The Taylor family comes to London

So I'm taking a break from this horrid theology paper and blogging instead.

Saturday: Ran outside for literally the third time since being abroad... I wish I ran more but there literally is just no time. Then Allie and I went on an excursion that night in an attempt to see Phantom of the Opera. Tickets were sold out, but we ended up making a trip to Ben's Cookies (famous cookie store in London with cookies that are to die for) and Las Iguanas. We ordered some fabulous drinks and had a chill night complete with Mexican food. We also stopped by the Christmas Market that is going on around South Bank which is really awesome. That night, I went out to Tiger Tiger with Tom and only Tom... haha. Our group kinda dwindled and after some drama regarding Tom's bleeding hand (we took care of it), we survived the night.

Sunday: My family got here! We walked all around London and spent some time chilling in their awesome apartment. We went to dinner at the Mulberry Bush and I immediately introduced my family to cider and they fell in love. The fish and chips were also excellent at the Bush. That night, we spent some time walking around Covent Garden which looks really pretty during Christmas time. Then we bought more Bulmer's and hung out in the apartment that night.

Monday: I got up at 5:30 a.m. (I still can't believe it) and took the car to NBC for a shoot that morning. We went to Kensington Palace, and after a large debacle with the cab driver getting lost, we made it. We interviewed some of the workers there since Kate and William plan to move into the palace in 2013. The palace is beautiful inside, and I got to hold the producer's camera screen for the camera man while he was doing all the shooting. Apparently the story was being used for the Saturday Today Show. After that, I headed over to Buckingham Palace for an apparent live shot stating that Kate is not yet officially pregnant... pathetic, I know. The live shot ended up being canceled because we didn't have clearance from the Palace, but that worked out to my advantage because I got to meet up with the fam! We got some lunch and coffee at a Cafe Nero and then took the tube to the British Museum. It is free to get into, and I still hadn't been there. We checked out the Rosetta Stone and some mummies and lots of other cool artifacts. That night, my dad and brother traveled to White Hart Lane Stadium to see Tottenham vs. Aston Villa (which apparently was awesome and I managed to get stellar seats somehow?) so I took my mom and aunt out. We went to Las Iguanas for some happy hour and Mexican food. Afterwards, we took the tube to Primark. We made some excellent and cheap purchases per usual.

Tuesday: Went to classes and then met up with the family for some lunch at a steakhouse near Trafalgar. We also stopped by Ben's Cookies because I am now addicted to them. In my next theatre class, a theatre financier came in and talked to us about what it takes to finance a theatre production, which was pretty interesting. I was still pretty tired from my busy day on Monday, though. Tuesday night, a bunch of my friends and I went over to the apartment for a delicious dinner. There was chicken, potatoes, salad, bread and cheese/meats, and many beverages flowing. The meal was delicious and we sat around chatting for a while. I ran off to my play, The Playboy of the Western World, right down the street while my friends stayed and hung out with my family. My aunt ended up cutting Zack's and Allison's hair and they apparently had a grand old time. My play was decent, very professionally done if anything.

Christmas tree in Covent Garden

Wednesday: We woke up and checked out the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. It's nothing too special to be honest, but it's another thing I can check off of my London bucket list! We then took the tube north to Hampstead Heath, which is a giant park. We walked upwards towards Parliament Hill where there is a giant view of the entire city. It was really neat. We then stopped by Camden since we had past it on the tube on our way there. The Camden Markets turned out to be really cool. They are a bit more modern and edgy than normal, with tattoo shops and such all around. We ate at a pub and bought a few trinkets at the markets. We had some down time during the afternoon and then met up again to see the Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre. The show was fantastic, so lively and colorful and the music was obviously great.

Parliament Hill at Hampstead Heath

Thursday: Classes again, then went to a cute cafe with my family for lunch. Then, during practice at the Globe, we spent the first half of rehearsal in one of the regular rehearsal rooms, but then got to go onto the Globe stage for the second half. What was even better was I got to bring my family inside the Globe free of charge to see some of our scenes! It was a definite success. Thursday night was of course Thanksgiving! We picked up some champagne and returned for the flats for, what we hoped, Thanksgiving dinner. The London program gave us all of the ingredients for a proper Thanksgiving but we had to cook all of it by floor. It actually all turned out great! We college students managed to cook delicious giant turkeys. We also served up mashed potatoes, rolls, cranberries, stuffing, pumpkin pie, etc. We had some good bonding with people from the second floor and had a fantastic time. The London Program Director, Greg, was also eating on our floor and he was absolutely killing it!

