Yesterday we had quite a busy free day. We started out going to the Natural History Museum, and it was a lot more interesting than I had anticipated it to be. They had a lot of dinosaurs and hands on stuff. I was very surprised because this museum was free, and was of very high quality. As it turns out, most of the museums are free here, they just recommend donations.

Also, we went to get tickets for We Will Rock You, and right by the ticket stand is where Sex in the City was having their premier! At 10a.m. there were people already standing outside waiting in line to see the stars walk the red carpet! So anyways, after the Museum, we went shopping! I didn't get anything, but I had a lot of fun going through all of the shops that we don't have in the States.

We went to We Will Rock You, and it was a blast! It is about the greatest hits of Queen, and most of the songs (besides a few) were all Queen songs. I was kinds iffy about the plot of the story at first, but it ended up being a great show and I wish we had time to go to another!

Well, today is our last day in England, and we're spending it going to Wimbledon and going shopping to pick up a few things before we head home tomorrow. Our flight leaves Heathrow around 3, then we have a connection in Chicago and we'll land in Des Moines at 9:45.

Thanks for taking time to somewhat experience this trip with me! I've had a lot of fun and have learned so much! This has been a great experience :) See you all tomorrow!

It's me again! Today we had a free day in London, so we decided to do a couple of things. First thing in the morning, we went to the London Tower. Here, they had a lot of the Royal stuff like crowns, swords, and china. They actually use a lot of the china that was on display because there were a lot of "in use" signs where they were missing. The china was really pretty because it was all gold, real gold I'm assuming! We also took a guided tour of the Tower which was really interesting.

After the London Tower, we went to Subway to have lunch. After Subway, we went to Ben and Jerry's! Yummy :). It was really hot again today, so ice cream just topped it off! We heard today that this may be the hottest May they've ever had here in England, and I believe it. I didn't pack any shorts, and I'm definately regretting that decision! Anyways..

We went to the Tate Modern which was pretty interesting also. I don't know too much about art, but I even found it interesting. It was even free! Well, besides the most popular paintings like Picaso! So, we didn't go in there, but we went to the rest of it.

After the Tate, we tried to make phone calls back home for Mothers Day, but it turns out that nobody likes to answer their phones! Moms cell phone doesn't take international phone calls, and Cathy was in church. (excuses, excuses) ;). Tomorrow we're going to go shopping for stuff to take home, and we're even going to try to make it to Wimbledon. I'm pretty excited to go to Wimbledon, even if it means just taking my picture next to the sign that says "Wimbledon".

Oh, I saw someone get arrested today while I was looking for a phone booth! I thought it was pretty cool! Well, I'm going to get going to bed, I'll see everyone on Wednesday or Thursday!

Back in London

Today we left Leeds around noon for a 2 and a half hour trip back to London. I had free WiFi on the train, so the time went pretty fast. We got to London and had free time for the rest of the night. We ended up going to Hard Rock Cafe, and it was a lot of fun. We got to go down to the "Vault" where we saw everything from a jacket worn by Elvis and guitars from Queen and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There was even a rough draft of a song by the Beatles. This rough draft even had their handwriting and editing on it!

After the Hard Rock Cafe, we came back to the hotel to hang out for a while. We went and bought phone cards, made a couple phone calls, and got ready for our night out. We ended up walking to Camden Town, which is a music district in London. There are also a bunch of clubs too. Tiff and I decided that it looked too creepy around there, so we ventured our way back to the Royal National.

Today has been a laid back travel day. It's nearly 2am right now, so I'm headed off to bed. I can't believe that we only have like 5 days left in England! This trip has gone by so fast!

Until next time...

Off to Leeds!

Thursday, May 8th:


We woke up this morning and ate another English breakfast which consisted of bacon, eggs, tomatoes, baked beans, and toast. It was sad to leave Sandra and Doug this morning because they were so welcoming to us. Sandra and Doug were the owners of the Pub/Hotel/Restaurant and the Hostel. They served us breakfast, drinks, and supper everyday that we were in Greenhead. They even kept us up to date on our news because we were away from a TV and Internet the whole time we were there.


