Another weekend has flown by...

The rest of the weekend was just about perfect.

Having John come to class with us on Friday was just like old times (when Kev, John, and I were all in the same religion class at Luther) and it was actually fun. From class, we came home to have a dinner of Thanksgiving leftovers with Mark, Carol, John, and Mary's parents. Brandon had choir practice, but after he came home, we headed out for the night. We showed John around the city centre at night (the Christmas market is in full swing and the decorations are fabulous) and took him to our favourite places to go out. Pitcher and Piano was classy, as usual, and Revolution was fun, as always, and we ended our night at Dogma, which was loud, as usual. It decided to start pouring, so instead of walking back from city centre which had proved to be a cheaper and enjoyable way to get home, we split into two groups and caught taxis back to the flat. Once again, we stayed up talking too late... I purposely did not look at my watch when I finally crawled into bed.

Saturday started with everyone waking up around noon. I actually woke up a bit earlier and went for a short run, which felt surprisingly good after staying up so late two nights in a row. We all raced to get ready and head out the door for the Forest football game. Along the way, we decided to have a pre-game meal/drink/ whatever, so we stopped in at the traditional place for Forest fans. Hooters. OK, I know, gross. It was my first time there and it was packed with football fans of both sexes and of all ages (a few months all the way upto around 80 years old). The boys got a drinks and wings and Emily and I split quesidillas. We met up with Mary and her parents just outside after we were done and we made our way to the game. We got there a bit late and ended up missing the first goal... it was Milwall against us. Fortunately, the Forest came back and ended up winning 2-1. We had heard tha Milwall was notorious for thier rowdy fans and noticed the excess of police and security at the game. After the last games events, we were surprised when no riots broke out. However, on the way back to the tram, we noticed that the entire contingent of Milwall fans was being herded by police and and police vehichles and police horses back to the train station. When I say herded, that is actually what I mean. The fans were kept in a group and were surrounded by literally hundreds of police. Traffic was delayed to keep the fans seperate and pedestrian traffic (of the Forest variety) was also delayed in order to keep the Milwall fans inline and on their way out safely.

Once home, we warmed up, had dinner, took naps, watched a movie and then headed out to the Lion for a quieter evening. David Juggins had told us that there was going to be a phenomenal band playing at the Lion on Sat. night, so we made our way there. The place was packed and the band was phenomenal. It was a traditional Irish band and the atmosphere which is generally so comfortable anyways, was even more so and it was an overall happy time. We met up with the Juggins, Mark and Carol and Mary and her parents later on in the evening. It was a great night with specialty cask ale pints, good music and friends and family. Suddenly, time had flown once again and we headed home around one and once we got back to the flat, stayed up talking again. This morning, everyone crawled out of bed to say goodbye to John. Kevin and I left with John at 8:30 to take him to the station and find him a ticket. We made it in plenty of time, and once again, I said goodbyes at the station. It is not getting any easier to watch friends and family pull away from that station, knowing that I will not see them for atleast seven more months. I came back to the flat with the intention of going back to bed, but wasn't sleepy anymore. I ended up watching a movie and once Kate joined me, and put in another movie, my sleep deprivation caught up with me. I soon fell asleep and actually slept for about four hours on the comfiest couch in our living room. After dinner, I've finally caught up on all of my emails and pictures (be sure to check my picasa page for new pictures) and am ready to start one of many large papers that are due over the next two weeks. I hope everyone had a fun and safe Thanksgiving weekend. Cheers.

Celebrating Thanksgiving in the Mother Country...

After much excitement, we Thanksgiving finally arrived. With the day itself arrived John from Switzerland (he finally arrived at 2am on Thanksgiving day) and a ton of great food. After staying up talking to John for entirely too long, I slept for a few hours. I woke up later that same day to start cooking. After making pie crust and pumpkin pie from scratch (I literally started with pumpkins because England doesn't know what canned pumpkin is) I started washing dishes and helping around the kitchen. Everything came together in plenty of time and it was a relatively relaxed day. We had hors d'oeuvres served at five and dinner was served at six. Our guests included (aside from the nine flatmates and Mark and Carol) Mary's parents (Frona and Ricky! they are so much fun...), Kate and David Juggins, and John. Even though the guest list wasn't that big, sixteen people is a lot of people. After an appropriate beginning of giving thanks, courtesy of Carol, we all dug into the food. The list of dishes we had is simply staggering, but included such things as: deviled eggs, mushroom rolls, turkey, stuffing/dressing. gravy, special mashed potatoes (with or without mushrooms), candied sweet potatoes (with or without marshmallows on top), green bean casserole (with or without oniony things on top), five hour rolls, cranberry sauce, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and rice pudding and wine and several other things I am sure I am forgetting. Needless to say, no one went hungry and we will be eating left overs for the next five days. It was an impressive spread and it was all served on beautifully decorated candlelit tables. It was so much fun to have so many people all together, eating, talking, and laughing. It was actually quite loud and a generally boisterous meal.

