Final Moments at 21 PG...

Well, we've come down to my last 3 hours at 21 Pembridge Gardens. I can't believe the semester is over. For the past few weeks it has felt like this day would never come. Now that it's here I'm absolutely dreading it. I am really going to miss this house. There has definitely been a lot of drama (not within my group thankfully), but I am going to miss the excitement. I haven't even missed watching t.v. since this house is more than enough entertainment for me. It's going to be really weird not being able to walk down the road to our favorite pub. I didn't sleep last night. Hanging out with my favorite people and packing were higher on my list of priorities. I already said my hardest goodbye this morning. Paula and I clicked from the very beginning and I'm going to miss our talks. Fortunately, she is the other Chicago girl in the house so we will definitely be seeing each other in the future. We are already planning an East Coast trip this summer to visit all of our other friends.

Yesterday was a really great last day. I took my final final which went surprisingly well. Afterwards, Billy and I went to the Tate Modern to test out the slide exhibit. The Tate Modern rents out a giant space to artists who are then allowed to do whatever they want with it. The current artist made giant slides for everyone to enjoy. We definitely took advantage of this and slid down the tallest one which was 5 stories. It was amazing.

That evening my friends and I had a champagne and cupcake party before meeting the rest of the house at our favorite pub. It was amazing as 24 of the 30 housemates showed up. I'm definitely going to miss this place. After Prince Albert's closed, a small group of us headed over to Kabobs for the final time. We brought our chips back to the house and ended up talking until 3 am. I've been packing since then. It's amazing how much one person can accumulate over a few months.

My Mom just called and she already landed at Heathrow. I can't wait for her to get here. We have a lot of amazing things planned for the next week.

Because of the intense amount of traveling I am doing in the next few weeks, I am leaving my lap top here at the house for safe keeping. This means that I will not be able to update much during my Scotland and Greece trips. I will write everything down in my travel journal, though, and post it when I return. After Greece, my Dad and I are traveling through Switzerland and Austria, and I will have my lap top then.

I hope you all have a great few weeks!!!

Guess what???

IT'S SUMMER!!!!!!

I just wanted to say that really fast before I go out and celebrate this beautiful day. A proper update will come tonight :)

Ok, ok...I know it's been awhile since my last update. Things have just been so incredibly busy here. The weather has been absolutely beautiful, so I just couldn't see staying inside on the computer when I could be out and about enjoying London. So grab a cup of tea and some biscuits, because this will be a long one :)

Thursday, March 8th after classes my friends and I went to the ABSOLUT Ice Bar in Soho. The bar is kept at -5 degrees Celcius and everything is made of ice....even the bar and the glasses! It was absolutely amazing. There are only three of these in the world. It was so great that my Mom, her friend, and I are going to go this Friday!

The next day I left for Adventure Weekend. We spent the weekend in the Lake District in Cumbria doing a bunch of different outdoors activities. On Saturday morning, I went Tyrolean Gorge Crossing. First we went ziplining and then we had to walk across a rope over a waterfall (see picture). It was soooo much fun! I was a little nervous to go ziplining until the moment my feet left the ground. My rope spun me around backwards, but I was too distracted by the gorgeous view to even think about being scared. That afternoon I went Gorge Scrambling. Basically, you walk up a river and climb over a waterfall. This was by far my favorite activity since studying abroad. I can't believe I climbed a waterfall. Unfortunately, since you're in the river we couldn't bring cameras. The only proof I have is the pics of my bruised knees haha. They took a beating. On Sunday we spent sometime walking through town and then spent 7 long hours on a bus heading back to Pembridge Gardens.

Let's see...I went and saw the play Equus with my theatre class. That's the play with the naked Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter). It was pretty good. It had a ton of psychology in it, which I obviously enjoyed, and the set was really creative. I also went and saw Mary Poppins which I LOVED. It was the cutest musical I've seen here so far. The music was brilliant and the kids were adorable. I wish I could take a couple of British kids home with me :)

My London in Literature class went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum which was really fun. I had never read Sherlock Holmes before this semester, but I think I'm going to add Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books to my summer reading list. I even got to sit in Holmes' chair! We also went to Regent's park that day and our teacher taught us how to play cricket. It was hilarious. He said I'm a natural...maybe I'll have to join the games that go on at WSU haha. I also took second place in our cricket position quiz. Not only did I take 2nd in the class, but I took 2nd place overall for all of the classes that he has taught. Cricket is a fun game and Regent's Park was such a pretty place to play it in.

My boyfriend came to visit for spring break. It was nice to finally be able to spend some time together. We didn't do anything too exciting...just a lot of walking around. Unfortunately, this was the one week in March that the weather was awful. We had hail and sleet storms and the temps were freeeezing. Oh well...I guess that just means we'll have to come back together sometime :)

Since I finished most of my work a few weeks ago, I've been trying to take advantage of London's nightlife. Last week I went to the world famous Zoo Bar. It was great fun. The only down side was that someone broke my camera. So unfortunately, I have been unable to take pics. No worries though, my Mom is bringing my new camera on Thursday. Until then everyone has been kind enough to take pics of me...I have great friends :)

On Friday I took my first final. I think it actually went well. In order to celebrate, 10 of us went to a bar afterwards that of all people my MOTHER suggested haha. Apparently one of the best mixologists in the world has a bar in Soho that my Mom knew of off the top of her head and told me to check out. LAB was brilliant. The drinks menu was over 15 pages long...a little overwhelming. I finally settled on a Blanc Martini (Skyy vodka, fresh coconut cream and creme de cacao, shaken and served straight up, dusted with coconut flakes), a Bon Bon (Stoli Vanilla vodka, Limoncello, Butterscotch schnapps, homemade vanilla sugar and fresh lemon juice), and a Tiramisu (Patron XO cafe Tequila with Mozart white and dark chocolate liqueurs, mascarpone cheese, charged with espresso and garnished with chocolate). Wow. They were all amazing. The Tiramisu tasted exactly like tiramisu. I may have been $50 poorer, but it was totally worth the experience. Thanks Mom.

This weekend I spent some time filming areas of London. My boyfriend was kind enough to bring my camcorder over, so I filmed Green Park, Picadilly Circus, and all of Portobello Rd. Billy, Maura, Meg, their friend from Rome Angie, Paula, and I hit up Covent Garden to do some much needed shopping. I ended up buying a ton of stuff. I finally got boots! I've been wanting some very European outfits and I think I've succeeded. I can't wait to take them back to the oh so fashion forward Wichita haha.

Yesterday, Paula and I went to Kensington Palace for tea. It was adorable. I had cinnamon tea, a scone, and orange cake. If anyone ever wants to do tea in London I really suggest Kensington Palace (where Princess Diana lived). It's very atmospheric and extremely affordable as opposed to places like the Ritz, Savoy, or Claridges.

Today I took my 2nd final. It was the easiest one so far. Tomorrow's is definitely my hardest. Everyone is going out for one last night at Walkabout, but unfortch, I will be staying in like a little student and studying the night away.

Inspeaking of which, I should get to that. This will be updated again before Thursday...no worries :)

Cheers.