Once Upon a Time...

Hello!

I saw Edward Scissorhands the ballet last Friday! *JOY* I never ever thought I would be able to see that play and well...there you have it. I was sitting at my computer last Monday doing absolutely nothing when I heard a knock at the door. It was the post man. He dropped off a few letters and a magazine. I usually put the mail that isn't mine on the kitchen table but when I noticed that the magazine did not belong to any of my roomies I decided to take it for my own. It isn't uncommon for us to get mail for people who had lived in the flats YEARS ago. When it's silly letters or bills we just give them to the warrden but any magazines we find we feel we have every right to look at. Well, I found this one particular magazine in the mail called Asos. I guess it's a magazine for a UK online fashion store. It had American actress Blake Lively (that girl from The Traveling Pants movies and Gossip Girl) anyway, it looked really cool so I skimmed through it. Finding nothing of great interest I flipped to the back to read the reviews on music and movies...that's when I saw it...EDWARD!!!??? A small add in the top right corner of the page telling me that it was playing in London until January 18th! I was so giddy that I texted my friends right away telling them that I was going to go without hesitation. Fortunately, I have awesome friends and they texted me back saying that they wanted to go too!
We had already planned on going to London for the day with a British friend of ours, Liz Kaye, so I wanted to call her and let her know that we would probably not be taking the train back with her. When I told Liz she freaked out and said that she had wanted to see that play too! I was like, "Oh Happy Day!"

We bought the tickets for only £15.30! We had pretty good seats too! We also found a really cheap way for groups to travel around London. We bought a ticket that's simply called a Day Travelcard. Which is only valid for groups of 4 or more and it works all day on the underground, the train, and the bus! This ticket only costs £12! When we got to Victoria Station we took the underground to a place called Camden Town. It was like China Town...but better! The streets weren't as crowded and the merchandise was better. This place had a bunch of vintage shops as well as old book stores! It had a little craft area where people made jewerly and scarves (I bought some gifts while I was there)! After chilling in Camden Town we took the underground to the Angel station to get to the Sedler's Wells Theatre where Edward was playing. We got there at a descent time and bought our Edward merchandise before the crowd got any bigger.

I cannot explain to you how beautiful the play was! It was just so magical and it portrayed the story quite well. I was very, very impressed. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

On the way back home Liz wasn't feeling so hot, so we bought some crisps and water to fill her tummy (and ours of course...) when we got on the train for home, an old couple sat next to us. The wife sat next to Shanna while the husband sat next to Nikita. This old man kept falling asleep until suddenly he was out cold on Nikita's shoulder! It was the funniest thing! The old man and the wife eventually left but in their place two drunken Aussies sat. The one next to Shanna was the most obnoxious and kept putting his hand in front of her and Liz. Shanna just ignored him while Liz laughed with disbelief ("of all the places they could have sat on the train, they sit next to us!"). They too eventually left and Nikita spoke up saying, "I would've taken the old man anyday..."

We had left Canterbury at 11:21am and we didn't get back to Canterbury until 12:30am. It was the best Friday I had ever had! <3 <3 <3

Paris, J'Taime! <3

Bonjour!

Oh my goodness...Paris...what an amazing city. I didn't know what to think of it at first. I thought, "huh, maybe it's all cliche and hollywood makes it up to be this big, overly ROMANTIC city." I would just like to say that I was pleasently incorrect. Hollywood just amplifies the city's actual mood. It really is what it's all hyped up to be. Yes, it is a city for lovers but not just couples, all kinds of love. Parent and child, boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife and siblings, love of nature and music and God and food and...well...you get my drift yes? I am no longer curious on why so many people are inspired by this place. Anywhooooo...

My family and I took the Eurostar under the chunnel to get to Paris from London. I'm not going to lie, the trip from Canterbury to London was the trip FROM HELL. Let's talk about unnecessary panic and the number of round-a-bouts we had to take...RAWR! It was awful. Luckily, Mommy and Papa found a really nice rich man to give us his useful map! We made it to the Eurostar on time and had a safe travel there. Once we got to Paris we made our way to the hotel that Mom had booked. It was really nice (at least, I thought it was...) but Mama and Papa didn't like it. When I stated my two cents, Papa said that it was only because I had been living in hostels for 3 months. True. In my opinion, any hotel is better than a hostel. Well, after we dropped off a few things we decided to go out and explore the city. We didn't need to walk far before getting to the Arc De Triomphe! That was pretty cool! There were a lot of people on the street taking pictures of it from the sidewalk and in the middle of the road (I was eventually one of them ^^;;). After seeing the Arc, we made our way in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. When we got there, we stood on the bridge that lead to it and took some awsome pictures. It was when we got closer that the coolest event EVER happened!

