London Top Ten! And 7. And 5.

I seriously can't believe that my time here is over.  This has easily been the quickest month of my life! Even though I was here for a short amount of time, I learned a lot about myself, this city, and life.  Here are a few:

1.) Birds in every city, country, and region are scary.  I will never like them, they will never like me.
2.) Sometimes the friends you've known for the least amount of time can become some of the closest ones you have. Cody, Kelli, Lindsay, Katherine, and Brandi: You all made this trip phenomenal for me.  You all have such a great spark inside of you that will take you so far, and I can't wait until we all get to see each other again.
3.) I somehow learned how to handle myself in a huge city in a different country with millions of other people. I can now say I have no problem hopping on the tube and going anywhere in the city if I need to.
4.) Pret A Manger is easily the best sandwich place ever invented.
5.) Everything here closes by 6pm if you're most places. 24 hours if you're McDonald's.
6.) Sometimes the best thing to do when crossing the street is to frantically look in every direction you can. The "look right" and "look left" signs are not helpful.  Cars come at you from EVERY SINGLE DIRECTION.
7.) The British don't believe in giving you ice in your drinks at restaurants.  They also don't believe in ranch dressing, FOR SHAME!
8.) I will never get tired of all of the museums, parks, tours, and historical areas that this city offers.
9.) Everyone here uses hand dryers instead of paper towels in their bathrooms.  This means you're going everywhere with your hands dripping wet if they're not good dryers. Extremely annoying.
10.) Cutest clothes. In this city. Ever.

There have also been some particularly memorable moments:

1.) Seeing the whole royal family at Trooping the Colour.
2.) Getting semi-yelled at for touching the gate to Kensington Palace.
3.) Touring the Olympic facilities.
4.) Pubs, pubs, and more pubs.
5.) Touring the British Museum, Imperial War Museum, Cabinet War Rooms, and so much more.
6.) HARRY POTTER STUDIO TOUR.
7.) More than I could possibly name off in this blog.

But, I'm also excited for a couple things now that I'm coming home:

1.) Seeing everyone in Fort Collins again! Yay!
2.) Cheesy fries and ranch. Yum.
3.) Getting ice in my drink without having to ask.
4.) Seeing the stars.
5.) Wearing shorts and a t shirt and not having someone look at me like I'm an embarrassment.

I feel so blessed to have had this experience, and I know this is a trip that I will remember for my whole life.  Colorado, here I come!

Cheers!
Lizzy

Together again!

I'm so excited that my family is in town now, they are going to make my last week here so much more fun!  Yesterday my Mom, sister, and I went to the Imperial War Museum to check that out.  I'm pretty sure I have never seen my Mom more excited about anything.  Except maybe a Broadway show.

I love doing museums with my family because we like looking at the same things.  There were a couple things that stood out to me in particular.  The first was the holocaust exhibit that they had.  I went to the Museum of Tolerance in 2004 on a field trip, and I personally think that the IWM's was much more well done than the exhibits at the Museum of Tolerance.  It's a subject area that is still really hard for me to completely understand, mainly because it's a horrible part of human history and I wish it didn't happen.  The whole exhibit was very sobering, but incredibly well done.  The second thing was the ENTIRE WWI & II section.  I have never seen a museum laid out as well as this one when dealing with these subjects.  You didn't get lost easily and it covered a lot of information.  There was a neat post-war area that dealt with conflicts after the war, so I got to see a cool Gulf War exhibit as well.  I love learning about the Gulf War, because my Dad was off fighting in it when I was born.  In fact, I was born the night that the air war started.  He didn't even get to see me until I was a few months old!  My parents always told me that story when I was growing up, so actually seeing some of the news footage and a replica of what my Dad's flight suit looked like was cool for me. :)  My Dad stopped flying a couple years ago, but I miss seeing that flight suit every day!

There was also a huge chunk of the Berlin Wall right outside of the museum. Awesome.  This entire museum was just too cool, if I kept talking about everything I liked I would write 10 pages.  

Today and tomorrow are my last two days with the AIFS program, so my friends and I are trying to make the most of it amid packing and the chaos that comes with that.  Where did these three weeks go? It's been an amazing couple of weeks with AIFS and i'm very grateful to have had this experience. I'm looking forward to the stuff that I'm doing with my family this week, (Harry Potter Studios! Buckingham Palace! London Eye!) but I will definitely miss the girls that I've become friends with over the past few weeks.  We're already planning a little reunion trip around spring break/next summer. Can't wait. :)

Things checked off the to-do list:

Imperial War Museum

Cheers!