Thanksgiving in London!

Friday: Friday morning, we woke up and headed to the London Eye. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I had been on the Eye before but I figure it's something I had to do while studying abroad. After riding the giant ferris wheel, the family and I went to the Borough Market to munch on some free samples.

London Eye

We found a nearby restaurant called The Slug and Lettuce to eat some grub and then decided to head to Westminster Abbey. Here is where the day goes downhill... About halfway through the audio tour of the church where Kate and William got married, I had a seizure. Second one of my life but first one in about a year and half. I regained consciousness inside the ambulance where some nice British paramedic told me I had seized. WHAT?! Apparently I blocked off the entrance to the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots and caused a huge scene in the church. I am just incredibly thankful that my family was with me, because they made it a lot easier. Allie and Zack also immediately flocked to the hospital to see me in my state of panic, for which I can't thank them enough. It is clear that my former diagnosis of a "one time seizure" was not correct, and hopefully I can figure some medical things out over winter break. The seizure put a bit of a damper on the trip, but my parents were still able to catch their flight the next day. On Saturday, I literally did not exit the apartment. All my friends basically came over and brought me desserts and we watched movies: the perfect post-seizure day. I really do have the best family and friends ever!

On Sunday, Zack and I mobilized to meet up with his friend from home near Hyde Park. We strolled through the Portabello Market, which is really awesome, and went to the Winter Wonderland which is in Hyde Park. We rode the Barclays bikes through the park for a bit and even saw some of Speaker's Corner. That is where people stand on little stools or platforms and rant about whatever they want for as long as they want to a group of strangers. It's funny that it is so organized, considering some of these people seemed kinda crazy!

Today, Monday, I took work off to let my body recover a little bit. I also still can't really eat anything, since my tongue took a beating during my seizure. One thing my seizure did remind me of (along with Thanksgiving...) is how blessed I am to have had this study abroad experience, to be in good health overall and to have the best friends and family in my life. Although this has dampened my spirits a bit, I am starting to reflect on the overall experience of studying in London with just over two weeks left. It has been absolutely phenomenal. Choosing to study abroad was one of the best decisions of my life. I have learned so much, grown up so much, and had more fun than I could ever imagine.

School is starting to catch up with me a little bit, so I should definitely accomplish some paper-writing in the next week or so. Zack and I are spending Friday night in Edinburgh, Scotland, and I have 16 more days to check everything off of my study abroad bucket list. Ready, set, go.

"Are you going to the disco?"

I am getting so many new passport stamps.

Prague was a really neat city. Not only is everything super cheap (Minus the hotel, I spent less than $100 on stuff throughout the weekend) but it is very medieval with pretty sweet architecture. The night life is also pretty stellar.

We awoke early on Friday, per usual, and got into Prague around 11am. After a longer than usual line to get through immigration, we met up with Allison's friend Caitlin who is studying abroad in Prague, and she very nicely showed us exactly where to go and what transportation tickets to buy, ideal. We got into the city center and made our way to the hotel. Prague also has a very efficient public transportation system, with an underground train as well as an overground tram. We ended up taking the tram pretty much everywhere, and we just bought 24 hour passes so you don't have to swipe your ticket every time which was very convenient. Our hotel was quite nice and it was refreshing to stay somewhere that actually has towels and a TV for a change. It was also a hilarious third wheel room with Zack and I sharing a bed and Allie on a cot on the other side of the room, classic.

We met back up with Allison, Katie and Caitlin and walked around the city center, got some sausages and explored. Turns out the food in Prague is completely made up of fat and salt, awesome. We walked across the Charles Bridge which has beautiful views and a lot of street performers and art vendors on it. It turned out to be pretty cold in Prague (in the 30s and 40s) but it was sunny almost the entire weekend. We then crossed the bridge and found this precious area with all these locks where married couples "lock" in their love. We also checked out this giant graffiti wall that apparently used to be a John Lennon tribute. By this point, we were pretty sleepy so we went back to the hotel for a little siesta. Later on we all met back up at a pizza place that had delicious food and drank some Czech beer. We picked up some champagne at the grocery store and went to Caitlin's apartment to hang out before going out.

Charles Bridge

So many locks!