The Eiffel Tower was BLUE. A great blue too and there was a circle of stars in front of it...very spiritual looking for sure. We explored the skirt of the tower for a few moments before we realized that it was SPARKLING! I had remembered my friends telling me that it had done this so we raced out from under it to see the top. Wow! It was so beautiful there are no words to discribe it! After the sparkles had ended we realized that we were chilly and decided to indulge in some hot chocolat. Later on that night (almost 9pm to be exact) we realized that we were starving and ate at an Italian pizza place called Roma. It was Italian but Frenchly owned...is that possible? Anyway, I wanted to order our meal for us because I would be able to use the very little French that I remembered from school and still get us our dinner without any conflict with a language barrier. BUT my parents had a strange fascination with ordering our food before I could do it...IN ENGLISH! Oh, silly parents. Through-out the trip Lily would push me in front or kick me to order before they did, but this was to no evail.

The next day we decided to go to Notre Dame. It was excellent! The inside was absolutly beautiful and reminded me of the Disney movie (yes, yes, go ahead and laugh). You weren't aloud to take pictures but pretty much everyone did anyway...I only took 3 but was good not to take anymore than that. The only downside to Notre Dame was the loonies living outside. There was this one guy who grunted loudly at Mom for no apparent reason and this other young guy dressed in a old man mask touching her back for a long period of time. She didn't do anything about it because she thought it was ME! Yeah...it was pretty creepy. We were also very fortunate to see Varsailles that day too! It was raining cats and dogs when we went but luckily we were inside the whole time looking at the palace. It was such a beautiful place to be and I wish it wasn't raining so that we could see the gardens without drowning! That night we went on the metro to the Moulin Rouge. At first we couldn't find it and I think Papa was getting a little anxious but I was determined to find it! Eventually we did and it was so worth the confusion! I would someday like to see a show just to say that I did...maybe someday soon. Eventually we made it back to the Eiffel Tower and went to the lst floor. After exploring the tower for the last time we made our way to a little crepe stand to eat some chocolate crepes! MMMM! They were just divine!

I could get into the discussion of the Eurostar breaking down on us on our way back from Cailis...but that's far too depressing. I'll end it on a better note:

Paris was wonderful! I don't think I will ever be the same again after being in such a lobely city! I enjoyed every minute of it and I'm glad that I was able to experience it with my family! <3 Oh Paris, J'Taime!

My Lagan Love (DUBLIN)

ello!

I just got back from DUBLIN! Wow, what can i say? It was the most amazing city! It reminded me a lot of Edinburgh, Scotland (although Edinburgh was much smaller).

There was some confusion before we left though. The day before we left we thought that Southern Ireland was a part of the UK...LIES!! Poor Christina kept telling us that Dublin took the pound and not the Euro...until we found out for sure last Thursday. Luckily, we found out just in time. We got to Dublin at around 1:30pm on Friday and took an Airlink bus from the airport to the city. At first, we were a little lost, one thing that I've noticed about Europe is that their signage is a little iffy and most of the time things aren't marked at all. After a very very very very brief freak out we found out the bridge that we were supposed to cross. Once we got to the right street, we started to realize that the place our hostel was in was...well...REALLY cool! It was a place called Temple Bar, and it was like the Theatre District of the city. They had small film and photo colleges inside as well as gift shops, museums, pubs, an Urban Outfitters, record and thrift stores! It was def the place to stay for a bunch of 20 year old students. The hostel that we stayed in was called Barnacles (suggested by my lovely cousin!). They were very nice and extremely helpful.
Our hostel room was really cute but kinda tiny. It was a six bed room and we shared it the first two nights with a kind French lady traveling by herself. The first night we explored Temple Bar and ate a REAL restaurant meal at the HardRock Cafe. It was so nice to eat warm, filling food and Shanna was glad to finally eat at a place that sold both veggie and meaty things, I thought that she would faint after taking a huge bite of her burger ^____^ she misses meat.
After eating, we went to Urban Outfitters and killed loads of time before taking a nice long walk, then crashing in our hostel.

The next day we got up at around 9:00am and ate our free toast and tea breakfast in the public kitchen. Boy was it fabulous...toast never tasted so good. We then left the hostel and made our way to the Guiness Factory. It was a long but comfortable walk. We always knew we were headed in the right direction because once in awhile we could smell the distinct smell of Guiness in the air. It was pretty cool; but the factory was in the ghetto in Dublin so I'm glad we went early in the morning. The back streets were really cool though and there was a place where you could take a ride with some ponies. Nikita was so excited to finally pet some ponies she didn't want to wash her hands afterwards haha! After looking through the gift shop and through some of the factory we went back to Temple Bar and ate lunch. The place we went to was a little market right outside of the photo museum. It had a bunch a things like chicken, crepes, cheese and Indian food. One place had a bunch of dead pheasents and ducks hanging by their necks ouside the tent! I ate some AMAZING Indian food, I swear I will never be able to get anything that good ever again.

