Optimism

Sometimes Life's a Blur

2012-03-02T14:46:00.000-08:00

West Texas Scenic

2012-02-22T10:39:00.000-08:00

Motion Pictures

2012-02-06T11:35:00.000-08:00

Rainy Day

2012-01-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

Small Town Memories

2012-01-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

Real Life

2011-11-29T21:42:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm officially back from Abroad (like a million months ago) I thought it would be beneficial to my life to blog about my life and real struggles and joys.

In life there are so many things to think through. Choosing to dwell on the positive things is a choice one has to make every day of their life. In my case, several times a day. If we can't take a bad situation and find something good and pure in it then what's the point? Sitting around being depressed is the only other option I see, and who wants to do that?

Choosing to wake up with God is something I struggle with. A wise man once told me (cough, cough, Austin Wright) that we should talk with God just as we breathe. For along time I have tried to accomplish this task. Struggles, drama, temptations, horrors and tragedies tear into our lives and leave ugly black holes that are hard to ignore. Most of us try our best to cover them up to hide the weakness they cause, but of course our childish attempts to hide the black doesn't last long. The blackness shines through eventually.

With the classes and jobs and activities....or even with nothing to do....we forget what the best cover up is. In fact, it's not even a cover up. It's a filler. A healer. A creator. It's a permanent makeover (for you girly girls out there). It's Him, He can fill those holes with His light and we never have to face the darkness again. And even if you do....you're not alone. He's there waiting and hoping we will call his name to fill out darkness with His light.

His precious light.

Awesomely Awesome

2011-06-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

We woke up in Leipzig this morning to wonderful sunny but not too hot weather. First thing we took a train to Wittenburg which is where Martin Luther lived his courageous life. We saw the church he was buried in, the monastery in which is taught, and the church/house/castle thing that he use to live in that has been turned into a museum. All three were very pretty. I must say though....all the churches begin to look alike when you see so many.

The best part of the day was lunch. As we were finishing up paying a group of men sat down next to us. And of course...they were all carrying cameras. Once again the JMC majors ran into a camera crew filming another documentary. (I love my life) So we started talking to them and found that they had been working on this film for 9 years and were almost done. The film was a documentary over Wittenburg and it's slowly decreasing population. They ended up interviewing us for the film, asking why we were there and what importance it meant to us. My input was that being a Christian University, Martin Luther is a huge part of our history. Without him we would be very different. We should know our history and it was very cool to be able to see where he lived and made history.

The men were eating our group up. They loved us! They also needed to film what we call "B Roll" which is a shot of something while the voice over of another person is playing. I was scratching behind my ear and for some reason left my hand there. (Kind of daintaly is how I explained it) and the guy stopped and said, "Wait! Put your hand back, please. That was great!"

I definably had them in the bag with my amazing charm....haha. We made sure to get their business card and were asking if they had a website to look them up on. The guy said no so I blurted, "Do you need one?" Meaning that were are trained in that so if you need and intern...wink wink. I definitely even asked one of them if they used interns and he said to look him up on FB. Greatness.

Then!!! He told me that he and one of the other guys made commercials for a living..... :D
I said, "OMG! can I shake your hand?" He laughed and seemed like he never gets that....and then SHOOK MY HAND! haha It was great fun.

After the day of fun, we took a train to Berlin....we haven't done much but check out a piece of the Berlin wall that was rudely covered in gratify and gum and then ate supper and had class. I'm too tired to go up and get the pictures that I took today. All of the train travel and moving every night is getting to me. Tomorrow is a tour of Berlin and then fly to London where we are spending the night to get up and come home on Saturday.

So, I'll add some pictures probably tomorrow night (if the wifi is good) and then when I get home I'll put all of my pictures on FB for you to see everything my blog missed.

Maybe my commercial making career is going to take off as soon as I add this guy on FB, but I'm too tired to think about it so I'm just guna go to sleep. Home and stillness awaits me in less than two days.

Germany!

