Rome

On the 24th of April, my friend Severa and I were suppose to leave for Rome. When we got to the airport, we learned that due to a mechanical problem, our flight had been cancelled. When we got to the front of the line to get on the next flight out, we learned that we wouldn't be able to leave London until 6 am the next day. Because the tube wouldn't have been open that early and we didn't want to pay for a cab back to Heathrow, we decided to take the free hotel room and transport to and from the airport that they offered. The hotel was a nice hotel and they gave everyone who was suppose to be on our flight complimentary buffet tickets. I'm sure after Severa and I ate, they regretted that decision. It's been a while since we've had a hot, "home cooked" meal that we didn't have to make so Severa and I stuffed ourselves. I probably finished an entire ham by myself and together Severa and I probably ate whole chocolate cake. We woke up earlier than the sun the next day so that we could catch our ride back to the airport and we could finally leave for Rome. When we got there and checked into ou hotel, we decided to do some sightseeing. We saw and took a tour of the Colloseum and Palentine Hill. Palentine Hill is where Rome was founded and many emperors had their palaces, so we got to walk around and see what remained from those. Then we headed to Trevi Fountain to check it out. I may have made a wish...or two. Then we found a place to eat and enjoyed Rome until it got dark, when we headed back to Trevi Fountain to see it lit up. It was so beautiful...and I may have made another wish. One our way back to our hostel we stopped by the Colloseum to see that lit up at night. That was also breathtakingly beautiful. On the 26th we headed to the Vatican, where we decide to take a tour. It was so cool and so big big. I took so many pictures that my camera died on me but I just enjoyed the sights for the rest of the tour. Sistine Chapel was AMAZING!! We found this thing called The Mouth of Truth, which according to legend, if you tell it a lie, it chops your hand off. I still have both hands, but it was the cheaper and probably one of my favorite things to do in Rome. If anyone ever gets there, I would definitely recommend getting your picture with it.Then we headed to the Spanish Steps and checked out some of the other places our receptionist had suggested that we see. The next day was the day we headed back to London, but Severa and I woke up really early and literally ran past the castle and the Panteon stopping only to snap of few quick pictures. We then headed back to around by where our hostel because that was the only way we knew how to get back to the airport. Once we got on the plane, we literally crashed and slept the enitre way back. It was shorter weekend than we had been planning, but we made the best of it and made sure we saw everything we wanted to see while we were there. Rome was a lot of fun.

Thessaloniki

Sorry that my blogs have been infrequent lately. The end of the semester has crept up on me and attacked me with finals and papers. Because I know I don't like to read for a really long time, I decided that I'd post more than once so that you can keep track of my travels and adventures a little easier. So, the second half of Lauren and my Spring Break was spent in Thessaloniki. We headed over on Sunday the 12th of April by plane. We forgot that it was Easter Sunday, so we didn't get the chance to attend a service in a church there. On the 13th it was a cloudy and rainy day. We tried to find the Museum of Bzyantine Instruments but we got lost and ended up in this sketchy part of town. Lauren didn't really want to do much since it was raining so we spent the rest of the day in our hotel room. On the 14th, it was raining again but this time I insisted that we do something. So we decided to head out to the Byzantine Baths. The only problem is that in Thess. there seems to be very few people who speak english, so when we told the cabbie where we wanted to go, he took us out to what felt like the middle of nowhere. We ended up near the monastary and the Byzantine Wall. We decided to take a chance and ask for directions at a restraunt. As soon as the one person who spoke english translated what we had asked into Greek, the family that owned the business all began arguing in Greek about how to get there. None of them were pointing in the same direction. As I was trying to contain my laughter at this one of the elderly ladies pulled me aside and began giving me directions in Greek, using big actions to demonstrate what she was saying. I think she then asked something along the lines of "Do you understand?" and I simply nodded my head, not knowing what she has asked. She never repeated the directions (so I'm assuming she asked something like that) and simply stared up at me smiling and patting me on the back. At this point Lauren and I had pretty much given up trying to directions, so we attempted to follow the directions the lady had given us. Somehow we ended up back in the city centre. We ended up at this place called the "Rotunda" which was kind of cool to go inside and see. Then we headed down toward the beach to find the White Tower. Much to our disappointment, the White Tower wasn't even white. We climbed to the top and took some pictures, but again, it was cloudy and rainy so the view probably wasn't as beautiful as it could have been. On the 15th Lauren and I both woke up feeling sick so "we" decided to stay in the hotel. I woke with red eyes, a horrible cough and a stuffy nose. I figured I could deal with that in order to do some sightseeing but I wasn't really wild about walking around Thess. by myself. On the 16th, "we", as in me, forced us to do some sightseeing since it was our last day in Thess. We went to the Galerius Palace which was simply just a bunch of ruins, but it was cool to check out and to be able to use the imagination to see what the rooms looked like. We then spent the rest of the day doing some shopping and just wandering around. Lauren gave me some allergy medicine, since I think I'm allergic to smoking and apparently it knocked me out. We woke up early the next so that we could catch the train back to Athens. We were excited to see the beautiful Greek countryside, but we instead actually ended up sleeping for most of the 5 hour train ride back. Then we caught our airplane and headed back to London. We came back on Friday and most people didn't come back until Sunday, so I was able to sleep in and work on homework in peace on Saturday. Well, that's all for Greece.

