The Month in Review.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Goodness this past month has been a whirlwind…

I have desperately wanted to post blogs about all my trips but have not had ANY time, so heres a little rundown for you….

Since I last blogged I have traveled to some awesome places and had some amazing visitors!

October 23-31: My fall break in Spain! I traveled to Barcelona, Madrid, Toledo, Granada, and Sevilla! My favorite was Granada!

In front of the breath-taking Alhambra.

November 6-8: “Adventure Weekend” at Preseli Ventures in Wales! This was one of my all time favorite weekends! We hiked, jumped off cliffs, swam in the ocean, and went sea kayaking, I think everyone can infer how hard it was for me to leave…

Jumping off a cliff, thank you waterproof cameras.

November 13-16: Mom and Dad in London! I had the best weekend with my parents! From lunch at their favorite pub to La Cage Aux Falles to high tea to Mom’s pictures… I have so so many amazing memories! I only wish that Heath, Kir and DB could have been with us!

The Dicken’s Inn- the perfect way to start a trip :)

November 20-24: LINDSAY & Taylor! This past weekend was amazing! Lindsay flew from Dublin to visit me and more importantly to go to the Taylor Swift concert! We had the best weekend in London! We did everything; fish and chips, Harrods, changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, Notting Hill (where we met Taylor Swift), Billy Elliot, gelato, embankment at night, National Gallery, and an amazing concert at Wembley Arena, just to name a few! It was so hard to see her go!

Lindsay, Taylor Swift and I

I hope you all have wonderful Thanksgivings! Mine won’t be the same without the Bracken/ Barrett/ Gearity clan...

Love,

Kelli

One Month Left :(

I have been absolutely terrible about writing recently, its quite amazing how time can slip away, I can’t believe I only have a month left in this amazing city.

I pinky swear to post about Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Toledo, Granada and Sevilla), Wales, and my parent’s visit very VERY soon!

Hope all is well at home!

Cheers,

Kelli

Ps. Congrats on the win Minds- I really wish ‘dem Stillers would get their act together!

A Week in Londontown!

Life has been quite hectic and I have not been able to update! Though a bit delayed here’s a brief summary of my week in London between Istanbul and Spain, I’m leading quite a rough life...

The week started off great! Em and I had lunch in the park and recapped our weekends! After a bit of grocery shopping, I met my friend Alex to head over to the University of London student center where we signed up for ULU (The University of London Union). We are lucky that our student coordinator worked out a deal that we are able to join the union and participate in their clubs! Even better is that SU picked up the registration fee!

We didn’t waste any time getting involved! We headed to our first ULMC (University of London Mountaineering Club) meeting on Tuesday night. We took the tube all the way to the Miles End station and met the group at an indoor climbing wall. Though we were not at all dressed for climbing (oops) we signed up, got a belaying refresher course and climbed away! After climbing we followed the pack to the local pub. This pub is very much a “climbers pub” the back room being packed to capacity after the wall closed! I was very much in my element and loved talking with and getting to know all the British students! I am sooo glad we joined and are finally able to be fully immersed in London society!

Wednesday started with babysitting Emma, something I have started looking forward to! It’s a great break from school and she is such a good baby! Afterwards I started on a few of my midterms and then geared up to meet my new friend Ryan for a run. Ryan, I found out as I was panting to keep up with him, is a VERY accomplished runner… Though his less than 5-minute mile pace had to be greatly adjusted to mine, it was a great run! He took me on a pretty cool tour of London, even managing to run by Big Ben as it was ringing!

Thursday I went to a performance for my Performance Live class. It was called Circus Cirkor, and was quite crazy but an overall really cool performance! Afterwards I came home and was able to skype with both my sisters, a very rare occasion! I never realize how much I miss them until I see their faces…

Friday started early as we met at Faraday House (my school) to go on a field trip to Hampton Court Palace, a royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London.

We were lucky enough to get a private tour of many of the rooms and then had a few hours to explore the extensive grounds on our own. My favorite part was the extensive English gardens that surround the estate!