2011-06-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

It is Wednesday here!! I haven't been able to blog because of the bad internet connections in our Hostels. Speaking of Hostels, all three of them that we have stayed in so far have been better than our hotel in Paris. Waaay less sketchy and I've had more fun hanging out with all the girls at once! We got to Germany by a long train ride on Sunday. It was a very long day of traveling but we finally got to our Hotel in a very cute town called Mainz. A pretty small town so it was less walking to get to good food. And I actually go to sit back and relax that day for hours. We left super early that morning so we got to Mainz hours before anyone else.

Germany looks a lot like Munster (for you Noconians). There are pastures leading into towns that look just like our except more green and the tractors are smaller. More of a variety of trees, of course. The towns also look like muster so they have definitely done a great job with that. The distinct dark brown lines that are on the buildings are what make German buildings look German.

I didn't actually take any pictures of Mainz, but all the towns are similar so far. (so you'll get a good look soon)

Monday we traveled (by train) to Weimar and found our hostel first.
A great little place squeezed back in between several buildings. Very cute. We had a room of eight girls and one of seven. The boys had there own room of three. If you don't know how a hostel works, it's not like the movie. They were designed for travelers so they don't have to spend as much money on the road. They have a reputation of being dangerous and dirty, but I haven't experienced those two at all. You share a room either with your group, stranger, or even a single room. The walls were decorated strangely but I loved it.

Very cool. Wish we could have stayed there longer. The town was cool too. It was also small and cute. The first thing we did was stop by the Bauhaus Museum. The Bauhaus is a school of design and the school was originally started there in Weimar. I learned about this school of design in my Publication design class this past semester so it was cool to see something in "real life" that I learn about in class. Very famous in our department.

Julie and I at the Museum. We were in Pub Design together last semester so we needed a picture together so we could tag our Professor on FB.

The museum was cool, but German movies with English subtitles aren't my favorite.

The rest of the night was ours so we ate and looked around and slept. We have all been so tired lately from taking train after train. It seems like it's been so long since we left Paris, but its only been a couple of days. Tuesday we went to the concentration camp just outside of Weimar. Buchenwald concentration camp was a very big place. It is one of the larger camps during the Nazi reign. Although it was more of a holding camp and less of a death camp compared to camps like Auswich, in Poland. A holding camp more or less means they worked, starved, or beat to prisoners to death rather that complete torture. We had a great tour guide that had never had an English speaking group before, but he did a splendid job speaking English to us. Lots of researcher go there to conduct studies over the camp and they live there for months in the old SS barracks. In return for there food and board they are tour guides for the groups that come through.

Only about 10% of the original buildings have made it through all of the aftermath of the war. The SS (Nazi Soldiers) barracks were still there mostly. It was very weird to see the barracks because they looked so new. I mean I'm sure they have been repainted and such but it was odd to see how well together they were. Mostly because I feel like this war happened so long ago but the buildings quickly put that into reality. It didn't.

I won't put too many pictures of the pictures they have posted on their walls or on buildings such as the crematorium, but they will be on FB when I get home if you want to take a look.
This is a map of the entire camp. This red buildings are the existing buildings and the grey have been destroyed.

Fence surrounding the prisoners part of the camp.

Entrance to the prisoners camp.

Memorial spot. People from all over the world come to lay flowers or any kind of remembrance on lots of places around the camp.

KLB is the German term for the Buchenwald camp. He asked us to place our hands on the memorial to feel the warmth of it. He decribed how it was warmed by the sun every day to remind us of the warmth of the bodies that were lost in this place.

We traveled to Leipzig after that...where we are now. Today we had class with an actual German Lawyer. She was very informative. We also went to the Museum of Printed Arts....very cool also, but I'm about to run out of battery. I'll give away more information when I get internet again!

"Real Paris"

2011-05-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

Pic of the day.
Today we went to Montmartre which is just another section of Paris. I got to experience the part of Paris that I thought the whole thing was suppose to be. Very market-y and painters every where. Moulin Rouge was our first stop (because it was right out of the Metro station.

I wished it would have been more of a place to see, but it was actually an entertainment place....so we just took a pic and kept walking.

We had heard there was a famous church that has the best sights of Paris from the top, so we trekked up HUGE hills until we found it. Sacre Couer which means scared heart. It was beautiful!

That last one is super cool. :)

There was quite the entertainment outside of it too.....
A guy was singing out side...great stage presence....funny and a great singer!

