September 30

            Today, I fell in love with paper.  After class, we went to this café/paper store that makes its own paper.  It was so beautiful.  I feel really silly about freaking out over a piece of paper, but the pages were so delicate!  They had intricate designs, textures and even leaves and flowers pressed into the pages.  It was absolutely fantastic. 

            Lauren and I broke off from the group when we decided we were dangerously close to wanting to buy random pieces of paper that would serve us absolutely no purpose and went to the grocery store.  We bought the food that we needed to tide us over until our next food allowance, and I was brave and bought a meat and potato pasty pie.  This is apparently a pretty British food.  It was delicious!  Basically it was like a pot pie with just beef and potatoes, but it was fantastic. 

            At 2:00 that afternoon, our group set off to go visit the British Museum for the first time.  We got to see the Rosetta Stone and the artifacts the British had recovered from the Parthenon in Greece.  The sculptures and pieces from Greece were amazing.  I’m going to do a very poor job of trying to explain this, but the pieces felt like they were actually moving.  The fluidity being their motions, despite the rigidity of the stone, was really just captivating.  I think I could have looked at those pieces for a really long time.  That, and the fact that I was looking at something over three thousand years old really got to me.  The best part is secretly touching something from the exhibit.  You’re not supposed to, but the temptation to touch a part of history, just a rock or a stone that so many other countless people have touched was too much for me sometimes.  But we should keep that in the cone of silence…I don’t want the Royal Guard after me. 

            We only caught a glimpse of a tiny portion of the British Museum.  It’s completely massive, and I’ll have to go back several times to be able to see everything that it has to offer.  Lucky for me, it’s free.

            After the museum, Lauren, Brad and I went to Oxford Circus where a lot of the shopping is.  If you are ever in London, make a point to go to Primark.  It is like a combination the Target clothing department and the Forever 21 of London.  There are tons of really cute clothes for really good prices.  For example, I got a skirt for 5 quid.  That’s London speak for 5 bucks.  It was amazing.  I also got a shirt, which I’m extremely excited about.  And then I bought a coffee mug that has a map of the Tube system on it.  So I went a little crazy today.  But, these are the first things I’ve bought except for post cards, so I was actually pretty proud of myself.

            We got back to the flat and had dinner pretty quickly.  Then Lauren and I showed the guys how to get on the roof.  It was completely dark by this time, so we figured we had a lesser chance of getting caught.  The city is really pretty at night, even though you can’t see much of it from our flat.  I love sitting out on the ledge.

            When we came back in (it gets pretty chilly at night), we watched a classic movie we had rented from the library.  The librarian was really excited when we checked it out, and even started quoting his favorite lines from the movie.  What movie was this?  Gladiator.  So good.  So epic.  Absolutely fantastic.  It was the perfect end to a really long day of walking around shopping in London.

September 29

            I feel like I am in a mix of Shakespeare in Love and Harry Potter.  Today, we went to the Globe Theater.  Yes, the actual Globe Theater.  This is right up my alley, because I not only love theater but also am extremely interested in this era in history.  In the 1500s and 1600s, when Shakespeare was really popular with the king and the common people, the Globe Theater was built as a hugeeee open air theater to put on his plays and other plays that were less popular. It's a circular shape, with the stage at the back and seats built into the circular walls (that's where the rich people sat...it costs more to sit). The bare ground is in the middle of the theater, and that's where the poor people (aka all of us) stood for 3 hours to watch the play. Even though I'm short, I could see the stage really well. It was amazing. And this is the same theater from that time period, except that it burned down in the late 1600s I think during a performance of Macbeth. That's why even today it's bad luck to say "Macbeth" before any type of show. I NEVER ever said it when I did musicals and plays in high school. And yeah, they've restored some parts and things like that, but oh man. It was so awesome. I was freaking out the whole time. The play we saw was Henry IV, which was written by Shakespeare. It's basically about the power struggle behind the English throne in the 1500s, and it was in Shakespearan language and all that. But it was really good! And I laughed pretty hard several times. I was kind of scared that I wasn't going to be able to understand what was going on, but I really got into it.  The only bad part was when it started to rain in the middle of the show.  Since there’s no roof, everyone busted out their rain jackets.  I, unfortunately, didn’t have a rain jacket so I borrowed Lauren’s plastic trash-baggy poncho.  Yeah, I was styling.  You would have been pretty jealous if you had seen me. 