Today I have two classes, one of which John is coming to bc Kevin, Brandon and I (and Mary, Em, and Aaron) are all in and well, it will be somewhat amusing. After classes are done, we have a weekend of excitement ahead of us. The Forest/Milwall game on Saturday, a couple live bands are playing at our favorite pub, and who knows what else. (Homework? maybe? well, I guess that is what Sundays are for...)

I hope everyone at home had a wonderful thanksgiving with family and friends. I miss you all, but the comments, emails, and phonecalls are much appreciated. Have a great long weekend!

yay for visitors...

Another week of classes slipped by and suddenly, my Mom was here. It is impossible to describe how fast the time flew. It was fun to show my Mom where I live, work (go to school), and play (run and go out). We visited the Nott'm castle, had tea and scones, had Indian, French, and Italian food, saw an opera, walked all over creation, visited a small village outside the city limits and enjoyed countless other things too. It was nice to receive hugs (thanks to all of my family that passed hugs along via my mom, they were greatly appreciated) and just to talk. It was hard saying goodbye at the train station this morning, but I knew it would be. The rest of the day was filled with classes and organizing emails and paperwork that built up from the weekend. The next two days will be filled with writing papers and classes and then on to Thanksgiving (with John! who is visiting from Switzerland). I hope all is well in the states. More later, but now it is time for bed. G'night.

exciting!

Our trip to the Southwest was great. We stayed in a nice hostel and had fun wandering the city. We had interesting trips to museums such as the Roman Baths Museum and the Costume Museum. OK, the costume museum wasn't so much interesting as incredibly painful. Come on, try on corsets for fun? No thanks. To treat ourselves after the not funness of that museum a few of us went to a Starbucks. Sad, I'm in England and I went to a Starbucks, but it was delicious and worth every pence. Our evenings were filled with high class entertainment. The first night we had the chance to hear the London Philharmonic as part of the Mozart Fest. The second night, we heard Mozart's opera "Cosi fan Tutti" performed. Both performances were phenomenal. On Monday, we began our journey home. We stopped in Wells to tour the Cathedral and get a taste for the English school system (courtesy of a Luther grad who now teaches there). From there we drove to Stonehenge and literally looked at it through the grates of a fence. Apparently Luther College doesn't think it worth the money to let us into that incredible historical site, but deems a Costume museum an appropriate use of money. After using the services (facilities, loo, whatever you want to call it) and taking too many pictures of the druid ruin, we headed out yet again. We finished the day in Avebury (a town that was accidentally built in the middle of a huge stone circle) by walking amongst the stones and eating our sack dinner. We straggled back to the coach in the dark and settled in for the long ride home.

Once back at the flat, Kevin and I were greeted with incredible news, once again. Both the Luther XC men and the women placed 2nd at regionals (with many all regional performers) and qualified for nationals! I am so proud and so excited for them. A busy few days later, I am hurrying to write (OK, procrastinating) a paper for this afternoon's class with Mark and Carol.

In other news: MY MOM IS COMING TODAY!
I have been so excited. We will be spending four-ish days hanging out in Nottingham. An Opera, cream tea, and much walking is on the agenda as is a good Indian meal and dinner at the flat and who knows what else. As for now, I really should get going on that paper so I can go meet my mom at the train station on time. Oh, and be sure to check my photo page, there are plenty of pictures from our Southwest trip posted. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Randomness...