And some dancers.....very talented.

THEN! I climbed well over 300 steps to the top of the tower of the church for the view. I was so tired when I got up there; I had to take a breather. And when I got back down my legs where shaking. Work out much?

The market was my fav part today and of Paris. It made it feel like what I had expected. People selling things...mostly food and artists set up with there booths....very pretty
Bread.

Dried fruit.

Carmel apples.

Candy that tasted like sour punch straws.

Meat.

Flower lady.

Spices and teas. (mom I got you Jasmin tea)

Painter man.

My fav painting that I past.

Hannah, one of my friends getting here pic done.

Picture the very sweet man drew of me!

Later at night we met some of the group for a picnic under the Eiffel Tower...breads and grapes and strawberries and cheese and chips and cookies and candy!

Jill creepin up in my pic.

Bread!

Today was my favorite day in Paris :) And I will be loading a train for Germany tomorrow for one more week of adventure. Then home to mi casa :)

....Paris....

2011-05-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

Okay so I haven't posted since yesterday, but it feels like six years. We left Oxford yesterday morning and walked to the train station that took us to London. We saw the British Library. I needed my mother again to tell me what everything was. I wish you book lovers could have seen all of those pretty books. They were locked behind glass but very pretty. I love the way they look! They are so old and worn, which makes them beautiful.

This internet here is pretty bad so I may not be able to add pictures :/ But they will all be on FB when I get home. (which isnt very long!)

But the Library was very neat. We saw some of the works of Shakespeare. His actual hand writing was behind the glass (that I touched). We saw the Gutenberg Bible. Which is a big deal for us ACU JMC majors. Gutenberg was the man who invented movable type, or in English is the first Printing Press. A huge step in technology and obviously extremely important to us Journalism majors. This was the first Bible printed for commoners. Decorated very carefully and beautifully.
In the Library we also saw the Magna Carta and one of my favorite parts......The Beatles original work! It was cool because they had their original scribbles from when they were writing a couple of their songs. Pretty sweet. That definitely put their tunes in my head for the rest of the day, which was FOREVER long.

The next step was to get to the train station. We took the Chunnel to Paris. Parts of the train ride were under water. I was expecting the entire trip to be under (for some reason) but it wasn't. Thank God because the pressure that it put on your ears was almost unbearable. It hit us all at once and everyone jumped and groaned. I really enjoyed when we started getting closer to France though because it there was beautiful country-side. Those tall skinny trees along the plain green fields like you see on movies...they are real!

When we arrived in Paris and our professor let us loose the fact that we were alone in a strange country hit us. We all were just standing there for awhile. Finally we got the nerve to head out. The underground (trains) are different than in England and not just because everything is in French instead of English. Its just very difficult to maneuver ESPECIALLY with luggage. One of our girls actually got caught in the door and ended up having to drop her bags behind in order to get on the cart with us. Thankfully there was a nice Frechman who waited there until she got back with her stuff. It was a scar experience for all of us and after that we were all super freaked. We were tired and hungry and stressed and alone. It had been a long day and we finally found our hotel (which wasn't what we expected) But hey, it's better than an Egyptian sleeper-train. We found a McDonalds (that actually tasted real) and headed for bed.

We were ready to start over today. And we did! We have successfully conquered the Metro/Underground for an entire day. It went smoothly too. But I must confess something....I forgot my camera. I know, I know....I almost balled in the Metro when I realized it. But I keep reminding myself that I still experienced those things and I'm alive and happy. So....I feel kind of better. I did take pictures with my phone though.

First we went to Notre Dame. It's HUGE! I was astonished at the size of it and the architecture was unlike any other, I think. It gave Westminster a run for it's money. And the bell actually rang! I need to re-watch The Hunchback of Notre Dame again when I get home. Its hard to describe how beautiful it was. One thing that was humerous was the fact that at Westminster you could offer prayers by lighting a candle or by writing it down. (I lit a candle in honor of my family and wrote Jordan's name on a piece of paper) BUT in Notre Dame it cost 2 Euros to put in a prayer request and 5 Euros if it was a big one. LOL. crazy French people.