Athens

Well, it's raining here in Athens, putting a damper on our day here. Oh well. My friend Lauren and I arrived in Athens on Tuesday afternoon. We took the day to settle in and aquaint ourselves with the area. On Wednesday, we headed out to see the Temple of Olympian Zeus and the Acropolis. Both of these were amazing. It's so cool to be in a city with so much history. Especially since we learn about the Parthenon and such in school, but never in a million years imagine ourselves seeing it with our own eyes. On Thursday, we went to the Theatre of Dionisos (that looks like it's spelled wrong, but that's what my map told me, so that's what we're leaving it as). We also went shopping as there are many stores right outside our hotel. Yesterday (Friday) we headed out the Roman and Ancient Agoras. These used to the be the market areas of the time. The ancient agora led to the Temple of Hephaistos. I'm not really sure who that person was, but the temple was pretty cool. Today we saw the the original olympic stadium and then it started to rain so we headed back to our hotel. There's a restraunt right outside our door that gives us free drinks and deserts and a discount on our food, so Lauren and I have eaten there for just about every meal. When we walk up to the restraunt they spot us and call us "friends" and escort us to a table. We got a picture with the guy who we think is the manager, but the entire restraunt crew is funny and really nice. Our hotel also has a good looking receptionist, so I made sure I got my picture with him. He's very nice and helpful, not to mention nice to look at every day as we're coming and going. I'm so in love with Athens. There's no words to describe how I feel about the city. Tomorrow we're headed to Thessoloniki and I'm not sure what sort of internet I'll have there, so this might be my last update until I get back on Friday night. Hope everyone is having a good week and enjoying spring.

Czech Republic

This past weekend, I went to the Czech Republic. I flew into Prague and then had to take a train to a city called Olomouce (pronounced ol-um-oats). I have a friend who's studying abroad there, so she met me at the train station at around 1 am on Saturday morning. That day we walked around the city and and saw basically everything there was to see there, which is a bunch of churches and fountains. It's interesting that they have churches galore because the Czech Republic is the country with the most Atheists in Europe (and maybe the world...but I'm not sure). A week before I arrived in Czech Republic the country had just ousted their current government through a coup (I think). Many of the young people in Czech want Communism to come back to the country. It'll be interesting to see what happens with that as the prime minister from Czech Republic is the EU president until June. It will be interesting to see what happens if they become communist and how that affects their member status in the EU. I missed my flight from Prague to London and had to sit in the airport for about 6 hours to get another flight back to London on Sunday.

My mom and sister

My mom and sister flew in on Thursday night and the next day we went to see the changing of the guard, which was really cool. Then we went to Madame Tussaud's, the wax museum, and walked around the different areas for a while, where we got to see people like Justin Timberlake, Orlando Bloom, Zac Efron, the royal family, and met some of the greatest political masterminds and leaders of all time. They also had a room which had figures of some of the murderers/forms of execution from London and had a haunted house sort of thing. The museum also had a ride that talked about the history of London.
Yesterday we went on the London Eye and the view from the top was really cool. It was so beautiful. On our way to the Eye we saw people protesting the G20 summit. It was interesting to see the massive amount of people protesting as well the amount of things people were concerned about. We also went to one of the markets (the one where George Orwell's house is located) and walked around there. It was raining on and off all day, and there were a few occasions where it hailed as well, so our trip to the market wasn't the greatest.
Today we went to go see the Cambridge/Oxford boat races which I thought was a pretty neat experience. We were at the beginning of the race and we couldn't see the screen that showed us the rest of the race the greatest, but it was cool to at least say that we've seen it. Then we went on a scenic boat ride down the Thames, where we saw a lot of London. It took us down past Greenwich which was really cool to see from the water. The ride was very peaceful and a great way to end the day. So far I've been having fun with my family and I hope they've had fun while they've been here. I'll be sad to see them go on Tuesday.

Sorry I'm not very good at updating...

I'm writing this update on the past week as I wait for my mom and sister to arrive in London. On Monday the 16th, my theatre got to tour the globe theatre then we got a workshop from one of the people who works at the globe. It was really cool and I learned a lot about Shakespeare that I didn't know before.

