Day 7: June 15, 2013 - Salisbury, the Best Hot Chocolate Ever, Old Serum, and Stonehenge!

As soon as I hit my pillow last night and freaked out a little about the weird noises, I fell asleep. We woke up at 8:00 and got ready. It was a bad hair day but I sure as heck wasn't going to get in the shower at the hostel. We went down and had breakfast - it was gross. Then we had to wait for people because they didn't know we were supposed to be down at 9:00. We then walked down to the Salisbury Cathedral. We did a tour around the Cathedral with this super smart old lady.

We then saw one of the original Magna Carta's which was pretty cool. It was freezing today, at least in Salisbury, and I had left my jacket at the hostel so we went to find hot chocolate. We walked around looking for a pub or something and landed on Nuggs, a cute little breakfast bakery thing. I got a hot chocolate with Maltezars in it - little whopper things but so much better and whipped cream - SOOO good!

I also got this little shortcake thing with chocolate and caramel and it wasn't very good but oh well. We hung out there for a bit because it was really cold outside then headed back to the hostel to meet up with everyone at 1:30. We got on the bus and drove like 15 minutes to this place called Old Serum. It's an old medieval city/castle thingy. It was mostly just little ruins of walls and stuff but the scenery and background was so beautiful! Definitely one of my favorite places. We were there for a while just taking jumping pictures (That I actually jump in, not like last summer...) and just had the best time.

We got on the bus and went to Stonehenge. It was really cool but I was kind of bummed that we couldn't like go inside - there is a barrier at least 20 feet away that keeps you out so we just walked around it a few times taking pictures at every angle. I like Old Serum better but it was still way cool of course. I got a t-shirt that says "Stonehenge Rocks!" hehehe punny!

We then got on the bus and drove home. I slept the whole time and it was fabulous. We got home and unpacked. We then went down to Waitrose the grocery store and got a bunch of food, including cheese and Dr. P baby! We came home and I started blogging because I had missed a few days... while eating cheese and bread for dinner yum! We got gelato - I got carmello and stracciatella or however you spell it.

I'm finishing blogging now and then I'll probably go upstairs and chill because, shocker, I'm not tired. Oh and I'm pretty sure I sprained my ankle at Old Serum falling in a hole... and Rick has a wrap but he lives all the way downstairs and that's probably not gonna happen. Oh well! Night! Happy Father's Day tomorrow!

Day 5: June 13, 2013 - A Wall, Pizza Hut, and a Harlem Shake

Currently it's 11:24 and we are filming a Harlem Shake video for Cassidy's blog! Today was really chill. I woke up at 8:00 to go with Jena to get Shelby a card and a cupcake for her birthday but Jena was too tired so I woke up for nothing... So I just put pictures on Facebook and hung out. I got ready then just did homework in the living room and had some breakfast. I went to class. It was really fun again today because we talked about one of my favorite myths - Cupid and Psyche! And I don't know how it happened but we started talking about bird genitalia... I went upstairs and took a nap until my next class. We talked about marriage, sex, and jealousy. This was a class where we had a lot to talk about you know because it's about life and we can all really relate to it... I'm really hyper right now so sorry if this blog is all over the place. Anyway, after class, we got on the tube and went to Tower Hill station where as soon as we left the station, we turned the corner and the wall was right there. It's a wall that was built by the Romans in like 200AD or something like that and it survived the Plague and stuff. This wall was actually a big part of how the Plague stopped from spreading further. It was really cool. Nate took us all around the city to find other pieces of the wall. It was cool because people have built their buildings to just add onto the wall.

Super cool. I wish we didn't have to see so much of it though... like we walked around a lot and Nate said it would only take a few hours. We were really hungry too. He let us go and we all went to Pizza Hut! We wanted something American and familiar.

