photobook

Click below to check out my photobook!

home

I made it back home.  I have spent the past few days recovering and tomorrow I must go back to work.  I am not terribly excited about that, but I do have to pay my rent from time to time, so I have no choice.  The plane ride back was fine but very long.  I was stopped at security in London and a guard went through all of my things in my carry-on.  A little nerve-wracking even though I knew there was nothing of interest in there.  But once Darla, Crystal, and I got on the plane and found out that we were by the emergency exit and thus had lots of leg room, we settled in for the 9-hour flight.  I watched Alice in Wonderland which was really neat to see after having been to Christ Church.  After that, I watched She's Out of My League and Iron Man 2, both of which passed the time nicely.  When we reached the airport, I was anxious to see my mom who was picking me up and I cried a bit when I finally found her.  I'm a big baby, what can I say?

I slept a solid 12 hours Thursday night.  That was fun.  I have actually been a bit busy since coming home, with only a little time to relax.  I had to go grocery shopping, bake my mom a belated birthday cake, hang out with people, unpack....  My friends and family keep asking about my trip and all I can tell them is that I had a good time but I am glad to be home.  I feel like I should have more to say, but I guess the fact that I have been keeping this blog has gotten it out of my system perhaps. 

digital story

My digital story of my favorite art in the museums of London and Paris:

size: 6.30 MB

Filipič, M. (2008). Stories from Emona II.  On Between two worlds. Location: http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/196221

i almost forgot!

I almost forgot to post the things from home that I miss...and some I don't:

Things I miss:

• Hot water
• My big shower
• My own bedroom
• My huge kitchen
• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
• Henry, my car
• My friends and family
• My big bed
• Free refills
• Target
• Baking
• Not having to walk up 4 flights of stairs to my room
• Having my phone on 24/7

Thing I don’t miss:

• Work
• Florida summer heat and humidity
• Paying for gas
• Paying for rent

contrasts

Today is my last full day in London.  It is bittersweet.  I will miss it but I am very ready to go home tomorrow.  I have been slowly packing up all of my stuff.  Somehow, I have accumulated a large amount of chocolate (for myself and for gifts) which I will need to take in my carry-on.  However, I have been unable to pack my carry-on just yet as I want to put my laptop in the very bottom and clearly I cannot pack that just yet.  I am on the same flight home as Darla and Crystal and Elvis has booked us a cab for tomorrow morning. 

As for the day's travels, we had a tour of Buckingham Palace this morning where I noticed there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of old people touring.  Not like older-than-me old, more like easily-old-enough-to-be-my-grandparent old.  I think that most of us agreed that the palace is neat and all, but some of the stuff is just ridiculously gaudy.  One super cool thing I learned about was the secret door in the White Drawing Room, which can't really be much of a secret if they practically advertise it on the official website of the British Monarchy and in the audio guides offered at the palace.

After our tour of the palace, we trekked over to the Illustration Cupboard, an art gallery dedicated to displaying art and illustrations from children's books.  I'm usually all over art galleries, but I'm not really all that interested in children's books, so...yeah....  Anyway, we then had our last meal together as a group at the Hard Rock Cafe.  It was lots of fun and lots of food.  So much food.  But delicious food nonetheless. 

For most of our trip, we have had lovely weather, but today, our last day, it was rainy and cold.  And it would just happen to be the one day I decide not bring my wind breaker jacket.  Ah well, I did have my umbrella so I didn't get soaked or anything.  The rain wasn't all bad, though.  While Tara and I were doing some last-minute souvenir shopping and trying to spend our last few pounds, we saw a few people taking pictures seemingly randomly looking down Great Russell Street.  Then we noticed the beautiful rainbow that was perfectly framed by the buildings lining the street.  What a nice way to end our trip on a high note.

water

We're in the home stretch here in London and I am getting ready to go home.  Tomorrow we are going to the Hard Rock Cafe here in London which I have learned is almost like going to an American embassy.  The last time I came to Europe, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe in Barcelona at about the same time in our trip: a day or two before going home when we were all tired and nearly ready to be home.  The best part is the huge glasses of soda with free refills.  I am going to drink so much Diet Coke - I can't wait.  Yeah, I'm kinda going crazy.

