Wooopsies! (aka Kelly came to London!!)

I MEANT to write this on monday when kelly left....

i forgot.

oops.

sorry.


Anywho Kelly came to london last weekend! It was great! I has been a while since ive done londony things it was very refreshing and very eventful! It all started when kelly arrived at victoria station at about two oclock on saturday. Little did I know she had just had quite an ordeal on the other end. My wonderful and lovely friend kelly, as brilliant as she usually is, decided to wake up an hour before her plane took off from cork. Not get to the airport, wake up. And she wasn't packed. But being the resourceful one that she is SOMEHOW she made it to London on time anyways haha. WHICH is good cause i had already bought us tickets for the London eye!

which was the next adventure! Me, Kelly and my two friends from London Kelsey and Lauren headed off to the London eye! First we walked around and looked at Parliament square then moseyed our way to the London eye. We got on around 530(ish) which was perfect timing because the sun was just beginning to set so it was really pretty views but still able to see everything. We decided they say its 30 minutes but it definitely didn't feel that long at all. ooohed aaahed took some pictures and that was pretty much that haha. Its a fun thing to do once but there's not a whole lot to say about it really lol.

*** i tried to insert some pictures here and its not letting me! so you'll have to use your imagination or look at my facebook haha***

Then we headed off to see Westminster abbey, however it was late so it was closed and we couldnt go in :( but we stared at its beauty for a while before heading home to make nachos for dinner. Which we inhaled. Right before we went to a place called Proud, which is a bar in the old stables of london and it was circus night! so there was a man eating fire and girls hanging from the ceilings. Always a good time!

Saturdayyy we went to the tower of london! very cool place with some very sad stories! Kelly and I got the audio headphones because we had limited time to see it all, and i kept frowning at her because of all the sad stories. For instance, two little princes disappeared to the and were never seen again and the theory is they were killed in the bloody tower. The worst part? they think it was their uncle who did it! Or Lady Jane Grey who watched her family and husband being taken off to execution from her chambers and then saw him being wheeled back with no head. SO SAD!! And they didnt even do anything wrong! It was all because of their religion! Craziness.

After that we took the tube (forever) to the very edge of london to see the cambridge oxford boat race! This does not include motor boats.... its crew! It was...thrilling? Not really but it was cool to see! Oxford won! It took them about 17 minutes to get to the finish line from the start (we were at the finish line) and they race down the river thames every year and have done it for... a lot of years before that haha. Its pretty impressive! Id like to be able to say ive rowed down the thames, however given all the history of that river I have heard I would not be getting in that water. Lots of dead people in there.

Sunday kelly and I spent the day at Hyde Park because it was BEAUTIFUL out so we sat on the grass and watched london pass by. Then walked down to Buckingham Palace and said hey to the queen!

It was a great weekend and I loooved having Kelly in London!!! She clearly wanted to stay because she almost missed her flight going back too... haha sorry I'm kinda exposing you but it was funny :)

Im sure I forgot stuff but you got the gist! (is that how you spell gist?)


Tomorrow.... PARIS!!!

<3 Lea

Sorry

This is a small post just for the purpose of apologizing for my terrible grammar and terrible spelling. I clearly never spell check. That is all <3

Green with Envy??

Yes, thats right I was in IRELAND!! Cork to be exact!

AND WHAT MADE IT EVEN BETTERR.... part of JA15 was there!!!!! I was sooo excited to see them and even thought it was only a couple hours with katie and megan it was MAGICAL!!! I was of course so excited to see my wonderful host kelly as well but i got all weekend with her....and all next weekend!! (WOO HOO kelly comes to london on friday!!)

Anywho so my trip started on friday morning bright and early left from heathrow at 9:55am! (meaning i woke up at 5...womp!) This flight was by far the loudest and most fun flights I have ever been on. They were all chatting and laughin in their cute irish accents which was really impressive seeing as they were also all talking about how drunk they were the night before , because it was St. Pattys day of course. So that was fun (I actually found it very entertaining). Then got to Ireland at about eleven and RUSHED to copley house to EMBRACE and LOVE my long lost JA15ers.  We had a great time all day wandering around cork ,it was a beautiful beautiful day! And even more fun at night! Went to a few of kelly's favorite hot spots and stayed up until 5 am when katie and megan very sadly got in the cab to go home :( :(.
And by we stayed up.... i mean they stayed up and I made it ALMOST till 5. But then I passed out on the couch haha.

Anywayss the next day was unfortunately really rainy but we still went out and explored cork and the stands that were up from st pattys day. I had my first hot whiskey.... the first sip i thought was TERRIBLE but then it actually kinda grew on me... though I dont think it will be my usual drink. THEN i tried my frist guiness!! Again, I dont like beer so this was impressive and I actually kinda enjoyed it. I mean I still like my ciders and my fruity drinks more but it wasnt too bad!

on sunday we did my favorite part... BLARNEY!! Blarney is magical so pretty and i loved loved it. We climbed the stairs to the top of the castle (ive been doing a lot of that) and kissed the stone!!
They say kissing the stone gives you the gift of gab..... cause i clearly had a lot of trouble in the gabbing area before the stone....
Then we walked around the poison garden, which is exactly what it sounds like. It is a garden full of all of the poisonous plants with descriptions of how they poison you. Me and kelly spend a long time reading all of the descriptions. VERY interesting stuff.
Then we wandered around the park which is absolutely gorgeous. I couldnt even describe it so ill just put a few pics!!

