Farewell London

The end is here. It has been a fun six weeks and a great experience. It is too bad that I had to end a great trip with exams and the standard rainy day, but I suppose all good things must come to a rainy and test filled end. Maybe not. I would be lying if I said some part of me isn’t dying to get home. Back to my own kitchen, my own bathroom. Back to showering without flip-flops. Back to eating what I want. Back to the familiarity of home. However, part of me wants to stay. I met a lot of great people in London from all over the world. There is so much history and culture here that I didn’t have time to experience. Wales, Scotland, and Ireland all within a few hours train ride. Spain, Italy, Greece, and Hungary, also only a few hours away. Next time, I will travel to as many places as I can to see what these locales have to offer. Who knows, maybe living abroad for a few years is an option. By the time you read this I will already be home. For some reason they want people to pay for Wifi in the airport, ridiculous. So to all of you who kept up-to-date with my happenings, thank you. Farewell London, until next time...

What I Will Miss

With only two days left, one exam down, and two more to go, it is really wrapping up quickly. It seems like just last week I got here and had no idea where I was. I had no idea where to go. Now, I am pretty comfortable with London. The tube is easy, the little towns make sense, and I can even walk to and from places without thinking about it. While I am really excited to get home, there are some things I will miss. For instance, Pret, the premade organic sandwich shop. I will miss the tube. It makes it so easy to get around the city. I will miss all of the little pubs and the history behind them. I will miss being able to walk down old cobblestone streets and watching people drinking pints on the road. I will miss Trafalgar and Leicester Square. I will miss the free museums and art galleries. There is so much here that I haven't done that I feel I will miss, that I missed them, once I get back. Until next time...

Officially One Week Left

Only one week to go. It is unfortunate that I have to end this trip that would otherwise have been amazing, with exams. Oh well, I guess that was included in the price of admission. Not much is happening. A group got together to go to Icebar after class. I was going to go but cramming a group of 20 law students into a frozen bar presumably underground, went against my better judgment. -Was that a grown-up decision? See mom I told you.- This weekend we will be studying as much as we allow each other to. Hopefully there will also be some fun in there somewhere. Above is a video I took of a tuba playing pyromaniac? If you can think of any other way to describe it, please let me know. Until next time...

What I won't miss, at all, not even a little.

The Picadilly line at 5pm is brutal. There are so many people that it is tough to breath. Considering you are 175 steps down, the equivalent of 14 stories, it literally feels like you are fighting one another for air. Getting on the train is often difficult as there is probably one hundred people kneeing, elbowing, and punching their way past you. Then once on said train, if you are fortunate, you get to stand next to the guy who is 6'5, with a cut off shirt on, and his not freshly washed armpit inches from your face. Needless to say, it's a terrible experience. Until next time...

What Makes My Day!!!

Every day on my way to class, I take the tube to the Leicester Square stop. From there, I have to walk through Trafalgar Square to the building I have classes in. Walking through Trafalgar always puts a smile on my face. Here's why. The square is where all of the street performers congregate. Mimes, musicians, magicians, people in Darth Vader costumes, you name it. Today I saw my absolute favorite sight in the last five weeks and it wasn't even a performer. I saw a man, laying on his back with a back pack fastened around his front. In his pack, I saw what I thought was a baby sleeping. Upon further inspection, I realized it wasn't a human baby, but a baby chimpanzee with a British flag bandanna on!!! So cool. I couldn't believe it. I so badly wanted to take a picture but was afraid that it may upset the chimp and we all know how mean they can be. So this will have to do. Until next time...

9 Days Left

With only 9 days left and exams coming up around the corner, I am beginning to feel the crunch of having to fill every day with things I want to do. Therefore, I played hookie today. We went to the British Museum which had more stuff than I thought it would. The British Museum is home to 60% the Parthenon's stone work. I had no idea. There is a number of real mummies, skeletons, and random bones in piles. The British Museum also houses the Rosetta Stone, which, if I must say so myself, is quite amazing. The Rosetta Stone is what allowed us to understand ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs. It was neat. Tomorrow after class I intend on going to see the London Dungeons. The plan after Thursdays class is to go on a tour of the Tower of London. Other than that, we'll see what happens. The time has flown for the last five weeks so I can imagine this last week will go much faster. Until next time...

J'adore Paris

 Holy crap. Paris could possibly be the coolest place I have ever been. Even though we were only there for two days, we got a lot in. As WIFI at our hotel was only available in the lobby, I could not keep you all up to date with what was happening. On top of that, I couldn't figure out how to login to update my blog as being in Paris, the login page was all different.

We did make it to the Louvre which was the biggest museum I have ever seen. We waited in line for about 15 minutes to get a ticket because someone didn't buy theirs online. "Wasn't me." After we got in, we spent a total of probably 40 minutes there. We had to see the Mona Lisa, which was not as impressive as I imagined, along with the Winged Victory, a 190 BC statute of the Greek goddess Nike.

Everywhere you looked there was something really beautiful in Paris. The picture above is leaving the Louvre. The Seine river is between where this shot is taken and the Eiffel Tower, where approximately 50 artists have booths set up were they their drawings and paintings.

This is a picture of the Pantheon from the cafe where I had a glass of wine. This also happened to be the cafe we saw two couple getting into a fight. Evidently one woman threw water onto the man in the other car. The cars stopped, one woman took off running with the other woman chasing behind. Meanwhile one of the guys got out, walked to the other guys car, opened the door, and started punching him. Wild.

Here is the Arc de Triumphe, also known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was impressive. I got back to London last night about 5 pm and took it easy. I ordered a pizza and watched a little bit of streamed TV. I got a good ten hours of sleep and woke up feeling refreshed. This is my last week of classes before exams and then home. Until next time...