oh boy. i haven't blogged in over 2 weeks. this is gonna be a hummdinger.

so basically i spent the first week of march getting ready for mom to get here. i finished the itinerary and spent time /w friends and went out. in order to prevent this blog from being massively long im gonna timeline it

Saturday:
picked up mom from the airport (freaked out she wasnt on her plane, but she was)
went to portabello market...bought black booties!! and other things
ate @ da maria (cute lil italian place where the owner/server is adorable and friendly)
back to my place, found cheap phantom of the opera tickets for saturday, skyped with dad, and went to bed early

Sunday:
left for dublin at 4 in the morning
almost missed our flight...we were literally running through the airport and skipped the ques. it was intense
got to dublin and took the bus into the city.
walked around, ate breakfast, cute coffee place called butlers
bus tour through southern ireland. GORGEOUS!!! sun was shining, everything was beautiful. went to the gardens and walked around...BEAUTIFUL!
shopping, shopping, shopping. band playing on the street - really cool
dinner at a nice place, food was delicious - broasted chicken.

Monday:
up early again to fly back to london
mom flagged down a coach bus, haha. the look on her face was the best
back to london and landed in luton. no idea where that is...not actually in london. some podunk place an hour outside of london. £20 to get back to london.
took mom to oxford house. showed her around, ate lunch in the cafe.
sent her to primark while i finished the afternoon at work.
met her at primark after work and bought stuff.
went to giraffe for dinner. food @ giraffe is soooo good. loved it.

Tuesday:
i went to work and mom went sight-seeing around london.
hyde park, natural history museum, westminster abbey, houses of parliament, etc.
met her at starbucks by st james's park and we went to a pizza place by my dorm.
went on the london eye!! omg it was so gorgeous. amazing. wow...breathtaking!
mommy bought me a teddy bear from the london eye :D :D :D :D i love him. i love her.
went to the pub (builders arms by my dorm) and got dessert

Wednesday:
took the eurostar to paris. slept most of the way. we're pretty tired by this point in the week. planned out our time in paris.
got to paris and went to bastille. market was closed cuz it was a weekday, but we got crepes. they were delicious.
went to the louvre and the arc de triumph. walked to notre dame.
shopping along the way of course
went to the eiffel tower. more shopping.
bus to the airport. fly to venice. arrive in venice. it was snowing and wet and cold and miserable. took a boat to san marco and some italian guy who didnt speak english walked with us to our hostel cuz we couldnt find it ourselves. went to dinner at the cutest lil cafe ever. ricotta was amazing. i was starting to feel sick so i got some tea. went to bed. shared a room with another girl named natalia from russia. red hair.

Thursday:
explored venice. lots and lots of shopping. exploring was amazing. that place is beautiful. exactly how it looks in the pictures. so amazing.
gondala ride!!!! so much fun. best thing ever. we were serenaded :)
ate some gelado. more exploring.
went into a few places that idk the names of.
bus back to airport, flight back to london.

Friday:
i was feeling pretty crappy, so mom went to buckingham palace to see changing of the guard. turns out its tomorrow. get ready and go to tower of london. didnt go in today, but we walked across tower bridge and ate fish & chips at the tower.
went to evensong at st pauls cathedral. wow. really cool. wish dad could've been there. he would've loved it.
took the tube to harrods. like a museum for shopping. cheapest thing in harrods is a keychain for £75. thats like $115 american. wow.
took a cabbie to piccadilly circus. mom's 1st cabby ride :) so fun
tourist shops and sight seeing in piccadilly
ate dinner at THE cutest japenese place. the food was on a moving belt and in colored bowls. loved it!! so great

Saturday:
went to changing of the guard. so many ppl. too crowded for me
went to camden market. so cool! love that place. got some wellies!!! :) :) and a sweet feather headband and so much cool stuff. mom bargained with one of the vendors and got a £45 coat for £30. :) its very cute. bought brittany and aubrey and hannah something. :) excited to give it to them.
went to tower of london. got a tour by the Yeomen. really fun.
phantom of the opera tonight. soooo good!!!!! we were so close i could see the performers faces w/o binoculars. we were on the left edge but it was so amazing. oooo i loved it. so good. so so so happy.
went for drinks. mom doesnt like alcohol, lol. she drank about 3 sips of her cosmopolitian. hehe. my 1st dry martini. no olives. i was dissapointed.
skyped with laura and dad.

