London, England

So I'll do my usual...start with some pictures and add on to everything else afterwards...so here we go!

So here we are actually in Nottingham the night before at a place called Squares and we are taking a shot called "Blow Job"...we were having quite the night...lead to a rough morning bus ride to London but we made it!

So I get excited about little things and on the street they were handing out Coke Zero cans that were so little! It's the size of only four of my fingers!

So right when we get to London, Erica, Megan, and I take a trip to Greenwich(sp?) which was really pretty but it started to rain on us with no umbrella! We had to take the underground a few different ways to get here and we did it on our own! It's super easy taking the underground and a lot easier to navigate than the underground in Paris. Greenwich was beautiful and cooler than that...I got to stand on the Prime Meridian!!

Lookin' a little rough...but here I am standing on one half of the hemisphere and one half of the other! PRETTY COOL!!!

PROOF

So here is a picture from the hill we had to climb up to get to the meridian. You can see a lot of the city of London and you can also see that they are setting up a course of some sort for the 2012 Olympics! I'm lucky to be able to see some of the construction :)

Walking down the street of Greenwich. It was so green and pretty and the trees were to die for.

So here I am at Covent Garden where I actually asked a sales-man where the garden was...I then was told that "I was in the garden". I have realized throughout this trip that somethings are totally different than what I expect. I believe if I was in Paris and there was a place called Covent Garden, there would be some foo-foo garden that the French would have but in England...it's a bunch of stores that you shop in and it was in a old movie called My Fair Lady or something. Megan was the one who knew the movie...not me haha.

I take pride in capturing pretty pictures considering I'm not the best photographer in the world. I really like this photo of the eye though because the sunset really makes this bad boy stand out and look so pretty. I loved London if you couldn't tell already.

So here is Parliament which houses Big Ben! I'm sure you can find the clock but for those of you who don't know...Big Ben actually isn't the clock or the clock tower but the bell inside of the clock! The things you learn when you study abroad right? When the sun hits Parliament it looks like the dang thing is glowing gold. Such a pretty sight!

Part of Parliament again.

Lookin' fresh to defff. HAAA. Loving the scenery though. About to get on London Eye...wait to you hear this story!



So I don't know what this picture is of...but it is a large building that looks cool so I took a picture. Here is where I'll tell you about my cool London Eye story though. I was standing around the ticket gate of the London Eye and was talking to a few girls that I saw standing around from our group. I walk past one of the workers and made eye contact with him and decided to say hello. He was pretty outgoing and he reached his hand out to give me a high-five handshake thing and I accepted and high-five handshook the man. He asked me how I was doing and vice-versa. He then asked if there was anything he could do for me and I simply said, "you can get me in for free?" He proceeded to tell me that he could do that and I couldn't believe it. He grabbed one of his co-workers and asked him to escort me to the VIP line and I grabbed Erica and Megan and off we went to the VIP line free of charge. Let me remind you that total it would have cost the three of us 55.50 in British pounds and 90 U.S. dollars...I'm pretty awesome and so was that guy who I took a picture with and you'll see soon. 



Here is me on my free ride on the London Eye.

The view was absolutely gorgeous.

Parliament and Big Ben

Some big sky scraper.

A bunch of modern day buildings. The thing I have talked about in class with both of my teachers Lisa and Mary is that it is so odd that there is modern day architecture and really old architecture that is mixed together throughout London. You look at one building that is all glass and brand new and then you look the other direction and you see things like the St. Paul's Cathedral which is hundreds of years old. It is an interesting combination and truly and experience.

River Thames and some boats and the city.

So I thought that the London Eye was going to be an actual ferris wheel with open seating where you can feel the breeze and freak out because you are so high. In reality, they are pods where a bunch of people can sit or stand in and take pictures without any wobbling and it takes away that height fear. It was cool to be so high and be able to walk around the pod and take pictures of London.

Preeeetttyyyy -_-

Parliament, Big Ben, ME

He may be hard to see but this is the guy who let us on the Eye for free. He was such a cool guy and it made me feel incredibly awesome that someone did that for me and even little acts of kindness like his made me remember to start doing nice things for people randomly so others can feel the way I did that day. I couldn't thank him enough!

This is the Tower of London. Once again...do you see a tower? My thoughts are deceiving! There wasn't really a tower but it was more of a castle. So pretty and I got to see the world's biggest diamond in here! There was a royal jewels room where they had vaults that were HUGE that locked up these thousands of diamonds and the amount of money sitting in that room was UNBELIEVABLE. They don't let you take pictures because it is that confidential and they even have you stand on a moving sidewalk so that you don't stand in front of the diamonds too long. They don't want anyone storming up a plan to steal the diamonds I guess. It was cool how high-tech these people were! If you look up "crown jewels in tower of london" you will get a glimpse of what I saw...it was a girl's dream. INSANE.

Tower of London outside picture.

I forgot the name of this bridge but I feel like everyone has seen it before in their life. It's a pretty popular bridge in London.

A bunch of the more modern day buildings in London.

