Day 59-60: London Photos

Day 55-61: Oxford week 4 and London

Well this last week was pretty hectic I had two tests on Thursday, so the whole week I was just studying. It was horrible. We will see how I did on my tests. On Thursday Cesar and I decided to go to London this weekend. So we got tickets online and went to bed to wake up early in the morning for our trip. Friday we ate breakfast and grabbed the tube to London. We first walked to the London Dungeon, which is a haunted house walk through. We took pictures with Big Ben on the way there, it started to go off while we were standing next to it. The walk to the dungeon was pretty far and we passed through lots of the city. When we got there we got to go straight in since we already had our tickets. It was pretty fun, better then the Amsterdam one. Cesar was picked twice to be in front, once they pretended to chop off his arm and the other time they demonstrated torture devices on him. After that we went to the Tower bridge experience. It's the famous bridge of London with the drawbridge. It was pretty cool we got to go inside and walk across the top. Cesar was most excited about getting to see the engine room, oh what a mechanical engineer. The day was pretty nice for London, it was kind of cold but it didn't rain at all! We walked to the London Eye which was across the city. When we were walking we went into an open market and got some tea. The market was nice, I wish we had some back home. We then made it over to the London Eye. It was so awesome! I could see the whole entire city, it's the tallest thing in London. I saw the Parliament building from up there. It was the best part of the day. Hunger set in while we were up there, so on our way to the station to grab the tube we ate at a restaurant called Wharf. I had a mushroom burger, so good. When we got back we started to do our laundry and then went to the club/pub Thirst. Cesar bought us a fish bowl of long island ice tea. It was pretty good, after we finished it we changed our laundry to the dryer and went back. Then Cesar got us a hookah and we smoked until our laundry was done. When we got back I went to bed. The next day in London we went to Buckingham Palace and got tickets for later in the day. Everyone kept telling me that I need to have fish and chips since I was in London, so I finally did. Vegetarian fish and chips! It was fried Halloumi cheese. Haha It counts though. Afterwards we went to Westminster Abbey and looked at all the dead people. It was so crazy how many tombs were in there. We then went to the park and laid out until our appointment at Buckingham Palace. Inside Buckingham Palace was amazing! It was so beautiful and ornate. Everything inside was worth more than anything I have ever owned. Even the letter opener. Haha I got to see Kate Middleton's wedding dress. The made the lace by hand with stitches that were 18th of inches apart and had to change needles every 30 minutes. It was crazy. After being inside and seeing the splendors of royalty we went into the garden for some afternoon tea! It was really fun. I then bought some Royal blend tea for mami and me! Cesar's mom told him to take me to the haunted pub underground. It was a cellar that was under the regular buildings. It was so hot in there since it was lit up by candles. We had a half bottle of wine and then left because we were sweating. We stopped at an Italian restaurant to eat dinner and then caught a bus back to Oxford. We went straight to sleep when we got back. Today I woke up and went to lunch with Cesar, burritos! We then went to the movies and saw Captain America! It was so weird to see the most USA of movies in the UK. Now I should be writing my paper for government but instead I am updating my blog.

Day 51-54: Amsterdam photos (Stolen from Isabell)

Eventually I will get photos from all my party destinations from Ryan. Until then. 

Day 48-54: week 3 Oxford + Amsterdam!