Lizzy

Home Stretch!

I can't believe it's already the last week of my program! Completely freaking me out-I feel like there's so much I still have to do in this city.  I turned in my paper for class yesterday, and have a final this Friday, and then after that I'm done!  I mentioned in my last post that my computer died a sad little death, but GOOD NEWS! It's fixed! So I can finally post some pretty pictures from the boat cruise last week:

Everything was so beautiful at night!  I'm so glad I got the chance to do that.  

Today was particularly fun because my Mom and my sister flew in! I am really excited to have them in London to share the last bit of my trip with me.  We went to Covent Garden so they could walk around a bit, and we got some yummy pizza for lunch.  We also took our first trip to Cath Kidston. Oh Lordy.   I'm pretty sure every bit of money I've saved will end up being spent either there or the Harry Potter studios.  Ridiculous.   

Things checked off my to-do list:

Covent Garden

Cheers!

Lizzy

Boat Cruise, Kensington picnic, and I LOVE REGENT STREET SHOPPING

Hello all! Bad news: My computer is sick. This means no more pictures until I get it fixed. :( I will be using my phone from now on and uploading them from there, but unfortunately I won't be able to upload any to here for a while. Can I just say-my computer is fine and has had no problems for three years and then falls apart in London?! This is kind of hilarious. Thank goodness for my iPad and my phone. Besides my computer being dumb, the past few days have been awesome. We all went out Wednesday night to celebrate my friend Brandi's birthday, which was a ton of fun. We also had birthday dinner on the Kensington Palace lawn! Did I mention there is a cupcake place across the street from our dorm? Heaven. We got cupcakes from there as birthday treats. :) Yesterday was low key, lots of errand-running so I can get through the last week of classes and my program. AIFS organized a boat cruise party in the Thames last night, so after a day of relaxing we got to go do something really fun. The cruise was so much fun; we got to see Big Ben, Parliament, Tower Bridge, and a bunch of other stuff all lit up, so gorgeous! On top of all of that, we got to dance and hang out with a lot of other people from the program. I actually ran into a friend of mine from Las Vegas, which was totally unexpected and awesome. Today was round 2 of London shopping. We went to this amazing tourist store to buy stuff for family and friends back home, and stopped by H&M for some stuff for us. :) I found a mint dress, I've been looking for one ever since I got here! After shopping we went back to the John Snow pub off of Carnaby street to get another cherry beer. We couldn't stay away after being introduced last week! (Thanks,Paulo!) Instead of going out tonight, I stayed in to write a paper. Yes, I am aware of how lame that sounds. I am about 1/3 done, chugging right along. I am so excited to be finished with it, that paper is the one big school thing I have to do here. I hope everything is great back in the US, I can't wait to see everyone again! Things checked off the to-do list: London nightlife Boat cruise on the Thames More shopping :) Cheers! Lizzy

"Because I knew you, I have been changed for good."

The past three days have been crazy!  It's really incredible how much there is to do here.  Sunday was our Tower of London day-and it was absolutely amazing.  Similar to Westminster Abbey, there is 1000 years of history there.  I really felt like I was walking back in time.

Yesterday was another one of those "Is this really my life for the month?" days.  My friends and I went to Spiderman premiere in Leicester Square, and were literally two feet from Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield when they came around to sign autographs.

So cool. :) I can't wait to actually see the movie! We stuck around to see those two and then booked it on the tube to the Apollo Theater for the show Wicked.  This is easily one of my favorite musicals; I have been singing the songs from it since I was in 8th grade.  This was an INCREDIBLE cast-the two leads were amazing.  My friends and I want to find out where all the West End actors/actresses hang out after shows, so if you have any idea let us know! :)

Today was relaxed, and I liked it that way.  I feel like the past week has been a going-going-going energizer bunny kind of thing, and I was happy to have an afternoon to start my essay that is due next week and enjoy some alone time walking around Kensington.  We all got dinner at this place called Giraffe, and then headed over to Kensington Gardens for a little walk around the park.  It was gorgeous.

Things checked off the to-do list:
See a West End show
Go to a movie premiere!

Cheers!
Lizzy

Is this real life?!