So, at long last, here is the tiny little bit of the London story that is left: Mary, Em and I got up early and collected breakfast, courtesy of the hostel, and made our way to the train station and enjoyed our breakfast there as we waited for Kate and Anna to arrive. With everyone safely there, we found our seats and headed home. Much less eventful than our trip there, that's for sure. On the way home, Mary and I decided how to get from the tram to the hotel our parents are staying at when they come to visit... so with our HUGE hiking packs we figured it out. Mom and Dad, you will be happy to know, the tram is about a 2 and a half minute walk away from the hotel. Perfect.
When we walked in the door, we were happy to see that the boys had not burned the place down while we had been away. Our euphoria didn't last long because we soon walked into the kitchen to see it literally filled with dirty dishes. There were NO clean dishes left. Fortunately, the boys had done that solely for the purpose of horrifying us. It worked. The dishes were soon washed and the bread and cookies that Kevin had baked were brought out to welcome us home. It was good to be back.
Less than an hour later, Mark Lund from Luther College came by to chat with us about how the program was going and to see if we had any suggestions for future years. It was nice to see a familiar face from Luther, even if he is a professor. That night I headed to campus to hear Aaron in his first orchestra concert. Despite his complaints about the group, Mar, Kev, Em, Anna and myself thought it was an excellent concert.
Fastforward through four days of classes, paper writing, and watching five episodes of LOST (at last!) all in one night, here I am typing away instead of working on the mounting pile of homework. I have booked my flight home, ironically, it is on the same flight that the group is taking home, and have yet to figure out exactly what is going on over Christmas Holiday. Today is Kim's 25th birthday (I hope I get to talk to her... she has been busy so far) and I found out last night that my cousin is engaged, how exciting! In other news, Mom is coming next Thursday (I have the tickets for Rigoletto!),Mary's parents are coming soon after, and John is flying in from Switzerland to spend Thanksgiving with us. All through this I have the most homework I have ever had before... scary, but it will, uh, build character... or something like that. Be sure to look at my London pics, they are up on Picassa now. We leave on Saturday morning for the Southwest (Bath and Wells) and will get back on Monday night, missing yet another day of classes for Luther travel. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. Oh, and story of the week: Emily has a friend who has the same name of a boy I was friends with in kindergarten, strange coicidence... right? It turns out it is the same guy, apparently he moved from Freeport to several other cities and ended up in Decorah and became friends with Emily. Anyway, he remembered me and so the two of us ended up chatting on IM for a while. Small world. So, now, it's time for homework or something. Have a great night and I'll talk to you all soon. Cheers!

Lodon, continued...

OK, after a beautiful bike ride to and from a decent psych lecutre, here is the rest of the story on London...
After finding tickets for the next night, we had dinner at a restaraunt on Leicester Square and headed to our theatre. Little did we know, there was an Apollo Theatre and an Apollo Victoria Theatre. Fortunately, after running up at down the street right before theatre time, we found a taxi and made it to the correct Apollo just in time. Even though our seats were incredibly high up in the balcony, Wicked was amazing. Idina Menzel played the part of Alfaba and was phenomenal. After many smiles, a few tears, and thundrous applause, we all headed back to our hostels. it was an excellent first day in London.
Saturday started out quite leisurely as well. Mary, Em and I eventually made our way to Camden Market and looked around. It was neat to notice the differences bettween Camden Market and Canal Street in NYC... Kim had told me all about Camden Market and I actually found the stall where she bought the ring she gave me... it was weird to think that we had both been there. Then I realized that my entire family will have been in London sometime within a five month span, just never at the same time. Weird. Mary and I each bought a pashmina (I love them!) and we grabbed lunch in the part of the market that has tons of food stalls. It was hard to choose with vendors yelling "You try some!" "Free, for you, good sample!". I eventually settled on a non descript Asian place. Only three pounds got me entirely too much food. A dish with half fried rice, half noodles, and topped with delectable chicken. We met up with Kate and Anna and shared stories from the morning.
From Camdentown, we hopped back on the tube and made our way to the Tate. Unfortunately, the guidebook I was using was written before the Tate Modern was completed... so we ended up at the Tate Britain. We looked at the gift shop, used the facilities, got directions to Tate Modern and left. The Tate Modern is located on on the Thames in a converted power plant building. It is hard to convey how amazing the collection of art is. The girls split up to enjoy the museum at our own pace. I loved every moment of it. Although I wasn't a fan of all of the art, so what. I saw some amazing things. The highlight of my visit was finally getting to see a Piet Mondrian... well, actually three. He was the first artist that I knew well enough to recognize (his work is pretty distinctive) and so it has always been close to my heart. Some of the most famous works or works that I enjoyed the most were by: Jackson Pollock, Picasso, Monet, Reindhardt, Andy Warhol, Piet Mondrian, Degas, Edvard Munch, and Matisse. It was an experience (once again, free).
Kate split off of the group as she had more time before her show (Avenue Q), but Anna, Em, Mar and I all stayed together. We walked along the Thames, by the Globe, and across the Millenium bridge as the sun finished setting and the moon became brighter. It was beautiful. We walked near St. Paul's and got on the tube back to Leicester Square to find some dinner. After dinner, Anna and Emily caved and went to McDonald's to get a McFlurry. They are only a pound. That is so incredibly cheap by any standards, it was hard not to get it. However, I have vowed NEVER to eat in a McDonald's if I am out of the US. So I abstained. We walked down to Picadilly Circus and parted ways. Anna left to see Patrick Swayze in Guys and Dolls and Mar, Em and I went to see "39 Steps". Another great night of West End performances was thoroughly enjoyed. We went back to our hostel, checked the internet, watched some British television and went to bed early again. It was another great day.
OK, so this is getting annoying, but I have to go finish up a paper before dinner, so the rest of the blog will be continued later tonight. Have a peachy day!

