed to lunch at an Irish pub, ironically. We spent the rest of the day exploring more shops and seeing parts of the city.

That evening, I met even more of Elizabeth's friends from her program in preparation for going out that night. Her program was hosting a party at a nearby club which was a lot of fun. It was cool to meet most of her friends of the semester and experience the night life in Brussels. It was a lot different than England! Our late evening turned into a very late morning the next day, so Saturday seemed very short. We ended up eating at a cafe in her neighborhood that lasted hours upon hours. It took the restaurant 40 minutes to take our order, and then an hour and a half to get us our food! We were absolutely starving and did not appreciate the lack of service. I had even ordered ever-so politely (Je vousdrais le London et le cafe, c'il vous plait) yet the waiters could not have cared less about us. It was extremely bizarre and most aggravating. The only upside was that when the food finally arrived, it was delicious. But I probably would have thought the same of McDonald's by that time!!

Elizabeth and I on the metro headed toward "Les You"

The rest of the day was spent exploring their neighborhood and all the eclectic shops and unique boutiques. I was quickly learning that Brussels is extremely expensive and was beginning to be very thankful for the prices in England. Elizabeth and I headed downtown later on to see some of the most historical sights (that I can no longer remember the names of...I was so brain dead from the week that I pretty much floated around all weekend long!) and sign her up for the big half-marathon that she was going to participate the next morning. That evening we went out to meet up with some of her friends again, but kept it an early evening due to her plans for the next morning.

So on Sunday, we woke up early and headed out to the beginning of the marathon! Elizabeth had always wanted to run a half-marathon and was so excited that her first would take place abroad. It was bad timing that it was happening the weekend I was visiting, but I didn't mind. I was excited to see her finish! I saw her off at the beginning under the historical arch, and then took the metro to the finish line. It was finishing in another historical place, Grand Place (you have to say it in the French accent even though it looks English), so I got the chance to look around the market and shops as well as the beautiful buildings. To pass the time, I watched the winners of the half-marathon and all the race's crazy happenings. It was pretty entertaining. However, Elizabeth's guesstimated finishing time came and went, and no sign of her. I began to panic about making my train but tried to wait patiently. Eventually, I gave up, knowing that I needed to head out to leave in order to make my train!

A monument on the walk to Grand Place

It was a mad rush getting back to the metro to get my things from Elizabeth's apartment. Luckily, we met up at the same time at her apartment. It ended up that people at the marathon had completely misdirected her in the opposite direction to collect her things and it took her over an hour(!) to locate her belongings! We ran to find a taxi to get us to the train station, and I ran through security and customs (well, I stopped at both to take care of them) and ran to the train. Although the Belgique people had not been very friendly toward me during the weekend, they were surprisingly very nice at the train station in my efforts to make the train. I arrived onto the train at 1:57 with the departure time being 1:59. I was dripping with sweat and wheezing. Elizabeth was not the only one to run the half-marathon that day.

It was definitely one of my most stressful moments, but I knew I would have one of those experiences while being here and so I'm extremely thankful it's over. Phew. The only other hitch to my day was that my train from London to Grantham broke down and so I was two hours later arriving than planned. But hey, it could have been much, much worse.

One of the main buildings in Grand Place

This week has been going on pretty normally for the most part, except for the extremely thick pressure of stress, homework, presentations, tests, and papers around the manor. I've kept mostly to myself this week for fear of the stress outbreaks amongst the rest of the student body. Today however, I head to the Lake District, 4 hours north of the stress and out into the most beautiful area of England! It should be quite the experience!

The Country With My Name Everywhere

This last weekend was our first long weekend at Harlaxton. We finished classes on Wednesday with our first British Studies exam (two solid hours of essays) and then the weekend began! I left immediately after the exam, which I feel I did pretty well on, considering it covered 1600 years of history, and headed off to Ireland! I ended up sharing my travels with another Aaron from Harlaxton, even though it was completely unplanned. The timing of hitting the school shuttle, the train and the flight was a little off so we spent a lot of time hanging around the airport. We were flying to Dublin on RyanAir which is definitely not the most high-class airline. But as a traveling student, you take what you can get for really cheap! Luckily, Aaron and I managed to get in the front of the line before boarding the plane and got to choose nice seats. As the nice Irish lady behind me in line informed me, "This is RyanAir. You don't get assigned seats". It was literally a free-for-all rush to the plane to get the "good seats".