If I'm screwing up my words and such here, it's only because I'm still FREAKING OUT THAT I SAW THE QUEEN AND PRINCE HARRY AND KATE MIDDLETON TODAY.  Still processing that I actually did this.  We got up and hauled our tired tushes to Buckingham Palace this morning at around 9:30 so we could get good spots for something called the Trooping of the Colo(u)r.  I'm still not 100% sure of the significance of the event, but it was easily the coolest thing I've seen since I've been here.  We saw the Queen and the rest of royal family ride in carriages, watched the band play, and saw a bunch of different military (?) regiments march all around the palace.  Absolutely gorgeous.  I felt oddly patriotic and I'm not even from here.

The royal family also got to appear on the balcony, which was amazing.  I've seen this on TV so much, and it was surreal watching it from in front of the palace.  Definitely something I will never forget.

After we finished at the palace, my friend Kelli and I went to Westminster Abbey.  It was absolutely beautiful.  This is my second time getting to see this church, and I was just as floored by how beautiful it was this time as I was the first time I came here 5 years ago.  I was still on my "I've just seen Kate" high, so that probably helped add to the feeling as well.  We also got to walk around Parliament Square, and got some great pictures with Big Ben.

In other news, I went to the Natural History Museum yesterday! It was really cool, I'll definitely have to go back to get a look at some other things. But, they did have a dinosaur exhibit! Anyone who knows me relatively well knows that I will high tail it into any museum with an awesome dinosaur exhibit, and this one definitely impressed.  They had an animatronic T-Rex! Woo! 

It's been an amazing few days, but I'm honestly ready to have a break and relax tonight.  Still can't believe today actually happened.  My favorite things (Kate Middleton and history) all rolled into one epic day. :)

Things I checked off the bucket list:

Trooping of the Color

Westminster Abbey

Parliament Square

Cheers!
Lizzy

"What do you drive a truck for?"

Lots of fun stuff to report today!

Yesterday was my first experience with London shopping.  My arms are still sore from carrying all of my bags.  We went to this store called Primark, which is essentially a Forever 21 with eternal Black Friday prices. It is also the biggest zoo I've ever shopped at.  Primark is like the ultimate every-woman-for-herself experience.  There were people pushing and shoving through the whole store, and there was a lot of yelling.  The lines for the dressing rooms were 30 minutes long, so my friend Brandi and I decided to set up our own make shift dressing room in the back corner of the store.  We tried on dresses and shirts over our regular clothes to guess the fit, and we both left with quite a bunch of stuff.  Thankfully, everything fit perfectly when we got back to our rooms.  We also paid a quick visit to Forever 21, which is always fun for me to go to. :) After relaxing for a bit after shopping, we went to Wagamamas for dinner. Funny name, I know.  I got chicken curry.  It was delicious.

On the way home we saw a Lamborghini.  I don't know which was funnier, the fact that it was parked right smack dab in the middle of the street, or the fact that it was parked right outside of a convenient store called "Swami Store".  The neighborhood I live in has a LOT of expensive cars, I wonder what the type of people that live here would think of all the Subarus and trucks in Colorado.

For class today we went to the V&A museum, which is about a 15 minute walk from campus.  It was a beautiful building with some amazing artwork inside.  They had altarpieces from the 14th and 15th centuries, lots of illuminated manuscripts, and a massive medieval England section that we focused on.  This was a much quieter museum than the British Museum, you have lots of opportunities to really take things in.  At one point, I was in a huge room by myself with tapestries, tunics, and beautiful 13th c. Catholic mass ornaments.  What was particularly weird about this was as I got a closer look at everything around me, I realized that the room had a theme of the Virgin Mary.  Everything in that room depicted her in different ways.  My Grandma loved Mary, and I like to think that when I was standing there alone in this giant room dedicated to her, that was my Grandma saying hello.  I wish she was still here so I could tell her all about this experience.

Piccadilly Circus is absolutely crazy.  I have no idea why they call it a circus, probably because there are SO MANY PEOPLE HERE.  We hung out in this area for a while today, and walked around Regent Street and Carnaby Street.  My friends and I met up with my friend Paulo, who I went to middle school and high school with.  He was in London for an audition, so he met up with us at Piccadilly and then took us to a pub that he knew about down Carnaby St.  I loved catching up with him for a while and I also got to try this fantastic cherry beer, which I will definitely try to find when I get back to the States.

There are so many things that I want to do this weekend, so I'm sure there will be another full update coming very soon.  Hope everything is going great wherever you are!  If not, I guarantee a cherry beer will help.

Cheers!
Lizzy