Around midnight, we headed to Lucerna which is a "80s and 90s theme video nightclub" - ideal to say the least. They basically played a bunch of Whitney and Backstreet Boys and other epic jams along with the music videos. Only downfall of the night is when Zack purchased absinthe shots and I contemplated death after taking one. I literally can no longer drink absinthe, my body rejects it! Something weird about the clubs in Prague is everyone smokes inside of them, same with all of the bars and pubs and everywhere. I had to do some serious laundry post-Prague to prevent smelling like a chimney.

Saturday morning, we woke up and ate some free hotel breakfast before doing some sight seeing. We went back to the main city center/clock tower to watch the hourly show that goes on atop the tower. Turns out the show consists of a few figurines poking their heads out the window and a bell ringing, quite anticlimactic. We found a glorious hot chocolate stand in the center which had some of the best hot chocolate I have ever had! We went back twice in one day and the lady working there recognized us and laughed. Zack, Allie and I started making our way towards the Prague Castle where we found a bunch of other ND kids. We hung out for a while and eventually ditched them (nicely) and the three of us checked out the castle. It was quite an uphill climb but we made it. The basilica of the castle was gorgeous, both inside and outside. We then kept walking towards this mini-Eiffel tower looking structure further up the hill. We walked through some picturesque leaves and trees and it reminded me of fall at ND! We paid a bit to climb to the top of this tower and took in a view of all of Prague, so cool.

The church at the Prague Castle

Panorama at the top of the tower

After walking about all day, it was time for another siesta. We napped and relaxed they got up and went back to the city center after getting lost for a solid 30 minutes. Then we proceeded to eat all of the food at the markets in the center (chicken kebabs and these interesting fries were the highlights) and get more hot chocolate. We found this one Czech pub that apparently Bill Clinton went to, so it's really famous, but it was clearly too popular and too packed to stay at. We found another pub that sold Czech Budweiser, which we tried, along with fried cheese, which we bought because it is a local thing. We stopped at one more bar and had a drink before Allie luckily managed to procure some discount tickets to the club (As in this random store owner looked at her and asked "Are you going to disco" to which she responded yes... clearly we look like party people). It was a 5 story club with different floors ranging from oldies to electronic to popular music. We waited in line with some British guys from Manchester who were really funny. Eventually we got inside, and it was a wild time even though there were only three of us that ended up going. Allie came away with a new French boyfriend (not really) and the electronic floor was bumping. We went home at 3 or 4am and all went to sleep immediately once we got back to the hotel.

Sunday morning, we checked out and picked up a few souvenirs before heading home a bit earlier in the day. I definitely enjoyed Prague. Everyone there speaks English, just like everywhere else in the world. It was also really fun to go out on the town both nights.

This week in London has also been ideal!

Monday, I went to this auction place called Christie's to interview some people for NBC. They were holding an auction and selling memorabilia from John Lennon and Paul McCartney among others. This letter from Paul was projected to sell for at least 10,000 pounds! The camera man shot a bunch of clips for the piece and we talked to the auction experts. A good day at work overall.

Tuesday, I saw Reasons To Be Pretty at the Almedia Theatre. To be honest, it was a dud. Not nearly as good as the last couple of plays I have seen. They can't all be winners!

Wednesday, I survived transcribing some interviews on Syria at NBC before getting ready for Skrillex at Fabric! Basically, there was this after party with Skrillex as DJ at Fabric, the current #1 club in the world. I find it funny that I went there on a Wednesday night. Anyways, it was crazy! It was probably the loudest place I have ever been in with lights and smoke everywhere. Also, when Skrillex proceeded to drop the bass, the crowd proceeded to mosh pit! I feared for my life a couple of times, but luckily a huge group of NDers were there so we had some protection. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience and I'm glad I went. We got home a little after 3am and got a solid 5 hours of sleep in before class on Thursday morning, haha.

Skrillex at Fabric

Thursday, the Skrillex crew survived class and then I went on a couple of errands with Zack. We popped into Whole Foods and then found this cool market in Soho. We checked that out and then came across a Chipotle-esque burrito stand where I got a debilitating urge for a burrito, haha. We ate them in a nearby park and they were delicious. It was also a beautiful day in London, sunny and mid 50s which is ideal. Later on Thursday, I rehearsed more at the Globe, and things are really starting to come together. I have a bunch of lines to memorize for this week! I always have so much fun during that class it's just awesome. We also took a break during class to set up our schedule for next semester back at school, and I got most of the classes I wanted, with no classes on Friday once again, woohoo! Thursday night, Allie and I went to the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn. Yes, I am embarrassed but no, I did not hate it. Also London movie theaters are funny because you have assigned seats (which actually makes a lot of sense) and they show regular television commercials before the previews. It made for a good, chill night.