It was so interesting to see this palace a week after Istanbul, it was as different as night and day from the palaces we had seen in Turkey. This is a shot of one the main staircases in the Kings Apartments, the mosaics I had fallen in love with in Turkey are replaced by floor to ceiling murals.

I loved these ribbons that were flying from the trees lining the entrance.

Saturday was another early morning. I met Alex at the Marylebone tube stop and we made our way to the train station to meet ULMC and go for a day climb. It was very nice to get out of London and explore the countryside which was only an hour or so away!

The rock was very similar to the sandstone rocks I have climbed in West Virginia and all the students in ULMC were a lot of fun to climb with. Though the rock was quite difficult I was able to climb a bunch of the routes (even if it did take me quite a bit longer than some of the human spiders I was surrounded by). I was quite sore the next day but I am so motivated to improve my climbing, especially if my dream comes true and I am interning in Colorado this summer!

On Sunday I did, or attempted to do, work all morning until my 5 o'clock run with Ryan. What we had planned on being a 45-minute run turned into a two-hour marathon of London. We ran through Holborn, Primrose Hill (thought of you the whole time Kelly!), Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath (where Coldplay goes for inspiration, no big deal), Camden town and my neighborhood of Marble Arch. It was a perfect night for a run and we watched the sunset from some of the highest points of the city! We covered about 11 miles of London, never ever thought I would be able to run that far!

Monday and Tuesday were filled with yet more work and lots of ankle icing, unfortunately my ankles don't enjoy my marathon runs as much as I do!

I started Wednesday off with a great run around Camden Town in the London rain, thankfully it later cleared and was a beautiful night!

Thursday started too early with some last minute studying before my history midterm, I also started getting quite excited for my quickly approaching trip to Spain!

After my midterm I worked more on my paper and created a master itinerary for our trip! After a long night of writing and packing I finally headed to bed and set an alarm to begin our adventure to Spain! I was sooo excited to begin our holiday!

Hope all is well at home! I will update with lots and lots of pictures of my weeklong exploration of Spain in the next few days!

Cheers-

Kel

Two Continents, One Weekend

Last Thursday began my adventure to Istanbul, Turkey! Once again I flew out of Heathrow airport, which is very easily accessible by tube. Adding to the ease was that I was traveling with the school therefore they had organized all of our tickets and accommodations and we simply had to show up.

The flight to Turkey was about 4 hours, my longest since I have been here, but the free meal and wine on our British Airways flight made it anything but strenuous. I was lucky enough to sit next to another kid from Syracuse on the flight, he is a skier and a photographer, and needless to say we had more than 4 hours worth of conversation material.

When we landed in Istanbul it really didn’t look too different from London. This may be because I live in quite an ethnic neighborhood of London therefore seeing signs in multiple languages doesn’t look strange to me, but it is also because the initial areas we were in were very “westernized”.

From the airport we took a bus to our hotel, after a bit of mayhem, Kelsey, Suzanne and I went to our flat for the weekend. At first we were upset that we would have to stay in a room that was not actually in the hotel. We quickly got over it after venturing from our private flat to the beautiful terrace above seeing the view. It was even better the next morning…

We woke up early Friday to prepare for what would be a long day of sightseeing. After a hearty breakfast (with apricots of course, my new staple food) we followed Forbes, a professor from SU London who was our guide for the weekend, to Topkapi Palace. This beautiful palace was the primary residence for the Ottoman Sultans from 1465 to 1853. It was quite extensive to say the least. From the first and most public courtyard all the way to the Sultan’s private marble bathroom, we saw it all. The architecture was beautiful and the details in the tiles (that were EVERYWHERE) were so impressive.

I also really liked this shot, it looks out onto the last courtyard from one of the Sultan’s personal living rooms. There were decorative screens like this on so many of the windows; I took about a million pictures of stars, per usual.

