Today marks the day I have been out of the States for a month. Yes, I do call it the States now because saying, "America," to anyway makes me feel like I am describing a far off mystical land to a five year old child. Being here has brought about the oddest combination of feelings; that I have been here forever, but yet it has gone by so fast. I know no one will be thrilled by this, but last night at about 2 in the morning we all walked home from Piccadilly Circus and it really hit me. These streets, the side walk, these people and its places; this is my town. I know I still need to blog about Scotland, which will be done a little later, but in commemoration of this one month mark, I would like to show you the little things I love about this town.
I love Tesco Express, the English version of Seven 11, minus the real Raaj and Slurpies, but add the most amazing blueberry muffins baked daily for 72 pence and fake Raaj with an accent....it is in my daily routine!
I love that everyone jogs here with a backpack on. To this day there are only theories at to what is in these backpacks, but literally at any time of day and at any place, the English love to run with a backpack on. One day I will get the courage to stop one of these beastly joggers and ask them to open up, tell me of the English secret ways.
I love all the school children in their outfits, running around looking like Madeline. I love that yesterday Emily and I asked a five year old what grade he was in, if he was in Kindergarten and he replied, "Whuat? No, I don't have a garden!"
I love that this is what my plate looks like every day. I can put down a crepe like no ones business.
I love the street markets the whole city comes out to enjoy. This is Portobello Market, the famous Saturday Antique market. It stretches for miles, as roads are closed and people collide one with another, you are let free to adventure through piles and stacks of Antique valuables. It is a beautiful site.
I love all their doors; everyone a different color or an extravagant trim, border, and gate.
I love that I have a personal photographer named Gavin, to capture every moment, especially when I am in a field and want to act like a lion.
I love this town. I love this adventure. And I love all of you.
For the past weekend I have been relying solely on these five phrases to keep me alive. Other than Spanish, I have never before dealt in depth with another language. This being the case, my automatic reaction was to respond to every French question with, “Si,” I could just not get Oui down at all; every person would just stare at me! The best language barrier experience I had was trying to describe what water was. I was ordering at this small café in Montmartre and was trying to ask for water, but had NO idea how to tell him. I just kept repeating. “Water, like uhhhh you know…water? Water? WA-T-ER???” I must have used water as an attempt to be a descriptive word for, water, about 9 times. The guy had not a clue what WA-T-ER was but was very demanding that he had, “coca cola light.”
Although I am starting this off complaining about the French language barrier, I would like to clear some things up. The French are the nicest people I have come in contact with in Europe. We all need to drop the whole stuck up, baguette in the air, wearing my black and white striped shirt, image and throw it in the Seine River to drown. Although they do not speak any, and I mean any, English, many of these Frenchies attempted to help me as I was lost for about 8 hours straight in France. Yes, I just said that I got lost for about 8 hours in France. Now before you go thinking I am a dumb little girl lost in the city, I was not at fault at all!
Before we got to Paris, we decided to map out our address and find a route through the metro to get to the hotel. 57 Rue de la Tour….that street will forever be burned into my memory. Now, to set the scene I will inform you I was carrying a duffle bag probably more than half my size, and the only reason it was that large was because the weather was a 50% it is going to rain or 50% it is going to be the nicest weather ever, I had to prepare! Well, so here I am on Rue de la Tour, carrying a 60 pound bag, looking for number 57. We must have walked down and up that street for two and a half hours….the numbers literally went 54, 55, 56, and 72. It was the most frustrating thing ever. And although many locals were ready to help with directions, they were in French. Or French English, which is pretty much French. Finally after hours of looking for the possible 57, we decided to go into a hotel and ask for directions, thinking a hotel worker must speak some English. Well, he spoke very good English; clear enough to inform us our hotel was not in the city of Paris at all. As we pulled out our map, the town was completely off our Paris map…although the concierge man was very helpful to draw an arrow pointing off the map, as for us to remember that our hotel is not in the city of Paris. After deciding what to do, we couldn’t just give up on the hotel, it looked nice in the pictures and maybe getting there wouldn’t be so bad. Well, wrong, very wrong again. After transferring three trains to get to Torcy, France…the doors opened up to the French version of the Bronx. Filled with the scariest looking locals you could ever find, we began to again wonder down the streets, listening to the pointing fingers of the French. Spending another three hours praying I wouldn’t get robbed, we decided to call it quits. I don’t even think there was a hotel; it was a fake address where I would show up to get killed. So finally at 10 at night, after re-transferring three trains, we got back into Paris. We found a hotel so close to a the Eiffel Tower, there could be no way of getting lost ever again. At this point, we are all literally pissed. Just dirty, angry, tired, and not to mention that 60 pound bag on my back the entire time, I was dead. But we trekked on; we conjoured up the strengh and walked the 300 feet to the Eiffel Tower.
