All Packed Up...

With our school finishing on Thursday, everyone has started to depart away from London and head other places. Some are going home and others are headed all over Europe.  It has been a long couple of days spent with the group, packing, saying goodbyes, and going around and doing the things we did on the first couple of days we were here.  It has been a trip of a lifetime that has shown me things about the world that no other experience can do for you.  The places we have been, the things we have seen and all the relationships that were built changed who I am today.  

Someday and somehow I will be back to this great place.  Thanks for all the memories!

Cheers

Jimmy

A walking tour of the Olympic site

Not much has gone on in the last week because we all have been finishing up on homework for the end of the semester.  It is pretty crazy that we have only 1 week of class left.  We finish our classes up this Thursday and people leave as early as Friday to go back to the states.  It seems like only yesterday we arrived in a totally foreign land and now it is sad that people are leaving what we now call home.  So many new things that we have learned and grown accustomed too and now we are going back home to leave it all behind.

However, today we headed over to northeast London to do a walking tour of the 2012 Olympic site tour.  It was a very neat experience because all of it is built but the area is undeveloped.  The stadium is going to hold 80,000 people and is brand new.  It is quite the stadium.  We also saw a lot of the surrounding area of the Olympics such as aquatic center, new flats for the athletes, transportation for the Olympics, and other areas.

Other than that, not much is new.  I am getting pretty excited to have my Dad fly over and show him the whole European thing.  Should be a whole new experience in Eastern Europe.

Hope all is well back home,

Cheers

Jimmy

A trip to Brighton

On Saturday our whole group headed straight south to Brighton, which is a city right on the English Channel.  It was about an hour and a half and we were on the bus at 7:45 AM.  We got to Brighton and had a walking tour around the city and it was about a two hour tour and we learned quite a lot about the history of the city.  We started out walking around the Brighton Pier, which is what makes the Brighton city famous.  There is a large Pier with a ton of food and snacks all toped of with a amusement park out on the very end.  Here are some of the pictures of around the city.

Right when we got off the bus, this is a picture of the Pier from a ways away.

The entrance to the Pier.

St. Stephan church in Brighton.

The Cricketers, the oldest pub in Brighton.

Royal Pavilion Palace.  It was built with a Indian style for King Charles.  

Front view of the Palace.

A piece of Art on the shore.  It only is visible with sunlight and can only be seen from a good distance.

Brighton Pier

View of the beach from the Pier.

We headed home and took it easy after everyone was sun burnt and tired.  Sunday we did a lot of homework before we had a dinner with our whole group and a comedy show.  We went to Adam's Ribs and it was very good.  It was kind of an American style place with big portions and great food.  After dinner we headed over to a comedy show in Piccadilly Circus.  It was a lot like the "Whose Line is it Anyways" that you will see on TV.  It was an improve show all based off of audience inputs.  The show was so funny and it had all of us rolling on the ground laughing!
Other than that, we all have a ton of homework.  It has caught up to us with a bunch of papers and tests that we need to read.


Cheers

Jimmy

Paris

This weekend we went to Paris with a small bunch of people from our trip.  We started off on Friday night and got onto a coach.  From London we traveled to Dover and the white cliffs and drove our coach right up onto a ferry with hundreds of other coach buses.  We got off and sat in what seemed to be a cruise ship with dance floors and hundreds of bars, stores and food places.  We sat there and it took about an hour to get across the channel.  After a while we got back on our coach and headed the rest of the way to Paris.  By this time it was the middle of the night and we slept the rest of the way to Paris.  We arrived at 7:30 AM and were dead tired so we checked into the hotel and went to bed for about 2 hours before getting up and at things at 10 AM.  Our first stop was Notre Dame.  It was huge and very intricate in its detail.  It was very similar to a lot of the Cathedrals that we have seen this semester. The interesting part about the cathedral is that it is on an island and the river runs right by it.  Here are a couple of pictures of it:

front of the cathedral which is very similar to Westminster abbey.

Front door and the detail around that.

Inside.

Huge stain glass window near the altar.