We went for tea and coffee for a quick break while sightseeing in the palace, like I said before its huge, you could easily spend 5 hours there and not see it all. From our coffee spot we got our first glimpses of the Asian continent. It was a beautiful day, the sun on our faces felt so nice after quite a cloudy week in Londontown.

After lunch along Divan Yolu we met back up with the group. Forbes was ever so kind and had baklava waiting for us while he gave us some historical background of the Byzantine’s. Ms. Robins (a teacher from my high school) would be so proud to know that I was able to answer almost all of the questions he raised. I knew I told AP World for a reason… We then made our way to the Hagia Sophia (or Ayasofya in Turkish). Ayasofya was used as three different churches, converted into a mosque and is now strictly used as museum.

There are remains from all of its different uses and they are still renovating to try and find some old mosaics that were covered up as a result of its transformation into a mosque. They were ordered to be plastered over after Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, also before the age of preservation tourists would come to visit the Ayasofya and chip off a piece of the mosaic to prove they were there, explaining the lack of tiles remaining in the picture below…

After the Ayasofya Forbes told us to follow him for a “surprise”. We queued outside a fairly standard building but then entered into something far from standard. The surprise was the Basilica Cistern. The cistern is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie under Istanbul. It is amazing that something built solely to hold water, not really to be seen is still so gorgeous. The arches are so intricate and it is truly mind blowing to picture it being completely filled with water. And of course the dramatic red lighting they have added makes it look like a Harry Potter haven.

We were utterly exhausted by this point but still had one more Forbes speech before heading back to the hotel. We stopped along the Hippodrome when he explained the three structures that are still remaining, he also talked about how it was once a circus as well as the sporting and social center of Constantinople.

From there we very happily made our way back to the hotel and crashed into our beds. After a comatose half an hour we made our way up to the terrace of the hotel. While we watched the sun set we heard from a British woman who recently moved to Istanbul and a Turkish teenager.

Though it evolved into a political debate between the two of them, which was not Forbes intention, it was very interesting to hear about the beautiful city we had spent all day exploring from people who actually lived there. From there we got a cab (well more of a party bus for the 17 of us) down to the Galata Bridge for dinner. Eating dinner underneath the bridge was quite interesting but it did give us a really cool view.

We decided on a seafood restaurant after the host told us he would give us a special “student” price. Though we waited about an hour for our food and he asked me to marry him about 8 times during the course of the meal, it was actually a really good dinner. I ate a whole fish. Literally my meal was just a cooked fish on a plate, bones and all. But after a moment of hesitation, I did it and actually enjoyed it!

From there we stopped briefly at a hookah bar and then made our way home. Once again we were exhausted and did not have any trouble falling right asleep. The next morning we woke up feeling like we had already been in Istanbul for a week, not just two nights.

We headed to breakfast early and again prepared ourselves for a long day of sightseeing. We followed our trusty Forbes to the local mosque to start off the day. This was the mosque where we had been hearing the mega phoned Islamic “calls to worship” five times a day, everyday since we arrived.

It was so beautiful and intricately decorated. It seemed crazy to me that this was just a small local mosque. These two local boys were running around outside while Forbes was talking to us and loved showing off for their audience.

From there we walked to the Grand Bazaar. Though we did have a brief history lesson before we were let loose, the Bazaar was a much needed break from strictly sightseeing. The Grand Bazaar is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world. It has about 60 covered streets and over a thousand shops. As a result it is wicked crowded and quite stuffy, but amazing none the less. This picture is down one of the “side streets”.

There were so many different goods everywhere. A whole leather section, a ton of places to get pottery, amazing jewelry and of course scarves everywhere! Though things were not as cheap as we were led to believe we did all walk away with some bargains!

After we thoroughly explored the bazaar and were quite satisfied with our purchases we made our way to a café for lunch. I had the most amazing tomato and lentil soup, and have been trying to recreate it ever since. From there Kelsey, Suzanne and I headed back to the hotel. After an unplanned tour of the city we finally arrived to the hotel with enough time to just sit down before having to leave again…

We headed back down towards the river to meet the rest of the group for our ferry ride to Asia. It was a perfect night and the sun was about to set. Forbes in his infinite wisdom had planned the timing of the ferry perfectly so the sun set while we were crossing the Bosphorus to Asia. It was beautiful…

Not only did he plan around the sunset but he also brought snacks! We munched on goodies from the spice Bazaar ranging from dried figs and apricots to almonds and a Turkish taffy like treat.