Yesterday, Friday, I traveled a bit out of the way to pick up the keys for my family's apartment. That afternoon, Allie and I took the tube to this giant mall called Westfield. I went absolutely wild buying both things for myself and Christmas gifts, someone should have put me on a leash. I made purchases from Next, a beauty store, Zara, Topshop, River Island, the Nike store and H&M. It was so fun and I hadn't actually been shopping for a long time so I don't feel so bad. Plus I definitely need to come back with some stellar Christmas gifts from London! Allie and I were at the mall for about 5 hours (a gratuitous amount of time) and literally shopped until we dropped. I stayed in on Friday night which was a good decision.

Tonight, Allie and I are going to attempt to get some student standby tickets for Phantom of the Opera, so hopefully that works out. If not, it looks like my night may lead me to Tiger Tiger, which is a club we've never been to before. And the Taylor family arrives in London tomorrow! AHHH things are about to get crazy!

Boy Scouts in Barcelona

I have fallen a bit behind on blogging so I have am going to briefly recap the last week and a half!

Monday: Worked and then met up with the quad at Las Iguanas for some food and drinks before Bridget's departure from London. They have a killer happy hour deal there. Then I rushed off to frisbee practice with Allie and Erinn which was once again, awesome! One of the girls from the team even asked me how long I was staying in London for (as though she were interested in me playing on the team!)

Tuesday: In my theatre class we heard from this fairly well-known British actress who spoke about her days as a drug dealer and cocaine addict, no joke. She was literally crazy but also wildly entertaining. Zack made some awesome homemade pizza that night and then I saw The Last of the Duchess at the Hampstead Theatre which had probably the best acting I have seen so far in it and a compelling story about journalism. I really liked it. Also, my friend Tom and I have made a pact to get ice cream at intermission for the rest of our theatre performances. It must be a British thing because every theatre sells ice cream here, it is great. I am also becoming more and more obsessed with my theatre teacher, Charles Duff, each and every day.

Wednesday: Crazy night! Finished up with work and then headed over to Covent Garden (which is awesome at night) with the usual possy and some of Jon's family. We were introduced to his "uncle" who we referred to as Chief by the end of the night. Let's just say he likes to have a good time. After buying gratuitous tequila shots for the entire group, we went to the OXO Restaurant on South Bank which is probably one of the nicest restaurants in London. My entree casually cost 30 pounds. The food was so good and there was lots of wine and champagne to go around. We also had an awesome view of the city right on the river. One of the best/funniest week nights I have had so far.

Thursday: Class at the Globe! SO FUN. Allie now understands why I take acting classes. You basically play games and do silly improv exercises the entire time. Our teacher is awesome, Trevor. He told us that we are doing a condensed version of Macbeth for our final performance and that we are all going to kind of share parts, so we will see how that works out. The class is awesome because everyone is really into the idea of acting and is enthusiastic to give it a shot. I forgot how tiring acting is, though. After three hours of games and lines and exercises I was worn out! This class is quickly becoming my favorite one, however.

Now... BARCELONA!

Friday: Left early for Barcelona! After our group touched down, we met up with Bridget and Michelle at our hostel. Our hostel was super cool. It was right in the middle of the city centre and was very homey with a really nice staff. We hit up Sagrada Familia (this crazy old church that is still not complete after a million years) which literally looks like a giant sand castle. Then we made our way to Las Ramblas, this famous big street, and hit up an amazing market. We all got smoothies and basically wanted to eat everything we saw. It was so colorful! We also stopped at a restaurant where we had our first taste of paella and sangria!