Today we went to Hyde Park.  We saw the Peter Pan-inspired playground and lots and lots of ducks and swans and more ducks.  We moseyed around the park, eventually stopping at the Princess Diana memorial fountain which we could actually go into.  The water was really cold, but we braved it anyway.  After a while we got used to the cold and our toes got numb.  We lunched in the park near the river/lake that runs through Hyde Park.  I brought my kite with hopes of wind so that I might fly it, but there was little wind worthy of kite flying.  Today was quite mellow.  We are all rather tired and winding down in our travels. 

I have started really looking forward to going home.  I have begun a list of things I do and don't miss from home, which I will probably post tomorrow.  The chief thing among the things I miss is hot water.  To all of my people back home, you know I love you and miss you, but it really is harder than you think to be without consistent hot water.  Lately, it has just been shutting off at the most inopportune time, such as last night, when it stopped altogether just as I was about to rinse the shampoo out of my hair.  Readers, be grateful for your hot water.  Enjoy your hot showers tonight or tomorrow morning.  If not for yourselves, then for me. 

motion

First and foremost, I must say, Happy Birthday Mommy!!  Today is my mommy's birthday but obviously I am unable to see her and tell her happy birthday in person so I shall say it here.  I will be baking your cake as soon as I get home!

In other news, we went to Oxford today.  Our photography focus was capturing motion.  First, we toured the Bodleian Library.  Some of the tour was quite fascinating but our tour guide was a bit long-winded making for a rather long, drawn-out tour.  It was fun nonetheless; you know me, books + art/architectural history + religion + history = one happy Katy.  After that tour, Elana and I had lunch at a restaurant called The Nosebag.  Sounds appetizing, huh?  Well, chances are we never would have found it, let alone even consider eating there had it not been for the dining suggestion of Elana's friend.  However, it turned out to be delicious.  And huge!  Elana ate one of the salads included in my meal and I was still full at the end of lunch.  We then ventured on down the street for a tour of Christ Church.  Our tour guide James for this tour was marvelous.  I do believe that we have decided that he is one of our favorite tour guides, second only to our beloved Hugh.  I really love the way we tour because we get to go to all kinds of off-limits places at most of the places we see.  It's awesome.  I'm pretty sure that the other visitors hate us.  But anyway, during our tour of the Christ Church gardens, an adorable cat started following us.  Now, we have had a few tag-along tourists when we tour, but this cat is by far our favorite.  But back to the tour itself...  One of the college's most famous (if not the most famous) scholar was Lewis Carroll who wrote Alice in Wonderland.  In fact, Alice in Wonderland is based on the daughter, Alice, of one of the school's deans and her adventures in and around the campus.  James showed us dozens of real-life details of the campus and told us of the stories that inspired Lewis Carroll and his work.  It was pretty cool.

Earlier, I was talking to a friend who asked if I had gotten what I wanted out of this experience.  I told him that I think I have.  One thing that I am particularly proud of is my ability to navigate through an otherwise unfamiliar city with only a map.  Also, I have learned and gained confidence in using the Tube and Metro (and any subway system for that matter).  For this, I must thank Elana who mentored me in the foreign ways of the subway systems.  I have also made some fabulous friends and had some wonderful experiences.  I also want to give a shout out and thank you to all of my friends and family who have been reading my blog regularly.  I never thought that people would care so much or that what I write would be halfway entertaining enough for people to keep reading.  In any case, I love you all and can't wait to see you when I get back!!

statues, paris, and hot chocolate

Friday we went to Paris.  I was a little nervous about Paris because the pickpockets and whatnot are not fun to deal with, but I made it through the weekend.  First, we went to the Louvre.  In case you were unaware, the Nike of Samothrace ("nike" is pronounced knee-kay and means "winged victory" which is why this statue is probably more often referred to as the Winged Victory of Samothrace; and yes, this is where Nike got its name) is at the Louvre.  And should you just so happen to be wondering, I love the Nike of Samothrace.  Love it.  Seriously.  I also love Classical Greek sculpture.  The Louvre has an absolutely amazing collection of Classical Greek sculpture.  It's amazing how much they have.  I'm speechless. 