After this we walked over to the Louvre to see the good ol Mona Lisa.  The Louvre is actually huge with buildings that form a courtyard in the middle.  It was quite the building and very interesting to see the actual Mona Lisa.  It is much smaller than you think.  It is about the size of a large pizza box, maybe a little bigger but not much.  However, they devote an entire wall for it.

Courtyard of the Louvre.

Its own wall.

There she is.

After the Louvre we headed up to the northern part of the city of Paris to visit another famous church on the top of the hill.  It is called Sacre Coeur and it is a big church on top of a big hill in Paris.  There was street performer and all sorts of drawings and art work you can buy up near this church.  

We spent a little bit of time here and watched some street dancers along with some street music.  It was a lot of fun.  After this we headed back to our hotel to take a quick nap and change into warmer clothes for the night.  It was 75 and completely sunny during the day but being on top of the tower we thought it would be kind of chilly.  From here we headed over to the Eiffel Tower when it was still light out and took some pictures.  We walked around and admired how large the tower actually is.  We headed to a little cafe about a block from the tower and had a nice little French dinner before going back to the tower at night.  Here are some pictures of the night.

It was a long way to the top of the tower but it was well worth it as you can see in the view.  It was a great time and a fun view of the city.

We went home, exhausted to say the least and went right to bed.  We got up and headed back to the bus station where we got back on the bus and made our way home.  It was about 3 hours until we hit the channel but this time we took the tunnel under the ocean.  It was a very interesting process.  You have to go through customs and what not and then you literally drive your bus right into a open train and you take off.  40 minutes later you are in England where we had about another hour on the bus and home we were.  It was a great city to see and a fun experience all in all.

Back home in London with class all day today.  Went to the gym and now were going to watch the Twins and Yankees.

Cheers

Jimmy

Just another week

After Louie left the beautiful city of London there hasn't been much going on other than school work(weird, I know) and hanging out.  It was a week where we had some reading and stuff to do along with some other tedious tasks such as grocery shopping.  There have been a couple positives to this week however.  I found a new way to run to the gym, which was very exciting for me! Also, I booked a trip to Paris for the weekend, which is the real reason I am writing this blog.  It is kind of weird to be able to say that it was kind of an impulse decision for a couple of us in our flat to decide to go to Paris.  I mean, that is another country, but over here it is really easy to go from on country to another and fairly cheap to stay in that other country (you just have to be willing to not have every luxury you would in the states).  So, Friday night, 3 of us take off and head on a coach down to Dover and the white cliffs of England.  We drive that coach right onto a ferry that we can walk around on and hang out and head across the Channel to France.   When we arrive in France, we proceed to drive our coach off the ferry and continue our journey to Paris.  In total, it is about a 7 hour journey and we booked it overnight.  So, me being the limber, flexible, ready to sleep anywhere kind of person I am, should get about 25 minutes of sleep for the night!  Anyways, I thought I would tell you a little bit about what I will be doing this weekend and how easy it is to travel from place to place.