I arrived in Dublin roughly around 9:30pm on Wednesday and was greeted by Ian! (I left Aaron to meet up with the rest of his group who were arriving on the flight from London, five minutes later, rather than East Midlands like we had come). We headed to Jen's parents house where they have been living since Lazy F, in a Dublin suburb that I've already forgotten what it's called (it's hard when everything is in Irish!). I was greeted by Jen and quickly offered tea as we caught up for a bit. It was great to bring back the old Three Amigos from Lazy F!

[Side Note: I'm very aware of the fact that Ian and Jen will eventually read this blog post, so if you want to know the REAL story of my weekend, make sure to ask me about it later...

Just kidding! They were fabulous hosts all weekend!]

One of the mounds at Knowth

Thursday morning I was greeted by a traditional Irish fry cooked by the Englishman, Ian. The fry consisted of sausage, "white pudding" (whatever that is), mushrooms, tomatoes, a poached egg, some other things that I think I forgot, and toast, if you wanted it. It was a very delicious and filling meal! We then got ready to meet up with Jen and Ian's friends to head off north to a historical site of Irish tombs older than 5000 years! These mounds are older than Stonehenge and Jen and Ian had never seen them before. I was their excuse to do all of the touristy Irish things! We visited two of the main mounds, Knowth and Newgrange and explored the informative museum. The mounds themselves were pretty bizarre and kind of odd to explain. Basically, the people of the Neolithic Age built giant rings of stones and made them into large mounds as a burial place, or tomb for their people. We couldn't go in the first mound, Knowth, but in Newgrange we were able to walk inside. It had a claustrophobic-style entrance that lead into a large tomb area. It was very interesting, but hard to fathom how much history had taken place in such a weird structure. Fascinating!

Whilst at Newgrange, we enjoyed a delicious meal of home-cooked hot dogs from a backpack, courtesy of Jen and Ian's friends, on the top of one of the mounds. We also got to enjoy the view of the countryside from the top, which was very cool. The day also consisted of lots of paparazzi and photo shoots by Ian and Jen because of their new fancy-schmancy camera. This also meant that we had to pose for a lot of pictures, no matter how many takes it took!

That evening, Jen managed to get the three of us into an Irish Night show at the pub she used to work at. It is normally an expensive evening of dinner and the show so it was awesome that we got to see it for free! We watched Irish dancers, a tenor and a soprano, as well as a comedian. The whole show was great and I definitely enjoyed it a lot.

The next day, we headed into the city center, via the Luas (apparently it's Irish for "tram"), and met up with another one of Jen and Ian's friends. They showed me around Trinity College (where Jen went to school) which I found very fascinating. We checked out the Book of Kells - a VERY old Latin translation of the four gospels. I thought it was really neat to read about in the little museum and then to see. But I really loved the old library that was above it that was full, floor to high ceiling, of hundreds of years old books. We then explored more around the campus where I happened across giant male deer skeleton in one of the buildings that I think has been giving me nightmares....After visiting the college, we went to Dublin Castle, Temple Bar, The Dublin Spire (which was the most ridiculous tourist monument I've ever experienced), and viewed the city from a rooftop! We also had some adventures in the tourist shops, which are, of course, inescapable. We headed back to the house to enjoy another delicious meal with Jen's parents (food with the families here are so spoiling!) and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Me and the Leprechaun!

Our view of the city from a rooftop

Saturday morning, before I headed back to Harlaxton, we took a drive to see the scenic areas of Dublin. We went up one of the "mountains" to view the area and drove to the coast. I enjoyed learning about the Dublin suburbs (which are all Irish names so it took me forever to be able to pronounce them, let alone spell them) and seeing the different areas. We walked along a boardwalk area in Dun Loaghaire (spelled right??), which is pronounced, dun-leary, and I enjoyed an ice cream as we watched a lot of dog-walkers and an outdoor, by-the-sea, workout class. After that, it was time for me to go! So we said our goodbyes and I journeyed the "long" journey back to Harlaxton!

