Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered: London Style

Halloween weekend is upon us! BOO! Not in the I’m pissed sense, mostly in the im trying to add some All Hallow’s Eve cheer, plus a little shout out to the Boo Bear…Anyway, yes it is Halloween weekend, and Im pumped! I love Halloween! So, Friday we don’t have class, so Rachel and I decided it would be a great idea to finish our Palace escapades with a visit to Hampton Court Palace, the favored palace of one Henry the 8th. Oh man, were we pumped! We took a train out to Hampton Court, which was about an hour away, if not less. It was really nice because the palace was literally right across the river from the train station. It was a beautiful area! And the palace was MASSIVE. I didn’t expect it to be that big. It was bigger then Buckingham and Kensington pretty sure, but smaller then Windsor. It too had people living inside of it still. I couldn’t believe how big it was. The palace was a maze too. We had to go all over the place to make sure we had seen it all. I think it was my favorite palace next to Windsor. It was soo cool. They had it themed so it was like the wedding day of Henry to Kateryn Parr. We toured the state apartments all 5 sets of them (each king/queen had their own design and area that they preferred), the chapel (STUNNING), kitchens (huge and amazing), cellars, and various courtyards and great halls and stuff. It was soo big and just overall the coolest thing ever. I loved it soo much! Then after you think you can see no more, there are even more buildings that serve different purposes. They kind of look like soldier barracks but house different areas of need for the castle. We toured some of the gardens, but there are like 12, so we only did the 2 closest ones. We also did the hedge maze, which was more challenging then the one at Blenheim, so that was a lot of fun. We had the best time! I would definitely recommend that to anyone that comes here. I want to go back!
Once we finished at the palace, we went back to London and cooked dinner. We had to pick up some finishing touches for our costumes too. All I needed to buy was a mask, so my costume was hella cheap, but Rachel’s was a bit more complicated. She was a vampire, so she bought a whole new outfit, fake blood, and fangs. It was a lot of fun to shop. The girls, minus Rachel, plus Ben wanted to watch a scary movie, so we decided to search for one. All of our friends from the states have been telling us about “paranormal activity” so we decided to boot leg it and download it off the internet. Oh man minkz, did we think that movie was funny. It was not scary at all. I was more confused as to what the hell was going on and how people thought it was actually scary. Our commentary throughout the whole thing was more entertaining then the actual movie. It was so fun watching it! After the movie, I just went to bed, I was hella tired.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Its Saturday, Halloween, and a beautiful day in London! We were going to go to the London Dungeons today, but we couldn’t get tickets, and its really expensive, so we opted out. Instead we all went out to lunch together at a café down the street. It is super cute and italian. I had the best caesar salad, holla! After lunch, we all just kinda hung out and started getting ready for the evening. Rachel got ready first because she was going out to the Albion (a pub in our neighborhood) with some of the guys and 2 girls that she met at Roehampton (where we take our management class). The rest of the girls, plus matt and ben got ready to head to sidcup to attend a halloween party hosted by 2 girls from Rose Bruford (the school we go to for Global Issues). It was great meeting the girls and all of their friends, especially because most of them will be coming to study abroad at SMU next year. It was so much fun getting to hang out with them and see how British students interact outside of school. After awhile Krista, Lindsay, and I wanted to leave, so we headed back to London. This was kind of a problem because all the trains stop around 11, so we had to take buses…needless to say it took us about 2 hours to get home. Once home, I took a shower and went to bed. It was a good time! Haha I love sleeping.
Ah yes, Sunday again! The first of November! I cant believe I go home in a month and a half! Its crazy!!! Its definitely weird because I feel like I have been away from home for a flong time, but I feel like I have been here for a very short time…Its odd how that works. Well, I woke up to the door bell and was surprised to see a delivery man…I think he was scared of me…You would be too if you saw my hair when I wake up like that…Anyway, I was PUMPED! My wonderful parents sent me a sweatshirt and best of all a ZUNE!!!! YAY! I HAVE MUSIC AGAIN!!! HOLLAA!!! You don’t know happy I was! Back to my day…I started it by just hanging out with everyone in the flat, cleaning a bit, but then Sam and I decided we were hungry, so we set out to find some food. We walked to a café near by and got really good sandwiches and had a great conversation. I love sam, she is a good kid! :) its soo funny because I look at all the people that are on this trip with me and I realize that the only person I really knew before I went on this trip was Rachel. Its crazy how close you get to people in such a short time. I love it though. Later that night, Rachel had seen a flier promoting a French chamber choir concert at the church near our flat, so we decided to go. We both love choral music, so we figured it would be pretty. It was great! They were wonderful and sang a lot of great songs. It was a wonderful, relaxing end to the day.
Technically Monday isnt the weekend, but I will keep going because there isnt much to say….We went to class at 10:15 and got out at 10:45, thanks Gary! We didn’t have much to talk about, so that was cool. Rache and I decided to run errands. We went grocery shopping and bought cookie sheets so we can make some cookies here pretty soon. After errands we all just hung out around the flat and made dinner. At around 8:30, we left for this small pub in the Camden area. We were all going to see a play called Nursery Crimes, did Humpty fall or was he pushed? Yeah, it sounded interesting. It is a fringe theatre, so it is a hella small space and has these kind of racy, cutting edge, plays. The one thatwe were seeing though was just a musical with adult language. Oh man, it was definitely the best play we have seen this whole trip! Everyone agreed. It was positively the funniest thing I have seen in awhile. I died. I don’t think I stoped smiling. All of the songs were incredibly witty and the story was just really cool. All the characters were from different nursery rhymes. It was just an amazingly creative show. I loved every minute!
After the show, we all went back to the flats and fell asleep. Another successful night in London!
Finally, there ya go! All caught up! Well, besides today, which Im still living…and so far nothing has happened, just school. So, there ya go! I will update later when my life becomes more interesting…We go to Scotland on Thursday, soooooo incredibly pumped!!!! WOOT WOOTT!!! Oh, one cute thing is that Meran’s mom, Sue, aka my mom too, but whatever, sent me the cutest package! I love her! : ) It made my day!