After breakfast, we walked to catch a bus to take us to Haltwhistle where we got on a train to head to Leeds. Our train ride today was gorgeous! We went through the Pennine hills and through the Yorkshire country.


We are now in Leeds, and this is a lot different of a city than we are used to. It’s modern and full of people our age! There are around 75,000 university students here, and the town shows of it. We were walking to find somewhere to eat tonight, and there was trash everywhere. We had a bad first impression of it here, that’s for sure. We don’t know if there was some sort of a festival going on before we got here, but the garbage cans were over flowing and it just looked dirty.


We are only here for a night, and we’re headed to London for our final stretch of the trip. We are going to have a busy last 5 days of our trip because there’s so much that we all want to do! We just don’t have enough time or money to do everything we want!


I also noticed today that I’m breaking out from something, possibly the water. I have red blotches all over certain areas of my skin, but it might just be from all the sun we have been getting over the past 3 days. O well, I’ll hopefully live!! =) Well, it’s off for a night in Leeds, I’ll see you all back home in 6 days!


Oh, and all of you back home will be happy to know that I’m going to take a little trip out to Wimbledon! Yay!

Housteads Site Survey

Wednesday, May 7th:

Today we went to Housesteads to do a site survey of a Roman fort. My group consisted of Maren, Jayson, Alisha, and myself. We took charge of the Commanders house, and the Hospital. Again, they were so technologically advanced for their time! The commander had his own bath, and his own person bathroom which was really odd for this time period. They believe this fort was built around AD 120. The hospital also had a drainage system which would carry the blood from the surgery room, and possibly a bathroom, but we weren’t quite sure if the hospital had it’s own bathroom.


Today was a really warm day and most of us got burnt, but I just got a really good tan! When we got back from Housesteads, we went to the Pub/Hotel/Restaurant again for supper where I had my first Fish and Chips experience! It was pretty good, but their tarter sauce was really strong and tasted like it had a lot of vinegar in it. Oh, and I also had Sticky Toffee Pudding, and this was heaven! We went back to the hostel and discussed what we had discovered about the site.


We discovered that this particular fort was mainly for military use. This is because it was right on the wall, close to direct fire. The Romans wouldn’t have wanted their families that close to fire. The other group decided to hop over to Scotland for a minute, and discovered that Hadrian’s wall was effective because it was very difficult for them to climb the wall back over to England.


Tonight we met a backpacker from England and one from Holland. We were all out there as a group eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Oddly enough, they had NEVER heard of such a thing! So, we decided to let them have some of ours, and they absolutely hated it! Weird, huh!? We also taught them how to play some card games, and they seemed to catch on really fast. Hopefully we gave them a good American impression!

Greenhead: Day 2

Tuesday, May 6th:


Today we took a trip to Vindolanda. Vindolanda is a Roman Fort built a mile from Hadrians Wall. Here, there were archeologists still digging, which was really cool to watch. We decided since the Fort was a mile from the actual Hadrians Wall, this was a family site. As a little side note, we found out that they actually celebrated birthdays, and women were educated, and we know this because they were writing letters that were actually discovered in the ground!A lot of the site is still underground. You can tell where stuff is underground because of the way the ground “flows”. It’s really bumpy where they have yet to dig.


We went to the museum, and we saw everything from written letters to chicken dinner remains. It’s so amazing how everything is preserved when it’s nearly 2000 years old. Who would have thought that someone would have been digging up remains from supper 2000 years later?! It’s so crazy because these people were so advanced in about everything. For example, they had “central heating”, and running water. These people were very technological advanced for their time considering we didn’t even think about this kind of thing for years later.


When we got back to Greenhead, we ended up going back to the Pub/Hotel/Restaurant and then back to the Youth Hostel. We went to bed early because we were due to wake for our site survey early the next morning.

