Church @ St. Paul's Cathedral.

For my Sociology class I had to watch a court case at Old Bailey, one of the courtrooms in the City of London.  So while I was down there working on my homework (see I do homework on this trip, obviously) I was literally RIGHT NEXT to St. Paul's Cathedral.  So after watching a British court case, which was another story in itself on how I got there, I went inside St. Paul's to look around.  Well I was there around 4:30 and I saw there was a public church service at 5! Perfect!  I got to go to church @ St. Paul's Cathedral!  It was sooo pretty inside.  St. Paul's was the same church Princess Di and Charles married in, just a side note.  The service was wonderful and the preach, pastor, whatever they call it here, was a woman who talked about love & duty.  It was such a good service and I am defintley going back sometime.  I didn't know this before but St. Paul's has 4 services a day and also 4 services each Sunday!  Although I got some great pictures of the outside I couldn't take any pictures of the inside.  I guess I'll have to go back to the gift shop and buy some postcards =]

St. Paul's Cathedral Pictures

My American Valentine.

My Valentine "iPod" with my iLove playlist!!

Auntie Kim's London mailbox =]

The complete Valentine package.  The best Valentine's Day I've ever gotten sent to me from overseas!

Yesterday I came back from my flat after and adventurous afternoon of grocery shopping to see a box, a brown box, with my name on it!!!  The address was from Indiana; it was a Valentine from the States!  After tearing the box apart I found a tiny metal mailbox with my address (my London address) on it.  Inside the mailbox were pink & red socks, a little bottle of body wash and also an iPod...or should I say a Valentine "iPod".  A creative, special someone made me an iPod out of a sweetheart candy hearts box.  On the box was an iLove Playlist including: Kiss the Girl, Happy Together, You're my Sunshine and You're the One that I want.  The iPod also came with earbuds (string attached to 2 mini Reece's Cups...YUM, my favorite candies)!  The Valentine box also included a picture of Tyler from Christmas!! I think my heart broke into a billion pieces when I saw his cute little face, argyle sweater, and straw drumsticks.  Anyways, I LOVED the Valentine and I am soo happy that I have not been forgotten in the States.  I was getting worried because everyone else in my group had been getting packages...and everyday I looked...to see NOTHING!  =]

Anyways,  I loved my Valentine so Cupid...GOOD JOB!

Lots of Love from London!! Xxxx (kiss)

Museum Day!

Considering that I wasn't in Ireland this weekend I needed something to fulfill my time.  Not many people know this but London is home to more than 200 museums...many of those museums being free.  Therefore, I went to two different museums this Saturday including: the Museum of London and The Science Museum.  Here's a little synopsis of each one:

The Museum of London: This museums was the entire history, and detail of events, that happened in London until present time.  It included when London was filled with Native Americans and settlers to Roman London times, Medieval London (including the Black Plaugue which killed 40,000 people in London and at that time half the population!), the Great Fire of London (1666) and present events (while there they had an exhibit on homeless people in London including poems and artwork).  It was quite interesting and I enjoyed it...although the rest of my friends didn't. What can I say I just really like museums!

Interesting facts:

-The Great Fire of London was started in a bakery oven by a baker on Pudding Lane.

-The city of London had been dry for numerous days and all the houses and buildings were wooden; basically it isn't surprising the fire carried throughout most of the city based how it was set up.

- The great fire destroyed 4/5th of the City of London and overall destroyed 1/3 of all of London.

-Although one man was hung as responsible for the London Fire they to this day don't know who truly started the Fire of London.

-Although many people's homes and belongings were destroyed or burned to ash barely any people died and only a small few (I want to say around 70-something possibly) were hurt or injured.

The Science Museum:

The Science Museum was AMAZING.  It reminded me of the Indy Children's Museum back at home with a couple more grown up exhibits also.  They had this one floor called Launchpad which was all interactive stuff such as a long echo tube, pulleys and levers, making ice and more.  There were a ton of little British families and kids there and there my friends and I were, right with them trying to test out all the different machines!  Anyways, it was great but also HUGE so I definitely am going back there again. 