My week was uneventful after that until friday the 20th when we took a class trip to Brighton. Brighton is a city on the English channel and is about 2 hours by train. When we got there we got to tour the Royal Pavillion. This is an old castle. It was really cool and everything in it was elaborate. The time period in which the castle was built, used a lot of oriental design, so that was cool to see. My favorite room in the whole castle was the dining room. This may sound strange to some of you, but the chandlier was elaborate with a dragon holding it up. Everything else in the room was

elaborate as well, but the dragon chandlier was the coolest

part of the whole palace. I want one in my house some day. Just kidding, but it was still really cool. The bedrooms had a lot of trap doors which was cool. We got to walk around with one of those audio guide things where you type in the number and can hear more than you ever wanted to know about anything, which I found really interesting. I think I listened to every one of the audio pieces including the extras. Then we headed down to the pier. At the end of the pier there was amusement park type rides, so a bunch of us went on them. After that we just hung out on the beach for a little bit, but it wasn't a warm day so the water was cold and sitting in one place for a long time made you cold. We didn't stay on the beach for very long because of this.

Me and Lauren on the Tumbler at Brighton Pier

The next day my friend Severa and I took a bus to Cambridge where we hung out for a few hours. Neither of us had realized that Cambridge had so many colleges associated with it (there's about 20) and had always thought it was college. We walked around some of the campuses greens which were beautiful. We happened to be there while a graduation for students in the masters programs. It was really cool to see people walking around in these long capes, it felt like something out of Harry Potter. Then we ended our trip to Cambridge by going on a punting tour of the colleges. Punting, works a lot like a gondola, where you have someone in the back pushing the boat. At first it was a little scary because boats kept bumping into each other, and we're so close to the water that I felt like we were going to fall over. It was really relaxing and a peaceful and great way to end a good day.

This is what a punting boat looks like.

On monday my theatre class went to a show called Entertaining Mr. Sloane. The main female character, Imeda Staunton, played Professor Umbridge in the last Harry Potter movie, and the cool thing is she's coming to talk to our class next Monday. I think that's pretty cool.

On Tuesday our program took us greyhound racing, which was really cool. I lost some money betting but I won the last race, and made two pounds, so I cut my losses by two pounds.

Yesterday I went to the Parliament building and watched the House of Commons debate about Iraq which was really cool and probably the highlight of my trip so far. I also attended a Foreign Affairs committee meeting about Afghanistan. That was cool, but they don't debate bills in committees when the meetings are open to the public, so it was only a discuss which got a little boring after a while.

That's been an update on my adventures of the past week. Hopefully you're all having a great week and I'll update you on my time with my family when I get a chance.

Amsterdam

This past weekend I went to Amsterdam with a bunch of people. It was cool, but the group of people I chose to go with only wanted get high the whole time we were there. One of the boys was celebrating his birthday last friday so we went to the Anne Frank House and everyone else went to get high and then we went to the Heineken Brewery. It was sort of cool, but I got left behind by the group several times because I wanted to learn about things and they just wanted to find the free beer that we got on the tour. In the room where the boil the ingredients together all the machines were gold and shiny and I felt like I had walking into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. I was half expecting Oompa Loompa's to come running around the corner. Then I spent the rest of the night "coffee shop" hopping. Coffee shops in Amsterdam are the places where you buy drugs and space cake. Trust me, I didn't buy or try any, it wasn't my cup of tea. Even though one of the girls here has proceeded to tell everyone that I got high with them and I've tried to tell people it's not true and they don't really seem to believe me. Then I went back to the hostel and sat in our room reading my book while everyone else went to a strip club in the Red Light District. Again, that's a little disgusting and not really something I was willing to pay 25 Euros to go see. The next day, I was up and ready to go sightseeing at around 8 am, the rest of the group who was hung over, didn't even roll out of bed until noon, meaning that we wouldn't even be ready to go anywhere until 2 pm ish. This means that we just spent the day walking around shopping and "coffee shop" hopping and finding a grocery store where we could buy alcohol for cheap. Again, didn't participate in that since we had an early flight to catch the next morning. The hostel that we stayed at, we had booked an 8 person room, well apparently this means throwing an extra matress on the floor of the room in order to make it 8 person. I didn't really care where I slept so everyone else called the beds and made fun of me for having to sleep on the floor. Honestly, I don't have a problem with sleeping on the floor until step on my bed with dirty shoes or wake up in the middle of the night hung over/high and decided the fastest way to the bathroom is by stepping on the bed, which at this point contains me. I also was not happy with the fact that the other girl who went on the trip claimed one of the beds and didn't even sleep there any of the nights. She's been fooling around with one of the boys here (he broke up with his girlfriend of four years for her) and slept in his bed every night. Personally, if you know that you're not gonna be sleeping there, why claim the bed and let someone else have to sleep on the floor. I thought this was a little inconsiderate. In end, I don't think I plan on going anywhere with this group again because I'm only here once and want to see as much as I can while I'm here.