Greenhead

Monday, May 5th:

Today we arrived in Greenhead and went for an excursion! We had an assignment where we had to find a castle, Hadrians Wall, the mile marker, and the old Hadrians Fort. This assignment was really tiring at first because we had to walk up a huge hill. This hill was a killer!


At the beginning of this assignment, halfway up the hill, we followed a sign that took us straight through a field that was filled with sheep. We found out half way through the field that this was the wrong way, and the sign was probably moved. So, we continued to the Roman Army Museum where an employee told us where to find all of our assigned places. She told us that the Fort wasn’t there anymore, so we simply took a picture of the sheep filled field. So, after that we trekked our way to the top of a huge hill where Hadrian’s Wall is. We complained the whole way up this hill, but once we got to the top it was amazing. The view was absolutely spectacular! Plus, we got to see Scotland which was right on the other side of the Wall. Next, we found the Mile marker and had a group photo taken here.


Next, we had to walk through a bunch of fields to make it to the Thirlwall Castle. Here, we climbed the remains and took a lot more pictures. This place was so peaceful! We came back to have supper at the local Pub/Hotel/Restaurant. This town of Greenhead was so small and probably had a population of 50! Although we weren’t too thrilled when we got here, we all fell in love with the people, landscape, and the peacefulness.

York cont..

On our 2nd day in York (yesterday) we met up with Dr. Mark and visited 3 different places. This was awesome because he knew all about everything in the museums so he could explain everything. My favorite part was visiting the York Minster. They are currently working on it because it's at a 7 degree tilt, so they're taking every piece off and reassembling it. It's quite amazing how they do it. And we got to hear the choir sing and that was very peaceful. Everything we've seen here has all been super cool, and the trip is going so fast.

Last night I was really pooped out so I layed down to take a nap right after I blogged at 7pm and I didn't wake up until 8:45 the next morning. So, I got about 13 hours of sleep! It felt amazing!

Today we woke up and went to breakfast and decided to venture to the Viking Museum. This was sooo cool! This museum is built right where they dug up all of the viking remains. We went through the museum on these boat like/chair like things so we didn't have to walk. The Museum also (purposly) smelt like it did back then also. And let me tell you, it's not a pleasant smell. They had life like vikings working, and they even had one making sounds in the bathroom as if he were taking a dump. This was quite amusing actually. They also had real "vikings" working on coins, and making yarn. I just wish all the museums were like this!

During our free day today we did a lot of shopping. I bought a something for Dad and Cathy and Mom. But, I'm saving most of my money for when we're back in London so I don't have to tote everything around with me. Well, I'm going to get going, I only have 10 minutes left on here, and I have laundry to get done.

I miss you all (including dad)! haha.

Until next time...

York

Things are still going good here. I have a lot of exciting new stuff for all of you reading this! Let me begin..

In the last that I posted about Bath, I'm going to add to that. Our proper tea was delicious and a lot better than I had expected. I had Earl Gray tea, and I'm pretty sure that's just a traditional tea. They had a piano playing in the background and it was a really peaceful activity for once. After that, we all went out for supper, and then we decided to go on a walk at midnight. The walk was so much fun and we got to see a lot of stuff that we wouldn't have if we didn't go. We met up with some guys from the University of Bath, and they were willing to teach us how to play rugby! It was a lot of fun. We didn't get back that night until 3am, and didn't get to bed around 4. We had to wake up really early (7) so we could eat breakfast and catch our 8:45 train. This train ride to York was 4 hours long, so I got plenty of time to sleep.

We are now in York and we did a lot of walking around today. This is another pretty city. We ended up going on a haunted walk around the town, which was a little disappointing. The walk started at 7:30, and it was still light out at the end, so we didn't see anything. We do a lot of walking in this town because just the walk from the Youth Hostel to town is 20 minutes. I enjoyed walking until this trip, and now I'm always worn out and want to sleep all the time. But, I keep chugging along anyways!