Since then, I've been glued to my desk chair with hours upon hours of studies and homework. I gave an AWESOME British Studies presentation on Monday (my professor said ALL presentations should be like mine!), took an Environmental Science exam yesterday, and have been drawing flowers and fish like there's no tomorrow. I still have a bit more to do, but all will be well because I leave for Brussels, Belgium tomorrow to visit Elizabeth! But before then, I'm off to Peterborough with the school to visit the "big" city in the area. So much to do in life!

The Heights of Abraham

This last week, I was very intent on finding a good day trip for this last weekend because I was getting very tired of the manor! I originally had been thinking that going to the east coast would be fun and easy. However, the more I researched, the more complicated it got to be. Grantham is in a pretty central location for things in England, but as far as day trips are concerned, things are a little bit too far away. Travel time would take up too much of the day and it wouldn't be worth it. I finally went to the Student Development Office and asked on of the English assistants what she suggested. She had TONS of great ideas (I obviously should have just gone to her in the first place) and was really adamant about this place called "The Heights of Abraham". At this point, anything sounded great to me, so I looked into it!

The Heights of Abraham

Ashley was going to London to visit her uncle who now lives in Thailand so I had to find someone else to go on the adventure with me. (It was the first time in a MONTH that Ashley and I weren't going to be together! Good thing we don't have trouble branching out...). Luckily, my friend Rebekah was interested in coming along. Rebekah is a sophomore at Hannibal LeGrange College in Missouri (the same school our friend Jake goes to). She was also very interested in leaving the manor for a bit!

We got up early Saturday morning and caught the shuttle into town to the train station. We took the half hour train north to Nottingham and waited a bit to catch another hour train north to Matlock Bath. We had a great time chatting and getting to know each other a little better. The train to Nottingham was extremely full (because everyone wanted to shop, of course) but the train to Matlock Bath was pretty empty. The area we were headed to is known as the Peak District, which I had been very interested in seeing. As we headed north, the landscape went from being very flat (Lincolnshire is known as on of the flattest areas in England) to having really giant hills (they definitely weren't mountain peaks) and a lot more trees. We arrived at the train station and headed down a path toward the Heights of Abraham.

The Cable Cars up to the peak!

This park(?) was generally a place to view the area and explore the hillsides and caves. We had to take a cable car up to the top of the peak (which Rebekah was a bit afraid of) that gave us an amazing view of the area. Once we were at the top, we walked around climbing up into towers to check out more of the view. It was extremely windy and cold which was a bit of a bummer. But it was still really fun to see such a different landscape than what we were used to at Harlaxton. We also went on a cave tour that was pretty interesting. It would have been more fun but it was full of loud families and older couples who talked right over the tour guide. [Sidenote: I am quickly learning that a lot of the time, college students are the best listeners on field trips and tours. The adults tend to talk right over whoever is teaching and act like they already know everything about what is being said! I always make sure I avoid the tour groups the visiting faculty are a part of when we travel as a school...I want to be able to listen and learn!!] The rest of the time we walked around the hillside taking pictures and exploring. We ended our afternoon pretty early, however, because we were so tired of walking all the hills!

On the hillside facing the town of Matlock.

Although it wasn't the most spectacular adventure with lots of stories, it was still a great day. It was wonderful to get out for the day, but still be able to come back and get some work done during the weekend. I loved getting to know Rebekah a bit more and was glad she was willing to adventure with me! The rest of the week since then has been extremely busy in preparation for our first big British Studies Exam tomorrow. Straight after I head to Dublin to visit Ian and Jen! Very excited!

A View into the Future

I am officially filling up my semester as the weeks go on with lots of travel plans. I figured people were a bit curious as to where I was deciding to adventure. Being here at Harlaxton has made me realize how very short a semester is! Every one of my weekends has at least a tentative plan, if not a booked one. I've been recently thinking about how bummed I am that I can't even begin to get to all of the places I want to go this semester! (i.e. Finland [Sorry Colin!!], Scotland, Wales, Prague, Amsterdam, Italy, Rome, etc, etc, etc). If those are all the places I'm NOT going, where am I spending all my weekends??

