Blenheim Palace

Friday, 6 November 2009

So I forgot that after our trip to Bath and Stratford, on our way home we stopped at Blenheim Palace--the place where Winston Churchill was born and the Dukes of Marlborough have lived.

It is huge huge huge and incredibly beautiful--thanks in part to all one of the Dukes having married a Vanderbilt...!

Earl's Court Talent Show and Hair Dying Party!

Megan, Liz, and I had a hair dying party...with some onlookers ;)
Here Liz and Megan are working on mine. Megan's is now red/purple and Liz's is a darker blonde. A tradition in the making!

What's more fun than a trip to the...Cemetary!

Sunday, 22 November 2009

Since Stephanie is part communist at heart she had wanted to see Marx's grave at Highgate Cemetary. So she dragged me out there the other day in the cold drizzly mud. For the cemetary that serves as the final resting place of the father of communism, we thought it was a little ridiculous that we had to pay 3 pounds to get in!!!

It was muddy and extremely overgrown with tiny mud paths we had to 'vigilante bushwack' through, but we made it around to see a lot of cool people's graves: Marx, George Eliot, her lover, Virginia Woolf's dad, Sidney Nolan, and plenty more.

I said Marx's head looked like Santa, so here I am giving "sitting on his lap" and giving him my capitalist Christmas list! :D

The Royal Ballet!!!!

Thursday, 19 November 2009

Stephanie and I fell in love with this picture when we saw it at a Tube station. So we decided we had to see this beautiful man leap.

We finally ordered tickets and got a great deal - 10 pounds!! Our seats looked pretty decent too! And it was perfect since he's not in everything, but we found him in The Sleeping Beauty - more perfect because I wanted to see something classic.

We had class all day with Deacon Duncan going around to various religious places, blah blah blah, came home and got ready. We looked adorable, by the way!

The Royal Opera House is really beautiful!
"Hey, there's the band!" Name that quote!

Our seats did turn out to be really great. We were off to the side, but had a great balcony to lean over and could see almost everything except the nearest corner and bits of the very back. Luckily not much went on there.

I loved the Violet Fairy. The Princess was pretty good, too. She and another amazing guy had one "oops" each but everyone was incredible and so expressive!! I especially loved the dressed-up couples at the party at the end: the blue bird couple, an amazing group of 3, a Red Riding Hood and wolf, and an adorable cat pair--the boy always trying to look up the girl's tootoo! It was soooo cute!

And Sergei Polunin...he was BRILLIANT!!!!!

We had such a great time! The costumes were beautiful, the music was awesome, and everyone put in 110%!! We were beaming!

Regents Park

Sunday, 15 November 2009

I had gone with Erin and Megan but we never made it to the gardens unfortunately. They were really beautiful!! I cannot believe how many roses there still are!

Harry Potter in Oxford

Friday, 13 November 2009

The class to the train to Oxford to check out the colleges and cathedral. It is actually a very quiet town--not much to do unfortunately, but other than the rain it was fun.

Our guide took us to Trinity College. First thing were the Harry Potter stairs! Used in just the first one I think!

Then we got to go into the dining hall that the one in HP is modeled after. There was a cool "Alice" window since Lewis Carrol was big there and his Alice was the Dean's (or whatever) daughter that he was close with.

We went inside the church and checked out some cool stuff. Then around some of the other colleges and the library. One awesome thing was a building used for more Harry Potter!! Madame Pomfrey's Hospital Wing
and the library
One right above the other!

Then we got to split up and wander. After lunch we went to this awesome shake place where you could have WARM ice cream shakes and they had about 150 different flavors!! It was awesome and sooo delicious!

We wandered a lot more going in and out of shops and then went to the Ashmolean Museum. They had a lot of Pre-Raphealite stuff, Powhatan's (Pocahontas's dad) mantle, and Guy Fawkes's lantern! There was a lot of cool stuff there.

Then we wandered some more and eventually ended up at the Alice shop.

Forgot my umbrella on the train :(

New Moon Rocked My World!!

