so.. turns out i’m really bad at updating this blog, huh?
i know the last time i updated was after spring break. my bad! i’ve had a ton of school work recently so, obviously i couldn’t be blogging while i should have been studying… :)
so, trying to think back on all the things i’ve done between spring break and now would probably be impossible. probably going to leave a bunch of stuff out, but it’s ok. you’ll live.
like i said, school work’s been picking up lately. so many essays and presentations due since the school year is winding down! can’t believe the semester is almost over! 3 weeks until i make my triumphant (albeit, a bit reluctant) return to the USA. can you believe i’ve been gone for over 3 months? crazy! i’ve acclimated so much. i noticed that whenever we’re out, our flat is referred to as “home” rather than “the flat.” plus the weather’s been sunny and 60 these past few weeks.. literally no complaints about london!
internship has been going great lately. we actually got to design our own mosaic that will go in a garden along with pieces from professional artists who work at southbank. so lately, we’ve been on our own doing our own mosaic, and it’s pretty cool! this is the one carolyn and i designed and have been working on:
it’s gonna be awesome when it’s finished! unfortunately, it’s so time consuming and we’re only there for 11.5 hours a week, so we’re more than likely not going to finish it before we head back to america. but they’ll send us a picture of it when it’s done, hopefully!
since it’s been so beautiful out in london lately, i’ve been enjoying being outside. we went to regent’s park a few weeks ago, and it was so pretty!
and that same day i made my way down to the thames and i finally got to see a waterloo sunset.
(“as long as i gaze on waterloo sunset, i am in paradiiiiiise…”)
apart from enjoying london, i’ve made a few trips too. we went to oxford a few weeks ago. it was really pretty, but i didn’t think there was much to do there. we looked at the colleges, which was ok, i guess. not too exciting.
this past weekend, though, i made my pilgrimage to sheffield with cayleigh! as you probably know.. def leppard is my favorite band of all time. and since the band originated in sheffield, i had to make the mecca journey a few hours north to see where it all began!
and since steve clark is my favorite guitarist, i have wanted to pay my respects for a long time.
it was a great experience. and i definitely still have some unfinished business there, so next weekend i’m going back up to sheffield on my own. can’t wait!
as of now.. well, i’m sitting in class at the moment (yeah, my cover is blown) cringing at the awkwardness of this professor. this took up a few minutes, but i still have 2 hours left of class, so i guess i should go pay attention a little…
i’ll try to update again soon. hopefully i get another post in before i leave in 3 weeks.. haha :)
spring break wrap up.
sorry i’ve taken so long to post.. but i just needed some time to relax and process after spring break. and speaking of spring break.. it was AWESOME!
started off the week in belgium. we stayed in brussels, which had some cool places, but i wasn’t blown away. the best part of brussels was actually delirium, which was a great place we went to saturday night. it had a really cool atmosphere and played great music. and it may or may not have had over 200 kinds of beer. when we were there, we met people from all over.. london, france, belgium, even some people from uconn who are studying in italy and happened to be in belgium for the weekend!
during the day saturday, we went to bruges. gorgeous! we literally walked around the city all day.
while we were there we had a ton of belgian chocolate. and even better, belgian waffles!
after the group trip to belgium, five of us broke off from the group and hopped on a 4 hour bus ride to paris!
we spent a few days there. we did a walking tour of the whole city (which is huge!). after the tour we made out way to the louvre! i couldn’t believe how big it is. we went right to see the mona lisa as soon as we got in there and then we explored and saw as much of the museum as we could in the next hour before it closed. while the art was amazing and appreciated, we may have done a few of our own renditions of some pieces.
the next day we saw notre dame. beautiful! then after that we made our way to the eiffel tower! now, i don’t know if you were aware, but the eiffel tower is brown. not silver. i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t more than a little disappointed. but hey, what can ya do? i LOVED seeing the eiffel tower in person. incredible!
next stop was amsterdam! this may have been my favorite place. aside from it’s, um… culture… amsterdam is actually really beautiful! the canals especially!