            Another cool thing that I got to experience was walking across the Millenium Bridge.  For those of us that have seen Harry Potter, this is the bridge that the Death Eaters basically destroy in the latest movie.  Remember at the very beginning when this walking bridge is made to toss and turn until it breaks over the water?  Yes.  That bridge.  Oh man, I felt pretty legit. 

            However, when we were making our way back to our flats, somehow Brad and I got separated from the rest of the group.  And then, I somehow got separated from Brad.  It was kind of tense, just because I was a little worried about everyone making it back.  I was perfectly fine; I knew exactly where I was.  It just wasn’t necessarily something that I want to happen again.

            That night, we all stayed in and did homework.  It had piled up mysteriously on us, and we all had soooo much to do.  Basically, in the girl’s flat we all sat around the living room or at the kitchen table, trying desperately to understand the foreign language that is the philosophy of religion.  Again, I’m not ashamed to say that I’m terrified of that class.  Hopefully it’s not as bad as I’m making it out to be.

September 28

            So, I have officially been to all of my classes.  After sitting through speech and philosophy of religion, I think it’s safe to say that I will not like B Day’s classes…or B Days in general. 

            Today was pretty slow.  We went on a coach tour of London after classes.  Our guide, Suze, was hilarious as she showed all the girls where Prince Harry goes clubbing and the infamous military men’s bar, Paxton’s Head.  The military bar is actually very safe though, since the men are required to be absolutely respectful towards young ladies or they run the risk of being severely punished or even kicked out. 

            After the tour, a group of us traveled by Tube to Camden where all of the charity shops are.  The charity shops are basically good will stores that donate a huge portion of their profits to a specific charity named on the front of the store.  Everything there is pretty cheap, so you can find some really good deals if you get lucky.  It was exciting to see what we could find.

            Beyond that, there really wasn’t much that happened.  I had to read a chapter in one of my philosophy books, and I can already tell that it will not be a party. 

September 27

            Ah.  The first day of classes.  What joy, for the college student studying abroad.  Actually, school wasn’t bad at all.  The only class I had today was Humanities, and it was really interesting.  I think I’m going to end up really liking this test.  We had a quiz the first day and a reading assignment due, but I aced the quiz so I’m fairly confident in my ability in this class.  We had chapel after class, and as a result we were done with “school” by noon today.

            After classes, our sponsors had planned a scavenger hunt for us to get us more comfortable with the city and the Tube.  I was in a group with Caroline and Lyndsey, and our team name was Spain.  Each team had ten clues that they needed to follow to arrive at the same final destination.  Our sponsors told us we should be done by 2:30, and then let us loose on the unsuspecting city. 

            Our first clue led us to King’s Cross Station, home of Platform 9 ¾.  It was absolutely amazing for a Harry Potter fanatic like me.  My whole group basically loves Harry Potter, so we were pretty excited about our first stop. 

            Next, we were sent to Covent Gardens to take a picture by the new Apple store.  Covent Gardens is ridiculously huge, with tons of stores and lots of people everywhere.  We had to get a random person to take our picture, which was kind of awkward, but so far we were feeling really confident about our group’s chances of winning.

            I’m pretty sure the next stop was to Leicester Square.  There, in the middle of the square, is a discounted ticket booth for shows playing in London.  Our task there was to get one person in our group to do ten push-ups  in front of the ticket booth.  Well, one girl was wearing a dress and she opted out.  I was wearing a skirt and I tried to opt out, but the other girl absolutely refused to do the push-ups so I was the lucky one that got to do them in a huge crowd in the middle of Central London.  Lucky me.

            Our next clue sent us to Piccadilly Circus, where we took a picture in front of the massive digital screens they have in the middle of the street intersection.  I have to say though, the next stop was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in London.

            Clue number five sent us to Harrods.  Harrods is massive and amazing and beautiful and crazy expensive.  We were supposed to go to a French bakery named La Duree to meet up with two of our sponsors who had a treat waiting for us.  After eating our lovely macaroons, we went back through Harrods to the Tube.  I promise you, the whole place was like a dream.  The cosmetics center smelled beautifully of perfume.  In fact, our group agreed that we wished we could smell like that every day.  It was amazing.

