Stratford Upon Avon & SuperBowl! Week 2 :)

Long time no talk, lots has been going on but I haven't had the time or energy to write.  Thursday I had my World Religion class and then The History of England:Sport & Society.  We travelled to the amphitheatre which was really neat and not what I expected at all! The left over ruins are inside in the bottom of a the Art Gallery Basement in the Guildhall Square.  The ruins were discovered in 1988 after archaeologists and anthropologists had been called into excavate the area.  As they were digging the basement, they discovered parts of a wall and put the information together.  They didn't dig the entire amphitheatre up because the other surrounding buildings have been there since the 16th century and they don't want to ruin them.  So when you walk into the basement it's dark with a neon optical illusion demonstrating what the theatre would've looked like.  There is also part of a timber drainage tube leftover that was really neat.  It was used to get the water and blood out of the theatre after sporting events.  So that was a fun field trip and made the day enjoyable.

Thursday night we went out to the O'neils bar again.  There were two bands that played and we met the first one and took pictures with them.  So that was really cool and we had a good time.  

Friday morning I woke up sick.  I'm not sure if I had a fever or not but I laid in bed most of the day.  There are a lot of students with the flu and sinus infections right now so i'm really hoping I don't end up being really sick!  I felt a lot better after resting all day.  Friday night we all stayed in and went down to the music room Regent's has.  The room is equipped with guitars, drums, microphones and pianos.  My friends and I have been screwing around singing some songs together because everyone can play an instrument and I can sing.  While we were down there, the man that runs the gym stopped in and said we should try out for the talent show held here at Regent's! I doubt we will but it was funny because we were just having fun and he thought we were great!

Saturday we went to Stratford-Upon-Avon which is the where Shakespeare was born!  The bus ride was about 2 hours and we got there and toured the museum & his home first.  Then we were free to go exploring until the play later that evening.  Jordan and I loved the town and enjoyed tasting lots of food! We started off eating in a restaurant called Food for Love.  I had a vegetable and cheese panini that was delicious!  While we were eating it started to snow, but we didn't think much of it.  As the day progressed though and we shopped in the cute boutiques the snow kept on coming and we ended up with about 2-3 inches by dinner.  We ate at a Morrocan Coffee Restaurant that was also delicious! I had a latte with a chicken sandwich with a lemon-mayo sauce.  It was really good and the owner talked to us for a while.  We also met two British men that we conversed with for a while about America and what they do here in London.  It's really interesting talking to other people from here because everyone is so different.  But after a while we had to get going and we headed to the Shakespeare Theatre to watch the Tamer of the Shrew.  Once we figured out what was going on we loved the play! The actors were really good and the show was super entertaining.  

When we headed outside the theatre we were excited to get back to school and possibly go out; however we had another thing coming for us.  At this point there was about 5-6 inches of snow as we walked back to our bus.  We got on the road and drove about an hour and a half (only about 15-20 miles though) before getting stuck in a standstill for an hour! The bus ride ended up taking a little under 6 hours to get home because there was so much snow and these people can't handle it!  We finally got home at 4:15am and I immediately passed out and didn't wake up until 1pm the next day.  I was absolutely exhausted, but we had a great time!

Shakespeare's House

Lunch

Snow before dinner!

& after dinner...

Sunday we woke up at 1pm and ate lunch.  I decided I needed to invest in some rain/snow boots here since I didn't bring any; so Liz and I headed to Suffridges!  This place was hugeee and it's like a Saks 5th Avenue.  The shoe department was an entire floor not just a small section like Macys.  But I found the Hunter's boots I wanted and bought the heavy sock inserts for the cold!  I wore them the rest of the day & they were super comfortable and warm, so it was definitely a good buy!

Sunday night we had to be ready for the SuperBOWL!  Kickoff here was at 11:30pm but we headed down to the student bar around 7:15.  The bar through a SuperBowl party for the students and there was a great turnout!  Not everyone lasted until the game ended around 3:30 but I did!  It was a lot of fun but definitely was exhausted again this morning for class.  

Super Bowl Shot: Red, White & Blue layers were separated! Very cool!

The guys & I

The girls :)

This is how packed it was... crazyyy

So that's about it.  Classes are going really well, they are a lot easier compared to Transy.  I still haven't had much homework but I am learning a lot and interested in what i've been learning.  I wrote about 8 postcards today so maybe if your lucky you'll get one :) Stamps are so expensive here though!  But anyways, other than that I think were all going out again Tuesday night because we are headed to Scotland this weekend!  I can't wait to start traveling outside of London, it will be our first trip!  So we'll see how it all goes :) It's 7 girls and 1 guy for this one so we have a big group, but it'll be nice to be in the hostel and walking around the city together!  That's all for now though, talk to you soon!

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” -- John Lennon

Y.O.L.O -- court :)