So the Bank Holiday (this past Monday) was a bit...dreary and freezing. I met up with an old friend Liz Dellert and her boyfriend Aaron to just hang out and enjoy the company all day. Rachel A., Meghan, and I met Aaron at his work and had a personalized quick tour of London from his Mercedes convertible (top up because it was raining). It was so strange to crawl into the wrong side of the car to sit in the passenger's seat. I felt like I should have had a wheel too. We saw a few sights from the car such as Trafalgar Square and Harrods. We spent most of the day sitting in a few pubs around where they live and just catching up. It was a great relaxing day that lasted until midnight! Liz and Aaron are SO nice and incredibly gracious!!! CHEERS TO THEM!

Tuesday was a busy day full of Westminster Abbey, National Gallery, and Equus. This was one of the best days so far on the trip! Westminster Abbey was beautiful and has several graves of royalty and poets. Just walking through there and imagining the funerals of the Queen Mum and Princess Diana was incredible.

The National Gallery was pretty neat also! I really enjoy museums so it was cool to see paintings by Rembrant, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, and da Vinci. We were also supposed to see Monet and Van Gogh but those wings are closed right now! SO SAD!!

The night ended with the play Equus. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) was one of the two leading males and he was absolutely incredible. He has totally broken out of the Harry Potter mold and proven himself as a real actor. The play was absolutely fantastic. My eyes hurt by intermission because I realized that I had not blinked in a long time! The lighting and set design was fantastic and really captured the mood and setting of the play. If you do not know much about the play you should research into it and hope to catch it somewhere if you find any production near you. This is the website for the London production that I saw. I had goosebumps several times during the performance. (I'm not too sure that my parents would like it though. They'd definitely call it "weird" but I really loved it!)

Tuesday morning was not spent in class like most weekdays but was spent touring Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. It is not the same one as during his day, but a very near replicate of it closer to the Thames River. We even got to see part of a rehearsal for The Merchant of Venice which was a unique experience. I could almost picture exactly what it would be like during that time to watch a play (slightly wet from the drizzle) and laughing at the action on stage.

Many of us spent the afternoon in Tate Modern. I officially think I could spend the rest of my life in there. I also think that if my life were a romantic comedy, I would meet my husband in a museum such as Tate because I love modern art so much. I saw some of my favorite painters such as Miro, Picasso, and Pollock. I wish I could visit there everyday and just sit in front of one abstract painting for an hour a day.

Last night we were scheduled, as a group, for a boat ride on the Thames River. It was a catered cruise with lovely food and great views of the city. We dressed up very nicely and enjoyed each other's company. I really like doing group activities because rarely do we all hang out together as a huge group. We caught some great photos of the Tower Bridge, Big Ben, and London Bridge.
Today's class was spent learning about musical plays. Dr. Unks talked about the development of the musical from Opera to modern day. We watched MANY clips of the movie versions of various musicals. (Julie: I thought of you the entire morning and could sing most of the songs because of you! I miss you!)

A few of us spent the afternoon finishing up our assigned activities in the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery today. We are ready for another play tonight, The Reporter at the Cottesloe Theatre of the National Theatre. None of us really know what it is about but are excited at seeing a smaller play.

I leave for Paris, France tomorrow afternoon around 1:45pm GMT (around 8:45am EST). I will be traveling with Meghan, Rachel A., and Kelly. We are very excited and have a few things scheduled to see (thank you Vickie and Julie for providing me with information and guide books on Paris!)

I cannot believe that I will be home in less than a week and a half. I am having so much fun and I'm not sure I'm ready to leave this great place. We all just keep saying "we can do that next time we come!" I hope there will be a next time because London is fascinating!!

I will post A LOT of photos when I return stateside, I promise! I should have several hundred (thousands even) of photos to share, so be prepared! For now, I only have a few that my friends have posted. Here goes!

This is me sitting in a park in London making a face for an unknown reason.


Me, Kelly, and Meghan at Avenue Q. We had incredible £20 tickets on the 4th row!


This is Dr. Unks, Dr. King, Dr. King, and our captain of the boat cruise on the Thames River

I must go get dressed and ready for the play tonight. I need to eat my grocery store sandwich before I leave also. (They are the cheapest and fastest dinners here! I love Tesco!!!) I hope things are going well across the pond and I will be home in less than a week and a half.

No Irish Luck

So Meghan, Rachel A., and I traveled to Dublin, Ireland this weekend. We left early Friday morning and caught a train to Holyhead, Wales where we jumped onto a ferry and made our way to there. The train ride was quite nice seeing as how we got to watch the countryside of rolling hills with sheep and cows grazing. The ferry was also exciting because it was so fancy (everything but the food, that is). We even made it to the top deck to welcome Ireland with open arms. We arrived at the ferryport and spent the next two hours waiting on a bus to pick us up. Funny how all the bus drivers took breaks at the exact same time for such a lengthy period. We met some other Americans on the bus into Dublin (girls from University of Florida) that were spending the weekend in Dublin and actually studying in London for this summer. They even live in a dormitory very close to our hotel! We may try to meet up with them to see some sites while in London.

Once we arrived in Dublin we found the hostel that we booked online early last week. They lost our reservation. Their reply? "The system isn't perfect." Remember that this is Bank Holiday weekend so most places are fully booked for travelers!!!! They found us three beds and said we could have them for free tonight since they lost them (how generous!) We went back to the room and our jaws dropped. A mixed dormitory style room with 16 beds! Mixed = men & women!! OH NO! We practically RAN out of the hostel in search of a new place to stay! We found a hotel with one "very basic" room left and booked it immediately. We slept all together in one queen sized bed with no TV, no curtains on the window, and a dead spider on the ceiling. At least we were safer there than with 13 people we don't know!! We went to dinner with 4 other girls from the UNC program that were also spending time in Dublin at O'Sheas pub. The food was delicious and it was so nice to relax after a long day of travel and hotel searching.

Saturday was our one full day in Dublin to see the sites. We ventured off for the Guinness Storehouse first. It was our main goal of the day because it is one of the biggest attractions in Dublin. It is 7 floors tall full of information and shops about Guinness beer and the world records book. It was really cool. We even got to taste a bit of Guinness. The very top level was a Gravity Bar where we could get a free pint of beer and a great view of Dublin. We walked (in the rain) to the Dublin Castle which was really very interesting. We made it just in time to get into the second to last tour group. After that we walked to Trinity College but got there after all the tours had finished so we just took a few rainy photographs and went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We ate at O'Sheas again because it was so Irish and delicious. We listened to a live band play Irish music (and they also played Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd...interesting). The three of us enjoyed our dinner and took our time because we had finished everything we wanted to see in Dublin in less than one day. We did not want to spend time in our hotel so we went to see a movie at the cinema (Blades of Glory). We went back to the hotel and laughed about our time in Dublin until we fell asleep. Our ferry left at 8:05am so we called a cab to pick us up at 6am so we would get there on time. The ferry seemed a lot slower and we had to switch trains 3 times on the way back to get to London. We spent 14 hours on Sunday getting from Dublin to London. It was a very long day!

I am so excited to be back in London where I know the city and feel comfortable. Today is Bank Holiday so nothing is open but I am going to visit a friend (Elizabeth Dellert) who lives here for lunch. We are also going to visit one of Rachel's friends that lives here for dinner.

I cannot believe that this trip is halfway over and that I will be home in less than two weeks. Time seems to just fly by! I feel quite at home here in London and feel that I know the city very well. This week will be full of activities and plays but I hope to be able to write again soon. I love every post from ya'll and read every email sent to me. I hope things are going well for everyone in the US and I will be home soon!