            By the next clue, we were starting to drag.  We had done a lot of walking, and it was getting really close to 2:30.  After taking pictures with Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and doing cartwheels in Green Park, we were REALLY tired.  We headed off to our final destination, the London Zoo.  The zoo is not on any map we ever saw, and we looked at plenty of them.  We ended up guessing correctly where the zoo was, but once we got off at the Tube stop we literally had to walk like between two and three miles to get there.  After walking all day, this was not a party. 

            We came in second place by ten minutes and reached our final place at around 4:30, two hours later than we were supposed to.  It was fun, but not the last 4 stops.

            That night, we really just stayed in for the most part.  I got to eat Chinese food, which I had been craving desperately.   But beyond that, we didn’t do much.  Just rested our feet and prepared for classes the next day.  I did however have an epic conversation with Josh about whether Ohio or Texas was the better state.  I think it goes without saying that I won :)

September 26

            This morning we had our first church service in London.  The Tube was out of commission, so we had worship service in the Organ’s flat (our professors).  The singing was actually really good today, and I loved the songs we picked out.  Dr. Organ’s lesson also really got me thinking.  He started off talking about how there’s an ongoing debate at several churches about how money should be used.  Many people have no problem using the money to fix up the church building when it’s needed, but others think that it’s not Biblical to do so.  Then he told us the story of this man hundreds of years ago who was painting the massive stained glass window at York Minster.  This window is as big as a tennis court…literally.   The man in the story was painting the very top window, but he was using the tiniest brush strokes imaginable in order to show as much detail as possible.  Another man was talking to him and asked him why he was bothering with the small details since no one would be able to see it.  The painter replied that God would be able to see it.  That really hit home with me…about doing your best for God even if He’s the only one that’s going to know about it.  There are so many massive, beautiful, and intricately decorated churches from hundreds of years ago that are so different from our church buildings now.  While many of those churches were quite possibly built because of the vanity of a church figure, like the clergyman or the pope or whoever, the people that actually worked on the church or donated money to the church’s construction were giving their all for God.  They were using their talents or giving their wealth to bring praise to God, while living in dirty hut-houses that were far less beautiful.  I’m doing a really bad job of explaining how this blew my mind a little, but it was a really good lesson.

            After church and lunch, Lauren, Mindy, Mary, Travis, Brad, and I all went on the Tube and went to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, and several other places.  The coolest thing though was getting to see Big Ben for the first time!  Seeing Big Ben and Parliament and things of that nature is what really makes me realize that I’m in London, in a different country, overseas.  Unfortunately, it started to rain about then, so we headed back to our flat and got our umbrellas. 

            We reconvened to go get hot chocolate at a nearby café, and then we just walked around for a bit.  Our group kind of split off into different factions when half of the group decided to go back to the flat.  The group that I was in went off to walk around and find Brad a cheap watch.  This was easier said than done.  It took forever to find a place that sold watches at all.

            Later that night, we went to Wagamama’s for our group meal.  This is basically a noodle and rice bar, and it was fantastic.  I had been craving Chinese food since I left home, and while this was not exactly food that I was used to it did satisfy my craving temporarily.  I got teriyaki chicken and rice and it almost made me cry it was so good.  We had fun trying to eat with chopsticks, and I’m pretty sure I’m going back again soon.

            When we got back to our flat, I had a skype date with my family and got to talk to Brooke and Josh, some friends from Harding.  Even though I love the group I’m with and I’m getting closer to them all the time (figuratively and literally), it’s so great to talk to people that I’m really close to from home (and yes, I’m including Harding in that “home”). 

            Mindy and I were hanging out in our room, procrastinating reading for class and going to bed, and before we knew it everyone else was asleep and it was 1:00.  I think I see us as the crazy, outgoing, loud faction of our group, like the girls that live down the hall from you that never stop moving or never seem to sleep.  You know what I mean?  It’s kind of fun being “that girl” for a semester, because when I live in the real dorms that’s really not me at all.  It’s taken me so much less time to get in my element with this group of people than it did when I first moved into the dorms a little over a year ago, and I think that’s a very good thing.