Below are some pictures from the 2 museums.  Most of them are from the Museum of London except for the last 1 or 2. 

Pictures!

Enjoy looking at them and hopefully I taught you something from my Museum Day =]

New London Hair...thank you Posh Spice.

The Posh Bob I wanted (minus the tattoo, I'll get that eventually. HAHA mom & dad, don't panic).

The back...inches lost.

Somewhat side view.  Thumbs up...I love it!

My new haircut, yeay!

So...after being bummed out from not going to Ireland, and bored from nobody wanting to do anything, my friend Lauren and I decided to get our hair cut.  Now before I left I had cut my hair to look more 'London'.  My hair used to be pretty long.  I had been growing it out for 2 years or so but before I left I got it cut pretty short compared to what it used to be.  Now it's even shorter!  

I wanted something shorter...less maintenance.  And cute.  The whole short in the back bob thing is pretty in right now and that's when the light bulb in my head went off.  Lauren and I went to the hairdresser and I found a picture in one of their hair magazines of Victoria Beckham, formerly Posh Spice, and saw it.  That is what I wanted. The Posh Bob!  So that is what I got all for 27 pounds (cheaper than what I pay in the states for a haircut).  I love it! I'm so glad I got my hair cut...why didn't get chop it short before?!? 

Well, I guess everyone was right when they said I'd come back from London a different person...I'll look completely different!

Toad in the Hole

As part of my British Life and Culture class our teacher, not professor...teacher, gave us the task of making a British dish in our flat groups.  He told us that him and his wife would come by and try each groups dish and then award prizes to the winning group.  Instantly, being Americans, each flat went into competition mode thinking of bigger and better ways to out due the other flats.  The British dish each group had to make was 'Toad in the Hole', a breakfast dish consisting of sausage and breading.  

This is what my flat did to beat out the competition.  First we cleaned up our flat.  Yes, even though we are girls it NEEDED cleaning.  Then, we set up the table; we took off one of our bed sheets to fold in half as a tablecloth, set the table, bought flowers for a centerpiece, and even framed a note for our teacher that said, "Welcome to the taste of London...on behalf of flat 40 we thank you for visiting!" (clever, huh?).  Oh, we also had symphony music playing on someone's laptop as background music.  We are classy.

To prepare the dish we first had to make the breading the night before our teacher came.  The recipie called for us to sift the flour.  Unfortunately we don't have that many cooking utensils in our flat so we had to use a tea strainer as a sifter, we were very dedicated to this dish!  Then, after we sifted 6 cups of flour through a small tea strainer we had to add eggs and milk to the batter.  After all that we let the batter sit for a night.

The next day before our teacher came we then cooked the sausages, put the batter in and cooked our Toad in the Hole.  We also made some additional items to our dinner.  I prepared a dessert tray consisting of Victoria Sponge Cake (white sponge cake with creme and raspberry jelly in between the 2 layers-it's delicious), chocolate wafers and Jaffa cakes (not as good as they sound - they are wafers with orange gel covered in chocolate coating, they'd be better without the orange gel).  We also decided that when our teacher came we were going to serve them mushy peas, a British veggie, with the Toad in the Hole.  Mushy peas, though they sound gross, are actually good! I really like them, better than regular peas!  

Anyways, we had the whole thing all planned.  We all were super prepared for our teacher to come, we were going to pull out their chairs, offer them tea, then offer them merlot (which they did take our offer on, we even had it chilled in our freezer but found out later merlot doesn't need to be chilled. oops!)  and make conversation with them about the other groups.  We all were really nervous before they came, we just wanted to win soooo badly! 

Well when they did end up coming we had a great time!  Like I said before they didn't want tea but they took up our merlot offer.  They even said our Toad in the Hole was good but the mushy peas...yes, those are suppose to be served HOT not cold.  We had them in the fridge before they came thinking they needed to be served cold.  Other than that we had a hilarious time talking to our teacher and his wife and learning about British food.

After the festivities our teacher than awarded us prizes.  Unfortunately we didn't win first place =[ Our teacher said it was a close call between us and the flat that won first place BUT we did win the better prize.  Our teacher gave us the designated 'rowdy group' prize: a 4-pack of Kenttish Ale! Yeay! And the first place winners only got 1 bottle of wine.  Lame! Haha!  Anyways we had a great time and enjoyed making and serving the meal. The pictures below show the whole process.