After that we made our way to The Louvre which is a very famous museum. And rightfully so. It was crazy big...we saw like one sixth of the interior. The most important things for me to see were the Mona Lisa, which was beautiful but smaller than I had perceived and the famous (armless) statue of Venus, which was beautiful. I can't wait to come back with my familia.

Then it was on to the Eiffel Tower. It was brown....not what I expected, but pretty all the same. Just like all the pictures....very tall. I didn't have the urge to go to the top, but I actually wished I had after my friends got back. I didn't really want to spend the money (because Pris is SO expensive) but their pictures seemed to be great. The park was a little trashy though....

I've eaten ham and cheese twice today (I don't like ham)...haha, but It tasted good. I'm feeling better about Paris every minute. Not my favorite town, by far, but definitely a memorable place. Being here makes me want my mom and dad. lol. My dad is so good at picking up new things and would be great at maneuvering through the subways and trains. And my mother would drive me crazy reading everything but it would be nice to follow her brilliant mind around. I want them to experience these things too, and I'm thankful that they let me come. :)

Tomorrow is another day of Paris before we head to Germany to meet our class again. We are going to take it slower and find some neat areas, hopefully. I'm getting excited to see the concentration camp in Germany!

Party in the Park

2011-05-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

Today is Wednesday! I had wonderful plans that ended up not happening but still had a successful day. I planned on going to the palace where Churchill was born, but we couldn't really find the right bus and it was taking too long......so we went to Christ Church.

Now, I'm sure that this church has much more of a significance than what we wanted to see it for, but I don't really know what that is. Although, there is a staircase inside of the church that a scene from the first Harry Potter movie was filmed on. There are spots like that all over Oxford and London and this was a close one! However, Michelle Obama was in town and coming to the same church....who knew. The guards has it blocked off and wouldn't let anyone in for the inside tours. Bummer....thanks a lot Michelle.

Anyhow, we had a wonderful shopping/walking tour....again. I got a little sweater so that I could look more Parisian and wouldn't have to wear my wind-breaker everywhere anymore.

We walked passed this goergeous building and thought we would climb the tower to the top!...Beautiful view.

We then headed to the Park for class. Today's discussion was over Copyright. Also we had a 21st birthday of one of the girls today! We had a cookie cake and hats....probably got lots of stares, but fun all the same.

After packing, resting, tv watching, and being REALLY hungry we finally all got ready to go eat for our birthday party celebration! We ate at a wonderful little Italian place. Now I'm packing and getting ready to wake up early for tomorrow.
Agenda:
Walk to the train station.
Train to London.
Play time.
British Library
Chunnel to Paris (under water train)
Arrive in Paris for a weekend filled with sights, cheese, and baguettes!
After our free weekend we will be off to Germany for the rest of our class. I'm not positive there will be internet access in our Hotel in Paris so that I can update you guys...but I'm almost certain there will be. Hope so! I can't wait to see the sights!

Lazy, Lazy

2011-05-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

We finaly got off our feet for a little while today. Some of the group went back to London, but I (and others) stayed here in Oxford. We all woke up late and watched movies until we were ready for lunch in the afternoon. We walked to town and instead of eating right away we got distracted at the tourist stores. I've been looking for the perfect (simple) Oxford sweater. Found it....purple :) We then ate at the oldest Pub in Oxford, the Turf Tavern.

Remember back in the day when Bill Clinton denied inhaling the maryj? Well, this was the pub that it didn't happen in. So...i was were Bill Clinton was...again. (whether you like him or not...that's still cool. you know it)

So after eating we walked around a little more. Got cookies at Ben's Cookies...that were really good. (everyone brags about those) and then we got Moo Moo's milkshakes. AMAZING.

I think that we were all meant to be here this summer. I mean we made a guard laugh, we have done so many cool things! While walking down the street today we spotted a couple of men with cameras. One of the guys just walked up to them and started talking so we all joined in. They were super nice! Turns out it was the CEO of Wesley Mission for the Methodist churches, out of Sidney, Australia. They were making a documentary about the founder of the Methodist church. He really loved us! All of the workers were interested in all of us. Especially when we mentioned that we were JMC majors. Very cool. Very cool.