also in amsterdam, we visited the anne frank house. that was really amazing to see! the annex was so interesting. her wallpaper with all the pictures she put on her wall was still there, which was cool to see. they also had her diary on display at the end, along with a few video interviews with of her father and her friends. i really enjoyed it because it was such a good experience, even if it was a bit sad. we tried to go to the van gogh museum, but it was way too expensive to get in. i was pretty disappointed because van gogh is my favorite artist, but i’ll survive.
we spent our last day in amsterdam souvenir shopping and just hanging out. i was totally drained from 7 days of walking around europe. i was totally ready to get back to london. it’s weird how i kind of consider london to be home now. never thought i’d see the day that i was homesick for london! can’t say i’m hating that though! :)
i got bck to london and my dad was here waiting for me. he came out for the weekend and i had a great time! i’ve missed everyone from home so hanging out with dad for a few days was an awesome way to end spring break!
today is actually the halfway point in the uconn in london program. that’s insane! i can’t believe we have only 2 months left! better get crackin’ on crossing more things off of my bucket list!
leaving for spring break.
so next week is spring break. i’ll be bringing my computer for the sake of charging my ipod, because i don’t have a wall charger, but no promises on updates throughout the week. i’ll try my best, though!
today we’re taking the eurostar train to belgium with the whole uconn group. we’re visiting brussels and bruges this weekend. then on sunday a smaller group of us will break away from the rest of the group and we’re grabbing a bus to paris until wednesday. from there, we’re taking a train to amsterdam for the next few days, and flying back from amsterdam on friday.
my dad gets here on friday, so i get to spend the weekend with him! should be fun!
later, everyone!
visited the london olympics site today.
not as exciting as you’d think. considering the olympics are in summer 2012, they’re not even close to being finished building it. i guess it was cool to see the construction though. they had a few stadiums almost up.
track and field, i guess:
aquatics:
they had the basketball one up too, somewhere in the back.
then we had a riveting lecture on the olympic games’ effect on the economy of east london. wooh, global citizenship.
sorry, i’ve been MIA.
i know i haven’t updated in a while. my b. :)
well, since the last time i posted, i haven’t been on any trips or anything like that, so i haven’t had much to say. just been keeping myself busy with school work and interning. the amount of school work has picked up a bit since the beginning of the semester, but it’s ok. just a bunch of small essays that can be banged out in 20 minutes tops. not that that stops me from leaving them for 2 hours before they’re due.. but hey, on time is on time.
i literally have taken no pictures out in london since the graffiti pictures, so i guess here are some random things that have happened.
carolyn and i discovered this place near our internship that makes a freakin’ great sandwich.
i’ve made some pretty mean in-class doodles..
i dyed not only my hair, but everything from the mirror to the shower.
it was my birthday!
i met up with fina and scott and i had the greatest night in london so far.
and it was warm and sunny today so i got to wear my zebra flats.
jealous? :)
new internship!
today was my first day at my new internship at southbank mosaics. it’s a million times better than the last place i was at. here, we pretty much just make mosaics all day. and groups come in and we make mosaics with them. but the reasons behind it are pretty cool. right now they’re working on the “william blake project” which is basically just honoring william blake and putting up william blake inspired mosaics in the waterloo area of london.
i also just really love art, and i think it’s great that i get to see really talented people make crazy works of art right there. i saw a few pieces in the works today that were coming out really well, and i saw one woman complete hers and amazing doesn’t even begin to describe it. also, the first thing i saw when i walked in the door was a woman helping a blind/deaf boy make his own mosaic. i really love this place. it has a great atmosphere.. very relaxed.
also, dave, the head of soutbank mosaics, took us on a walk to see the william blake pieces out in london. and then he took us to this amazing tunnel where graffiti is legal. loved it!
i took about 100 pictures and we were there for about 10 minutes, haha.
tomorrow’s another day of internship, and then a guest lecture tomorrow night and i’m done for the week. and we finally have a weekend off! no excursion! some of my friends are going to scotland, but i’m staying in london to relax and probably explore a little more. should be a good weekend. :)
brighton for the day
brighton is amazing.