Sagrada Familia

Best smoothies ever

That afternoon, we went back to the hostel for our siesta aka nap. We woke up feeling refreshed and got ready to go out. Turns out about 15 of us from ND were staying in the same hostel (typical) so we knew we were in for a really fun night. We broke off for dinner and found this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Carpe Diem near our hostel. There was literally no one there so we basically took over the restaurant and had a photo shoot. We had a bunch of tapas and other Spanish foods and many pitchers of sangria, of course. Zack even somehow managed to barter with the waiter for cheaper sangria. After eating, we went to this American-esque bar while we waited for the famous Chupitos to open up. We had a variety of drinks at the first bar (courtesy of Jon...) and met some Spanish people who were really excited to meet us and immediately facebook-friended some of us. Once Chupitos opened, we had a field day. Basically, it is a bar with hundreds of different shots with cool names and ingredients and they light a bunch of stuff on fire. I had a Teletubbie, a B52, a Boy Scout and some other weird ones. The Boy Scout entailed roasting a marshmallow over a line of fire, dipping it in the shot, eating the marshmallow and then taking the shot which tasted like candy and probably had very little alcohol in it. It was the most fun thing I have ever done. A lot of the shots had whip cream and other cool things in them as well. I need to go back someday so I can try the Harry Potter. Afterwards, most of us took a cab to the beach towards the clubs. All the big clubs are literally right on the shore which is so cool. I love the ocean! We struggled to get into a few places at first and stumbled upon Catwalk for free for a little bit. As it turns out, Spanish people start partying at 3am so at 1am, the club was completely empty. We left the empty club and wandered around for a bit...I stuck my feet in the ocean. Then I stumbled into Club Opium with Allie, Sean, Dan and Bridget where we had an awesome time. It was a huge dance club with these sequin dancers on the stage. Afterwards, we ran into the ocean, and some of us literally went completely under either on purpose or accidently (Dan...Bridget...). The Mediterranean is my friend. Soaking wet, we returned by cab to the hostel at about 4am.

Chupitos

Saturday: Barcelona is a really cool city. Unfortunately it rained most of the time we were there, but we still managed to have a great time. It is a good balance between city and beach. Saturday, we woke up and went to this giant park north of the city with everyone. You walk up a bunch of stairs (or in my case, Zack carried me on his back), and get to the top of the hill where you can see the entire city. There is also a bunch of stuff designed by Gaudi over there which has a very interesting design style. We sat on the "longest bench in the world" and then headed down back towards the city. We walked around, Allie and I downed a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream for lunch, and we found the coolest gummy shop in the world where I obviously bought gummies. We made our way back towards Las Ramblas where we bought some things from the markets and took more pictures. Then we went to the ocean...and in the ocean! Even though it was cold, we pretty much just went for it. The waves were actually really strong! We played around for a while until we could no longer feel our frigid bodies. Allison also took adorable pictures of us by the water. We took some pictures in front of the sunset and went back to the hostel to shower and get ready. We did so, and then took the metro to the Magic Fountain, which is this giant water fountain that lights up different colors and does a show to different types of music. It reminded me so much of Vegas and the Bellagio! We danced and drank sangria in front of the fountain. We then found a tapas place to eat nearby. I had an assortment of tapas and a seafood paella which would later come back to bite me (see my notes about Sunday...). We then got some gelato and went back to the hostel once more before going out. Turns out we were all so tired so it was difficult to mobilize. We still managed to make our way to the Dow Jones bar which is super cool because the drink menu "crashes" just as the stock market would certain times throughout the night and drinks get really cheap. We also met up with our Spanish friends we had met the night before. The night was a bit short-lived, though, because we were so tired.

Photo shoot post-swimming in the sea

Sunday: So I woke up on Sunday and felt pretty sick but didn't think much of it. As we continued to walk around, the fact that I had food poisoning became more and more evident, bad times. Luckily Barcelona has a lot of trash cans everywhere and I found myself running to them throughout the day. We still managed to tour the Gothic area in the morning which was really pretty, but besides that, I basically felt terrible. Luckily I have the best friends ever and they took really good care of me.

Monday: Somehow recovered and went to the work! The Michael Jackson verdict came out and turns out Dr. Murray is guilty. It's always cool to be in the newsroom during big verdicts. Also, there is speculation that Kate Middleton is pregnant which I definitely hope happens while I'm in London because the media will be going crazy!

Tuesday: Toured the Victoria and Albert Museum during theatre class and then went to Jumpy at the Royal Court Theatre that night. Jumpy has been my favorite performance so far! It was about a 50-year-old mother and her teenage daughter and was super modern and borderline inappropriate. I was cracking up the entire time.

Wednesday: Actually did real school work! I got very behind on reading over the past few weeks since I have been crazy busy and it came back to bite me. I have been working on a paper nonstop for the past couple of days! What is real homework?!?!

Thursday: Globe action once again! So much fun. Also made a pretty legitimate dinner. Preparing for Prague as I type this!

London has gotten a bit chillier recently so I am literally just now starting to wear coats. The weather, overall, has been so great since I have gotten here. The past few weeks have been totally crazy with school and traveling! I'm definitely excited for Prague this weekend. Why are there only 5 weeks left?! :(