I actually didn't want to lug my camera around today, so there are no pictures. But I just realized that i haven
t showed you were we live.....

Tomorrow we have class at some point and we are going somewhere for it....I'm not sure where though. Guess you;ll just have to wait and see (like me)!

"We're the British Royal Gaurd"

2011-05-21T16:41:00.000-07:00

We got up on our own because it's Saturday and we have no school! Took a train to London and on the way there met Max...short for Maximus. He was a very nice lad studying Latin and Greek at oxford, so obviously a genius. He told us things that should be visited in London and also helped me on my school work. I have to help present some of the information in Monday's class over Privacy Laws in Germany, USA, and England. So he definitely let me record him and his thoughts on England's privacy laws. So that helped me out! Very nice of him.

We thought it would be a brilliant idea to take a bus tour. It started out nicely with a stop to the BBC. (British Broadcasting Corp) I mean...how could we pass it up as Journalism/Mass Communication majors. They only offer tours on Sundays so some of the group is going back tomorrow; however, I will be taking the day easy and staying in Oxford. (my feet and knee still hurt)

We then got on our amazingly NOT quick tour bus. The ride was extremely slow because of the traffic...who would have thought there would be traffic in down town London? But I did get to talking to these two men. They were from Canada and LOVED how many times I said yall without even realizing it. That's not a word?...WHAT?! They were super nice and talked to us the whole ride. Told us what we needed to see and what everything was along the way. Here are some pictures of the buildings along the ride and of the Tower Bridge. (note that the London bridge isn't impressive....we just drove over it. and the river below is the Thames.)

We finally made it to my favorite part of the day...The Tower of London. It was actually more like a small castle. I stood in the same castle that Anne Boleyn was beheaded. And I saw the crowns and jewels of the Kings and Queens, some of it dated back to more than 600 years ago. Although I couldn't take pictures. (this 8 year old girl definitely took a picture of the last crown....urg)

I did however get to see one of the gaurds in the red uniforms. He was pretty young. He was there to guard the Tower. I MADE HIM LAUGH! the thing is was that I was just acting normal....
I was having one of my friends take my picture and I had my hand up to make the picture seem like I was grabbing his ear. (from the distance we were at)
my friend said, "What are you doin? You wnat to make it look like you're poking him?"
I said, " No! I want to grab his ear!"
and he started laughing!! I could SO get him fired. (or beheaded like Anne Boleyn) haha but he was precious so I feel like he deserves a break. It made my life. I'm set. Now all I need is for the Rapture to happen...wait, wasn't that suppose to happen today?

Mission accomplished.

We then took the subway (which I'm starting to like) to a restaurant that is not of English taste, but a part of our home land. TEXAS.

The reason we wanted to go here was because the ACU Oxford study abroad students (awhile back) put our ACU flag up in the top floor of the building where lots of schools are represented. It was VERY cool to see a piece of us already hanging and to write our names on the wall.

We finally made it back to our train to Oxford safely and easily tonight. Rode home and met another Britt! His name was Peter and he was very interested in us, as we were of him. Literature was our favorite word that he said. He was very into Rugby and had just come from playing in London. A very cool was to end the night. We made it to Oxford after the hour train ride and did our 45 minute was back to the house. I am ready for a relaxing day tomorrow. A nap may even be in store for me....how exciting (very happy face).

I'll leave you with a few more random pictures of the day.

The reason our bus tour way slow....busy London streets.

Pretty Building....?

Me eating REAL roasted peanuts cooked by a lovely man outside London Tower.

Me knocking on a door in the London Tower. (if you can't tell, i like touching things)

All Souls Church, I believe. Otherwise....a pretty building...?

On the London Tower.....pretty pretty :)

Heavy Helmets in the Tower!

Mean face in the cage. A section of the tower told why the Kings and Queens had strange wild animals....What do you give a person that has everything?....A lion, tiger, or bear of course.

Random Carving....pretty

"He proposed!"......replica of Princess Kate's wedding ring

At the train station. In England....or lots of places in the world (Egypt) they remind you to "Mind the Gap" when you step off of the train, so you don't hurt yourself. Love it.