Sunday:
wanted to take mom to buttercup but it was closed. went to cute lil french cafe instead. delicious. mothers day in london. i should've gotten her a card. ... maybe i'll mail her one.
to the airport and mom flies out. walked around oxford circus on my way back to kensington. spent the rest of the day doing homework and catching up on stuff i've fallen behind on while mom was here. cleaned my room.

just got back from a weekend in SCOTLAND! :) so i wasn't sure how great scotland was going to be because it's this small, remote country that's not that exotic. but guess what...i loved it! i went to edinburgh (and don't say it edin-burg like a burger. its said edin-burah) ... or something like that. i got corrected a lot. but anyways. i went friday with the school trip. i kinda stayed out late with amanda witt the night before (thursday) so i was super knackered but i got to sleep a little bit on the train. sleeping on the train was a bit of a challenge, but i was tired enough that i could do it. we got there and kinda got lost cuz our leaders werent sure exactly where the hostel was. it was raining/slushing and i was freezing, but eventually we got there. because i went with the school the hostel we stayed in was super nice. kinda fake first hostel experience, but oh well :) haha i liked it. i roomed with victoria, jessica, and jen. the beds were amazing! so much more comfortable than our beds back home in atlantic. ugh, i wanted to steal one of the beds. so first thing we did was find a pub cuz we were hungray!! we walked up the street and went to the 1st one we saw that looked scottish, haha. it was great! right when we walked in i felt like i was truly in scotland. the carpet was plaid, the pub had like an old victorian home feel. and the food was super good. the scottish def know how to make cheesy garlic bread. then we were gonna go to a place we had seen that said student pub, but turns out...to the scottish student means old people...like over the age of 60, haha. so we ended up going to the place next door to where we ate. that place was really cute too. a little smaller, but the rugby game was on so we stayed and watched that. it was a good time.

saturday we woke up and went to the castle. oh, i loved the castle. it was amazing and gorgeous and i took a thousand pictures :) haha. then we did a little bit of shopping, which of course i enjoyed. :) then we went on a walking tour with one of leaders from our group. since scotland is known for its whiskie (ever heard of scotch?) me, victoria, jessica, and jen decided to do the whiskie tour. it was really cool. it was only £8 for students and we got a souvenir whiskie glass. they took us on this ride type thing that gave us the whole history of how you make whiskie and all the different types. whiskie itself is disgusting (there was a whiskie tasting as part of the tour) but it was cool to learn about it, haha

we had dinner at a different pub and it the food was just as good. seriously, scottish pubs are so cute and the food is awesome. love it! so the other girls wanted to go on a ghost tour, but i heard they were rubbish. instead i went on a pub crawl with a couple other girls, emily & kristin. it was really fun! we went to 4 different pubs and ended at a club. we met a bunch of irish people at one of the pubs. it was super random cuz one of the guys said he wasnt drinking cuz he was a christian. he started naming all these christian singers (i dont really know who they are) but emily knew them, so they hit it off. turns out the entire group of irish students (about 30 or more of them) were all social sciences majors! haha, it was great. i ended up hanging out with them the rest of the night cuz emily and kristin headed back to the hostel. it was loads of fun. :) loved it! and of all the irish ppl i met, not one single one of them had red hair and freckles. they all actually had really dark hair and their skin was def not fair. so there goes all irish stereotypes. next time i see a redhead with freckles i'll assume their scottish, haha.

sunday was our last day in edinburgh (i was really sad). we went on a tour of mary king's close. apparently edinburgh was built on top of itself, so there's old streets and houses that are still intact underground. it was super interesting. a little pricey, but a cool experience. never knew the little city had so much history. lunch at a cute scottish cafe and then packed and ready to take the train back to london. oh, almost forgot. we went to this place called chocolate soup for dessert and it was sooo good. seriously, i was like in a sugar coma from all the chocolate and carmel i had. probably not the smartest/healthiest choice, but hey. i was on holiday and ur only in scotland once right. :) well it was delicious and i loved it, so no regrets. the trian ride back was long and miserable cuz they overbooked and it was way too crowded, the outlets didnt work, and it was freezing. but eventually we made it home :) good 'ol london. no matter how much i love the places i visit it's always wonderful coming home to london. :) so glad i chose to study here and not somewhere else.

i watched canada vs the usa!!! i have few words for the game except for wow. such good hockey. i obviously had to cheer for usa cuz its my country, but there are a lot of players on the canada team that i love and have watched for years. like brodeur. such an amazing goalie. he didnt play though because he really botched the 1st game against the US. haha...he's such a cocky pighead he'll probably try and spin this as discrimination or something. great goalie, crappy person. crosby of all people scored the winning goal. not only does he get the stanley cup last year, but now he gets the gold. such a good player. i love watching crosby in the NHL, but the olympics are at such a different level. the play is swifter and its about the game, not the money. i liked seeing the players in a different setting. hockey is such a beautiful sport.

