I Am Home!

So after four and a half months in Europe (and over 20 hours in airports) I am finally home! I was so excited when I got to Chicago I got a bagel and I didn't have to double the price to know how much i was really spending. It is great to be home and I am looking forward to seeing everyone. It is a bit strange I feel like I never left that I just woke up from a very good dream. If you want to contact me my cell number is the same and if you don't have it feel free to leave a comment and I will e-mail it to you!

Wicked: Front Row!

OK so you can all be jealous! yesterday I saw Wicked from the front row and it was so spectacular I can't stop thinking about it. We went to theater at about 8:00am in the rain and waited until 10:00am when the box office opened there were people in front of us who had slept at the theater, but we were able to get the last 7 tickets on the front row of the matinee, and bonus the tickets were only 25 pounds.

Turkey Bowl

So blogger is working again in London! yay but yeah I don't have time to update you all on all that I have done since the middle of October but yeah I will just start up again and show you all the pictures from November when I get home. Anyway so Thanksgiving was awsome! we had a powderpuff game and a Turkey bowl and it was a blast. It was really muddy because it had poured the night before so that made it even more spectacular! but here are a few pictures from the game!

Ireland

We had a period of time this weekend for some free travel me and five other girls decided to go to Ireland, Dublin to be precise, we had an amazing time. We went to Dublin Castle, Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and went to a dinner show that included Irish dancing and song. The next morning we woke up early and went to the coast to a town called Howth it was beautiful, we just walked around for a while down the piers and through the town and then we headed back to the Dublin Airport and back to London. Everything went really smoothly and overall it was a great trip.

Wales

Well we took a two day trip to Wales a week ago and I loved it and everything on the way there and back. Herfordshire Beacon (an old roman earthen fort) was amazing and so beautiful, the green of the hill was amaizing and I don't think that the pictures do it justice. we went to titurn abbey and we actually got to go down into an old coal mine called the big pit it was so fun I loved it!

What I have been up to since I got to London

I bet alot of you are wondering what happened to me, the answer is London happened! there is so much stuff to do here that I have had no time to update my blog. Anyway I will give you all a brief overview of what it is i have been doing. I have been going to alot of shows I went to Wicked the second night I got here, I have also been to The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miz, Mary Poppins, Billy Elliot, and on a random whim I went to Lord of the Rings the musical and was very pleasantly suprised! and I am going to Sound of Music tonight with my mom and dad who are in town. I also have tickets to the St. Petersburg Ballet's production of Swan Lake in November so I am looking forward to that. I have also been to many museums including the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Courtauld Gallery, and the Victoria and Albert. Every Wednesday as a group we all go somewhere outside of London we have gone to Blenheim Palace, The Cotswolds, this past week we actually took a two day trip to Wales. We have been to many old abbey's including titurn Abbey, Fountains Abbey, and Battle Abbey (sight of the Hastings in 1066). The second week we were here we went on a trip for 4 nights to northern England including the lake and peak districts. As you can see I have been a very busy girl and I am loving every second of it! I am heading to Ireland on Thursday for alittle free travel and I will make that the next thing I blog about hope you enjoyed hearing what I have been upto if you want to know more details just e-mail me!