Well last week I had a test in Statics so basically the whole week I was studying and doing work. I have no idea how I did on the test, we will see. Haha that is all I have to say about school at the moment. On Thursday after the test I ate dinner at the dinning hall and then got ready for my long bus ride over to Amsterdam. I left at 7 pm with Michael, Jamie, and Emily (Jamie and Emily were taking the bus to Paris, but this bus was taking us all to London). We arrived in London and sat around until our respective buses showed up. The bus was decent, it had some interesting music playing on a station called mellow magic that I think my dad would thoroughly enjoy. Michael and I talked about random things until we arrived at the Dover. We got off the bus to wait for our ferry appointment and saw Jamie and Emily at the rest stop coincidentally. The ferry was like a cruise ship with several levels. Michael and I watched some people lose all their money gambling at the slot machines until we fell asleep at the table. The ferry finally arrived in France. We then got on the bus and drove to Amsterdam, it was a very long bus ride. We slept the whole way basically and when we arrived at 11:40 am it was pretty chilly. Amsterdam is a very quaint city like Brugge in a way. It has canals with boat houses and old buildings that are really cute. We were supposed to met up with Cesar, Ian, and Anirudh at 1 pm, so Michael and I ate and hung out. I was taking a while so we bought a cupcake from one of the coffee shops. They finally showed up right when we were about to eat it. So instead we put our backpacks int he room that 6 of us would be sharing for the weekend and went out. We went to a coffee shop named Smokey's. I got a smoothie. It was carrot and apple, very delicious surprisingly. Ian met up with a girl named Isabell from Germany who hung out with us the rest of the trip. We then stumbled upon the most famous cigar shop in Europe, the guys got Cubans. Afterwards we went to another coffee shop and I had half a brownie with Cesar. While walking down the street we saw the Amsterdam dungeon which is a haunted house type thing and decided to go in. The people kept picking me out of the crowd to try and scare and do random things like hold curtains. We then had to met up with Ryan and Rob at the hotel. They put up their stuff and we went out again. We walked around the red light district and saw lots of half naked ladies trying to entice us. This guy came up and convinced us to partake in a pub crawl with 6 pubs. . After eating we went to another coffee shop and I had half a cupcake with Cesar. We then went to the pub crawl. It was pretty fun. The first hour was unlimited vodka shots which I did not take full advantage of, since I was pretty good with my baked goods. All of the bars blurred together and was just an experience of us all hanging out having a good time talking and dancing. At the last pub Anirudh threw up ON a table. It was disgusting so we left to another club to find Cesar's friends, Monique and Marina, both of were being incredibly difficult to get together with all day. We found them but whilst inside Anirudh got kicked out for looking like death. When we went out to get him he vomited all over a map of Amsterdam on the street. After much deliberation we decided to take him back tot our hotel since we had no idea where his was. We laid him in the tub and went to sleep. Michael, Ian, Cesar, and I slept on the bed and Ryan and Rob slept on the floor. It was a full bed. In the morning Anirudh left to his hotel. The rest of us went to Madame Tussauds and looked at all the wax figures. Afterwards we went to the I AMsterdam letters. The guys climbed all over them while I took pictures. We then went to the Van Gogh  museum. It was pretty amazing since he is one of my favorite artists. It was really cold and wet most of the day. We tried to walk around at night and see a sex show, but the sex shows were closed. It was way too cold so instead we just went back to the hotel for the night. The next day we checked out and went to breakfast. I got apple and cinnamon crepes, so delicious! We went to Smokey's again and hung out for a while until we decided to go to the Heineken brewery. It was a pretty fun tour and we got to "become beer" and we got to drink beer. Ian, Isabell, Cesar, and I then went on a canal cruise through Amsterdam. It was really nice. We saw all the cute houses and some cool churches and things. It was getting late though and I had to catch a bus to Oxford. So we split ways and Michael and I made our way to the bus. Everything about that was miserable. I was wet and cold and crammed in a bus. We went through security and one couple held us up because they were getting a cavity search, the bus driver joked by saying "We have to wait because they are having an internal investigation". It was pretty funny. I was so glad when we got back to Oxford except that it was time for class. The week had begun anew.

Random pictures people have posted

 

Walking to a bar in Brugge

  

Florence pub crawl

 

Beer garden Munich

 

Rome pub crawl

 

Ride to Island of Lido Venice

 

At the top of the Duomo in Florence

Day 41-47: week 2 Oxford

This whole week was a mess. Jamie didn't get back from Dublin until Wednesday. On Tuesday night I was woken up at 3 am to have Jamie's room raided and 2 police officers interview me. It was quiet frightening. I knew that Jamie had to have just missed a ferry or been lost, she is prone to that sort of thing. In the end it turned out that she had missed 3 ferries and gotten lost. She is safe and sound now, though. Besides that the week was filled with school work and a test in my government class. On Wednesday I got tickets to the Harry Potter premier with a group of friends. Thursday after class I went with Cesar and got a smoothie and hung out until dinner time. After dinner we went over to Ryan's room and drank a little until the premier. I had strongbow cider. We got hungry at one point and went and bought pizzas before the premier. The movie was pretty good, I was a little disappointed with some of the fight scenes that were left out. The next day was more interesting in that we went to London. At 3 pm we took a bus to London, it took a while to get there. When we arrived we got some dinner and hung out until 11 pm which is when we were supposed to go to a club called Fabric. It was a pretty intense experience. The club was packed full and the floor was pumped full of bass so you could feel the vibrations under you. Everyone in the crowd was inebriated including the people I was with. One guy in our group was so intense with his dub-step dancing that I thought he was going to hurt someone or himself. We stayed there from 11 pm to 6 am. It was longest I have ever been at a club. Cesar and I got pretty tired around 3 am and took a nap on a couch in between two of the rooms with DJs. Everyone was bewildered at how we could fall asleep with all the craziness and noise going on around us. It was a pretty fun time with lots of dancing and jumping around. The music was pretty intense. When we finally left it was already light outside. We took a bus back to Oxford, arriving around 9 am. I went to sleep and didn't wake up until 3 pm. I went out to eat with Cesar and Ryan to an Italian restaurant. The day was pretty lazy, we just hung out until bed time. The next day was about the same I ate with Mohamad and Michael at a Lebanese restaurant, it was really good. I talked with Jean and Orr on skype for the first time this whole trip. That was about it.

Day 38-40: Dublin photos