This is me climbing the wishing stairs! you cant tell but i have my eyes closed and i had to walk back down them backwards to make my wish come true!!

poison garden!

We continued to walk around a bit and found some of the famous irish countryside WITH BUFFALOS! so exciting. 

then kelly pushed me on a tire swing... so romantic hahaha

Monday I flew back to london :( bittersweet cause ireland was so much fun!!! Before my flight we took a little wander around kellys school SO PRETTY. I forgot to upload the pics of that...so youll just have to wonder.

So i guess the moral of this story is that Ireland is gorgeous and I had an amazing weekend!!!


Next adventure: Kelly comes to London!

Dear time, please stop flying.

Well I have now been back from italy for a week, and been back to work and classes. (woot!) same old same old.

BUT I had the lovely addition of seeing my lovely Aunt (yes I used lovely twice...) on tuesday AND on friday! Bonus was being able to follow her and her children around some museums I had yet to see yet! Now mother, pay attention to this part because both days we went to SCIENCE museums. Im sure youre very proud, Im also pretty sure you would have appreciated it all more then me. But in any case it was fun! On tuesday we met at the science museum and on friday at the Natural History museum. The natural history museum is in a BEAUTIFUL building so im glad i went just for that!

On thursday I had a very eventful day as well, which began with hosting an event with the RAC! I met one of my coworkers at the Royal Hospital which evidently was down the street from me, didnt know that! And we did a tour of the hospital (No, i did not lead the tour, one of the pentioners did). Though it may seem this is a hospital, with surgeries and patients and doctors. HOWEVER you would be wrong (if thats what it seemed like to you). pentioned It is more like a vetrans home, aka a VA in the states? But whats cool about the hospital is that there are soldiers living there who give up their pention to live and go back into service at the hospital. Our tour guide was decked out in the full red-coated uniform and very funny. I told him I was the intern and he said "INTERN?!?! Do you mean GOPHER!?!?" I laughed but im still not totally sure if he gets what an Intern is, but gopher doesnt seem that far off. (side note no one calls it an intern here so he wasnt weird for not getting it). So the tour was followed by my marketing class, immediately followed by our CAPA spring dinner and then me and two of my roommates headed out!

London is starting to feel like spring! More sun less rain and its getting WARMERR!!! However this means that my time is coming to and end. NOOOOO!!!

I spent yesterday and today at my Nana's house in Peterborough (about an hour north of london). We had a great time chatting and shopping and eating (typical of my Nana and I!) One of the big perks of being in london is getting to see all of my family that I hardly ever get to see when I'm in the states!

While on that trip I found out some interesting things... Such assss my first family doctor was the father of Alan Thicke (actor in growing pains) and my grandparents were only dating for two months before they got engaged. Oh the things you learn! (theres much more but it would take pages and pages to list!)

Back to work tomorrow! IRELAND ON FRIDAY!!!! cant wait!!!

<3 Lea

Ciao Bella!

So this weeks blog is about Italia!!! And it may very well be in storybook form... because I just figured out how to add pictures! haha

 I just got back from a VERY exhausting yet amaaazing week in the land of pasta wine gelato and oh yeah all that history and stuff too!

We stared the week of in beautiful Venezia (Venice). Its such an amazing little city for a lot of reasons. for one its a city completely built on water and there are as many bridges and canals as there are sidewalks. Which comes in handy when you are going on a gondola ridge through it , which we did! 

That was one of my favorite parts so I'm glad I took the plunge and we split the insane cost it is to ride in one of those. Im also glad we made it into the boat without falling into the Grand Canal, which knowing me was probably more likely to happen then not. 

Another very fun part of venice is that it was Carnevale!! So we saw all the masqueraders around St Marks Square in their very VERY intense costumes. And of course we bought masks so we could fit in :) LOTS of people had them 

sorry its sideways!

and here is my mask! 

While in venice we also climbed the bell tower! You really have no concept of the city as a whole until you see it from above so im so glad we did this. Heres a view!

andddddd

(I really wish i knew how to flip them on here....)

I think thats all the big stuff we did in Venice .... (im trying not to make this a complete novel) 

SO THEN we went to Firenze!! (Florence!!) 

Florence was also very beautiful but COOOOLLDDD brrr. 

we started our andventures exploring the leather markets and then walked toward the Arno River which was really pretty. On the river is the Ponte Vecchio; a line of shops that are kind of made into a bridge over the river. 

it looks so much prettier in real life......

and This is the river Arno!!