Once we set foot in Asia we had the option to stay and explore the area or just head back on the ferry with Forbes. Three of my friends and I decided to stay and explore a bit. It wasn’t terribly different from the other side of the city, just a bit less developed. The most interesting thing we saw was this guy on a motorcycle who trained his dog to ride on the back of it, while wearing sunglasses of course, we were quite amused…

Once we docked in Europe we hopped in a cab to meet Kelsey and Suzanne in “Narnia” our joke of the weekend. After an interesting cab ride, we made our way through the very busy streets…

To the even more crowded street of Nevizade. This was a wicked cool spot packed with restaurants and pubs. After a good meal we hailed a cab and made our way home along the very crowded and very windy streets of Istanbul. As our cab driver pumped the bass on his surround sound we came within inches of hitting many many pedestrians as well as a pack of wild dogs. By the way the one downfall of Istanbul, in my opinion of course, is the abundance of cats, they are like rats in the city, that is rats that are absolutely everywhere, roaming free and fed by the locals.

Finally after having to stop and talk to other cab drivers (who thankfully spoke English) we made it home. We were once again exhausted but couldn’t resist spending the last hours of our last night on our beautiful terrace. It was so beautiful and peaceful up there!

Sunday morning we packed up and checked out of the hotel, thankful that we packed lightly so we had more than enough room for all of our purchases! After checking out we left for the Great Palace Mosaic Museum. I was once again so impressed; the mosaics were so beautiful and so detailed. Below is an extreme close up of one of my favorites. The eye is so detailed, I love it.

From there we went to the Sultan Ahmet (Blue) Mosque. This Mosque is open to the public and is free, therefore quite crowded with cruise ships and lots and lots of Americans, not my favorite scene.

But it was a beautiful mosque and worth dealing with the crowds. This is my friend Alex and I with our headscarves on out of respect for the Islamic religion as well as their culture.

We then had the option of shopping some more or going to the Museum of Turkish & Islamic Art. Since I had (very proudly) managed to spend the exact amount of Liras I had left the night before, I opted for the museum visit and am very happy I did. It was a very cool museum with lots of cool artifacts and Turkish rugs of course. This was one of my favorites…

Upon exiting the museum we had a perfect view of the mosque...

We all met at the Hotel Ayasofya, boarded the bus and waved goodbye to our home for the weekend. We couldn’t stop talking about how it felt as though we had been there for a week, not just a weekend. Forbes filled us in on a bit more history as we passed the Theodosian Walls on our way to the Church of St. Saviour in Chora.

This picture is a bit blurry but gives you a good feel for how beautiful and extensive the mosaics in this church were. It was breathtaking. We then headed to the restaurant next door called Asitane for our group lunch. There we dined on traditional Ottoman cuisine. It was very interesting but I really enjoyed it, the adventurous eater in me had quite a field day! It was also nice to not worry about trying to order the least expensive dish on the menu as Syracuse was picking up the bill!

After we were uncomfortably full of Turkish cuisine, we snapped a quick group photo and reluctantly boarded the bus to the airport.

Everyone loaded up on their last purchases of Turkish delight and we then made our way onto our plane. I was very much looking forward to a four-hour nap on the way home but couldn’t sleep a wink. We were all harnessing our inner child and couldn’t sit still, none the less sleep on the plane. The flight attendants were quite annoyed as Alex conferenced with Brian and I from the aisle. Once we landed in Heathrow all we wanted to do was get home and shout Merhaba (hello in Turkish) to our roommates.

I couldn’t (and still cant) believe we were only there for a weekend. It was such an amazing trip and I couldn’t be happier that I decided to go. I was actually talking to one of my new friends from University of London yesterday about his travels to Turkey and it made me want to go back already! I would love to really explore and learn more about their culture!