Cheers

Jimmy

A weekend with Louie

Well, this weekend I spent playing touring guide again.  Louie, my cousin who is studying in Barcelona, came up to the beautiful city of London for the weekend.  He arrived here late on Friday night and was here until Monday night.
 On Friday we headed out to a local pub to grab a couple pints but it was already late so we headed home and went to bed.
 Saturday rolled around and he woke up and headed over to Westminster where I could show him Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the London eye.  However, it was not this easy.  When we tried to get off at the Westminster station, it was closed.  We did not know why but it we soon found out.  We found our way to the next stop and walked there.  There were an estimated 250,000 protesters in the city of London on Saturday.  They weren't all near Parliament, but there were thousands of people there.  We got distracted watching these protests and spent about an hour walking around looking at all the creative people.  After a while we made our way through the crowds and eventually through the parade of protests and walked over the River Thames to see the London eye and the south side of the river.  We made our way to Waterloo underground and headed to Piccadilly Circus and showed him that area.  From here we headed over to Leicester Square which is about a 5 minute walk and then continued our walk to Covent Gardens which is another 10 minute walk.  We walked around these areas and then heard about the Oxford Cambridge Rowing race that is held annually.  We tried to catch the end of that game, but we did not make it in time.  I thought that the race would take a long time but it apparently doesn't last long.  So, we ended up missing that, which would have been a lot of fun. Saturday night we headed over to our favorite spot to grab some pub food, Gloucester Arms.  It is about a mile from our flat but has the best food that we have found.  We had some pints before dinner and then had some great good.  We came home after a long and tiresome day.
Sunday came around and we headed to Chipotle for Louie.  It is the only Chipotle in Europe and he really wanted it so we went there and then found our way up to Camden.  Louie had never seen anything like this market and he loved the atmosphere and the huge variety of stores and markets.  We spent a long time here in Camden and then we took the tube back to Green Park where we walked through the park and saw Buckingham Palace.  We headed home after this and stopped to get some food for a home cooked meal.  Sunday night we took it easy and headed to bed.
Monday morning we woke up early for class but we were not going to class.  Instead of class, we headed to the Imperial War Museum which I had already been too, but Louie really enjoyed it.  We spent like 2 hours here before we had to go to our other class.   Louie got to relax for awhile until we came home and then we headed over to Tower Bridge where we saw Tower of London and walked up and down the banks of the river.  We were kind of close of time and we hustled back to our flat so Louie could grab his stuff and head off to where Easy Bus picks him up and brings him to the airport.  So, we brought him there and then headed back after saying bye.

It was a great time showing Flash Lash around and a fun weekend overall.

Cheers

Jimmy

March Madness and WICKED

After the Roberts left on Friday we came home and had a pretty relaxed day and night.  A bunch of people were gone and there were only a small group of us left in our flat.  We don't get to watch March Madness on TV but we can stream it off the internet so we set up 3 different computers all on different games and watched the games while enjoying a couple pints.  Saturday rolled around and we got up and went to the gym and walked home from there.  The weather this weekend and the beginning of the week has been absolutely fabulous.  The last couple of days has been sunny and 55 or 60 and I have been in shorts.  I do get looked at kind of funny because I am in shorts and they are still in scarfs and jackets.  Saturday we walked around outside and spent the day outside but didn't have a plan so we just wondered.  That night we continued to watch March Madness and hung out.  Sunday we headed to the Brompton Oratory, which is a famous Catholic Church just about a mile from here.

On Monday we went to see the musical WICKED.  It was so good! I am not the one who likes musicals but this was very good.  The two main roles were such good singers it was remarkable.  It was quite the show and was voted best musical of the decade.

The show was very long and it ended up being a great night.  We student rushed tickets, which means we go one hour before the show and our tickets were incredibly cheap.  The tickets were 62.50 and when we rushed ours we got them for 27 pounds.  We ended up being 5 rows from the stage which was unreal.  

Other than that it was kind of a low key weekend.  Watched a lot of March Madness and hung out with a small group of us.

Cheers

Jimmy

Roberts Week

Where to begin? I left off last time updating through Monday night so here is my attempt to re create this week.

On Wednesday, we had a big paper due, which put a small damper on the things we could do on our day off.  So, much of Tuesday was spent writing a paper and then meeting up for Evening Song at Westminster Abbey.  The Abbey is a little under construction for the big wedding so we had to sit in the very back.  It made it hard to understand the songs and prayers which was a little tough to pay complete attention but overall is was a cool experience.  After mass, we headed over to Piccadilly Circus to show the Roberts and Roane's around the Time Square area of London.  We had dinner over there and then came home to finish editing the paper.