England North Trip

Europe travels: Berlin and Paris

So we took an early morning train to Berlin and zoomed around all day and saw alot of sights but one day was definatly not enough to be satisfyed, there were lots of things that I wanted to see that we didn't get to but I guess that they will just have to wait for some later time in my life! We were able to see alot of things for the limited time we were there, my favorate was either the Brandenberg Gate or the memorial to the murdered jews of europe, it was all really spectacular and like I said we just didn't have time to see it all. That evening we hopped on an overnight train to Paris, the train was supposed to take 13 hrs and ended up taking about 16 hrs oh well we got there and hopped on the RER to Bussy St. George and when we got off the train my cute mom was walking towards us and when she realized that it was me she started screaming and running towards us it was great I got a wonderful hug and it was amaizing to see her (first time in about 3 months) so we went to my parents apartment got showered and then went to the grocery store (they are amaizing in France!) and picked out a buch of good things to eat. we then went back and ate raclette and then went into paris and saw the sights my night, we saw the Eiffel tower and it was sparkeling (it sparkels every hour on the hour) and then we drove down the Chams-Elysees, saw the Arc de Triomphe, and Montmartre. It was Great, I love seeing sights at night there is just something about seeing them all lit up! Our total time we spent in France was 5 days, in that time we saw many wonderful things and went many woderful places. We visited Giverny (Monet's gardens) Rouen where we went to a wonderful concert in one of their larger cathedrals. We went to the Normandy beaches and memorial, we went to Caen and saw the castle there It was all a wonderful experiance and it was wonderful just to hang out with my parents! on the 4th we left early in the morning and hopped on the chunnel to London.

More Pictures From Prague

Europe Travels: Austria, London, Czech Rep.

So We arrived in Salsburg pretty late and made our way to the hostel and went to bed, I woke up early and caught a bus to the Salsburg airport and I was off to London For my friend Ashley's wedding. The wedding was amazing and Ashley looked beautiful! after the wedding I went and saw the sights of London by night and they were beautiful. The next day I went to Portabello road and didn't even make it through half of the market before I had to leave for the airport. I almost didn't make my plane because security was so backed up, but after sprinting, and getting quite a good work out, I made it to my gate they were able to re-open the door and I was on my way back to Salsburg. The next morning we were off to Vienna, it was beautiful we went to a great art museum and went to a mixed concert that night (opera, ballet, and the Imperial Orchestra Wein)and then took a night time stroll and saw the sights then went back to our hostel. We had another early morning, we hopped on the 6:00 train to Prague. We got to Prague and started looking for our hostel and we were not in the best area so we decided to try another hostel. so we finally got settled into a better part of town and we walked up to Prague Castle and grabbed some Mexican food (it was soo good!) and went back to our hostel a little earlier than usual talked for a bit and went to bed. We woke up the next morning and saw most of the other sights in Prague climbed their hill/ mountain that had beautiful garden at the top of it and had a lovely relaxing day just walking around the city. We stayed at the hostel again that night retiring early again, and prepared for another early morning of travel to Berlin.

Europe Travels: Switzerland

So after leaving the Cinque Terre, we were off to Switzerland. The train ride from Italy to Switzerland was quite a long one so we arrived in Lucerne at about 5:00 in the evening we made our way to our hostel (the first one we stayed in) got settled in, it actually was quite nice, and headed out to find some food. We went to a small local restaurant that was recommended to us by the guy at the front desk of our hostel and it was great. we then headed back to the hostel and went to bed. We woke up the next morning to a French lady talking really loudly to herself, yeah I am pretty sure she was crazy because this continued until we left. We made our way to the train station, and deposited our bags in the train station and went out to see what there was to see. It was a beautiful day, we walked around saw the sights went to the Picasso museum, and then took a paddle boat out on the river and it was amazing we then headed back to the train station and got on the train headed to Interlocken.

When we arrived in Interlocken we got on another train to Lauterbrunnen and once we arrived in lauterbrunnen we caught a bus to a cable car station and caught a cable car (like the Tram at Snowbird) to Gimmelwald. The view was amazing! wow so we hiked around a bit and then went and got some yummy fondue, and then went and slept in a barn for the night, (the lady rents out her barn to visitors we didn't just randomly sleep in some barn) anyway the next morning we ate the breakfast that was included in the whole barn stay package and then we took some pictures and went back to Lauterbrunnen and rented mountain bikes, took another cable car up to a place called Gritchalp and rode down through Murren and Gimmelwald and then all the way down back to Lauterbrunnen, it was the most scenic bike ride I have ever been on! Any way after that we hopped on a train and headed towards Salsburg.