Toad in the Hole Pictures...

Here's the recipe if you'd like to make it yourself:

8 sausages

4 tablespoons cooking oil

For the batter:

6 oz plain flour

pinch of salt

1 egg

1 egg white

8-10 fluid oz. milk

(The batter can be made up to 24 hours in advance)

1. Sift the flour with the salt.  Add the egg and egg white to flour. 

2. Whisk in 8 fl. oz. of milk. To check consistency of batter lift spoon in and out of batter; the batter should hold and coat back of spoon.

3. Let batter rest for at least 30 minutes.

4. Be sure to cook sausages before baking the dish.

5. In a roasting tin, put sausages in roasting tin.  Pour in batter up to three quarters of the way up the sausage. 

6. Place in oven at 220 degrees C or 425 degrees F and bake for 35-45 minutes.

7. After the toads are ready, get your HP (brown) sauce and eat.  Yum!  Don't forget the tea =]

PS- Toad in the Hole is best served with Onion Gravy or fried onions on top.  

Snow Day in London

So as many of you have heard London had a snow storm last Monday but English snow storms are not the same as US snow storms. As most of you are scraping 6 inches of snow off of your cars daily, or salting ice off of your sidewalks, Londoners are usually just taking their umbrellas with them everywhere they go. When it "snows" here it usually just flurries and doesn't even stick to the ground. Sunday night was different; there were HUGE flakes coming down and before my flat mates and I knew snow was ACCUMULATING on the ground! It was INSANE! There were groups of people on the street throwing snow balls, playing in the snow and having fun in the winter wonderland. Our teachers told us later that many kids from London had probably never seen snow like this before (that is, snow on the ground in fluffy white balls).  The snowstorm was the most snow London had had in 16 years!

Anyways, the next morning when I woke up, early, I was about to shower when my flat mate Danielle says, "SCHOOL'S CANCELLED!" I look out the window and what do I see? Oh, only about 2 inches of snow!!! Not joking at all, it was barely anything. It was equivalent to the amount that the midwest sees in about an hour of snow.  

So all of us Midwest kids thought it was ridiculous that London completely shut down from 2 inches of snow.  The news all day was about: the weather.  One reporter even said, "There is no new news besides the weather.  The weather is the only news."  Also, the tube was closed.  Early that morning all the buses were out of order but later on in the day a couple buses were running.  All the schools in London were closed and since the tubes were down many Londoners couldn't go to work either.  Londoners were crazy about the snow!

Anyways, I posted some pictures from the snow day.  I tried to take pictures outside of my flat window of the street covered in a "snowstorm" but they came out a little shaky.  Also, some kids from our Ball State group, out of sheer boredom during the snow day, came up with a game called "Sockball" inspired by a Friends episode.   Since we didn't have a ball to throw around we had to make a ball with someone's clean pair of socks rolled into a ball.  Basically, sockball requires the group of people playing to continuously throw the 'ball' for as long as possible without dropping it.  If a player drops sockball 3 times they are out.  If there is doubt about who dropped sockball the group can do a chirp-vote, inspired by the 'chirp' Cardinal call, to see who the strike is against.  Our goal was for sockball to last 5 minutes...we got to 3 minutes before we decided to watch a movie.  Sockball is definitely a winning game we will bring back to Muncie.

Pictures from SNOW DAY!

Not the best weekend in London =[

So this weekend five of my friends and I were suppose to travel to Ireland. YEAY!...or so we thought.  We had the whole weekend completely planned. Here's how it went:

Thursday: class until 1:30 p.m., 3 p.m. leave for airport, 6 p.m. get on plane to Ireland, 8 p.m. arrive in Dublin, Ireland and go to our first hostel, and the rest of the night was free for us to eat in an Irish restaraunt, shop and see the locals!

Friday: Start our 3 day Southern Ireland tour...arrive in Kilarney.

Saturday: Complete 2nd Day of tour...arrive in Doolin that night.