Within seconds of getting there, 20,000 light bulbs light up the sky in a simultaneous combustion. The Eiffel Tower sparkled like a diamond, a magical dust to take away, erase our minds of anything bad that had happened the whole day and to leave us at peace and excitement, knowing we were in Paris, gazing at the Eiffel Tower.
And the rest of the trip was so picture perfect Paris, we did everything in the books. Waking up we hoped on the Red Bus tour, stopping at the Arc De Triomphe, taking us all the way through the city past the Grand Opera, the Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame, Louvre, and everything in between. It was perfect, no map necessary! We had a picnic lunch outside the Eiffel Tower, with our baguette and ice cream... Speaking of food, I have never before eaten so much in my life, especially so many sweets. Every chance we could we were eating crepes, beignets, ice cream, more crepes…all so rich and creamy. It was physically impossible for me to be full because I knew I couldn’t waste one bite. I even was able to squeeze in watching a local football game, the ball even came to me twice and I felt so cool kicking it back ahah. Watching the ball fly back and cross the view of the Eiffel Tower was unreal. It really hit me that I was in Europe, traveling!!! In the evening we got to really immerse ourselves in the Parisian culture as we joined the hundreds on locals gathered on the lawns in front of the Tower, to get down to some French Pop. We had no idea who was singing, or what, but we went on top the city to sing and dance right along.
Later that night we took a river cruise down the Seine River and for some reason the water made the city that much more romantic. It was so calming and quiet, almost like we could watch the city moving but not hear a word. We went under the Lover’s Bridge, where you were told to make a wish, which I feel like I made a very good one ;) Paris is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with its delicate food, friendly people, and amazing landscapes…I was speechless by the end. I understand how lucky I truly am, a weekend in Paris, doesn’t it sound great! I miss you and love you all.
And last of all, my favorite picture of my favorite moment in Paris...
A special thank you to the Sun for making an appearance in my life yesterday so I could put into use the best present ever. A special thanks to Chris for getting them for me as well :) This was my sunglasses coming out party, Gavin and I were very excited!
I don't even know where to begin; this is honestly going to be tough to describe all that has happened this weekend. First I will explain my quote of the week as my title. When shopping in Covent Garden, I again looked like a complete dumb American trying to count all their dumb change for about twenty minutes. I was trying to get rid of some change, because my wallet now weighs 5 lbs, and while looking for the correct amount I complained to the street vendor how retarded it is to have dollar bills as change, the man looked straight at me and in the most English accent ever stated, "Yea well, don't get angry at me, blame the queen!" It might have been the most classic English statement thus far on my trip.
Well anyway, over the weekend we took our first get-away vacation and traveled to Bath and Salisbury. I had no idea where I was going, I just got on the bus. When Emily asked me what was in bath I replied, "I don't know...a bunch of tubs?" However, to my surprise, Bath was the cutest little town ever as well as a fashion capital. We only spent one day there, and literally we had to close our eyes to stop seeing all the adorable shops so we could fit in all the sights. So yes, there are huge tubs in Bath, but beyond that there is this quaint town with again the cobblestone alleys and avenues, but it was so lushly green. A river ran straight through the city, filled with swans and weeping willow trees; it was too picture perfect.
It is said that after you drink the water from the famous Bath, you will become a goddess. Gavin(also known as Gav, Gavatron, Bob, Robert, Bobby, Robby, and Fix It) and I found our inner goddess and had a photoshoot.
This is a view where you can see the Bath Abbey as well as the river that ran through the city, I wanted to go ask everyone in the town if they understood how beautiful this city was. I hope they wake up every morning knowing that the Provo River, does not exactly compare to this.
Also, a quick add, people outside of London are a lot nicer than the stuck up locals of South Kensington..these people smiled! We met the cutest little eleven year old Tessa. Her father pretty much pushed her in this picture, but we were okay with it because she was honestly precious...oh and just a side note, we have all not showered in this picture for about two days so excuse the fact we look like we have been hit by a bus. And speaking of bus, I am surprised I am alive to even write this blog. Our drive to these cities was about 2 hours, and for two hours I gripped the side of my seat praying not to die. Sean, our driver, was weaving in and out of traffic, and considering I have not seen one speed limit sign, I do not know if he was technically speeding, however he was driving too fast for conditions. He would randomly stop, cursing other cars stating that no one knows how to drive in this town, and I am not exaggerating when I say that he literally almost hit a baby when he was dropping us off. The guy was nuts...anyways. We stayed the night in a hostel, which was an exciting first experience. We shared the room with this 86 year old lady that had an extreme snoring problem...but as for creepiness, the hostel was really not bad! It was cool to see all the different type of people sleeping in one small area, all backpacking and traveling through the world.