The really cool bridge again :D

In the Tower of London they have at least six ravens that are always on the grounds because they believe something along the lines of...if the six ravens aren't there that the Tower of London will fail or something like that....if you want the real story you can google it but I doubt you will -_-

This is a really big military boat and the picture really doesn't do it justice. It was huge!

Just capturing the moment?

This bridge was a teal color and had some yellowish detail. Quite the interesting color for a bridge I must say!



Here is the Shakespeare Globe Theatre where I got to see Dr. Faustus(sp?). The theatre is made in a tudor style with a thatch roof which is expensive to keep up. This design is exactly like the original Shakespeare Globe Theatre except for they have to have all the fire safety stuff in there. I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside but you'll see later I tried to sneak one ;)



Millenium bridge which was in the Harry Potter films. You'll see more of the bridge later.

Obelesque that was given to England by the Egyptians long ago as a gift. So much history from everywhere was here in London.

London Eye!

Westminster Abbey! This is where Kate and William got married! I was so excited that I got to walk down the same area that they did when they got married. It was such a big deal and it was cool to be in the presence of such recent history.

Westminster Abbey.

The front of Westminster...just gorgeous.

So big! The Abbey is also where they hold coronations of all the monarchs and I got to see the coronation chair even though it was being restored a little but a  lucky lady that we could see through a window. Imagine being the lady that restores a chair that rests the asses of Kings and Queens...what a prize!

This is the courtyard of the Abbey. The grass was so beautiful and it was just quite the sight.

Another part of the Abbey.

Pretttyyy :) and just so you all know what an abbey is...it's a church that actually housed most of the people who ran the church. It is a lot larger than a church and has prayer rooms, the actual temple, and rooms where people slept in.

Me!

Lookin' fabbbb.

Another picture of Westminster.

So I walkd by these guards and unfortunately I'm not sure what they were guarding but the horsies were so pretty but suprisingly a little high-strung. On one side they had a African guard and the other side they had a white guard. I think Lodon is trying to say something! No segregation!

Here I am at the front of St. Paul's Cathedral. The cathedral wouldn't let you take pictures inside so here is my proof I went!

Brit trying to take a candid photo of me. Hehe.

St. Paul's again. If you wanted to get to the top you have to climb like...538 stairs or some craziness like that! I wanted to do it and maybe I still will if I go back to London but they were closing everything up for the day and starting some sort of service soon after we got there.

So pretty :)

St. Paul's monument.

Here I am at the Tate Museum. I was in the modern area of art and found this crazy looking mirror thing. I took a picture....that is all.

So here are some of the Pre-Raphaelites paintings that Mary showed us in class. You can't really tell but they were really into red head women because before this era, red heads were known to be a little more fiery and scandalous and these paintings really embraced these women instead of looking down on them.

This painting is another Pre-Raphaelite painting and this girl was locked up in a tower and only could look out into the world through a mirror and the myth goes that she finally looked at the world through her own eyes and not through the mirror and the mirror cracked which instantly fated her death. The reason she looked outside was because she saw a man and wanted to float down the river to see him and by the time she floated down the man found her dead...fate got that b****!

Brit and her candid shot hehe :)

Here is the mirror again...Ashia, Brit, and I!

In the modern area there was this picture which was really bright and vibrant so I liked it! The photo doesn't do justice I'm afraid.

Cool drawing. Don't remember jack squat about it.

Mr. Ben close up.

Some really awesome sculpture.

British museum.

British museum and Brit...

Here are some of the Parthenon Marbles. Once again...def. not actual marbles like I thought they'd be. Everything isn't always as it seems! They were really big though and extremely cool to look at. They are originally from Athens, Greece and a big debate has been going on to if they should go back to Greece where they belong. I think it's great that they are in England because England also has a lot of Greek history along with the rest of the world so it kind of ties into globalization and bringing everyone together through different things such as art...

More of the Parthenon Marbles...the history in these pieces of work are just insane. They are so freakin' old!

The line of the Parthenon Marbles.

Here is the Rosetta Stone!

The best picture I could get of the hieroglyphics on the front of the Rosetta Stone...

Lastly to explain the stone...this was the first real piece of work that helped the new world really understand Egyptian hieroglyphics. There is hieroglyphics, demotic script, and Ancient Greek engraved in this stone. This stone was said to be part of a bigger slab but was broken off through history. It was made in 196 BC....wtfff!

Real sphinx from Egypt! So crazy...I felt like I was in the movie The Mummy!!

So I went to the Hard Rock Cafe in London which hosts the vault where there are some extremely valuable pieces of equipment. It was free to go in and check it out so don't think I spent money on their overly priced food or clothing! Here is a guitar used by the Sex Pistols!

A drum set I actually touched used by Black Sabbath in concert...I'm pretty awesome.

A lot of these pictures are self-explanitory...a guitar used by B.B. King.

Sex Pistols guitar.

Kurt Cobain guitar and a pair of glasses he wore.

Here is a suit Elvis Presley wore back in his days...a little over the top don't you think Elv?

One badass picture.

Mr. Bowie's guitar.

Do I really need to write a caption for this?

