i'm 21!

The beautiful decorations done by my 4th oldest sister. cool chain link construction paper!!!!












Dark chocolate cupcake with peanut butter icing. compliments of the 4th. yum yum.

















pretty pretty decorations!!!!

JFK airport

so, no desire to write about my last day in london (which i enjoyed very much and had fish & chips for the 4th time!) b/c i am too distracted by homeland security and the outrageousness of their security checks. arriving into jfk (we departed an hour late) and my friend's cousin (she's a U.S. citizen) got picked as a "random selection" for extra security.

random my ass...

so i sat w/ her for 2 hrs in the security check area....guess what everyone else that got randomly selected looked like...

then i looked at the U.S. passport and it says, "The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national of the United States named herein without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection."

makes me wonder what really "without delay" is taken to mean. i'm guesing it's not the same as "right to a speedy trial."

makes me so mad. the guy next to me had been sitting waiting to get asked questions since 4 in the afternoon (by this time it's 8pm) insanity is america.

British all the way

probably one of the highlights of my trip was the British Library. (it's the building with the read sign on it) haha. how dorky does that make me what makes it so awesome is their special collections exhibit. they have the Magna Carta!!! plus, a journal of Leonardo DaVinci, writings by Galileo, Lewis Carroll (who i found out today was actually a Reverend, and his name was nothing like "Lewis Carroll," i just can't remember what it actually was), Mozart, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, old atlases, plus lots old religious texts (Buddhist, Zorastriast, Christian, Islamic, etc.) pretty amazing. plus, they this cool computer program. they downloaded lots of their old texts (e.g. Leonardo's journal) and you can turn the pages of the journal by sliding your finger from one page to another (so much fun!!!). it was so amazing being able to look at each document and think to myself, "they wrote that a gazillion years ago (they had the oldest known writing of beowulf) and i'm standing inches away from it" i got chills. so amazing
also, they had headphones set up where you could listen to readings of different stuff (e.g. Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility), or listen to musical compositions that they had in the composer's hand, or stuff like The Beatles. really really cool. the building was all architectural and had the Royal Library built in the middle up the whole building.
so this is an up close zoom in of the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum (which is right around the corner from mimi's flat). now if i only could read all the other languages on the slab i could translate hierglyphics...darn.
isn't this picture amazing! i took it in the Court Yard of the British Museum. i think the brochure said something about the court yard being the largest enclosed open space in London or something cool like that. the lion weighs 7tons and sat atop a temple of some sort in Turkey. the British Museum was insanely huge. it was overwhelming to look at it all, so i gave up after a while. but really cool stuff.

but yea, British Library, one of the coolest places in the world! i love it, so i recommend it for any dorky person!

Museums, Westminster, Canary Wharf

yesterday was freezinggg....winter jacket, hat and gloves definitely would have been useful. crazy english weather. my shoes are worn through, but i've probably walked around london more than i've walked in the past two years at school. so sad. o yea more likes:

6. fish and chips with tartar sauce. i think cod fish tastes the best of the three i've tried (i also tried plaice and mimi's, but i can't remember what kind she got)
7. the walkability of this city (even if i can't feel my feet anymore)

anyway, onto wednesday's travels.
i walked south west to Trafalgar Square to first go to the National Gallery of Art and the National Portrait Gallery. the national gallery had that seurat guy with the pointilism and there was a person there sketching the picture! it's more fun to go to the gallery to watch other people draw the paintings. anyway, weekdays for museums are chaos b/c there's thousands of little kids in uniform wearing bright neon vests running throughout. i also got to see the renaissance painting where in the foreground there's that skull all out of perspective, but if u look at the picture from the right it's normal. so cool.
National Portrait was also cool. didn't go inside the vanity fair special exhibit (gah, on 10 pound entrance fee for special exhibits) then i got uber hungry and wala! a pret across the street from the portrait gallery. i got the brie, tomato and basil sandwich. simple and good.

then i headed further south to Westminter. Westminster Abbey, isn't it pretty? on the right is Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament from the Westminster Bridge. Once i got onto bankside i walked along the Thames. so pretty, but really really cold. i stopped by the Oxo building again and went inside their gallery on the first floor. they had a really cool exhibit by landscape photographer David Noton. i really wanted a picture of his, but they were uber expensive. then i went to Tate Modern which is inside an old factory. don't understand modern art, but it was funny b/c i ran into 2 girls from cp. wat a small world.

anyway, took the DLR again to have dinner with mimi and 2 of her flatmates. the food was ok, and we took funny pictures (canary wharf is full of business people and corporate stuff, so i looked very out of place). then mimi and i met up with anna and went to a cute pub in covent garden. i was so sleepy, i think i slept about 9 hours...only 2 more full days!

The City and Greenwich (Tuesday)

so, still not very good at moving these images around on blogger, so out of order a bit (the weather was freezingggggggg)







tower of london (The City) the tower bridge (aka london bridge is behind this big complex)













Greenwich Park, the Queens House














the very steep hill up to the Royal Observatory (Greenwich Park) huffing and puffing











it's the Meridian!!! (look i'm standing by new york and washington!)

















St. Paul's Cathedral (The City)- i snuck the picture. if u look all the way up, that's how high i had to walk!)