Sunday: Complete the end of tour, arrive back in Dublin and fly back to London around 9 p.m.

Sounds like a pretty fun and exciting weekend, right?  Well here's how the story went:

We all, including myself, stay up super late Thursday night trying to complete our first assignment (a paper) for our British life & culture class, while also trying to pack our whole weekend belongings into a backpack (not easy), and making sure we have everything including our e-tickets, booking confirmations, passport, euros, etc.  Wed. night I am up till 2:30 a.m. trying to get everything done and I have class at 9 a.m. the next morning.

The next day everything goes fine.  We get through another day of class, get Euros, get our stuff together, get everyone together and leave.  We get on the tube to the Victoria station, take an express train to Gatwick airport and finally arrive at the airport with plenty of time to spare.  I even say to the group, "Wow you guys, this is going way too smooth.  Something has gotta go wrong!"  Well, knock on wood! Something DOES go VERY wrong!  We get to the Aerlingus counter where we are suppose to check in and we see a sign that says: all fights to Ireland cancelled until tomorrow.  WHAT?!?! Apparently, Dublin's airport had snow the 2 days before and although some areas the snow was melting, by the airports it was really cold and the runways were icing over.   

So, I myself don't really worry much so I just think, "Ok now what do we do?" while others in our group, not all but some, go straight into panic mode.  After running around in circles we get directed to another counter to find out our flight options.  Somehow I get nominated to call the tour guide company we are suppose to meet at 8 a.m. tomorrow and talk to them.

After many phone calls to Irish people, discussion (including a little grumpiness and complaining because we all are loosing money on this trip) and weighing out our options we figure that we can either:

a- Book a flight for tomorrow morning, meet up with the tour group by catching a train from Dublin to Kilarney, miss a day of the tour and still have 2 and 1/2 days.

b- get our airline ticket refunded, lose money on the tour and stay in London.

So...we stayed in London.  Not the weekend we had planned for =[  Although it's a day later many of group are still grumpy but what can you do?  We couldn't plan the weather so we might as well just get over it and remember to check departing flights before we leave our flat.  Anyways, that's my first traveling outside of London adventure.  It ended before it began!  Well, at least there is a lot to do in London and now I have time to catch up on sleep!

Oh and I already have my homework done so now I am footloose and fancy free the WHOLE weekend =]

Parliament!

Today my class woke up at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m. to see Parliament.  Yeay!  Although it was a neat tour I wish I would have been a little bit more awake to remember everything our tour guide said.  During most of the tour visitors weren't allowed to take pictures so I only have the ones above from Westminister Hall (not to be confused with Westminister Abbey).  But here are some random things I remember from class research and from our tour today:

-The House of Commons is represented by the color green because it is more of a plain color; the House of Commons is an elected body-they truly represent the people of UK & are the government of it all.

-The House of Lords is represented by the color red and inside their house is tons of gold and red decor. This shows how they are much more distinguished and royal-they are nominated to have their positions in the House of Lords.

-In the House of Commons the aisle down the center of it features a white line on each side.  This was put there during the days of sword fighting and such.  Members were asked to "toe the line" meaning that they couldn't go past the line and fight when debates became too heated.

-The Queen (or King) is never allowed in the House of Commons.

-According to my teacher, one of the longest debates that happened recently was over a bill that was against fox hunting.  He said the debate went on for many months because some members of Parliament saw fox hunting as a sport while others saw various parts of the sport as too cruel.

Kay well that is all I could think of for now...I had a little bit of information overload at 8 a.m. in the morning!  I hope you learned something from my relay of information =]

A fun day of class in London.

Our proposed class bill that now hangs proudly in my flat.

Okay, so I've been a slacker on the whole blog thing lately buutttt.....I didn't forget about you all in the States!  