September 25

Today, I finally did laundry.  And it made me soooo happy.  I sadly woke up at 9:00 in the morning, even though I was planning on sleeping for forever.  But, it turned out to be good because there was no one in the Laundromat.  Lauren, Mindy and I went walked down to the laundry room and just hung out and talked for a little bit while we were washing our clothes.  After that, we ate lunch in the flat (I am in love with peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches right now.) and then Lauren and I set out to explore London.

In all honesty, we didn’t go very far.  Lauren needed an adaptor, so we got that and then we went to Sainsbury’s, our local grocery store, to pick up bread and tea.  Yes, I have become addicted to English breakfast tea.  I put milk and tons of sugar in it and it is fantastic.  We headed back to our flat and made tea for ourselves.  While we were sitting at the table drinking, I figured out that you can actually get to the roof of the flat from the window of our sitting room.  Lauren and I then decided that the most Londony thing we could possibly do is sit outside on the roof of our London flat and drink tea.  Epic? Yes it is.  We climbed out onto the ledge of our window and sat there for a good half hour, completely out of the line of sight of the average passerby on the street.  Once we had gotten comfortable sitting so high up, we stood up and took pictures on the roof.  I took my classic jumping picture, which you will have seen at almost every location I have been at if you’ve been looking through my pictures.  Unfortunately, that’s right about the time the Director of our facility was walking by on the street and saw us on the roof.  She apparently sent a security guard to come tell us to get down, but he was obviously used to dealing with college kids.  When he poked his head out of the window and told us to get down, he added that if we were going to get on the roof we needed to do it at nighttime.  I think the guys were slightly jealous that we thought of getting on the roof before they did. 

I stayed in for the rest of the day, mainly because I was still feeling a little sick.  However, later that night Lauren and I dragged Travis and Brad out of their flat to come exploring with us.  We rode the Tube for the first time, which is their subway system.  The rest of my group is very comfortable with the Tube system now.  I, on the other hand, will never EVER be able to ride them by myself.  I would end up in Scotland somehow, I just know it.  We went to Picadilly Circus, which was like the Broadway Street of London, but mostly we just rode the Tube to random places, walked around until we got bored, and then got on the Tube to go home.  We had a lot of fun though.  When we got back to the flat, we made the guys tea (they’re scared of their kitchen) and watched British crime shows.  Just when we were about to all go to bed, the fire alarm went off.  It was just like living in Sears dorm last year.  We all had to evacuate the building for a few minutes.  Most of us were barefoot and it was cold.  Thank you random person in our building who doesn’t know how to use a toaster oven.

September 24

Today was yet another long day of driving.  Like, I think it was the same distance from York to London as it is from my house to my grandparent’s house in Arkansas.  It felt like we were in the bus for forever.  However, it was all worth it because we’re in London!

            On the way to London, we stopped and ate at a service station that had many restaurants attached to a hotel.  I’m sad to say that I ate at Burger King.  It was my first real American food that I’ve had this trip, but the alternative was KFC so I think I made the right choice. 

            When we finally arrived at London, we quickly put our stuff away and then went straight to orientation, which was basically telling us how to log on to the wireless internet and all of that stuff.  We figured out where our classroom and the library are located.  Then Lauren, our sponsor, showed us where the local grocery store is.  Guess what….I GOT A STRAIGHTENER!  It made me so happy.  We bought the basic necessities that we would need for our apartment, and then we got to explore our flat.  I’m rooming with Mindy in the smallest room in our entire flat, aside from the bathroom.  When we saw our room, we immediately began to rearrange the furniture to create more space.  I think we’re going to get along well.  Neither one of us have major issues with personal space, and while we’re not slobs we’re not neat freaks either.  We were both in choir and we both love music and singing.  Besides all of that, this whole trip we’ve been saying and thinking the same things at the same time and we both have toy poodles named Cocoa.  Yeah…we have a really weird connection.  So I’m thinking this will end up being awesome.

            The rest of the night was dedicated to facebook, putting up pictures, unpacking, eating dinner, and watching The Kingdom of Heaven with the guys.  It has Orlando Bloom in it, so I was happy.  Unfortunately, I think I’m sick.  Or I have really bad allergies.  Either way, by the end of the night I looked like death and sounded like a man.  We’ll see how I am in the morning, but my plan is to dope myself up so much that it will all just go away.  Just kidding…but seriously.