To answer that, my schedule is as follows:

Sat. Sept. 25: Unknown. My goal was to go to London for the day and see the opera. Still in the works.
Wed. Sept. 29-Oct.2: Dublin, Ireland, where I'll be visiting with Ian and Jen!
Thurs. Oct 7-10: Brussels, Belgium, where I'll be visiting Elizabeth!
Thurs. Oct 14-17: The Lake District, England, with the school.
Fri. Oct 22-24: RA duty...I won't be able to leave the manor, but I'll be studiously working on 2 term papers!
Fri. Oct 29-31: University of Sheffield, England, celebrating Matt's 21st birthday!
Fri. Nov. 5: London day trip with the school
Sat. Nov 6: Unknown day trip - possibly Cadbury World...
Wed. Nov. 10-14: Paris, France! Accompanied by Ashley and Kate
Fri. Nov 19: Class day...
Sat. Nov. 20: The RA organized Costume Ball and Date Auction!
Thurs. Nov 25-28: Granada, Spain, visiting Maren!
Fri. Dec. 3-5: More RA duty...
Fri. Dec. 10: HOME!

Anyway, that's probably more information than people really wanted, but there you have it! I also wanted to explain my Meet-a-family a bit. Ashley and I were coincidentally paired as siblings and had dinner with our family for the first time this evening. We were picked up by Ray, in their blue Audi, and driven about 15 minutes from Harlaxton to the village Hougham (pronounced hoff-um). We were greeted by his wife Pat and daughter Sarah. Now, Ray and Pat are in their mid-seventies, and Sarah is 40. Sarah has Down's Syndrome but is very high-functioning. The Beal's don't always participate in the meet-a-family program because they are a very active family, especially due to all of Sarah's activities. However, they had time to have dinner with us this evening and it was a great time.

The Beal's are very well traveled, due to the fact that Ray was in banking his whole life. They had great stories about where they've been and good advice to us. We discussed many different things, from Christmas Crackers to Hedge Rows to Thousand Island Dressing. They are such a personable family and love to make sure we are taken care of! Sarah sat at the table with us, working on very intricate knitting. She said she loves to knit in front of the TV while she watches all of the quiz programmes. She remembers everything.

After having a dinner of a pasta bake, garlic bread and banana meringues (which were delicious!) Pat brought out the deck of cards. They made sure we weren't offended by gambling, and proceeded to hand out the buttons. They taught us a very simple, but entertaining game of "Sevens" in which we gambled our buttons. I think one button was worth ) 0.5 pence. We played that for over an hour and chatted amiably. We collected our buttons at the end to hold on to them until next time.

Overall it was a great night! Our schedules together won't allows us to see them again until the end of October, due to them going on Holiday, but hopefully after that we will be able to see more of them. It's actually very spoiling to have two wonderful "host" families while we're here! Ashley and I are learning so much from the Beal's and Matt's family that it's very possible we're known as the know-it-alls. But then again, there are worse things!

A Day in the Manor

I wasn't very interested in writing a new post this week because it had been a very normal week for me. I figured I didn't have very much to say. However, I realized I have never explained what a normal day in the manor was like! So, I'll explain:

Exploration of the grounds.

My class schedule is very laid-back compared to my usual schedule at UE. All 130 students here have British Studies at 8:30am Mondays and Wednesdays. There are 4 English professors who trade off giving lectures, and all of them teach 2 seminar classes. Lectures are very difficult to stay awake through because we all gather in the Long Gallery, one of the state rooms in the manor, and proceed to listen early in the morning all in a hot room. However, I think the history is very fascinating and have been enjoying it quite a lot. I really enjoy my seminar professor, Dr. Bujak, because he's extremely passionate about what he's teaching and makes even the most boring parts of the English and British history"deliciously" interesting. [The English tend to use very exaggerated words to emphasize things; i.e. deliciously, gorgeous, etc. I really enjoy them!]

I am also in Studio Art and Environmental Science that meet in the afternoons on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Art is fun, when I'm not being rushed in what I'm doing, and I've been learning quite a lot. So far we've worked on design and are currently working on drawing. I'm definitely not a gifted artist, but it's passable! Environmental Science is interesting enough...but that's about it. It's a bit of an easy class so far...

My only other class is...choir. Which I say with disdain. I knew from the beginning I would not like it when the professor began to advertise her choir as a choir that didn't need music and was not focused to train people into opera singers. I understood that she was aiming toward including people who may not be able to read music, but the more she talked, the more I felt she was condescending what I was studying! After the first rehearsal, my inklings toward her teaching style were confirmed when we were taught some "warm-ups" that were incorrect and asked to sing in ways that were completely backwards to what I have always been taught. Interestingly, her music degree is in instrumental studies....