We've been asked to write about how our views as Americans have changed and what we miss back home..so here I go! I wouldn't say that I've changed as a person, or my views have changed, but, now I'm realizing what everyone else think of us. I had heard that no one likes Americans, but now I see it. I think maybe I've changed my views about some of them. But, most of them are as sweet as can be, there's just those sour apples every once in a while. Next question: Things I miss. I miss a lot of things. I miss Sean, family, and my cat. I also miss McDonalds grilled chicken sandwhich with no tomato and extra mayo. I miss having a lot of flavor in my food and the fact of knowing that it's really greasy! :) Oh, and I miss my own bed.

That's all I can think of for now, I'll try to get back on here tomorrow but the internet is expensive at the hostel. It's £2 for 30 minutes! What a rip off! I miss you all.

Oh, and I broke my camera today. I dropped it and now all of my photos are blurry. Sometimes it takes all purple pictures. Sometimes it's not blurry if I turn the camera off and on in between every picture. I know, it's a bummer. But I also don't want to buy another one for the simple fact that I'm living on a budget for the next week and a half!

Bath, Day 2

We're still in Bath, and after a long night at the pub, we had to wake up at 7:30am. It was a kicker, but well worth it. It's only around 2pm right now, but I'm going to post a blog since I currently have a chance to do so.

We woke up early and went to the Bath Spa. This was really cool. Once again, I'm amazed by everything that's so old and not demolished. It makes a place so rich in culture and history. The spas were really hot, and some of them were even boiling. It stunk really bad, but nontheless, well worth it. We had this audio tours that we had to explain everything. I wish I could upload my photos right now, but eventually you will all see them. :) Oh, and we also got to taste the spa water and it wasn't good at all. It tasted about like the London city water, but hot.

Next, we're headed off for a formal English Tea. Our reservations are at 3, and I'm pretty excited for it. It's going to be about £15 for it, but hopefully it'll be worth it. There goes my daily budget! I also bought a lot of chocolate today to take home and share with everyone! Tonight we're going to go to the pub again for student night, so hopefully that'll be fun.

I've got to get going for now, I miss you all back home!

BATH!

We're currently in Bath, and once again, this place is amazing. We took a tour of one of the housing units in the Cresent. It's so pretty in these houses, and they're a lot bigger than they actually look. I wish I could post pictures, but I'm in an Internet Cafe and I'm not able to do it with my camera.

Back to the Bath topic. The shops here are very plentiful and very cute. A lot of them are expensive, but anything is going to be expensive when the dollar is so weak. I'm really watching what I spend just because I don't want to run out of money towards the end of the trip. But, I think I'm doing really good right now.

We didn't do much today, we just explored this amazing city. I made some phone calls back home to Dad and Grandma and Grandpa. I'll make some more calls later, but it was already 2am when I got done talking on the phone.

For supper tonight we couldn't decide on where to go, so we started walking around and saw this decent looking Italian restaurant. We walked in, and to our surprise, this is a fancy restaurant and everyone is wearing suits....besides us. We had alot of weird looks, but the waitors were great fun. I forgot to mention that the food was amazing. After supper, we went to another pub and played somem cards. This was a lot of fun, and I think we're going to do the same thing tomorrow because it's student night.

Another side note, our hotel that we're staying in in Bath is really nice. It's a big upgrade from our last hotel that had mushy sausage for breakfast.

Alrighty, well that's enough for today. We have another relaxing day in Bath tomorrow and I'm excited to explore this city some more!

St. Albans

Today we made a trip to St. Albans which is a city full of Roman ruins. The town is what I pictured of England in the first place. It's a very quiet town with a lot of little Harry Potters. We visited an old roman theatre which dates way back (I'm not sure on the date). It's pretty amazing how everything was made without technology. There are a lot of parts of old houses too, and the history behind every single one of them is very awesome. We went to a viewing site of an old roman mosaic and it was the actual floor of a house. I found it really cool how they had some sort of heating system way back then. What they did was they had a furnace room where they put coal and fire and from there they built a little tunnell and that's how the heat went throughout the house. Why didn't we think of that?!