(P.S. on Bath) There was this Labyrinth maze randomly in the city. Picture a hedge maze without the hedge...this is us attempting to find the way out, like fifteen minutes later we were out ahah.
I am going to right now apologize for two things, first that I can no longer care if this is written well, I barely have time to add a picture, so I am sorry if this is an inadequate description. And second, even if it is written poorly, they will all be long blog posts. Hopefully you all get bored enough to read it ahah.
Anyway, the next day we went to Salisbury. The drive there I almost died. I wanted so bad to punch the crazy driver in the face and make him pull over; this drive was the epitome of rolling hills. I was singing, "The Hills ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUUSSSICC..." the entire day. It was green pastures, fields of yellow flowers draping across from every side, sheep laying side by side to their mothers. All I wanted to do was run through these fields in a white sun dress. At Salisbury there was a town sitting right at the feet of a GIANT cathedral, to be honest I didn't really care much about it. I was freezing my butt off. It was raining and my socks kept slipping off my ankle, that might be my biggest pet peeve ever. After attempting to look at the giant cathedral, we hopped back into the death mobile to drive to Stonehenge. I had never seen Stonehenge, because if you recall me explaining that 18 hour nap Jen and I took, well during that we missed our chance to also see Stonehenge.
On our way there, we stopped at this old Castle, this is where I unleashed my voice on England. We ran through the abandoned walls of this castle, jumping off everything and rolling on the ground to my profesional opera voice.
And although I was freezing, I was down for a good fifteen minute look at this thing. It is hard describing how I felt looking at it beforehand, because after in the gift shop I looked at this book that ruined it all. It was like giving a kid a full on Christmas celebration, opening presents from Santa and everything, and then right at the end showing them a picture of Santa taking off his beard and it is your Bishop....the book RUINED everything. I cannot explain its contents because I won't be the one to ruin Santa for anyone, so just pretend I didn't mention anything at all and look at this lovely picture of my outside Stonehenge ahah.
I know that this is the longest post ever, but there is one more thing I have to fit in. The only reason I am going to add this in, was because through all the monument, statues, and city markets; this was the coolest thing I have done in my travels. It was the last day of the football regular season on Sunday and although I wish I could have gotten a ticket to the real game, it was 200 pounds, so instead, I got all dressed up and just visited outside the arena during the game. I was freeeaking out, everyone was saying that I was more excited to be outside this building than to go to Buckingham Palace, which was true. I was practically, no actually I was, skipping and shouting down the street. To see all the street vendors with Arsenal gear, wearing my Arsenal jersey(thank you to Jordan for giving it to me!), hearing the crowd clapping and screaming; it was the best day of my life.
Haha...like I said, I was too excited. Well, it is really late here and I have class early tomorrow. I kept my promise to my mom that I would wait a week until I started jogging, but tomorrow that promise is invalid. I will start my regular jog through Hyde Park after class, hopefully my spleen will not burst or else you are getting my next post from the Hospital. Ahaha that probably wasn't funny to my mom, but hey at least I am taking my vitamins! Well Goodnight Family, I love and miss you all very much.
Love Always,
Kels.