Wednesday, we had class in the morning and then took the clan up to Camden, which is a northern area of London with massive amounts(city blocks long) of famous markets.  We spent a good amount of time up there, most of the time eating the delicious foods they offer there, before we had to come home for night class.  However, on the way home we decided to show them Hyde Park and Kensington Palace, but got side tracked.  As we got off the tube on the Hyde Park Corner tube stop, we noticed copious amounts of Police Officers patrolling the area. It was quite odd, and I went up to ask what was going on.  They said everything was fine, but I could tell there was something suspicious going on.  As we walked no farther than 50 yards ahead we saw big TV cameras and groups of people gathered.  We could hear loud chanting noises.  I immediately went up to ask the TV man what was going on and he just pointed at the top of the building and said it was the Libyan Embassy.  As I turned to look, I saw men on top of the roof of the building waving Libyan flags.  I talked to the camera guy and found out all sorts of stuff.  They were protesters trying to get the UK involved in Libya to help out what was going on.   They had climbed up scaffolding the night before and said if any police tried to get them down they would jump.  We sat there and watched for about an hour before we had to go to class and as we were there we noticed the number of bystanders and protesters grew exponentially. Anyways, we left and went to theater class where we saw a play on Global Warming.  It was alright, nothing special.  We met up with the Roberts and a bunch of people from our theater class at a local pub we frequent before heading home.

 Thursday we had class early in the morning and then met up with the clan and headed down to Brixton where we showed them our favorite pizza place.   The pizza is a lot of that you would see in Italy and very good.  After that, we headed to Oxford Street, which might be the down fall of me, shopping with 4 women.  The only plus was Jay was here so we wondered around the stores trying to keep ourself sane by guessing prices and thinking of stupid things we could sell that people would buy.  This went on for about 3 hours before we got to go to a pub.  Guiness time! We meet up with some people from our flat and had a great night to St. Patty's day.  Ended up being a great week.

Today, we woke up and took the clan out to the airport to say good bye after a great week.  It was hard to say good bye and send them on their way back home but it had to be done.  Tonight, there are only about 5 of us in the flat because people are off traveling, some to Ireland, others to Paris and what not.

Anyways, that is the week in a short review.  Thanks to the Roberts and Roane's, it was a blast showing you around.


Cheers

Jimmy

Windsor Castle and London Eye

As I mentioned last time in the blog, I have been playing tour guide the last couple of days.  The first was Friday when my friend from highschool came and I tried to take him to some of the big attractions around town.  We kind of did that by finding pubs close to tourist attractions and having a pint while catching up on our time since good ol STA.  It was a great night and fun to see how he has been at Westpoint.

Saturday morning we headed out to the airport to meet Libbie's family who arrived some time around noon.  We traveled out to LHR which is about 45 minutes on the tube and headed back to South Kensington to their hotel which is about 100 yards from our flat.  After we moved them in we headed out to see Covent Gardens, which seems to be the best place to show our guests.  We walked all over that area and had dinner at a pub called The Prince of Wales which was very good.  After this meal we walked over to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese which is turning into our favorite pub to bring our guests too for the sole fact of the history.  The sign on the outside of the pub says REBUILT in 1667 which gives you an idea of how old it really is.  We meet up with Charlie, my room mate, and his parents there and had a couple pints.  Fun place to hang out and talk.  After this we headed back to South Kensington and went to Zetland where some of the members of our group were.  We stopped and introduced the Roberts to all the guys from our flat. At this point in the night the  jet leg caught up and we headed home.

Sunday morning we were up bright and early for our trip to Windsor Castle which Scott, our director, planned for us.  We headed to Paddington Tube stop where we caught an actual train to head out to Windsor.  It was about 45 minutes in total because we had to transfer in a town called Slough(which was where the British TV show "The Office" was shot).  Windsor Castle is where the Queen spends most of her time and she actually calls this place home.  We heard that the Queen was having lunch when we got our tour.
Here are some of the pictures of the Castle.  The sad part is, we couldn't take any pictures inside the castle, which was very cool.

 

After our tour we headed home and ran to the hotel before heading to the London Eye which was very cool.  We set our time for 630 and it was a perfect time because it was dusk when we got on and dark by the time we got around the enormous ride.  Here are some pictures of the view up there.

You get some very cool views from up there.  

Today we had class most of the day and for the first part of the day we went to the present day Shakespear globe theater which is as accurate as can be remake of the one from 400 years ago.  It was pretty interesting to think about the plays he directed and how they performed them in comparison to what we see today.  For example, there was not multiple copies of the script lines, only one, so the actors(only boys in these days) had to be very good at improving when there lines were suppose to be said and what not.  Better example is how the words were spoken, used to describe what was going on rather then special effects we see today.  Anyways, we had a actual class after that and than I came home to take a nap.  Tonight I went to see the broadway show Dirty Dancing, which was not up my ally, but the performers and dancers were very talented an it kept me entertained.  