Also in St. Albans we went to our first pub. I loved it there mainly because I could touch the ceiling! =) I had my first cup of English tea and I discovered that it's really strong and their tea bags are round instead of square. I had a grilled chicken sandwhich thing which was pretty good, but still not as good as McDonalds (which I haven't gotten here yet, but I will eventually).

After our train ride back we walked around, and looked in a bunch of shops. Since we couldn't come to a consensus on something to do as a group, me and two other girls (Tiffany and Meagan) decided to go and try to get ourselves lost in London. So, we started out on the underground and made the first stop. We had no idea where we were, so we took another Underground to somewhere else we didn't know. We ended up finding Picadilly Circus and China Town. We ended up making it back to the hotel around 1am. It was fun, but it started raining cats and dogs towards the end of our adventure.

Something I'm starting to notice here is that dogs are more welcome than humans anywhere! They're allowed in the pubs, trains, and stores. It's so crazy. And it's crazy because there are no open container laws here, so people just walk around drinking alcohol. Another random/weird thing is I keep looking into vehicles and thinking "There's no driver!!!"

We're heading to Bath tomorrow and I'm super excited to go there. Cheers!

Day3 in London..

Day 3:

Today was a very cool day. We spent an hour on the Underground and trains to get to Windsor. All I have to say is that Windsor Castle is breathtaking. I was so amazed at how big it actually is! Pictures just don’t do the castle justice. Inside the castle is a completely different story also. There are beautiful gardens, fabulous paintings, tons of armor, and a lot of dead people in the chapel. After the Castle, we walked around Windsor for a while so we could look around at all of the little shops and stuff.

When we got back from Windsor, we went on our river cruise that we missed yesterday. This was also really cool, but it started to get really chilly on the top of the boat, so we enjoyed the rest of the ride in the lower part of the boat. Poor Jayson was getting sea sick though! The ride itself was really cool, and the tour guide did a very good job, and added some good British humor. This ride lasted about an hour and a half. So,

After the river cruise, we went on a Jack the Ripper tour! This was so cool. I didn’t really know anything about Jack the Ripper, but he wasn’t a very nice guy! And the mystery is still unsolved! It was crazy though because our tour guide had been to Simpson nearly two years ago to do a forum event! We even got a discount on our tickets! We have to save all the money we can because the exchange rate is terrible!

After the tour, we made it back to the hotel all by ourselves!! We didn’t even get lost once. Since we were all hungry, we stopped and ordered 3 pizzas and brought them back to our room. I also made a phone call back home to check in. They’re all jealous that I’m here! Tomorrow is going to be a long journey ( 1 ½ hour) to St. Albans. Until then..

Day 2 in London!

Sunday, April 26th.

After my first day, I’ve learned quite a bit! I’ve learned that London has so many cultures! It seems like there are more people speaking “foreign” languages than actual English. Our first English breakfast experience was very interesting. They eat baked beans and mushrooms for breakfast!!! Oh, and bacon, it’s pretty much just like ham, but with a bacon flavor. I’ll have to post a picture of the bacon because it’s strange (but good). Also, grape jelly is pretty much nonexistent, their oranges aren’t sweet, and the water smells.

After breakfast, we took a trip around the city on a double decker bus. That was fun! Today, it’s kind of sinking in that we’re actually in London, but yet it still feels like we’re just in a big city somewhere in America. Our bus driver on the Double Decker was very good. He told us where all we should visit in the city while we’re here. While on the bus, we saw most of the big touristy sites including Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and London Bridge.

We hopped off of the double decker and visited the British Museum. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. The museum itself was never ending, but it was interesting . It’s interesting to think about because I don’t remember seeing one thing in the museum that belonged to the British. So, that brings about the question of “should this stuff really be here, or in Rome (for instance)”.