Hope all is well with everyone and I will report on my fun filled week in London very soon!

İyi Geceler (good night in Turkish)

Kelli

Cairdeas

Cairdeas means friendship in Gaelic and could not be a more perfect description of my time in the (supposed) Gaelic speaking country of Ireland!

My trip to Ireland was the smoothest thus far. Conveniently I was able to take the tube all the way to and from Heathrow airport and easily found my friend Lindsay at the Dublin airport. It was so amazing to see her and as soon as we were laughing and catching up in the cab I knew it was going to be a great weekend. Once back at her flat we talked to the wee hours of the morning over digestive cookies (a biscuit covered with chocolate) and milk! Quite perfect.

Friday morning started off with a bus ride into city center. We passed the striking cab drivers and made our way to Trinity College. It was one of those days that makes everyone, even a winter loving girl like me, love fall!

From Trinity we wandered passed Molly Malone, the subject of the unofficial anthem of Dublin, and made our way to Grafton Street!

Lindsay was a great tour guide and didn’t miss a beat as we flawlessly went from window-shopping on Grafton Street to Saint Stephen’s Green. Once again it was such a perfect fall day and we didn’t stop talking the whole time. You would have thought that we have been friends for years not weeks…

We then met up with two of Lindsay’s roommates for delicious vegetable soup at the VAT house before continuing on to the Guinness Factory.

Prior to our self-guided tour of the factory I was not a huge fan of Guinness (sorry Uncle Doug). But after reading about every step of the brewing process and getting to the “tasting zone” I stomached it and was actually pleasantly surprised! It was obviously the freshest Guinness I will ever have (right from the source) but I am also much more open to ordering it in the future. We continued through the rest of the tour, watched some old Guinness commercials and made our way to the Gravity Bar at the very top of the building. There we received our complimentary pint and enjoyed the view (that's the Dublin Spire in the distance).

We were quite tired at this point and a bit annoyed that there was no where to sit, but we were happily chatting together and of course still all smiles…

From there we found a perfect coffee shop in which to satisfy our chocolate cravings and headed home with time for dinner and getting ready. We then went to a club called The Academy that was hosting Indie Rock bands.

The next day we decided to take a train to local Dun Loaghaire. Almost immediately after we arrived it started pouring. Not letting it get us down we sat it out at a coffee shop, it thankfully let up and we were able to enjoy the beautiful landscape and really really cool old boats. (Thank you Lindsay for the picture below, I guess I only took boat pictures on my 35mm).

We had a great lunch at a little panini shop, walked around a bit more and then made our way back to DCU (Dublin City University, where Lindsay is studying for the semester). Saturday afternoon was filled with Skyping with Brian, watching PS I Love You and another great dinner! On Saturday night we went to Whelan’s bar, many may recognize it from PS I Love you.

Sunday came too quickly. After a traditional Irish breakfast with Lindsay’s Aunt and Uncle who had just arrived in Dublin; we caught the bus to the airport. I really did not want to say goodbye, but knew that I would be seeing Lindsay soon (November for Taylor Swift!!), and would probably be talking to her in just a few hours. Overall the weekend was amazing, Lindsay was a perfect host and I had such a great time exploring the beautiful city of Dublin!

Monday started out with a class field trip to BBC. It was a cool tour, we got to go in the gallery of a few studios, see the newsroom, and learned a bit about the behind the scenes operations. Seeing all this once again makes me appreciate FC TV so much. I am so fortunate that I had the opportunity to learn so much about the production world before even coming to college.

From there it seemed like it would be just another rainy day in Londontown, that is until I heard about the Joshua Radin concert that was happening in Camden Town later that evening. I rushed to get ready and met my new friends Gerard and Stephanie at Tottenham Court Road to make our way to the venue. Our anticipation rose on the tube and while queuing for tickets. Throughout the hour or so we had to wait I got to know them quite well. I was very happy with my decision to put myself out there and meet new people!