Well, so the descent of my intelligence is seriously rapidly decreasing daily. I don't think you all get it; these people hate us and every word we say. I am starting to think they set us up to look stupid, because no matter what I do, my American-ness, humiliates me here. Speaking of that, I will explain what my title means. We heard a rumor that the Globe Theatre had famous brownies, so of course we decided to check it out. We walk into the cafe area a little before the play started and asked a worker this exact statement, "Does this cafe sell any brownies?" she looked at us, mouth gauging open like she had never before heard a more retarded question. Her response, "uh...hahaha you mean little cakes?" She knew EXACTLY that we meant as brownies, but once again we were made to feel like the scum of the earth for calling brownies, brownies. However, I couldn't be surprised by the end of the night because yesterday I had one of the most interesting nights of my life, We are going to 5 plays while we are here, we are seeing three of these plays in the Globe Theatre, it is not the original but a replica of the theatre Shakespeare performed his plays back in the day. I am all for a good kick back to the classics, but this theatre was a terrible idea. First off all, it is outside.....in London, where it rains every day. That is almost as stupid as an outdoor mall in Utah. Second off, the majority of the people stand...for two and a half hours. Third off, you are outside and standing at night, this play went until about 11 at night; I couldn’t feel my toes by the end of the fourth act. Beyond this, the play was the creepiest thing I have ever seen. I can guarantee right now that I will not be able to depict this image as well, but honestly I was speechless by the end of it. You walk in to the arena, and there is this giant tarp over the entire crowd area with tiny spots to put your head in. Whether it was to cover from the rain, or to create the image of Dante's Inferno, this was hilarious. I laughed for probably forty minutes of the play, I could only imagine acting and looking at all these bobbing heads everywhere I would pee my pants... Taking into account the creepy head tent, the midgets covered in blood, the man who peed on stage and then threw it into the audience, this was definitely the most interesting experience I have had of Shakespeare yet! As for some of the other highlights, we finally adventured more into the city of London, we went into Leicester and Trafalgar Square, seeing Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, the Thames River, and I even rode a lion! It was a beautiful day to walk around....oh and I had my first experience of Fish and Chips and actually enjoyed it! (Yes family, there it is again, I know you’re surprised) This weekend we are traveling to Baths and Salisbury for the weekend, so expect a new post on Sunday. I love you all and miss you so much.
Wow, part of me thought I would never make it, but finally... I am here! Through the broken air pumps, plane changes, sitting next to 90 year old people who I swore were going to die in my behalf because I had to ask them to get up about 5 times to pee, to the new flights, the lost i-pod, lost luggage, and mono....I am here, and it is all worth it. I could leave today, and this would still be worth it. This place is beyond beautiful. Think of New York, mixed with Washington, and even though I have never been there I feel like add a little dash of British Columbia and you have London.My apartment is in South Kensington, there is not a cheap car in sight. I feel like a Dane, this area is one of the more wealthy parts of London, in one day I saw 400 Mercedes, 10 Bentleys, an Aston Martin, a Rolls Royce and a Ferrari, all pretty much parked out my door. So Mom, you can feel a little bit better on my safety.
It is so funny walking down the street, I have two responses for any situation, "Oh my gosh, look they have dogs," "Oh my gosh, they have families!" "Look, they are eating dinner, in their houses." or "This is first time I stepped across the street in London, this is time I flushed the toilet in London"...you can get the idea. It makes me feel more American than anything plus the fact I am practically yelling down the streets taking pictures of everything down to their, "english flowers," and giggling at the sound of any English man. I have never felt louder in my life. The first day was honestly, the most difficult day ever. We decided to stay up, because I hear if you take a nap, well let's just say when I came to London the first time I took a nap and Jen and I didn't wake up for like 18 hours and when we did, I did not know the day, time, or even where I was. So we decided to walk around and I can already tell, I am going to get some cute leg muscles! We walked all around our apartment, finding the local grocery stores, and then walked all through Hyde Park. It is gorgeous, quiet, and oddly I guess the Londonites here have a passion for rollerblading, which I found really weird. But everyone was doing it, kids, Asians, people in business suits...anyway. We walked all the way through until we got to Buckingham Palace, which I don't think I have ever seen a nicer gate. This thing was dripping in gold and didn't really serve any purpose, as it was a gate that opened to nothing. After this, we went to dinner at this restaurant called Wamajama, or something like that. It was Japanese and to my family's better judgement, I had this Chicken and Sweet Potatoe Curry and actually liked it! I am all for a food revolution while I am here, I want to experience it all. Dinner was on the school, so we ate pretty much everything. Ordering about 60 things from edimome to coconut ice cream. At the end, our sassy English waiter asked if we had enough to eat... this was his complete slander at fat Americans, which I can't blame him for. I have yet to see an overweight Englishman. However, I can tell you that there are a lot less white people than I thought. There are so many different types of people here, but don't get too sad there are still the very classic cliche red headed pale Brit's, and oh how cute they are. The night was almost over and most everyone wanted to go to bed at this point, but knowing me I am sure you are not surprised I was still ready to go out. So, my teacher Rick, Emily, and I went to a local Pub last night, where it is said to be the drinking hot spot of both Jack the Ripper and the writer of Sherlock Holmes, we drank with he best of London. It was beyond local, and I think we were the youngest, not drinking, couple of girls there...but still had fun being seeing the city at night.
Don't worry, these are NOT our drinks, we just thought it would be a funny picture...And then I fell asleep for seriously a long, hard, good night's rest only to wake up to an English man yelling out my window, I smiled all over again and remembered how lucky I truly am.
I love you and miss you all,
Kels