After the British Museum we hopped back onto a double decker and we encountered our first Anti-American. Another bus driver told Julie (our professor) the wrong pier to go on for our river cruise. So, since we got guided way out of our way, we ended up missing our cruise. But, don’t worry because we’re still going on the cruise tomorrow! Since we missed our cruise, we ended up going to see Buckingham Palace. It was really cool though because all of the flags were up and flying, so that means the Queen was in the palace, and a member of the Royal family was in another building because that flag was flying too! That was very cool. I also forgot to mention that we saw Big Ben. We did so many cool things today and it’s hard to remember everything!

The day was long and exhausting, but we ended up back in me, Molly, and Alisha’s room playing cards. We did this until probably midnight and decided to call it a night because we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.

Day 1 in London!!

Saturday, April 25th:
London is fabulous!! Before landing, we saw all sorts of cool stuff like the London Eye and Big Ben. Our flight attendant was nice enough to give us an aerial tour! I have already noticed how free and easy the English are. This city is so beautiful in many aspects, and I’m sure my fellow Americans are jealous that I’m here!!

As far as the flights here, they were long. Our flight to Chicago lasted almost if not more than two hours due to tornado weather. We went nearly 300 miles east of Chicago before turning around to circle the city again before landing. Thank goodness our flight to London wasn’t delayed or cancelled like many of the other flights in/out of Chicago. But, once I got on the flight, I did manage to fall asleep while watching The Water Horse. I’m excited for the rest of my first day in London!! Until next time….

NEXT FRIDAY!

Departure is set for next friday, April 25th! This year has flown by, and it's crazy to think that we are all leaving for London NEXT WEEK! But, I'm so ready to leave...I'm excited! We had our last class meeting last thursday and were reminded of the bare necessities. =) I can't forget my towel..or my washcloth because I guess the English don't believe in washcloths?! I guess I'll find out if they stink!

I still don't know what I'm most excited about though... probably just the fact that it'll be nice to get away after finals next week. I'm also pretty excited to act like a paparazzi fool and take lots of pictures..so check back! I was talking to my Grandpa Johnson last night and he was telling me about all the places that he's been in London/England. So, I'm pretty excited to just experience all of that myself. He even was telling me where he used to park his car =) Maybe I'll take a picture of it to give to him. He also requested a Cadberry chocolate.

Well, next week will be here soon enough. I still have so many things to do before I leave. I need to pack, figure out what I'm going to do with my money ( travelers checks, debit card, cash, etc.).Not even to mention packing. Well, adios for now!

Always-Amanda

02.07.08

Countdown: 2 months, 18 days until we arrive in London!!

Today in class, we talked a little bit about some history of England. We talked about Hadrians Wall, Antonine Wall, and Boudica. (Chapters 2, 3, 4)

Of the three topics, we are going to be visiting Hadrians Wall, which was started in the early 120's under the command of Aulus Platorius Nepos and stretches nearly 74 miles long. At every mile, there is a milecastle that could accommodate 10-12 soldiers. Between every two milecastles, there were two watchtowers at one-third mile intervals. It's said that the Wall was built to keep the Romans and the barbarians divided, but it was really a way of controlling movement. The Hadrian Wall looks massive in pictures, I'm excited to see what it looks like in real life.

We will also be examining archeology throughout England while we're there. Archeology is the study of the past human life and culture by examining materials, evidence, building, etc. We will also be taking a look at historic archeology, which is examining materials from modern history. Historical Archeology dates back AD 1500-present.

I think there are a lot of terrors in traveling to another country. I usually travel with my dad, and since he's usually there when we're on vacation, there's no need of worrying about running out of money. As we all know, he won't be going on this trip! It's kind of a good feeling of going out on a journey (to another country) with a group of people from school. I'm so excited!

Taking a journey to another country is so exciting in itself. The thought of being gone for 20 days without worrying about homework and work is awesome. I can't wait to be in London and get lost and to find new and exciting places to eat and shop. I don't want to be in London lost ALL the time, there's so many things I want to do. Like, taking a ride on the London Eye, Museums, Picadilly Circus. And that's just to name a few. Oh! And I can't forget to tell you how excited I am to stand in one of those red phone booths! :)
Until next time....