Ok, so after the Louvre, we took a lunch cruise down the Seine.  It was fancy.  And of course, it wouldn't be a trip to Paris if we hadn't gone to the Eiffel Tower, which is where we headed next.  We then decided to go check into our hotel and meet back later to go to Notre Dame.  Our hotel was perfect.  Nothing particularly fancy, just simple and exactly what a little Paris hotel should be.  And walking distance to Notre Dame and within a block of a Metro stop.

Saturday, we slept til 12:30pm.  It was marvelous.  We needed it too.  When we did eventually get up, Elana and I made a stop at the Arc de Triomphe before walking down the Champes-Élysées.  We then took the Metro up to a flea market is a kinda shady part of town.  Yeah, we were glad to get back to our hotel after that, though we did have some delicious Nutella crêpes.

On to Sunday....  Kaitlin tipped us off to this restaurant that serves hot chocolate similar to the deliciousness I had in Spain a few years ago.  This hot chocolate is so rich, it's more like melted chocolate than your average hot chocolate from a mix.  It was so good.  Elana and I each ordered a cup and it came in a pitcher.  After pouring a cup for each of us, half of the pitcher was still full of hot chocolate.  I could only drink about half of my cup.  So I could only drink about a quarter of what I was served.  I wanted to take it home with me, but that wasn't really an option.  After that lovely experience, we went to a Salvador Dalí museum for which we saw an advertisement in the Metro.  The museum was very close to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica which we stopped in for a look-see.  From there, the train station was only about half a mile or so, so we walked there, stopping on the way at a pâtisserie to blow some of our euros.  When we got to the train station, however, we found that our train was delayed (as were many others) due to a bomb scare a few hours prior.  Yeah, that was fun.  We finally made it back to London an hour and a half after we were scheduled to, but we made it nonetheless.  It was so nice to take the Tube rather than the Metro as we have decided we prefer the Tube.  And coming out of the Tottenham Court Road Tube stop was like coming home.  It was nice.

digital film

And now for a film of the wonderful time I had in Brighton this past weekend:

37.9 MB
MacLeod, K. (2009). Clean Air. Location: http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?genre=Pop.

photographing the small things in life

Today I got a reader pass for the British Library.  I am quite proud of myself.  But I will get into that in a bit.  First, we stopped in at King's Cross Station to see and take pictures of Platform 9 3/4 like every other stereotypical librarians.  We then strolled over to the British Library for a lovely tour.  In case you were unaware, the British Library is pretty hardcore.  They don't bend the rules for anyone and they measure their stacks in kilometers.  Whoa.  Perhaps the best part of the tour was when we went into the gallery which had volumes upon volumes of amazingly preserved books and manuscripts.  For me, the Sacred Texts portion of the gallery was the best by far.  Some of the volumes dated back hundreds of years.  I got my Bachelor's in Religion with a minor in Art History and wrote my senior seminar paper comparing medieval Christian illuminated manuscripts to Islamic calligraphy.  I cannot describe how awesome this exhibit was for me.  I found, however, that apparently I know Hinduism best of the major world faiths whose sacred texts were on display at the British Library.  I was able to recognize the majority of the figures and stories for the Hinduism display more than for any other faith.

As my flatmates so kindly reminded me just now, the British Library also holds the world's largest collection of pornography.  While it may seem that I would simply add this for a giggle, it is actually interesting to me because I read the book Libraries, Erotica, and Pornography for an assignment in one of my Information Studies classes (this book was not assigned, but rather we were allowed to chose our books for the assignment with professor approval).

But back to my British Library reader pass.  When Mr. Gets, a friend of the family, heard about my trip to London, he gave me a mission.  Now, Mr. Gets is British himself and apparently his grandfather, one J. L. Theodore-Getz, wrote a few books which are held at the British Library.  However, Mr. Gets thought they were at the British Museum so I had to find their true location first.  You see, some years ago, all of the books in the reading room at the British Museum were transferred to the British Library.  So, I took my mission there.  Now, Mr. Gets is quite a trouble maker so trying to ascertain what exactly he wanted from these books was a bit of a mission in itself as he rarely offers a straight answer.  Finally, I found that he wanted any biographical information that might be in his grandfather's books.  So today, I applied for and received a readers pass, requested the books, sat around for an hour to wait for them to be pulled from the stacks, and finally gleaned whatever information (of which there was little) from the books that there was.  It was all a rather intimidating process, to be honest but at least now I can say that I have a British Library reader pass (at least for the next month) and that I made use of its services.