THEN we toook a very adventuroys little walk and discovered the Michelangelo Piazza  and saw the MOST breathtaking view of florence at night. Too bad it was extremely windy and ice cold up there but it was very much worth it. 

so we froze a little bit thennn 

found fake david!! you might think this is the real one... youd be wrong.

But the next day... WE SAW THE REAL ONEE!!!!

And I definitely was not allowed to take this picture.... snapped it real quick then got yelled at in italian. I donno where the guard lady even came i swear they have camera radars or something! 

Anyways David is amazing he is 516cm tall and beautiful! No really, hes not bad lookin! There is a quote by the statue that says after seeing david you neednt see any other sculpture because you will never see one as perfect as this one..... I think I might believe that. 

From there we went and saw the Duomo which is one of the coolest churches I have seen as of yet. Purely because the outside is really colorful and not like anything else I have seen its greens and purples and white and beautiful. 

Thennn we climbed 414 steps to the top of......

this tiny picture doesnt make it seem very impressive.... by anyways it was a tiny staircase with lots of turns and twists which makes it a little difficult cause not only are you hiking up the tower but you are also trying not to fall all the way back down the 414 steps.... 

BUT WE DID IT! so worth this view....

Okay so then... (are you still with me? is the storybook version helping you get through it? I hope so...)

We headed off to a small and ADORABLE little town called Greve which is in Chianti. 

Now all you wine freaks out there I expect you to know what this means! Vineyards!! This may very well be one of the best parts of the trip. Greve was amazing and so cute such a quintessential tuscan town and to top it off it was one of our best days weather wise. So we wandered around the town and then found a vineyard got a tour and did a wine tasting!! (Im not classy enough for stuff like this....)

But heres the vineyard!

theres lots of wine in that building..... yummmmm

 i want to sit in those chairs out there!

PS- im writing this blog while my friend Devon cuts my hair. Fingers crossed!

Back to Italy....

So after that we returned to good ol Florence for our last night in our second city of Italy and of course ate more pasta and gelato (as we did quite a bit) Before we woke up and headed off to Roma!!

Tursday morning arrived and ROMA HERE WE COME!!

Now I did love rome, just like i loved all the places I saw in Italy but I do have to say the city itself was not my favorite. Florence and Venice were so amazing to me because they are so different then any other city id been to at this point in my life and the culture was different and a really great experience. Dont get me wrong, I loved all the things I saw in Rome but to be honest It was my least favorite place of the three. However nothing will replace the feeling I got when I walked out of the rome metro station (they have NOTHING on london tubes.... just sayin...) and seeing the colosseum just right there!! IT IS AMAZING. its just such a larger then life feeling being by it, walking around it and thinking about all the history you are surrounded by. I LOVED THE COLOSSEUM. I know its very typical touristy...but for a very good reason! 

did you know... Colosseum means "the thing next to the colossus" Which was a giant sculpture next to the amphitheater that we now call the colosseum. Seemingly they cared more about whatever that thing was then the colosseum....wish i could see it! But its gone.... 

ANYWHO so with your ticket to the colosseum (which I got a discount on by the way... it pays to be an EU citizen!! I got a few handy discounts along the way!) you also get into see all of the ruins for free!

It was fun to walk around and imagine what all of these things looked like when they were in full form and what they might have used it all for and the kinds of people who lived here.... 

Other things we did in rome....

Found the Trevi fountain! 

When im rich Im going to have this put into my backyard.... 

Made my wishes!! Yes mom... i made one for you! Just like you asked!! (I really did, im pretty sure its the one in this picture too because I asked my friend to document it!) 

i dont know what this fountain is called...but we found it too haha

                                      

this one will be in my foyer 

Our last day in Italy was sunday, and we decided since we had until 6 to catch our flight, that we would use this day to see the vatican! No better day to go then sunday!! Its pretty much just fake life in there. Its amazing that its its own country with its own laws ruled by the pope. And its beautiful!

st peters square 

and an added little bonus about going on a sunday, we saw the pope! He gave his service...

.... then spoke to "his pilgrims"

this is a very zoomed picture because he was VERY far away in one of his many high high windows. He wished us a blessed day in rome, Thanks pope!

So this brings my Italian trip to and end! I dont know if this seems too short or too long for a weeks worth of stories in italy but I tried to keep it bearable! 

It was an amazing adventure and amazingly exhausting! 

Came back to life in london (I missed it! It feels like home!) and went straight back to work! Now I have a lovely haircut (Thanks Devon!) and am going to the Royal Hospital tomorrow with work! Then the spring dinner with capa (the program I am in).... WAIT that means its spring! I CANT BELIEVE THIS IS HALF OVER!!! 

Got to see my lovely aunt and her children (students) on tuesday and again on friday! then off to see my lovely Nana on saturday! busy busy!!

Cant wait until my next adventure when I get to go see KELLYYYY in Ireland WITH MEGAN AND KATIE!!! (I did the caps so you would all notice your shout outs in my blog hah)

Until next time everyone! If you made it this far and are still reading I give you a lot of credit!! 

<3 Lea