A great girls weekend out...

After our class with Mark and Carol on Thursday, we (the girls) threw our last minute belongings into our huge hiking backpacks and headed out the door. Before we could leave, Mark, Carol and all of the boys stopped us and gave each and everyone of us a hug. It was really cute. We made our way to the train station picked up our tickets, and about forty frenzied minutes later, we were on A train to London. Note that I said a train, not our train. The train ride was nice enough, we enjoyed our packed dinner and chatted and figured out our route through the tube. With our tired backs we made our way to our hostel. The Palmer's Lodge was set in a nice neighborhood just off the tube stop. It is in an old victorian building and appeared to very nice. After Emily, Mary and I checked in, we went back out with Anna to go to her hostel and meet Kate. At best, it was an exciting? no, perhaps heroing... experience. We were glad to see Kate and got Anna all settled in. After listening to a bit of loudly played jazz-like improv, Mar, Em and myself quickly made our way back to the tube stop and relaxed as we entered the more friendly part of London.
Our hostel turned out to be great. Although we stayed in an eight person room, it was comfortable, secure, clean and cozy. We thoroughly enjoyed the free internet and delicious continental breakfasts during our stay. The next morning was quite leisurely. We slept in a bit, got ready and headed out to meet Anna and Kate near Trafalgar square. The weather was cool and crisp, but it was sunny the whole day. Layering proved to be a valuable plan. We enjoyed the National Portrait Gallery (we had seen a special exhibit of some of the works when we were in York). It was fascinating to see how the works have changed over the years, from paintings that flatter the subject to realistic paintings and sculptures and today's artistic photographs and works in other mediums. Needless to say, it was fun... and thanks to the British Government, free. Excellent, it fit perfectly into my budget. We went outside to enjoy the weather and Trafalgar Square and found a bite to eat at a neat little sandwich place Emily had found during her JTerm trip last year. Afterwards, we made our way back through Trafalgar, avoiding the trash (OK, not trash, London was actually pretty clean... or atleast it seemed to be until you blew your nose. Last time I checked tissues shouldn't be black. But, trash, right... Em has a dislike for winged things that frequent big public places in big cities. Birds.) so we avoided the trash and made our way to the National Gallery. My favorite section was the display 'Manet to Picasso' so I spent a considerable amount of time there. Unfortunately, well maybe fortunately, it was understandably crowded so I soon made my way to some parts of the museum I might not have been to otherwise. The collection there, to say the least, is phenomenal. Seurat, Rysselberghe, Signac, Degas, van Gogh, Renoir, Manet, Monet, Picasso, Pissaro, Rembrandt and da Vinci, just to name a few. Once again, all of that was free to the public. Thank you England.

OK, once again, I lost track of time, I'm off to a psych lecture...
I'll write more.
Cheers :)

London!

The past two days have been filled with homework and classes and two amazing phone conversations with my parents. It was nice to just talk with them both for a while. Needless to say, I am rather excited for them to come visit (Mom in two weeks! and Dad in the Spring sometime). Both yesterday and today, it has been absolutely beautiful outside. Although it has been a bit chilly, the crisp air blowing around the {finally} colored leaves in the sunshine entirely makes up for it.

On Thursdays, since I have no classes at Uni, I get to spend the day in my pj's catching up on emails and homework. Today, however, I also have to pack. The girls (Anna, Emily, Kate, Mary, and I) are all leaving for London for the weekend. We are staying in hostels and going to see Wicked on Friday night. Beyond that we have no set plans. It should be a great weekend. So, I'm off to get some reading in and pack. Have a great weekend and be sure to look for pics when I get back from London. Cheers!