story in 5 frames

Our class went to the Tower of London and stopped by Shakespeare's Globe Theatre today and our photography task was to create a story in 5 frames.  My 5-frame story actually came later, when Elana, Lynn, Kaitlin, and I went on the Jack the Ripper Murders Tour.  Here is my story:

For the record, I was not actually scared by the Jack the Ripper tour.  Our guide was a very good storyteller and that made for an interesting tour.  The real murderer was never actually caught and there are many theories about who it might be.  Before I came over here, I checked out the book Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell which argues that the true identity of Jack the Ripper was Walter Sickert.  I only read the beginning but it sounded pretty convincing.  However, our guide didn't seem to agree with Patricia Cornwell.  In any case, the case will likely never be solved and remain a mystery.

On our way back from the tour, Elana thought it would be a good idea to stop by one of the 24-hour shops on our way and buy the most random thing was say.  We ended up having a weird flavor chip (or crisp, rather) tasting party.  I think my favorite was the prawn cocktail, though it tasted nothing like shrimp cocktail. 

Tomorrow is my day to take the group photo and we are going to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station and the British Library (where I may attempt to get a library card and see the books that Mr. Gets wants me too look into, but we'll see about that).  I am open to creative ideas for a group photo in case anyone has any!

thinking differently

This morning, Dr. Everhart charged me with the task of navigating us to the public library in the Barbican Centre as I am good with directions, though I was relatively unaware that this was public knowledge.  In any case, I got us there in time for our 10am tour appointment.  The Barbican Library is the largest public library in the city of London.  They have a large portion of their library devoted to a music collection.  The Barbican Library is located in the middle of a business district of London so the largest demographic of their patronage is men aged 25-40.  Elana and I couldn't help but note that this is clearly where we need to be looking for our respective future British husbands. 

Our photography focus of the day was "thinking differently" which was not the easiest to capture since we were not allowed to take pictures within St. Paul's Cathedral which was the next stop on our itinerary for the day.  The Cathedral was very interesting nonetheless and we had a very good tour guide, John.  In fact, he showed us the geometric staircase in the Cathedral which was used in the filming of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  So, we just had to see for ourselves.  The FSU Study Centre has a collection of DVDs in its library available for checkout so we went and checked it out to watch.  Sure enough, the staircase appears about 40 or so minutes in.  (Actually, we were investigating where in the movie it would come in and found that perhaps it was in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban instead so I emailed my friends who are hardcore Harry Potter fans and sure enough, they responded with the exact movie and scene in which it appears - yeah, they are a little more than fans.)

To end the day, I went to the grocery store (as suggested by our new BFF Elvis) to get a kidney pie as instructed by my friend Donnie.  Yeah, Donnie said it was just called kidney pie, that there wasn't actually kidney in it.  Yeah, he was wrong.  It was alright.  At least I can return home to tell Donnie that I tried it.

photographing flowers

Today my classmates and I went to Hampton Court to tour the palace once owned by King Henry VIII.  The palace was beautiful with tapestries and paintings everywhere.  There were also expansive gardens surrounding the palace.  In these gardens, our task was to photograph flowers as a way to learn how to use the macro setting on our cameras.  However, the sky was very overcast and threatening to rain all day long so a lot of the flowers weren't open and it was hard to photograph some, the red (and prettiest) ones in particular.  There was a maze on the grounds that Elana tried out...and failed at.  We did however, shoot a rather funny video about our experience in the maze.  I may post this later with Elana's permission, of course.  Anyway, the grounds and gardens were very beautiful but I am going to be rather narcissistic and post a picture of myself for this blog entry:

Purty, huh?  Yeah, we started to get artsy-fartsy after a while.  If you would like to see more pictures - from today and last week - you can click on the link to my photo album on the left-hand side of this page.  Yeah, I finally got around to posting them all after slacking for a week. 

Later this week, Elana and I are planning on going on the Jack the Ripper murders tour.  We considered going today but the weather made a nap look far more appealing. 

podcast

This is my podcast contemplating the differences between the British Royal Guard and the Tomb Guard Sentinels at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in the States. Enjoy!

