Quick Update

I am tempted to say that nothing interesting has been going on in my life and that is why I have not updated this blog in a very long time, but then I remember that I live in London so that statement is inherently false. I have not met any more celebrities or faced the frozen tundra of a country like Sweden, but I did finish up all of my classes until next fall and took a lovely day trip to Bath. It's very strange to think that I will not take another exam or sit in a classroom until some time in August, but I cannot say that I am too disappointed. The biggest hurtle that the 2014 GLS class has encountered lately is declaring our majors. I would include what I decided to major in, but the likelihood that it will change in the next few days is very high and I don't want to put my foot in my mouth... If I'm not careful, it's going to come down to "eenie meenie miney mo, pick a major by the toe..." Actually, I might have more luck choosing that way...

In other news, the City of Bath is absolutely splendid. Three of us hopped on a train one weekend and explored the quaint historical city. We were a bit over zealous, however, and saw everything that we wanted to see with a good three hours left before our train left. This resulted in the other two falling asleep upstairs in a little café while I read my book... thrilling, I know. Oddly enough, though, I quite enjoyed it and it was not a bad way to end a long day of travel.

Tomorrow morning all 26 of us are heading to Edinburgh, Scotland for our last trip as a group before internships start on March 5th. When we return from Scotland, everyone is splitting off for a week long Spring Break. Kayla, Paige, and I will be enjoying Italy for 7 days stopping in Pisa, Florence, Cinque Terre, and Rome... that is if we ever actually book our hostels... These next two weeks are going to be full of travel and fun and I happen to turn 20 on Friday as well!

London, we'll see you in a few weeks! 

The Roman Baths in Bath

It's a beautiful city

Oh yeah, we went to Wimbledon, too...

...and Valentine's Day happened...

...and we went to the Tower of London...

...and we went to Westminster. Forgot about all of that...

Välkommen to the land of below 0˚ F

Our first trip out of the country was a huge success!

Last weekend a group of us packed up and headed to the land of herring and spent two days trying not to freeze to death. We were up and out bright and early Friday morning to London Stanstead Airport to catch our flight. There was a slight moment of panic when we looked for our flight and found the message "estimated fail" on the board. Naturally, we panicked and thought of every possible way to freak out instead of simply asking someone what "estimated fail" meant (it only means there is a delay...). While in the airport, I also had the best muffin on earth. I'm not exaggerating. If I was told that I would only be able to have one more meal in my life I would find this muffin. Lucky for me, we are flying out of Stanstead again to get to Italy for Spring Break... I'm counting down the days.

Cold... very cold.

Now that I have bored you to death with muffin talk I guess I can mention Sweden. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and definitely the coldest. The high for the weekend did not get above 12˚ F, and spent much of the time below 0˚. I'm glad that we did not find this out until after we were back in London, though, because knowing that would have made it seem much colder. We spent much of our time café-hopping in order to escape the bitter temperature. We would walk and explore for as long as we could stand the cold and then retreat to some café to warm up. I think our café total reached 6 in two days.  

Palace Guard

For the time that we managed to stay outside, we saw a lot of the wonderful city of Stockholm. If you ever get the chance GO TO STOCKHOLM. The history, architecture, and especially the people are absolutely fascinating. I have never seen so many blondes in my life. We had the chance to see the Royal Palace, the Treasury, and a Palace Museum. We learned about the Swedish Royal Family and talked to one of the Palace Guards. After all of the girls in our group took pictures with the guard, someone made the comment, "Wow, you have the best job ever, you just stand around and get to take pictures with pretty girls all day," to which he responded, "It's not the best..." I don't know how to take that...

Still recovering...

We walked to the top of a "city on a hill" portion of Stockholm and had a wonderful view of the river and the city. We also found a snow covered hill that was just begging for someone to sled down it. Not having any sort of sled, the unfortunate among us (or unintelligent) used the only thing that we did have: our bodies. This was a wonderful idea until we reached the bottom of the hill covered in snow and realized that the snow would melt on our clothes and haunt us for the rest of the day. I am still nursing a bruise the size of a grapefruit on my hip...

The entire river behind us was frozen over.

It was our first trip out of the UK and we could not have picked a better place to go! I truly hope that one day I will get to return to Stockholm and spend a little more time, because there was so much to see and so many more cafés to visit!