*Ceilidh and London

Hello! This post is going to be fairly long since i haven't written on here in awhile. First off, we started classes last Monday. And I LOVE my classes! Especially my Women's Studies class.. Environmental Science and British Studies are both fairly interesting. And my teachers all seem really nice and helpful. Thank goodness! The only not so fun part is I have to wake up for 830 am classes each day.. But i'm done by Noon so we can deal with it! :)

The picture is me on the stairs in one of the secret passageways. Very dirrty!! And lots of spiders!! -->YUCK!!<--

I went back into town last week and walked around with Elizabeth and Hailey [[Elizabeth's roomate]]. We went to the McDonald's! It was rather funny. They had donuts, covered with cadbury choc., and they had carrot sticks as well. The chicken nuggets tasted a bit different, but it was a lot better then some of the food I eat @ school! So it was a nice little treat.. We also went to Claire's that day. I saw buttons all over the place saying comments such as "Caution Hen Party" and "Hen Party On Patrol". I wanted to know what it meant, so I asked the cashier. She said, "The Bride-to-be wears it.. it's for her night." So it's a bachlerette party! I learned something new everyday! :) Next I went for a walk around the little village right next to Harlaxton. I got a bit lost... I tried to go to the church but somehow ended up in the back by the cemetery. I found some horses on the way.. however they were not nice horses at all! I did however find a jeep! An American jeep with military stickers from Cherry Point! I used to live there, so I'm tempted to go knock on the door and be nosey. Lol.

The pictures with the dog and the little green man are pictures from my little walk. The little green man is the thing that flashes when you walk across the street. And the dog picutre.. well i just liked that they call then leads. :)

On Thursday night, we had Ceilidh, which is Irish and Scotish dancing. It was quite fun! Very hot and fast, but still extremely fun. We learned tons of different dances and tons of people were there! So I got to dance with everyone! After that, just hung out with everyone.. Nothing too exciting! The picutres are of me dancing, and then me and Leah when we were taking a break.

Friday we went to London!! It was amazing! We wope up quite early.. Had to be on the buses @ 9 am. It was not fun! I slept on the bus ride to London, which after a half hour stop for lunch was like a 3 hour bus trip. So I got to catch up on some my sleep! We made it to London around 12:30 and then took a bus tour around the city before check-in time. The hotels here are ridiculous! Well.. the one we stay at was. All the beds were twin/single beds.. there was NO alarm clock, and NO pens either! There wasn't a Bible either.. which was weird. Ooohh! And we supposedly were supposed to get a continental breakfast, well let me tell you.. Continental doesn't mean continental like at home. Here it means cereal + bread. That's it! I was very dissapointed.. I eat more for breakfast @ school then I did @ the hotel. Sadness. Ok but back to my story.. We checked in and then Leah and I did our own walking tour of London. We walked basically the whole city! We walked to the British Musuem, the National Portrait Galley, Parliament, West Minster, the London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, #10 Downing Lane (the Prime Minister lives here). We walked from one side of London, to the other side, and then back to our hotel. We didn't get lost once either! It was a bit confusing, the road names are on sides of buildings, so they're a bit hard to find. But once we found out what street we were on, we were awesome! The musuem was amazing! I could spend a whole day there if I had the time. West Minster was closed when we went, but I want to go inside there before I leave. The Prime Minister's house was pretty cool, there's police outside and a baracade so you can't walk by it. But it was still really cool.. Buckingham Palace was awesome! The guards weren't outside though so I couldn't tell them any jokes, they were on the inside fence. Made me sad.. but maybe next time! After that, Leah and I went out for dinner and headed for our rooms!

Saturday! We got up.. had our lame continental breakfast.. then Elizabeth, Leah, and I went to the London Zoo. I haven't been to a zoo in ages! And it was fun because my dad has been to the same zoo! The animals were pretty cool.. We did notice though that English people like to put vinagear on their french fries.. weiiird! After the zoo, and our legs killing us!, we decided to hop on the underground and head back to the hotel. We took ourselves a little nap. After that Leah and I met up with Derek, a boy from Harlaxton that we knew, and went to dinner with him. Dinner was hilarious! We went to McDonald's.. and we weren't sure if they gave free refillls or not. Derek asked and the lady looked at him like he was crazy. She had no clue what he was talking about! That was our hilarious moment of the night! We also went to Big Ben and Buckingham Palace at night to take night photos. After that, we went to a pub with him for a little bit, then we headed our seperate ways.

Sunday now! Again.. woke up to the lame continental breakfast. After that we headed out early. We spent the day at Hamptom Court Palace, where King Henry VIII lived. The palace was gorgeous! On the river next to the palace the town was having a duck race! It was really cool to see that.. we went and sat down there and watched the little rubber ducks float down the river. I guess the town reached some sort of record with all the ducks that they had. After that we headed back to school.. it was a long and tiring weekend so it was nice to be back "home" finally. On the way back it rained, the first rain since I've been here!

Nothing very exciting is happening here this week. On Friday we have a field trip for my British studies class, and tonight we found out who are meet-a-family was! We don't get to meet them until next week though. So I'm very excited about that!

Miss you all!

XoXo,

Tiffany