Two guitars used by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

This bench has housed some extremely famous people and I got to touch it...yeah...touch it...there have been hundreds of celebrities and musicians who have sat on this couch!

Eric Clapton suit.

A little more proof that it was Eric Clapton's suit.

This litlle piano was used by the Beatles for recording purposes.

Some real lyrics and a picture of The Temptations.

Here are lyrics from the song Instant Karma that John Lennon wrote. It was cool to see what he wrote on the side of the lyrics and what he thought about when he was rearranging his songs...crazyyyyy.

A little memoir to Jimmi Hendrix.

Some detail on the lyrics from John Lennon. Crazy to check out huh?!

Some more stuff from Hendrix. Those little glasses you see were used by Hendrix when he was trippin' on acid. They helped keep from trippin' too hard so that he could actually play his shows.

Lennon.

Here I am at Kensington Palace! Woo! The garden was so pretty.

Lookin' fresh....

Here is the Orangery...we were supposed to have tea here like some royalty business...but some people decided it was a good day to have a wedding so I was s*** outta luck...!

A little entrance to the garden.

A room where they had a bunch of army dudes lined up and some guy playing with them in Kensington Palace tour.

Some toys that children played with at Kensington Palace.

More army men that were played with at Buckingham.

A really old typewriter at Kensington Palace.

Kensington Palace.

Kensington Palace.

This said...Seat of power sit here and feel your power your word can change lives speak out be careful what you wish for... 

A creepy lookin' mirror in the Palace.

The chair of power!

Kensington Palace from the outside.

Kensington Park.

Harrod's. This place is huge! It has anything you could ever imagine from food to bullet proof armor. The options of purchases are endless here!

I ate at the Diner in Harrod's and the burger I ate cost 19 pounds which is extremely expensive but that bad boy was delicious!! Mary and Lisa recommended we ate the burger! Glad we did!

Raspberry Lemonade...5 pounds...but so yummy!

The Underground! I loved this thing! It was so easy to navigate where to go but it was a pain to find a station when you were on the street and it was much more tempting to jump in a taxi that was sitting right next to you but it was so cool!

One of the trains in the Underground.

Millenium Bridge which was in Harry Potter.

When it was built in 2000, the bridge swayed so much that it was making people sick. They had to do some remodeling but it ended up being stable as can be and used in Harry Potter!

Right in the middle of the Millenium Bridge on the way to the Dr. Faustus play at the Globe Theatre.

St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.

River Thames view on the Millenium.

Me trying to take a sneaky picture at the Globe theatre...not a very good picture.

Theatre front.

The theatre close up!

Sunsets in London are gorgeous.

St. Paul's from the Millenium.

Walking to get sushi after the Globe theatre expedition.

I found a ball in a little area and thought it was cool so I took a picture. London was really great and I enjoyed every second of it. The scenery, the history, and the people were great. The walking was a lot more crazy compared to Paris because London is a little more spread out than Paris is. I didn't go out to any big clubs in London but the last night I went into the basement of our hostel Clink 78...which had an awesome DJ and a bunch of us danced the night away down there and were feeling pretty good! There were some Australians down there which were fun to hang out with and we really got everyone dancing...it seems like Americans like dancing a LOT! One of the nights I went out to eat with Lisa after the Hard Rock and Ashia, Tessa, Stephanie, and I forget who else was with us and after the Hard Rock we had the hardest time finding a place to eat and ended up eating at this cute little pizza place after searching for an hour in the rain to grub. It was crazy there and everything is so sparatic and a little crazy but it is a good place to see and experience. I've noticed and mentioned before that a lot of things aren't really what they seem and I don't mean it in a negative way but it's crazy to see the world for what it really is and not just what I think it is. On the bus ride home from London I slept and then ate pizza last night with Ashia, Erica, and Megan. Today I went to class which was pretty nice and not too stressful and then after Meg and I tried to do a little exploring of Nottingham...we went to The Fat Cat and had one of the best meals we had yet...I had a steak which I was craving...and she had some pork that was glazed in some mustard cream sauce that was to die for. I was in a food coma so I passed out and now I'm on Blogger writing to you all. I really am missing everyone and can't wait to see my favorite faces but I am really hoping I get the most out of the next few days I have left. I think Meg and I are gonna try to go to Sherwood Forest tomorrow after school or I may try and catch a football game. Whatever the case is, I have to be running around now! I found this quote the other day that really was awesome to read and I figured I'd wait til I posted on here to show everyone the awesome-ness of this quote...so here it is....As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let us down, probably will. You'll have your heart broken and you'll break others' hearts. You'll fight with your best friend or maybe even fall in love with them, and you'll cry because time is flying by. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, forgive freely, and love like you've never been hurt. Life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, no second chances. you just have to live life to the fullest, tell someone what they mean to you and tell someone off, speak out, dance in the pouring rain, hold someone's hand, comfort a friend, fall asleep watching the sun come up, stay up late, be a flirt, and smile until your face hurts. Don't be afraid to take chances or fall in love and most of all, live in the moment because every second you spend angry or upset is a second of happiness you can never get back.

Love you all.
Ashlee