The Koko Theatre on Camden High Street was gorgeous. Joshua Radin even commented on it saying “we don’t have places like this in the states, our oldest theatre is about 50 years old”. He’s right and named one of the reasons why I love London so much. The history behind everything is so cool! This theatre for example used to show Charlie Chaplin movies back in the day!

Joshua Radin was such a good performer! My favorite part was how personable he was and how he took the time to explain his thoughts behind every song. Makes me appreciate his music so much more!

He and his band also did a few songs in an old school radio style, acoustically all around one microphone. It sounded amazing and was also a true testament to his voice as he was able to project throughout the whole venue without being next to the microphone.

He even played some new songs from his yet to be recorded album, my new favorite is called “I Think I’ll Go Inside”; it’s about the London rain!

Tuesday was filled with the stress of collecting rent, our landlord looked at me like I was crazy when I showed up with thousands of pounds in 20-pound notes. That’s what you get with 8 college students I guess. The high point of Tuesday was definitely the yoga class I took between my classes. It was a faster class than I am used to but I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to taking it every Tuesday!

Wednesday was quite an eventful day! Emily joined Kelsey and I on our excursion to the British Museum. This awesome museum is literally a 3-minute walk from school and, like most museums/ art galleries in London, is free! We first saw the Rosetta Stone,

Wandered through the Egyptians and the Greeks,

And paid a visit to Alexander the Great.

From there Kelsey and I went to STA Travel where Suzanne met us and we booked our fall break plans! We are flying into Barcelona on the 23^rd then going to Madrid on the 25^th and are hoping to make our way to Toledo, Granada and Seville from Madrid before we head home to London on the 31^st…

After packing all Wednesday night Kelsey, Suzanne and I were so excited and ready to leave for Istanbul right from school on Thursday. It was an amazing experience and I am going to post ALL the details very very soon!

Slainte (Cheers in Gaelic)

Kelli

Busy, Busy, Busy

This week definitely got away from me! I will update on last weekend in Ireland, the Joshua Radin concert and this weekend in Istanbul, Turkey when I return on Sunday!

Hope all is well!

Serefe! (cheers in Turkish)

Kelli

Ein Prosit!

2:30am last Friday began my first international travel experience since arriving in London. And what an experience it was. I left my flat at the same time as a few of my roommates were coming home from the pubs, ran after (and caught) a bus to Liverpool Street Station, boarded the Stansted express and caught my breath. It was in this moment that it finally set in that the one trip I had been planning for months was actually happening, and I realized how incredibly excited I was to see Tania! RyanAir was not as sketchy as I was led to believe and I was actually able to sleep on my flight, which is quite a rarity for me. After a few unfortunate events I found Tania and we started our journey towards Munich. Once in Munich we met up with Kelsey and the three of us made our way to Marienplatz, the main city center of Munich. It was so beautiful. You literally get off of the U-Bahn in the middle of the square surrounded by gorgeous architecture.

From there we went to Hofbrauhaus, one of the original German beer halls. We all enjoyed our first German beers, I don’t know what it is about it, but German beer is by far my new favorite.

From Marienplatz Kelsey and I hopped on the U-Bahn towards Goetheplatz where the Oktoberfest tents are. I don’t know if anything could prepare me for what we witnessed next. First off we were in the minority wearing “normal” clothes, it seemed everyone (except us and the other foreign tourists) were wearing lederhosen (men) or dirndl (women). Also the sheer number of people there was simply astonishing. I think the easiest thing to compare it to is Kennywood on a school picnic day. Kelsey and I made our way to the merry-go-round to see the whole of Oktoberfest.

It was crazy to see it from the air, but I would have never been able to visualize it if we hadn’t. This was also around the time when I really started to feel the language barrier. Munich was the first city I had ever been to where English was not the main language. Since I had very little knowledge of the language (danka and prosit were two of the few words I knew) ordering food and communicating involved a lot of pointing and hand motions. Needless to say we somehow managed to get by.