Sitting in a Yew Hedge on the way to Matt's house from Harlax.

Those are my classes for the week, but what do I do in my spare time? In between British Studies lecture and seminar, I usually nap for about an hour! After seminar there is lunch in the refectory, usually consisting of an odd combination of foods. Everyone always ask how the food is. The answer: just the same as any other cafeteria. There's plenty of options as long as you're willing to be creative! After lunch I work on things for awhile (today I "exchanged" my sheets! We can take our sheets to housekeeping and the give you a fresh set. No having to waste laundry money!). In the evenings I normally work on homework, often having to meet with a group of people to do projects for British Studies. If I don't have homework, there are plenty of common rooms to hang out in (like I am now) where there are TVs to watch English DVDs or play games. There's also 3 pianos to choose from, Matt's guitar that I borrowed and the music room to sing in (where the acoustics are so heavy you sound great no matter what! And if none of those satisfy, there's also the Bistro that is open during the week where all drinks are 2 pounds flat and you can order "cheese toasties", pizza or chips (as in fries). Oh, and there's the Sports Hall, but I only go there when I absolutely have to...!

Also, for those of you who haven't heard, I am no an RA and so I have a few responsibilities every so often with that. I now live in the manor (rather than the Carriage House) in the 400 corridor. Tonight, for instance, I am on duty, so I get a radio from the security desk, make rounds all around Harlaxton and occasionally relieve the security guard at the desk. It's pretty easy-peasy.

Kate, Me, and Ashley after the Meet-a-family reception.

I also participate in SWAG, our student Christian fellowship group on campus and lead music for it every so often. And then there are also other random events such as the Distinguished British Guest series that I get invited to, random British Studies movies (like Monty Python), dance events, SGA events, dinners with our Meet-a-family, dinners with Matt's family, trips into town and more! Basically, the point in what I'm saying, is there's ALWAYS something to do! However, soon enough, my weeks will become rest periods from my weekends! My constant traveling beings very soon!

Robin Hood's Hometown

This weekend, a large group of people stayed at the manor rather than traveling with the school. I was so looking forward to having my first unscheduled days since arriving in England. (Maybe even since before camp!) I had no plans except to catch up on some work and little things and to watch lots of movies.

On Friday, Ashley and I went into Grantham to run some errands and wander without time constraints. It was absolutely fabulous and we couldn't get over it! We discovered our new favorite grocery store (how did we miss it?) Morrisons - which is the first store that I've been able to find every single thing I was looking for! We headed back to the manor and both spent some good hours having "me" time in our rooms (that are across the hall from each other. We can also yell the other person's name from our rooms if we need them...). That evening we ordered take-away (it was awful) and watched Pride and Prejudice in one of the common rooms. It was a very English evening!

 A view of the buildings from the city centre.

Saturday morning, we decided to be a bit more adventurous and took the train to Nottingham. It is about a 45 minute drive north of us and so the train ticket was only 4 pounds 70 round-trip! We were accompanied by our friend Jake and had a great time. We had no plans as to what to do once we arrived because we didn't know what to expect of the town. Upon arrival, we realized that the town was very cute and had tons of things to do and see. There was shopping on every corner, from department type stores to boutiques to small hole-in-the-wall types. We meandered for awhile, stopping in all the necessary stores and, of course, the really touristy ones. We treated ourselves to lattes and a cheese and tomato baguette and people/fashion watched for awhile. Ashely and I are very enthralled with the current English fashion of not wearing pants (by pants, I mean jeans, not underwear as the English would assume) but instead leggings or tights. I think I've seen a total of 4 English in jeans. Very strange. We have decided, however, that we very much approve of this fashion. Don't be surprised if I come back wearing only leggings.

Ashley and I in the fountain.

Anyway, we continued our journey passing a very awesome fountain in the city square. It was a flat surface with water on top that created a waterfall off the edges of the flat. What you couldn't see was that the flat surface actually got deeper and so if you walked through it, you could be down to your shoulders in water! It's very hard to explain but we were fascinated by it! And because the locals were playing in it, of course we had to try!

Me and Robin Hood.