After going to the photo museum (which was a little lame) we went to Trinity College! It was so cool! I wanted to go see the book of Kells but no one else wante dto spend the money! I said that I would go alone if I had to...and I did! Everyone was so nice to wait for me! It really was the coolest thing! I love old stuff. I also got to see the old Library of Trinity College. Okay...so you know the library in Beauty and the Beast? Yep, I saw that. It was so majestic I almost cried! BOOKS EVERYWHERE! It was then that we stopped at the Molly Malone statue for Nikita and then we made our way to the statue of Oscar Wilde in the park. Oscar Wilde was full of himself, for sure, but it was all most in a cool way. He wasn't afraid to be an ass and he wasn't afraid to say it either. Even though that would be a major turn off, I respect him. He was cool...like the Fanz.
That night, we ate dinner at a place called Half Moon. It sold toasties, paninis, and crepes. It was so cute and cheap! We had a great time taking goofy pictures and eating our yummy affordable food. The waiter I think had a crush on us because he gave us a couple of free nutella crepes with ice cream! It was so good! All of a sudden we all had second stomachs!

The next day, Mandi, Shanna, Nikita and I took a small bus tour to Wicklow and Glendough. Caroline went to Galway for the day by herself. As we travelled through the mountains we stopped at different places to take pictures like various lakes and farm land. It was so beautiful and amazing no words can describe it! There were three really cute boys sitting behind me on the bus too ^___^ hehe. Oh, before I forget, Nikita and I had to use the bathroom REALLY bad so on one of our stops we had to go into a really creepy forest and rough it! I hadn't done anything like that since Girl Scouts! Anyway, while Nikita was peeing she yelled out to me while I was going. I didn't hear what she said the first time so I yelled back. "What!?" I said. "I said I found a SKELLINTON!" it was the skellinton of a deer apparently...creeppyyy.

We got back at 5:00pm and were extremely hungery! We stopped and got some last minute presents and then went to the grocery store to pick up some noodles and garlic bread for dinner. It was then that we crashed really hard and were ready to leave the next day. We were going to miss Dublin, it had been so kind to us. :(

Oh Scotland...My Love

It was over a week ago that Nikita and I got back from Edinburgh, Scotland...I didn't realize how much I had to get done when I got back. OOPS! Oh well, I figured I'd update it now!
Well, what can I say? Edinburgh was simply beautiful! I went awhile ago with my family but it was def. a city worth returning to. We stayed at our first hostel, ST. Christopher's! It was extremely hard to find though. It was attached to a pub called Belushi's Bar & Hostel. Nikita was like, "Hey, maybe we can ask these guys..." and I cut her off saying "No! We shouldn't ask one hostel where another hostel is...that would be rude." Well, it turns out that if I had just listened to Nikita and walked in we would have found our hostel (and saved us 30mins of useless walking). They were SUPER nice and very clean (they also gave us a free breakfast and 10% off drinks). I suggest them entirely (thanks Stacy!!).

What was great about our hostel was that they had a bunch of brochures about the city. Nikita and I only planned on seeing one thing (the castle) and figured we just do whatever when we weren't there. Anyway, we found one brochure for a FREE Edninburgh tour (3 hours!) they pretty much took you everywhere through the city. So, thinking that that was a very good deal, Nikita and I woke up early the next day to do it. Our tour guide was AMAZING. She was a young theatre student from Canada who had moved to Edinburgh 4 months ago for "adventure." She was extremely entertaining and made friends with Nikita and I. She also did our Ghost Tour of Edinburgh that we took later on that night. We had to pay 7 pounds for that tour...but they gave us a free pint of Strongbow that night, so that was nice of the tour guide peeps.

Throughout the day, Nikita and I would explore, shop, and so on. One place we went to was the Elephant House. This was the cafe where J.K. Rowling apparently wrote the first Harry Potter on a napkin! It was very cool (especially since I've become fascinated with elephants lately) but very busy due to obvious reasons. We ate there twice; so worth the hullabaloo. Most of the time, if we weren't on a tour or exploring, we would chill at the Starbucks that was next to out hostel. It was so vast and comforting! Very different from the Starbucks' back home which seem to be small and always packed.

We finally made it to the castle on Sunday! It was amazing! We went early in the morning to avoid the traffic of fellow visitors. We took many pictures, saw the crown jewels, gift shop, WWI memorial room, dog graveyard, and the stone of destiny (which has an amazing history...you should google it...)

So all and all, Nikita and I had a fantastic time and wished that we could have stayed longer in Scotland so that we could she some of the Highlands. Oh well...there was one Highland that was visible from all high points of Edinburgh. It was called Arthur's Seat. It was so majestic!

LOve & Peace!