So, Monday, January 26:

Today I had British Life & Culture class.  During the second half of our day our teacher made us role play as Parliament.  Last week we each received notebooks with certain colored stickers and numbers on the front of them.  Those colors and stickers each meant something for our Parliament exercise.  I received a red sticker and the number three on my notebook; this meant that I belonged to the Labour Party and also that I was a Cabinet Minister, one of the heads of government next to the Prime Minister.  On Monday, I, along with the "Prime Minister" Gordan Brown (AKA my flat mate Bri) & 3 other Cabinet Ministers had to propose a Bill during lunch for our "Parliament" to discuss and pass.  Our teacher instructed us to make it a fun bill so this is what we came up with (and before we came up with the bill our teacher said last year's class made their bill state that each American man who came to London had to wear a scarf):

I, Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of this fine class, under the instruction of Sir Lyndon Sly, with the help of my lovely Ministers of State do propose a bill in which states:

In any pub or club, any English gent whom encounters and/or converses with a woman of American descent, must therefore by law purhcas the woman a drink of her choice and not be obliged to buy him a drink in RETURN!

(the bill was amended and passed with one little addition: this bill is only valid during 3 days, Thur., Fri,. & Sat., and after payday)

A run through Hyde Park...

I woke up this morning and while I was about to read a book I saw the sun coming through the windows of my flat and decided, "Hey, why not run through Hyde Park?"  My flat is only a 5-8 minute walk away from Hyde Park so I put on my running shoes, grabbed my camera and iPod and started my sightseeing workout.  Hyde Park is just so neat!  There were people running, bicycling, skateboarding, feeding ducks, walking, reading and so on.  Along with all the people there the whole park was just gorgeous.  I couldn't stop taking pictures (and it was a good excuse to NOT run).  If I lived in London I bet I'd run more often because how could you not want to run or power walk when you have such a beautiful park down the block from you?!  Another reason why I should live here...

Pictures!

The Travel Bookshop

Yesterday afternoon I decided that since I didn't have anything to do for the day, I would see the notorious Travel Bookshop from the movie Knotting Hill (Julia Roberts & Hugh Grant).  So after a quick ride on the tube to Notting Hill...Nikki & I found it!  Here are some pictures of the Knotting Hill area and the beloved bookshop.  I even bought a book there, not many people can say they did that!

Me in front of the Travel Bookshop with my new books!

Articles about the movie Knotting Hill that was set in The Travel Bookshop.

Streets of Knotting Hill.  This area was SO CUTE!

We thought this flat might be the one from the movie, you know...the one with the blue door?  It's a possibility.

Daytrip to Warwick Castle, Stratford-upon-Avon, etc.

Hello everyone!

Me on top of the tower of Warwick Castle.  Look at the greenery behind me, gorgeous!

Wednesday was our group's first day trip (we have one every Wed.) and for our first trip we toured Warwick Castle, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare's Home, Shakespeare's Grave, Anne Hathaway's (Shakespeare's wife) home & for the finale we saw 'Romeo & Juliet' performed by the Royal Shakespearean Company.  Although the day was bitterly cold during our tour of Warwick Castle, it warmed up & the sunshine came out a little bit. 

We first toured Warwick Castle, a true castle from the Medieval times.  Our group had some free time to walk around the castle and explore.  We had either a choice of a) looking at the gardens or b) walking up into the tower inside Warwick castle.  Me, being a smart person, I chose to walk into the tower to get some pictures from up top.  BAD LIFE CHOICE!  By the top of the tower I wanted to pass out BUT when I got up there the whole sight was beautiful!  There were a ton of little houses, buildings and fields of green.  It was great!

Also during the day my group got some free time to visit Stratford-upon-Avon.  It was the cutest little town ever!  It was a bunch of little cobblestone streets filled with rows of old homey cottage shops, restaurants and so on.  I tried to take numerous pictures of everything I saw so I hope you enjoy them.  The link @ the bottom of the page will direct you to my pictures.

Pictures!

For the first day trip I had a ton of fun! I am getting to know people better and better, which is making the adjustment into London easier.  Also, it is fun having people to share these experiences with although everytime I go somewhere I always think, "Oh my mom would love this place," or it reminds me of someone from home.  But for now, I am loving London and excited to see more.