Powered by Podbean.com
2.78 MB

Featuring music from the Royal Guard marching band recorded by Katy Harris Sunday, July 18, 2010.

brighton

My beloved Fran took Elana and I to Brighton today where we shopped and ate the day away.  We had a marvelous time.  The shops in Brighton are different from the ones on Oxford Street where Fran and I went shopping last Saturday.  Brighton's shops are far more quirky though there are mainstream stores as well.  Our lunch consisted of positively delicious paninis and ice cream.  And of course, we went and sat on the beach for a bit as well.  The beach is different than Florida beaches.  I think that I will use that topic (Brighton beach vs. Florida beaches) for one of my projects - perhaps my digital film.  In any case, I took a picture of Fran with my little sheep on the beach:

After relaxing on the beach for awhile, we strolled up to the Brighton Pier where we made sure to get some rock (a type of candy similar to a candy cane but straight and varying in flavors and sizes) for our favorite FSU Study Centre security guard, Elvis.  From the pier we returned to the beach for a seaside drink then ventured on to Jamie's Italian for dinner.  The restaurant is owned by the famed chef Jamie Oliver and it was fantastic.  We ate so, so much food!  Then we returned to our flats stuffed and pleasantly tired.

panoramas

We flew kites today!  And I don't mean to brag or anything, but I totally had the best kite hehe.  Who'da thunk it?  We went to Regent's Park where we visited Queen Mary's Garden and Primrose Hill.  The park had lovely landscaping and millions of flowers, particularly roses.  At Primrose Hill is where we flew our kites, just like in Mary Poppins. 

Later, Lynn and I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum to see the special Grace Kelly exhibition.  It was all her dresses and accessories.  One thing that was really cool was that the last time I was in Europe, I went to Monaco and saw the church where Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier got married, which is also where she is buried.

My flatmates are now dragging me out to a pub so I shall go out with them despite my better judgment and need for sleep.

london in motion

<-- East and West -->

Today we traveled by boat to Greenwich to see the Prime Meridian.  And, of course, we all got a picture of each of us straddling it.  The Prime Meridian, or at least the Royal Observatory through which the Prime Meridian falls, is located at the top of a very tall and steep hill.  Thus, we had to walk all way up this steep hill in order to see this landmark.  Luckily, my flatmates and I have been training for this day for about a week now due to the fact that we are living on the 5th floor of the building and must climb some rather steep stairs each time we make the trek up to our apartment.  We then returned to London to capture traffic in motion from Trafalgar Square.  I learned a bit about how to tweak the settings on my camera so that it will take pictures that give the effect that the subject is in motion.

I later ventured into the National Gallery with Lynn to see some really great art.  That museum is huge!  I didn't even have time to see half of it.  We did however make a point to see the special exhibit, Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries which was really, really interesting.  That exhibit was totally worth going to see.  


In other news, I am a bit stressed about all of our projects that we have to do and turn in in the coming days.  I don't feel like my ideas are as awesome and clever as other people's ideas.  I have always had a hard time being creative on demand.  I know that for either my digital story or my photo book I want to do something about all the art I have seen and enjoyed while here.  And this weekend, Fran is taking me to the beach in Brighton and I was thinking about doing one of my projects comparing that beach to the beaches in Florida.  Something to think on....

black & white

On this Wednesday, the twenty-first day of July, in the year of our lord 2010 we ventured to Stonehenge and the Salisbury Cathedral in the English countryside.  Our assignment for the day was to capture black and white photos.  I took all color photos and later transformed a few of them into black and white pictures.  Tomorrow, we will learn how to create a photo that is mostly black and white but has touches of color.  It was really neat to see Stonehenge and hear the history and various theories about its mysterious existence.  I must say, I am quite fascinated by curiosities throughout history.  After seeing Stonehenge, we drove to the nearby town of Salisbury where we had lunch and toured the Salisbury Cathedral.  Our favorite tour guide Hugh was unable to officially give us a tour of the cathedral because there were volunteer tour guides eager to show us around the building.  However, Elana and I were rather bored by the volunteer tour guide so we caught up with Hugh and asked him to give us the tour anyway.  Hugh is the best.  Everything is better when he says it.  And he is quite funny as well.  He has also toured us around Bloomsbury and Westminster Abbey and he had definitely become our favorite tour guide.