St. Paul's Cathedral, The City- the signs at every level telling you how many steps to each gallery, the stairs were the uber skinny winding stairs for 530 stairs....so frightening















St. Paul's Cathedral, cool architecture in the stairwell














St. Paul's Cathedral- the view from the top gallery

harry potter!

Hamley's was selling all this harry potter stuff. i have hermione's (i guess she's always performing spells so that's why mine glows?) and kim has lord voldemort's (the evil girl)



















chess set at Hamley's for 250 pounds















we found it! i'm going to hogwarts! King's Cross and platform 9 and 3/4. that blue wall on my right is the divide from the actual entrance to platforms 9-11

pictures

trafalgar square as they set up for st. patrick's day concert (they put green dye in the fountain!!)












maryland cookies! (i have no idea how they taste)













kimmie and my date at the natural history museum. the gems collection was lame but it was fun taking pictures











HAMLEY'S! it was amazing. enough said


















reliving our girlie childhoods

likes and dislikes and day 3 in london

i'm compiling a list of things i like and dislike about london and this is wat i have so far

likes:
1. waitrose- it's like an upscale safeway
2. all the cafes
3. being able to walk everywhere in central
4. british accent
5. windy cobblestone streets- feels so historic, and fun little alleyways to explore

dislikes:
1. separate hot and cold taps in sinks- i have to cup my hands together and go from really cold to really hot or vice versa
2. the fact that street names are on buildings instead of on posts, so inevitably i look like a tourist b/c i look up or spin around in circles searching for the name
3. windy cobblestone streets- see #2 in dislike list, the names of the street are even harder to find and there really is no straight

today was playdate with kim. i walked down to kensington where she was staying and it only took about an hour and 15 minutes. my feet are feeling this walking, or my shoes will no longer have soles. anyhoo, kim and i then walked back east and went to the natural history museum (meh, it was ok, we got a little bored) and then the Victoria & Albert Museum next door (cool stuff, the cafe was awesome and the sun came out while we were there so we ran outside) i love sunny days. then we decided to brave Harrod's and Harvey Nichols. Harrod's was much more daunting b/c of the doorman but their food court was amazing. the chocolate section was so cool. so many different kinds of treats!

we walked out of kensington into the city, and went to Hamleys (a toy store founded in the 1700s). i think it had 4 floors and such cool toys. lots of fun. they had a bunch of harry potter replicas which kim and i had loads of fun with. they had a chess set for 250 pounds (o yea, at Chocolat Chocolat, a chocolate store, they're selling a chocolate egg for 150 pounds) then we continued walking along Regent's St to look at all the stores (at least 50% were american stores) so not worth it, but Hamley's was a bunch of fun. we walked into Bloomsbury where we finally rested at The Pancake Cafe (eum, i got the apple, cinnamon sweet pancake/crepe (not that great) and kim got the banana and nutella sweet pancake (yummy yummy).

we sat around and realized that the british museum was already closed so we decided to head straight for King's Cross and to look for Platform 9 and 3/4. we got to the station, and the fodor's book only said that the actually filming happened on between platforms 4 and 5, so we walked down but didn't find anything. kim and i thought it would be really weird to ask someone where Platform 9 and 3/4 was (hello, they're muggles and don't know about wizards...) so we decided to look around and find it ourselves (harry was just lucky to hear the weaslys). so we checked out platforms 9-11 (in a separate area from 1-8) and right off to the side and kind of in the dark all by itself was the placard and the half trolley in the brick wall. it felt so anti-climatic that we just started laughing and almost pee-ed our pants (haha mimi, tmi).

overall a wonderful day, very cold but at least no rain:) hopefully tomorrow will be nice and dry!

cheers!

london travels

anyway, yesterday mimi and i walked to the thames and crossed to south bank. the view on the river toward whitehall, westminster, the london eye, etc is beautiful. i wish i had a history book or a pocket sized tour guide to whisper all the cool facts and trivia about each building. anyway, we went to the southbank book market (some really cool postcards) and made our way to borough market (yummy samples of food) i really wanted to buy some pesto and oil but w/ all the airport security i figured they would take it away. then we met back up with anna and karen and ate at food for thought (delicious vegetarian food)

today, we woke up to rain. gloomy and glum, but i only have a week, so gotta go out, even though in the states i would not leave my dorm room. plus, with no wellies it's kind of cold. but....we headed out in the windy rain, walked to st. james park (with the ginormous pelicans!), buckingham palace (tourists galore), hyde park, then kensington (saw harrod's) and ate a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting at Hummingbird (such a cute cupcake shop). we took the tube to aldgate east to sunday up market (food and stuff). mimi ate okonomi (something with mayonase, cheese and cabbage) and i got aloo channa with 2 samosas for 3.50 pounds. by then my pants were soaked up to my knees and i couldn't feel my toes so we headed back home to take a nap. after the nap it was the true london thing- fish and chips at The Rock and Sole Plaice. yum yum. the vinegar was ok with it, tartar sauce was really yummy.

hopefully all this walking will get me/keep me in some sort of shape to run the frederick marathon in may. gosh. that's insanely soon.

i love being here. this is the first time i've ever gone anywhere for spring break and being with anna and mimi is awesome. i'm glad we've stayed in touch since high school. ok, i think it's time to actually sleep, more walking tomorrow!

chau/cheers/bye