Euope Travels: Italy

Well I have made it back to London after tromping around Europe for nearly 20 days!!! We started out by flying into London and dropping off our big bags and then flying the next day to Milan and leaving Milan that evening for Sienna. We spent the next day in Sienna, and I absolutly loved it, that evening we took a train to Piza. We woke up the next morning and tryed to find church and the bus driver let us out at a Catholic chruch in the middle of nowhere so that didn't work out too well, we then walked to the leaning tower and all that, grabbed some lunch ( I had a yummy Caprese sandwitch) and headed back to the train station where we started on our way towards the Cinqe Terre. We stayed in the Cinque Terre (In Corniglia, for those of you that have been there it is the one with all the red brick stairs up to it!) for two nights and loved every second of it. We Hiked all five cities and swam at the last one we also ate loads of Gilato, my favorate combo was Cinnamon, Yogurt, Mandarino wow I have craved that eversince! Overall we loved italy and loved the food just as much!

I am off!!!!

Well I am off to London/ Europe! I don't know how much internet I will have access to in the next two weeks but look for lots of new posts after that! Ta ta!

A Few of My Favorite Things...

Well I watched The Sound of Music this week and I was inspired so here are a few of my favorite things.
Old movies! They just don't make them like they used to. This is from An Affair to Remember one of my all time favorites.

Lacrosse! I love playing lacrosse it is such a great sport.

Jane Austen! Books and screen adaptions alike I love them all.

I Want One!

Mozi just came out with these neat laptop covers I think that they are awesome I also love the matching IPod case. I don't think I will get one just because I am saving up for London but if any of you get one let me know so I can shop vicariously though you!

Eurail Pass Is Here!

First Pictures

Well I got my new camera and i love it! these are a few of my favorates so far.

Two of my cute nephews.

Sunny my cute dog.

New Place New Look!

well I decided that since I am going to London it was time to get a new look for my Blog so here it is, it took me a while to figure out but I am pleased with the results. Let me know what you think.

New Camera For London!

So for my birthday my parents decided to give me or rather help me out with purchasing a new camera. So after searching around for a while and scoping out the scene I finally found what I was looking for. I decided on the Canon Powershot S3 anyway this is the camera that will be bringing you the pictures of my wonderful adventures in London and other travels this fall.

Sew Useful

Etsy + Instructables : handmade meets how-to

Well I am going to enter the Sew Useful contest the prize is a singer sewing machine that is worth about $800 dollars so that would be great to have, anyway I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for what I should do. I was thinking of doing some sort of handbag, a cute apron and a cute bib or something (you can have up to 3 entries) we will see I any of it actually materializes but anyway if you have any better ideas I would love to hear them if you do have a good Idea and some free time enter the contest there are three grand prizes and not many entries, and it is a great way to get your know-how out there.

Summer Jobs!

Well with London study abroad comming up in the fall, I decided that I need to make the most money possible to make my experience in London and Europe in general the best possible, so I went summer job hunting. The first job I landed was at Whimsy clothing boutique which sells great unique clothing pieces at a great price. After landing my job at Whimsy I decided to work at the fruit stands again to fill in the times when I was not working at Whimsy. On top of these two jobs I got a call yesterday from Nordstrom and they asked me to sell in the kidswear girls dept. for the half-yearly sale and the anniversary sale. So there it is three summer jobs should keep me quite busy this summer, Hopefully with the help of Whimsy, Nordies, Taggie's, Fruit and a little help from mom and pop I will be on off to London for a great time, and a great experiance!

Green House

Well as I settle in I am loving the basement it has so much potential, this is my latest project. It is alittle sparce right now so I am definatly going to have to keep adding to it. It will be interesting to find out what color my thumb is, but for now it is just fun to actually have something growing in the green house.

New Work Space

well now that I am back home I have settled in the basement and this is my new work space so now I have a place to be all crafty, yay!