Another person we have come to love is Elvis who works in the reception area at the FSU Study Centre.  Tara, Elana, and I hung out with Elvis for quite a bit last night just talking about how certain terms and customs vary between the UK and the States.  It was quite insightful.  We also found out that Elvis is apparently a Kool-Aid lover, so we might have to send some to him a few packs of it when we return home.

replicas

The day's task involved finding a photo on Flickr taken from British Museum and attempting to replicate it as best we could.  This is the photo I chose to mimic; below is photo I took:

Pretty close, huh?  The subject is a portion of the Elgin Marbles, a topic of much discussion for many people.  I used the lines and angles of the walls, corners, ceiling, and base to find the best position in which to imitate the original photo.  I absolutely love Classical Greek/Roman sculpture.  I cannot even begin articulate the excitement I experience when walking through the museum today.  I was also taken with much of the Asian art, specifically those pieces depicting the Buddha and bodhisattvas.  Here, I am imitating the mudras used by the Buddha to my left:  

After touring the museum, we all had high tea at the restaurant in the museum.  Tara and I felt so fancy, holding our pinkies high in the air while drinking our tea.  I then proceeded to go down to the museum gift shop and buy two lovely books: Symbols and Their Hidden Meanings and London's Strangest Tales: Extraordinary But True Stories.  Those will be a couple of good reads for the plane ride home. 

buildings

Our itinerary today consisted of riding the London Eye, lunch in St. James' Park, a tour of Westminster Abbey, and going to the theatre to see Billy Elliot.  The focus of our photography today was buildings.  Our task was to photograph buildings in a creative and provocative way.  Luckily, there are lots and lots of marvelous buildings here in London to photograph in interesting ways.  Similarly, we had great views of the city in which to capture impressive architectural feats.  Of all the pictures I took today, I chose the picture on the right as my best of the day.  The subject is Westminster Abbey which I was utterly entranced by.  All of the history and culture and art and religion...it was so exciting.

As I said previously, we also rode the London Eye which gave us very exciting views of London for miles.  I'm a little afraid of heights though, so I was a bit nervous on the London eye - especially since the capsules don't stop for passengers to get on and off.  In any case, here's the proof that was on the London Eye, you know, in case anyone needed it:

Our final stop of the day was the theatre for a showing of the musical Billy Elliot.  I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't really too terribly excited to go see it because I was really tired and needed to work on this but I went with an open mind nonetheless.  I liked it but I didn't understand a decent portion of it because the actors had very thick accents and I had no background for the time period of the story.  At least I can say I tried it.

last day before class starts

This morning we went on a historical bus - or coach, as they call it here in the UK - tour of London.  Our original tour guide Shawn hurt his back so Liz gave us our tour.  She was quite funny and gave us a great tour of London.  It made me quite excited to start class and officially tour the many historical and marvelous sites here in London.  One cool thing we saw today was the changing of the guards - here is a video of the guards marching up for there ceremony:



The rest of the day was spent wandering around Old Spitalfields Market where people sell all kinds of nifty handmade items.  Some things were really neat but well out of our price range.  Later, we went to dinner at an Indian restaurant that's a stone's throw from the FSU Study Centre.  It was really good food but I've found that customer service in restaurants is very different here from in America.  American waiters are so attentive to their customers but that is far less true here in the UK.  A good part of that is due to the fact that American wait-staff work for tips while that is not so much the case here.  Just an interesting observation.

touring and shopping

This morning, our guide Hugh took us on a tour of the Bloomsbury area surrounding the FSU Study Centre.  It was fabulously interesting and Hugh was so very nice.  I am looking forward to exploring the area more in the coming days.  I'm also glad that he will be showing us around Westminster Abbey on Monday.