Oh. My. Queen.

2011-05-20T16:37:00.000-07:00

My feet hurt so bad I could....well, not walk anymore if I had to. Really. We walked AT LEAST 30 miles today. I have blisters and my ankles are swollen and my knee hurts. But hey, where did I go today? Oh, yeah....London :)

We left at 8:30 with the group to walk to the train station. The 45 min walk was definitely a way to wake us up. The first thing we did as a group was go to The Museum of London. It was HUGE! There was no way we could see all of it in a day. We got a lot done in two hours worth of running quickly through the rooms to see whatever section we would like to see. The Egypt section was....lame. Sorry Britts but I'm sorry to say the Egyptians beat you on that, as they should. I did like the section of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. We also got to see the Rosetta Stone, which is the stone that was found (and fought over) because it helped to distinguish hieroglyphics into modern language. All in all the museum was too short of a trip. I wish I had my mom here to tell me what everything was and actually read something and explain it to me. I also wish my father was here to find the weird things in the museum that are in the corners and point them out to me. I'll have to come back someday to it.

I found this though that the men might enjoy....a chair made of guns!

I also found a trace of my home place. I don't know what this was for but.....

So then we walked to Westminster Abbey!! I was stoked about this one. I can't believe we stood were kings are crowned king and buried. We saw countless tombs and beautiful architecture. We weren't allowed to take pictures but i got three in before I knew that. (don't worry I just got a head shake and not thrown in jail)

Big Ben was right next to the Abbey so we took pictures there. And while we were taking pictures as the crowd bustled around us, we heard, "Hey ACU kids!" Sure enough there was a guy from ACU standing there with his family. He actually had been studing abroad this past semester and stayed extra. Small world. Here we are actually caught in the action of seeing him. This pic was taken when he was yelling at us and we realized who it was.

Then we split up and went LOTS of places. Walked and took the Subway everywhere. The Palace was one of our stops. I was very upset that the (red) guards aren't there all day. But I did catch one of the gaurds chewing gum...I think I'll have to talk to the Queen about this.

There is too much to describe today. We went everywhere. We tried to make it back to town before 10:30 when the pizza joint closed....well we make our 45 min walk in about 18 min. We were bookin it! Long story short....we walked miles and miles....got the pizza and I'm tired. Tomorrow we are going back but taking a bus tour that will let us off at all the biggest stuff. I'll leave you with a few pictures from the day.

Me at train station

St. Paul's Cathedral

The girls in front of one of the Queen's gates!

Roman Goddess

Two men collecting pennies by acting like statues! Bronze and moved slowly!

Big Ben

The Rosetta Stone

Fish, Chips, and Bird Poop

2011-05-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

Started off late today because we all stayed up too late last night. I woke up at 11:30 and got ready. We walked to a pub and had fish and chips. The piece of fish was huge! And...their ketchup was normal. I'll give England one advantage over Ireland...they have good ketchup.

We then traveled to the University Parks that are a few streets from our house. It's a huge fenced in park with lots of big trees and pretty flowers. It has lots of open fields were the college kids are playing croquet or other sports. Some people are just laying down under trees to read or have a picnic. Pretty peaceful. Not the prettiest park I've ever seen but definitely had a natural beauty to it. The best part of the park was in the back area. A river ran through that I'm positive that Hugh Jackman must have sat by back in the days when he was educated at Oxford University. I could almost feel his presence ;) The fields by the river were delightful.

Although while I was having my picture taken by a pretty field I had an unfortunate occurrence. I think it's because the "English" bird knew that I was of Irish decent, so it decided my purse needed some decoration. The Britts and the Irish have never gotten along super well, so I think it had a little payback for me from its ancestors. As you can tell...it was not the most pleasant thing.