After discovering the fountain, we we headed toward Nottingham Castle where everything was dedicated to Robin Hood! We wandered around the grounds viewing the castle and seeing the different statues. The castle was on a hill and overlooked most of the rural areas of Nottingham. I began to realize that I actually knew nothing of Robin Hood except that his villain was a lion and his friend was a bear...I think I should either re-watch the Disney version or pay close attention in British Studies when we discuss him!

We decided that was a thorough enough adventure in Nottingham for the day and headed back to Grantham. Once in town, we headed to The Goose, a very Harlaxton popular pub, for dinner. We had the BEST dinner thus far in English restaurants and for the cheapest price! I had a giant piece of lasagna, two pieces of garlic bread, a salad, and a drink all for under 4 pounds! It was the best deal ever. After our delicious meal, we decided it was best to take the taxi back to the manor to, of course, watch more English movies. What a weekend!

The City of Walking

This weekend, I went with about 120 students from the school to London. We left on Thursday evening and took three coaches to the Russell Square area of London. Most of explored a bit of the city that evening, getting an idea of where we were in reference to the rest of the city. Our hotel was definitely not fancy, but then again, we weren't planning on spending very much time there!

Ashley and I with a Recycling Man in Covent Garden

Friday morning, Ashley, our friend Kate, and I got up and began exploring. Harlaxton's principal, Dr. Kingsley, and his wife had written out a very nice walking tour of all the sights for us to see. We decided to give that tour a try at our own leisure. We began walking in the direction we believed things to be, only realizing that the tour we had just had very vague directions, and didn't actually tell us what streets to take! We knew we were in for a bit of adventure knowing that the streets in London were not set up in any type of grid and would take you in completely the wrong direction if you weren't careful!

Big Ben - Though from afar I didn't think it was big enough to be the right clock tower...

However, me and my really good sense of direction got us to all of the things we wanted to see! We spent about 6 hours walking and saw Piccadilly Circus (the Times Square of London), Covent Garden (lots of shopping), Leicester Square (pronounced Lester - the theater district), the National Gallery (free!), the National Portrait Gallery (also free!), St. Martin-in-the-fields Church (where we ate lunch in a crypt), Trafalgar Square (my favorite one), the Horse Guards Parade (or at lease, the guards on the horses), Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Thames River (which we now know to pronounce "Tims"), the London Eye (though I didn't get to ride it...), and finally Buckingham Palace (though there were NO guards to be seen!!).

I didn't get the chance to see the Tower of London or the Tower Bridge which was a little disappointing, but my feet were extremely tired by that time. While in Leicester Square, I made sure to buy tickets for a show, and so that evening I went and saw "Love Never Dies", the sequel to the Phantom of the Opera. I had great seats for a good price which was very cool. The show was definitely no Phantom, but the leads had great voices, there were tons of fascinating circus-type talents incorporated into the show, and I will never view the plot line to the original show the same again!

So touristy...but we had to do it!

On Saturday, Ashley, Kate and I explored the British Museum (also free!) for a bit. That place was so huge and had so much to look at, it was a bit overwhelming. What I had mainly wanted to see was the Reading Room, which had original copies of tons of famous literature and history books, and where many famous authors have gone to be inspired for their writing. However, it is closed for the next TWO YEARS. I was very disappointed. But I got over that by happening across a very exciting shopping area nearby called the Seven Dials. Lots of great places to window shop (a little too expensive for a traveling college student...) and a neat area to be on a Saturday.

All in all, we probably walked about 20 miles (no exaggeration) throughout the whole weekend. I felt very confident in my exploration of the city and never got lost. There was always so much to do, and definitely not enough time! Sunday was spent checking out of the hotel and taking the coach to the west end of London to visit Hampton Court Palace. I had no idea what the palace was about, but quickly learned from my (free!) audio tour that it was the palace most of the early kings and queen's had lived. Now the palace is focused on teaching about Henry VIII and his many wives. It was fascinating, but hard to take in after such a packed weekend!

I do want to go back to London for another weekend sometime this semester to explore a few more things that I didn't get to, as well as see the Opera and, of course, Billy Elliott. I'm definitely going to work on those plans soon! As for now, I'm lying low this week (although, keeping very busy) and hanging around the manor and Grantham for the weekend. I can't to crazy traveling all the time!