Later in the day I met up with my friend Fran who studied abroad at UF a couple of years ago and lived in the dorm with me and is now living just outside of London.  We had lunch and went shopping down Oxford Street.  It was so, so busy down Oxford Street and the shops were so packed that we gave up on trying anything on or buying anything because the queues were too long.  Perhaps I will go back to a few stores on a weekday; Fran said that it was so busy because it was Saturday.  And even though my feet were aching something awful near the end, I still had a great time.  We took the tube back to Tottenham Court Road - my first time riding the tube!  After relaxing at the flat for a bit, Tara, Eric, Fran, and I went out for dinner at Pizza Express.  It was delicious.  We have now retired to our respective flats after a long, busy day.

seeing the city

Today was the first day we really got out and saw the city.  This morning, our graduate counselor took us on a walking tour of the neighborhood to show us the practical locations surrounding FSU Study Centre.  He pointed out restaurants and shops and whatnot for us and it gave me a big shopping itch.

Afterward, a bunch of us went out to a gelato place that we saw along the way.  Of course, we had to find our way back to the gelato shop, but that was part of the fun.  It was a bit of a challenge to orient myself on the map to find my way around since London is not on a grid map. 

Then Elana and I scratched our shopping itch by wandering around Covent Gardens a bit.  Then we found our way to Leicester Square where I took the obligatory photo with the red phone booths that are so iconic for London.  It's nice to be in a city where you walk so much.  Along with the four flights of stairs we have to climb to get to our flat, we definitely walked off all that gelato!

finally here!

Whew.  It has been a long day.  Or couple of days.  I'm not sure if this is jet lag or just plain tiredness from everything that has been going on.  I got through my first solo plane ride alright.  The train from the airport into London was rather stressful because there was not really enough room for Tara and me to have our luggage with us.  We're pretty sure the other passengers kinda hated us, but oh well.  The cab ride to the FSU Study Centre was delightfully uneventful, though. 

So we are in flat #12, on the fifth, and top, floor of the building.  As with a large portion of European buildings, there is no elevator.  It was quite a feat to get our heavy luggage up all four narrow, steep, winding flights of stairs, but somehow we made it.  Tara and I ended up in the same flat, with two other girls: Alesha and Elizabeth.  The four of us, plus a few others went out exploring a bit and got some lunch and dinner later.  I am very much looking forward to touring and seeing more of London in the coming days, but at the moment, I am most looking forward to going to bed.

the night before my trip

I have everything packed except for the last few things like my laptop (obviously) and whatnot.  Uuuuuhhhh, I think I pack a little too efficiently, if that's at all possible.  I got everything I wanted into my suitcase and had plenty more room so I packed another pair of shoes.  I don't know if you can tell from the picture but I still have quite a bit of room left.  It's 40 lbs, by the way, in case you were curious.  And I think my carry-on (on the right) is less than half full.  I have half a mind to go grocery shopping for non-perishables to fill my luggage.  In any case, I'll have to be sure to buy lots of stuff to fill my suitcase on the way home ;)

getting ready...

So I'm actually pretty nervous about this trip.  At the moment, I am more nervous and stressed about it than I am excited.  This will be the first time I travel alone (the whole plane ride to London part) and the longest I will have ever been away from home (I mean, not my parents' house, but away from my hometown of Gainesville).  I'm trying not to think about it, though.  I've started packing in the form of opening up my suitcase in my closet and throwing stuff in there that I don't want to forget.  I've also started a list of things to remember; things I don't want to pack quite yet since I use them all the time. 

I've got my little mascot in there, smack-dab in the middle of this picture.  It's a little sheep (hence the blog title).  It took me forever to decide on a mascot but I finally chose this little sheep I've had for a couple of years.  She doesn't have a name but I'm open to suggestions....

Ok, so I've explained the random sheep that I packed.  The other stuff tossed in there: paperwork, windbreaker, motion sickness/sleep-inducing pills for the flight, textbook, flip videocamera, London tourbooks... but Twizzlers?!  And two rather large packs of them at that?  Ok, I have an explanation.  So, I have a friend who lives in London, Fran.  We met because she was a foreign-exchange student at UF (where I got my Bachelors) and we lived in the same dorm the year she was here.  Now, I've been asking all of my friends here if they want me to bring them anything from London, so I thought it was only fair for me to ask Fran if she wanted me to bring her anything from the States.  She requested that I bring her some Twizzlers and Diet Mountain Dew.  Well, I don't want to risk the soda exploding in my suitcase but I will certainly make room in my suitcase for Fran's Twizzlers!