Oh and guess what else?  Friday morning I get to go to Camden Market!  Expect pictures of what I saw AND what I bought =]

Q. So what is there to do in London on a Tuesday when you don't have class?

A. GO TO MADAME TUSSAUDS FOR FREE OF COURSE! =]

So since today was PRESIDENT Obama's Inauguration Day, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum was offering free admission to Americans in London.  Of course any college kid is going to go to something when it's FREE, so we woke up early, beat the crowd and took a billion pictures with our favorite [wax] stars.  You would think posing by manequins wouldn't be that fun...but, it is! We had a blast making obnoxious faces next to our favorites.  I got a couple priceless pictures...I tried to put my favorites ones below.

Later on in the night some of us Americans got together in our friend's flat to watch the Obama Inauguration and order pizza.  It was kind of sad being out of the States on such a historical day for America but then again, it was neat being in London and seeing what the rest of the world, particularly England, said about Obama becoming president and such.   All in all, it was a fun day and I think I will be going back to Madame Tussauds at least one more time before I leave London.

(That means I'm taking YOU Diana.  Start practicing your posing!)

Us at the Obama Party!!!

The reason we got to go to Madame Tussauds: President Obama.  Here we are in the Oval House.

Shrek

Jim Carey is hilarious!  We just hit it off instantly.

Spiderman, spiderman....this one is for you, Craig!

Okay so Drew Barrymore's wax model didn't totally look like herself.

I told her 'Once a cheater, always a cheater.'

Hanging out with my pal, Julia!

Some people think Tom is crazy, but I think he's just charming!

Me and my new friends waiting for Madame Tussauds to open!

The wax-going crowd.

Walk along the River Thames

Note: this is Clock Tower, NOT Big Ben.  Big Ben is the chime inside of clock tower.  Don't ask a London local where Big Ben is unless you want to look like a huge tourist.  Look at how intricate it is!

This building with the flat tops on it is the British 'CIA' (well it's not really called the CIA but its similar to our CIA).  It's also been seen in numerous James Bond movies.

The group taking in London.  Can you tell we are new here?

Clock Tower in front of the River Thames.

The London Eye.  The largest ferris wheel in the world!

Just walking along the river...

This is the OXO building, the first advertisement in Britain.  They couldn't really advertise so they company built their logo OXO into the infrastructure.  Clever, eh?

Millennium Bridge, for walking pedestrians only.  They added the sides that curl up around in years after because the bridge 'wobbled' when people walked across it.

A remake of the Spanish Armada...although this model did actually sail around the whole world like the original one did.

London Bridge.

Making our way down the River Thames trail.

HMS Bellfast from WWII, it was a state of the art warcraft ship in its day.  

Ann Bolyn was executed here by Henry the 8th.

Tower Bridge:

Some views from on top of it looking out...

As you can see in the picture above, left,

it was a little rainy & wet.

Looking out from Tower Bridge.

And Tower Bridge itself, with a little bit of sunshine...

Today was my first official day of class in London.  Our Ball State London group was split into two different groups to take the walk along tour.  Somehow I managed to be lucky enough to go on the morning tour.  I woke up at 6:30 a.m. to a cold & rainy London.  Once some of the other girls here and I were off to the tube station we knew it would be a cold tour.

Needless to say once we actually were along the River Thames, on Tower Bridge it was cold, rainy and windy.  My fingers and toes were frozen in the first 10 minutes.  Yet, there were some highlights to the tour, besides seeing the amazing architecture of London: our professor bought our whole group a free coffee for being good sports, we saw the most beautiful buildings ever, we were informed about British history, monarchies, culture and commerce in 3 hours and the rain stopped after the first half hour!

Sorry the pictures and text are so messed up...I am still getting used to this new blog thing!  I can't believe how much I learned in my first day of class.  It was crazy to see old buildings that had been around for soooo long, hundreds of years.  They were beautiful too!  Why don't we save buildings in America?  Maybe we do...but not usually.  Anyways, I am on information overload right now from all the history and background I heard today.  It's a rainy day in London so maybe I should take a little cat nap...

Tomorrow is Obama's inauguration!! We are all planning on watching it in our flats AND since we are American we are suppose to get free admission into Madame Tussad's Wax Museum.  Yes!  Expect more pictures tomorrow...I don't have any classes Tuesday either =]