Tomorrow I have a paper to write! Fun fun.  Anyways, that is what is going on in my life right now and I hoped you liked some of it.

Cheers

Jimmy

Not much to say

If any of you have been looking frequently at the blog you probably have noticed that I have not been updating it recently.  To tell you the truth, I haven't really done much because of our school work.  It is a little different here where as in England our big mid term papers are due the week after spring break.  So, upon arriving back in the England I have been going to class, working out, reading and writing papers.  It hasn't been the England that I am used to, but I guess I am STUDYING abroad so it might be alright to devote a week here and a week there to homework....

Anyways, the upcoming days should be a lot of fun because Thursday night is karoke night and having just turned a big paper in, everyone is ready to go out and have a fun night in good ol London town.  Tomorrow, my friend from high school Nate Schwartzbauer will be arriving for just one night.  He goes to West Point and is in France but wants to spend a night in London.  Just after he leaves I am off to the airport to meet Libbie's family who flies in on Saturday.  I will be going out and doing some fun things now so the blog will be more entertaining.

Hope all is well.


Cheers


Jimmy

Spring Break-Rome

After a great trip to Barcelona we headed to Rome for the rest of the week.  We took off early in Barcelona and landed in the early afternoon in Rome.  It was pouring rain when we landed which made the adventure all the more fun.  We tried to find our hotel and it was not exactly an easy task.  On top of all that, there was another language barrier but this time I had never taken even a high school class on it.   We were lost and could not find our hotel and it was pouring.  We saw 4 other tourists that got off the metro with us and we passed them about 4 times walking around this random neighborhood, each time we were laughing with them cause we both knew we were completely lost.  As we were walking, frustrated and wet, we looked just mad until we made eye contact with a random lady and she could tell we needed help and she pointed us in the direction.  However, this right direction was not our hotel, it was another one.  Eventually we found our hotel.  It was still raining and at this point it started to storm. We went into the city center and grabbed a pizza which was great. We could not walk around because of the rain so we headed to our neighborhood for the night.

Wednesday we headed over to the Coliseum which was an amazing experience.  Here are some pictures from it.

After the Coliseum we headed over to the ruins of Palatine Hill.  It is another small city like but completely ruins.

Again it was rainy and this took up most of the day for us.  We walked around the area and then headed to dinner.  They eat very late in Italy, much like Spain, and after dinner we headed home for the night because we had to get up early in the morning to see the Vatican.

Thursday came and we meet up with a bunch of people from group that have been in Italy.  We went and saw Saint Peter's Basilica and the Vatican. Here are some of the pictures.

The Basilica is enormous, they say it can fit 50,000 for mass if needed.  

After the Basilica we headed over to the Vatican city walls and entered in.  It is huge and we went to the Sistine Chapel and museum of art.  There are thousands of huge religious art pieces before you enter the Sistine.  You can't take pictures and they are very strict about it.  After the Vatican we headed down and walked a lot of the town.  We headed down to the river and saw the Castel San Angelo which dates back and is very cool.  It sits right on the river.

Castle San Angelo.

We continued our walk and headed to Piazza Navano which is a really artsy part of town.  There are people doing all sorts of drawings and art work and selling them to the tourists.  It was a neat little place.  By this time it was getting later so we continued our walk over to the Trevi Fountain. 

This is the famous fountain.

We had some dinner and then headed home.  Friday was a day of walking around the city and then we had lunch.  It was a nasty day of rain but we had a night set up with one of Libbie's relatives who lives in Rome.  We got picked up and shown around the city by Walter, the husband of her relative.  He was born and raised in Italy and he showed us around before taking us to have an amazing meal.  It was sooooo good.  We headed home and had to get up really early to catch our flight back to London.  

Overall it was a great trip.  Totally different then London in every aspect of life, but it was nice to see different traditions.  

Cheers

Jimmy