it took about 2 hours to get there, and it was really cold out, but it was still worth it. we went to the royal pavilion, which was really cool. it’s where king george IV lived. the whole thing is so incredibly decorated, inside and out!
after that, we made our way to brighton pier and i had my first official fish n’ chips meal of the trip! complete with mushy peas! so good :)
once we were all sufficiently bloated we had about an hour of free time. we saw a shoe store that was 75% off, so we decided shoe shopping was a must, but unfortunately… it was 75% off of probably the highest prices ever. haha so needless to say, that trip lasted about 4 seconds. we ended up taking a lot of pictures on the beach, though.
terrible job, arbour.
i’m currently sitting in global citizenship class, handwriting this. i’ll type it up later when i get out of this place (hi). this is how bored i am. this class is so horrible that i’m drafting a blog post. solid.
so today was pretty terrible. i kind of already hate my internship placement. it’s not what i expected (probably because it was talked up so that i would agree to go there). today i friggen’ supervised bangladeshi women while they painted henna designs on pottery. for 6 and a half hours. my boss told me to make sure they were working fast enough so they can sell the pottery by february 14th. listen, lady.. i’m not the head of a sweat shop. so i literally just sat at the table in silence with them all day while the four of them spoke to each other in a different language. the lady kept telling me that i had to tell them to hurry up, and that i needed to build my confidence in order to be firm with them. ok, no. it’s not a confidence issue.. it’s an asshole issue. i’m not going to scold these 20-30 year old women because they’re not painting fast enough. screw you, lady, paint them yourself.
and on top of it all, on the way home all i wanted to do was calm down and listen to music… so naturally, my ipod died mid-motley crue on the train. kill me.
so i got back to the flat, pretty much vented really intensely to laura and stephen who were sitting here, while i made french fries and a weird sandwich on a bagel. then i called dave and asked him to place me somewhere else because i hate this place. he said he’s on it and he’s going to try to figure something out with this place first, and if not, he’s going to place me somewhere else. which would be awesome. once again, dave FTW.
so as i sit here, listening to this lady try to get the attention of the class with her miniature vuvuzela from hell, i draft this post for the sake of my sanity. when i am finished i will almost definitely make a few withdrawals from the memory bank of bon jovi lyrics and write out a few songs.. in cursive, so it takes more time and concentration. i’m also keeping a tally of how many times this kid (we’re calling him “the experience”) talks/answers questions. i tallied 6 in the first 5 minutes of class (total at the end of class: 15). dude needs to shutty.
in other news, stephen, laura and i got to class, waked straight to the back and sat down all in the same row, rather than next to each other because “that’s how they did it in 90’s TV shows like boy meets world.” which is true, now that i think of it. classic.
anywho, the experience won’t shutty, so i’m gonna have to start writing some lyrics to drown him out. another day of interning tomorrow. if i don’t post for a while, it’s because i’m in the hospital with an extreme case of bullshit overdose.
toured BBC yesterday
i enjoyed it a lot more than i thought i would. it was really cool. we got to see some studios while they were working a few shows. and we sat in a dressing room they use for celebrities.
i’m trying to make this a quick post because the internet keeps crapping out at the flats today.
but yesterday we got to see a few props from dr. who and a few other shows. including…
teletubby toast!
fulham vs stoke city match
the soccer match was pretty cool today! the crowd was pretty awesome.. almost as good as a solid bruins crowd. fulham won 2-0 and clint dempsey scored both goals. at least one USA chant happened. good times.
oh yeah, did i mention we had amazing seats? right behind the net, only a few rows from the field. it was pretty sweet! i was surprised that we would have had such good seats with such a big group going, but no complaints! well.. the only complaint was that it was absolutely freezing, and i spilled coffee over myself. but other than that it was pretty awesome.
i think tomorrow will consist of sleeping, grocery shopping, sleeping, eating, and sleeping. today was actually pretty exhausting.