Friday, 20 November 2009

Megan H, Stephanie, me, Judith, Molly, Ashley, Chelsea

We got there about an hour and a half early...and they don't really do that in London, I guess so we had the place to ourselves a while. But it was good because it filled up fast and we got to bond with these really nice, funny girls--one from Georgia living in London!

So we were RIGHT in front of the theatre entrance and ran to get our seats! It was sooo funny. One girl who'd been trying to get ahead of us with her friend while in the lobby fell down so...karma!




Oh! It was too good!!! I can't wait to go again and again!

Megan and Liz couldn't go with us because they were leaving for Rome :( but when we got home they left us a few gifts! :D

I'm Catching Up :)

I'm catching up on fall break, but the posts are a little out of order sometimes. Enjoy.

P.S. Sarah - lots of New Moon stuff for you!!! Keep Going there's lots more down down down!!

More New Moon

Kristin is walking under of the big umbrella to the far side of the blonde woman. You can kindof see her black hair. This is her interview with the M.C. Enjoy, you can hear pretty well.

Stratford-upon-Avon

5 & 6 November 2009

Before arriving in Stratford we stopped at Anne Hathaway's Cottage. It was really small and beautiful. I wouldn't mind living there! And we didn't really have time to wander too much, but the gardens looked really beautiful. I still can't believe how cold it is and they still have flowers all over!

When we got to Stratford our driver took us around to point out all the sites before dropping us off at our guest houses.

Then we were on our own to explore. We checked out Shakespeare's daughter and son-in-law's house, his granddaughter's house, and some other stuff.

We always have the most fun outside :DPosing in front of Julius Caesar

We went through the Shakespeare exibit. It was really cool and just played videos--nice to get a break from reading stuff! That lead right into Shakespeare's Birthplace. It actually felt smaller than the A.H. cottage!

We went back to our rooms to take a little break from the cold. At 630 the whole group met up to go see the performance of "Twelfth Night." They did it in a really interesting way with a kind of middle eastern feel even though they couldn't take it much farther than the music and costumes. It was really funny--especially when the three guys are eavesdropping on Malvolio's monologue--they did it from a big treetop that came down from the ceiling. So funny! Not as good as "As You Like It" at the Globe, but still good!

Then we all got to go to dinner at The Dirty Duck. It was pretty nice and the actors actually showed up there after they were finished at the theatre!

The next morning we had until about 12 to wander so we checked out Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare's grave is. I loved his funny little poem.

We walked down by the river and then up toward town to grab lunch and then get back on the bus to head home.

Stonehenge, Avebury, and Bath

4 November 2009

Class trip!

We headed off to Stonehenge first. Paul wasn't our driver and we were pretty sad but had to carry on. This guy was from the Cotswolds, though, so he knew everything about the area we were going.

First to Stonehenge.

Then to Avebury to check out more rocks! That became the joke of the day--that we would tell people, "Yeah, we took class trips. We walked around in sheep shit looking at rocks." :D It was actually really fun!

We stopped there to have lunch and then headed out to Bath.

We checked in and headed out for our guided tour. It was pretty short, but we saw some of the basics--including where Nicholas Cage used to live, ho ho! It ended at the Roman Bath and Pump house so we all went in there. The excavations were pretty cool and the water was really beautiful. I loved the green and all the smoke. It had a great, ancient atmosphere. And I was a rebel and touched the water--very warm!! Then we went up to the pump room and tried some of the water. It tasted unfiltered and rusty. The dry saltiness just kindof made me thirsty.

Then we went back up to the Jane Austen Center before it closed. It was so cute--they had Everything Darcy!"Mr Darcy: Priceless" :D

Then we went to dinner at this chain pub that had a sweeeeet deal on Indian food of all things with a drink included. And deserts were 2 for 1 so we left feeling stuffed like never before!

Back at the hotel we hung out and shared YouTube videos and had nice heart-to-hearts!
And dancing! :D (Yeah, I know it's sideways!)