Because we slept so long, after the park tour it was time to head back for class. Our class started at four and lasted until six, we had a dinner break where a group of us girls went down the street for a meal from Ali's. The man was very interested in our accents (like everyone here) (i swear they don't stop laughing when I talk). He obviously gets lots of visiting students from our conversations. The students seem to be loyal to his food. The food was trying to be mostly American, including my cheese burger which definitely did not taste like beef. Who knows....Although his ketchup is approved also :)

After eating supper we went back for another hour or so of class and are now parting way either to the pubs or to bed. I however am going to sleep early tonight because tomorrow we are getting up early for London!!! Historical things that I'm not suppose to touch, here I come!!! :D

2011-05-18T14:20:00.000-07:00

Definitely was more awake today! I got about 12 hours of sleep and was extremely happy for that because apparently Benadryl doesn't make me sleepy anymore (thinking back to the restless plane ride). I skipped breakfast mostly because I didn't buy anything to cook the night before, so I watched tv until the others were ready. They actually have some American shows, including Friends that I feel asleep to last night and Judge Judy that I chose to watch instead of the cooking shows.

A group of us went to a coffee house first thing. It's over a mile down to the place so sitting and having breakfast/lunch was nice. I chose toast and a diet coke. Don't worry, I'll get more adventurous with my meal choices as we go along. England's way of separating your ticket is to bring you the receipt and point our that the prices are on there so you know what to pay....together. I giggled about that one.
We walked through the down town area again. This time we found a very "cheap" store were I found my first souvenir....a cute pair of European looking sneakers.

After our shopping adventure I went to the Museum of Natural History. Outside of the architecturally beautiful building there were representations of a ghost forest. Some lady was trying to help the forest to keep growing was what I recall from the poster, but I'm still kind of confused. Anyway, they were huge petrified tree trucks. The roots were all curly and it looked like something wicked from Harry Potter. Inside the museum was packed with skeletons of every animal from dinosaurs to dodo birds to shrunken heads of war victims. Most of the countries from around the world were represented some how. The key sections was my favorite (next to the shrunken heads) They even had the key to Luis the??'s wine cellar from back in the day.

We then met to have a tour of the laundry room that we share with the dorm behind our houses. (three washer/three dryers) and waled to Queen Lane's Coffee House (one of the oldest coffee houes in Europe from the 1600s) We had coffee were given the guidelines on how we will be grade for our class. Three grades including our take home final, our 9-12 page paper, and participation. I had hazelnut coffee and then we set off to the grocery store. We took the long way and I needed the "toilet" badly so when I asked the grocery store owner if they had one.....well, it took me four trys to get him to understand me through my thick accent. Needless to say they did not have a toilet.
We just got out of class again, having discussed our freedom of speech and are now curling up to read our chapters for tomorrow, watching tv, or sleeping. (it's ten at night here)

All in all, a good day. Although (i can't believe I'm about to say this but...) I'm ready to see something historical. Not only see it but go inside and possibly even touch something I'm not suppose to. Walking around shopping is...not as interesting. Wow, I'm definitely turning into my mother. Tomorrow I think I'm going to have tea in The Eagle and Child, which is were Tolkien and C. S. Lewis sat for years, as friends, to discuss theirs writings and have their own tea. Exciting times await.

The Queen and I

2011-05-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

Finally got here. The flight wasn't too bad, but most of us didn't sleep so everyone is groggy and jet-lagged pretty badly. It's about seven at night here and most everyone is heading to bed already.
One of the first accents we heard was from the "Coach Master." He was British from head to toe and his accent was really heavy. I think he enjoyed showing off his accent to us. He gave us our first quiz by asking all of us what the capitol of England was. We all agreed it was a trick question, but were wrong. London....who would have thought that.
I'm not sure that the fact that we are here has hit me yet. Mostly because I can't keep my eyes open, but I think also because it looks a lot like Ireland so I kinda feel like I've seen it before. That will change tomorrow though when we get to start most of the in depth historical stuff.
We did take a short walking tour today to view the things that are close to us. Town is only about a mile so we walked and tried to scope out all of the shops. We are staying in two different 3-story houses that are packed into a neighborhood of very nice houses. They all were built in the 1800s and have little hobbit doors with the door knobs in the middle of the door. All in all a very cool place to stay.
I definitely had a craving for Burger King when we passed it, but I pushed through it and ate FREE sandwiches. haha. Tomorrow the real adventure begins.

P.S. I couldn't get my pictures to load onto my computer....sad day.

The Anticipation Begins

2011-05-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

Two weeks until I am actually in Oxford. I can't wait!