After our dessert of apple strudel and a funnel cake-like thing we headed back to the hotel for a good nights sleep before the craziness of Saturday.

Early Saturday morning we met Tania and her friend Maggie outside the Paulanerbrau Winzerer Fahndl tent. They chose this tent because it is special to the Ukrainians (which they both are) because of the blue and yellow streamers inside. After a few pleadings the security guards let us in the back door without a reservation and we made our way to their friends table. I loved meeting Tania’s friends and was so happy to be experiencing Oktoberfest with native Germans. But that’s not where the internationality stopped, sitting at our table were kids from Paris, Americans studying abroad in Florence, Budapest, London, Munich, and Milan, as well as the native Germans. At any one time there was a chance that someone was speaking French, Ukrainian, German or of course English. It was quite an awesome experience and they were all so welcoming.

After lots of singing, beer guzzling and pretzel eating we left the hot stuffy tent and made our way to Giselastr where the beer gardens are. Think central park with lots of little restaurants and pubs.

We ate underneath this tower and listened to the band play above us. We sat there for hours laughing and talking, much of it in Ukrainian, which led to a lot of just smiling and nodding from Kelsey and I. Once again it was so nice to sit and get to know Tania’s friends, I now have such a better understanding of her life pre-Syracuse. From there we went to a Munich club, had an interesting cab ride home and finally ended at Maggie’s house.

As I left Maggie’s quite early on Sunday I felt immersed in the culture. I walked from Sumpfmesisenweg to Vestastrabe to Henschelstr to the S-Bahn realizing that I really wasn’t in London anymore.

I had a few hours before I had to catch the train back to the airport so I spent them exploring Marienplatz. It was a perfect morning and I can’t wait to see my developed pictures.

I ran to my train (seemed to be a common theme of this trip) and relaxed while traveling through the gorgeous German countryside. It was quite picturesque with the farms and small cottages; the fields seemed to go on forever. Once in the Memmingen airport I was suddenly overcome with Americans. It is crazy how small the world starts to feel as you get older. From the five other Americans in the airport one other girl was from Pittsburgh and it was quite insane how many mutual friends we had. I have also started to really enjoy conversations I have with people on buses or trains. I am very happy that there is not a language barrier for me in London so that I can actually communicate. I was so frustrated on the bus to Memmingen when the little old lady next to me tried to start a conversation and I couldn’t even say, “Sorry I don’t speak German”.

I was exhausted but very happy with the outcome of the weekend when I finally arrived home at my flat. It is also so nice to come home to my London family, I really did miss my roommates over the weekend and it was so good to see them all!

The week started with news of Zac and Jess’s baby girl Eliza (pictures please!). Tuesday was a beautiful day which I spent reading in Hyde Park and then went to Shawshank Redemption (the play adaptation of the movie). I didn’t really know what to expect as I made my way into the Windham theatre, for I am much more used to musicals than straight plays, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It was an intense and moving performance than made me miss Kirsten very much; you would love it Kir!

Yesterday I took the baby I baby-sit to the Tate Britain art museum. It is literally a 10-minute walk from their flat and was a perfect way to split up a very long day of babysitting. My two favorite pieces were this sea landscape- which made me want to surf of course.

And this bear that was in the modern art section of the museum.

I feel so lucky that I have the opportunity to make a few extra pounds and even more lucky that I am able to explore areas of London that I otherwise would probably not venture to.

Now as I write this I am busy preparing to leave for Dublin. I am leaving after class today and am visiting my friend Lindsay who is studying there. I am so excited to see Dublin and it will be so nice to have a personal tour guide (Lindsay) as well, takes a lot of the stress out of it.

I am also excited that I am visiting a city that my Dad has never been to. It is quite a weird feeling actually, for when I was growing up I felt like my Dad had been everywhere in the world, quite strange that I am traveling to a place he has never been. But I guess that’s what growing up is all about…

Hope all is well and I will be posting pictures of Ireland soon!

Cheers-

Kelli