So it was Shelby's birthday right, so Sam said to the waiter: "So it's her birthday, I don't know if that means anything to you..." it was awesome, the waitress was like uh what? We tried their "free" salad - let's just say there is a reason it was free. Plus they claimed they had free refills on soda. Ya... we never got a refill. I shared this amazing cookie thing with Camille - it was a hot cookie with ice cream on it and chocolate sauce, so yummy! It took us forever to figure out how to pay the bill, we struggle ok? Jena, Camille, Cassidy, and I went to Top Shop (a ridiculously overpriced shop) then H&M to find me a towel which we did! Yahoo! We got on the tube but it turns out we got on the wrong tube so we had to switch, nice job Jena, you're the one that is supposed to know where you're going. We came home and found out that we were like twenty minutes late for the Jack the Ripper tour! Everyone went without us, we were very bummed! So I packed for the weekend trip and organized my wardrobe and stuff. Then Jena and I went upstairs and hung out with flat 19. They all got back from the tour so we all went down to 17 and sang to Shelby. Brandon sang a Josh Groban song for us. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't expecting it to be that amazing! He sounds JUST LIKE Josh! It's insane, plus they look a ton alike! We then just all hung out in the kitchen/living room. We listened to music - I rapped Outta your Mind and the No Diggity from Pitch Perfect while Kasee crumped! The boys came down because none of us could sleep so we all just hung out in the kitchen and talked about relationships and all this random stuff. We got pretty deep, it was cool to spend time with everyone and get to know everyone better. We finally went to bed around 4:00 when the freaking sun was already coming out... Whatever.

Day 4: July 12, 2013 - Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Big Ben, and Wagamamas!

Today was even better than yesterday! I slept really well last night so I felt better. I woke up around 8:00 and just chilled, put pictures up on Facebook, Jena came in and we chatted for a bit. I was running a bit late so I grabbed a bowl of Froot Loops and went down to class. It was cool because we talked about all the Greek myths and I have read them all and studied them like crazy because of Crampton's awesomeness in high school so that was way cool and easy. And to add a little inside joke to any people on my group that read this: Crazy Jesus! I came upstairs and hung out in the kitchen with Jena and a few of the girls. I went down to Nate's class. At one point, he asked us to compare two passages, one from Orlando, one from Dickens. I answered and then no one said anything after that... for five whole minutes, and in situations like that, those minutes are the longest minutes of your life. We all just looked at each other and tried to look like we were going through the book or looking at notes. Cassidy turned to me and we both started to giggle a little bit - don't put me in awkward situations like that or I'll giggle! Finally he said something but it was bad... Then we all met downstairs and went on a walk of London! We started in Hyde Park and saw all the super beautiful rose gardens and the ponds and everything.

Then we headed over to Buckingham Palace. HUGE! I didn't see it up close last year so it was really cool.

We crossed through St. James' Park and walked through Piccadilly Circus - we walked past that awesome little tourist gift shop, the Cool Britainnia or something like that. I need to go back and get that purse for Con! It was really fun to be in the actual city and see the people and the culture and everything. We then went over to the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square. I definitely recognized this area - last year Kalee, Kelli, and I got tired of looking at paintings in the Gallery so Kelli was like "Wanna go dick around in the square?" so we did of course! Missed you guys today! I took Kas over to right where she could get her first glimpse of Big Ben and it was awesome! We then went down and got on one of those huge lions! It was kinda scary, I'm not gonna lie. But hey, YOLO!

We took some group pictures and then headed down to see Big Ben up close. Super fun to see it again and get tons of pictures by the Westminster Station tube and headed back to the flat.

I skyped with my momma for a while, said hello to my puppies. Then we all met downstairs again and headed to dinner at Wagamamas. Because my mom is allergic to everything, we never really had any Asian food growing up so this was a virgin experience. It was raining this time though, not the happy blue sky but still amazing! We got to the restaurant and had to split up. I sat by Tash and Shelby. I got chicken ramen and it was actually pretty good! The chopsticks were a little hard to get at first but by the end I was so pro!

It was fun spending time with the future birthday girl Shelby (her birthday is tomorrow) and talking about our future careers in interior design and stuff. After dinner, we went next door to TKMaxx (the UK version of TJMaxx...) and I tried to look for a towel to no avail. Jena promised to take me tomorrow so hopefully I can find one. We walked back to the flat and just chilled in the living room with everyone, put pictures up on Facebook, did some homework. Kasee, Natasha, Sam, and I went up to Flat 19 and played cards with Stephen, Brandon, Tayler, Dominique, Missy, Lexie, all those cool peeps. It was really fun, we played scum and I never had to be the scum, which is good because the scum had to dance - it was their punishment... We stayed up there for a while and then came down around midnight or so. Well this was a super fun day with lots of new adventures! Night!