i had to finish my journal after that. got a page into it and fell asleep, haha. woke up early today to finish. oh, and i skyped with bailey and brittany!!!! ah!!!! how i love them!!!!! don't get me wrong, i love to skype /w each one of them individually (lil bit of one on one time) but to skype /w both of them was almost as if i was living with them again!!! agh! it was so good :) def the best end to the best weekend: scotland, hockey, and my roommates :) ... and i talked to my parents a lil too...only thing that would've made it perfect would've been talking to laura and matt :) hehe...but i'm talking to laura tonight, so im not complaining :)

ok...i should probably do work now. im at oxford house, haha (i love how i always blog here) ... reception this morning. baz is training in new students, so i feel like the expert...even though im not at all.

going to go make an itinerary for when mom comes! :) :) hehe...and go through my finances...that gets no smiley faces. i hate looking at my finances. ugh.

ok...over and out

so last night, i learned that people actually read this thing...(thats a shout out to you gus...and katie and cate) .. haha..now i feel like a huge loser. but whateves

i remembered what part 3 was.

i have decided NOT to go back to camp this summer. i dont even remember if i blogged about this at all, but i had been having second thoughts about my decision not to go back. it was super confusing but ryan sent me one last email and wanted me to know that if i wasnt at peace and 100% sure about the decision, then it probably wasnt the right one. and i needed to hear that from him. cuz i was not at peace. i was the opposite of peace. but now that i've considered all my options and really PRAYED about it, i do feel at peace about my plans to live/work at bethel over the summer. it feels sooo good!!! i know that's where God wants me, and i know that its the right thing to do.

last night i hung with desi, alex, and chris at queens arms. it was good cuz i feel like i havent spent time with desi in a long time. i love that girl :)

so this blog is going to have 3 parts to it. sorry for the lengthy-ness...no one probably reads this anyway.

part 1: it's amazing how you can almost feel the emotions of the people you are close to. when those that i love and care about are going through rough times, my heart hurts for them. it sounds weird, but i can almost feel something physical in a way that is telling me there is sorrow in their hearts. when my brother had to endure losing game 1 @ nationals in a shoot out the first time, i cried even though i wasnt there...and the second time when i was there, my heart almost broke for him. when my sister gets hurt from things people say to her or the mean things that people do, i can feel the ache in my heart along with her. when my friends have something going on in their lives, i can almost feel it too. idk, maybe that's why God called me to be a social worker, because i have empathy for people. but sometimes, i think its more than empathy. i dont really know. all i know is that there are people back home struggling with things, as well as my friends here who are going through some tough times. it's all a lot to handle. im very very thankful that life seems to be going pretty well for me right now. i mean, it's amazing. i can't complain. it's just hard when there is so much going on with everyone else and i can feel it too. def the times when i turn to prayer. i think i've prayed more in these last few days that i have all last week. it's probably God's plan all along....to get me to spend more time with Him. so for those of you reading this (if ur reading it ur probably the ppl i'm talking about anyways)..just know i'm praying for you. a lot.

part 2: today at oxford house was SO good. i spoke with my supervisor about a number of things. 1st, i talked to him about the individual tenants and going to each one and gathering information and spending time each office. he really wants me to do that, which would mean i would get loads of different experience. each tenant does something different. and its something that really interests me, so im pretty pumped. ALSO! i talked to him about the week that mom is coming and he was soooo great about it... he was willing to give me the whole week off, but that's kind of illegal (with UK visa laws and everything) so he just gave me wednesday and thursday off...and said show up whenever on monday haha... i love my supervisor! he's such a cool guy. so laid back, but knows how to get things done.

part 3: well i cant exactly remember what part three was...i'll just make it randomness. so i really really wanna get this fur hat that i saw a girl wearing at the bus stop the other night. she said she got it at h&m, but i went there and they didnt have any!!! im gonna try and go to covent gardens sometime this week, and maybe i'll find it there?!?! i hope so :) ... and i keep forgetting to get postcards!!!! i n-e-e-d to get those. and i need to get a birthday card for aubrey (my cousin). her birthday was like 1 week ago, and the card will take at least 2 weeks to get there, but still. i really wanna send her something. it's the thought that counts right? haha. so im soooo obsessed with the band He Is We. i cannot get enough of their songs. i only have three on my ipod and i've listened to them over and over the past few days. their play count is a lil ridiculous haha.

i think thats good for now :)

sometimes i forget that im in london. i get used to how things are. i get used to the tube, i get used to driving on the left side of the road, i get used to pounds as the currency. i forget that i am in this awesome, amazing place that has so many magical things for me to see. i sit in my room and blog, or i skype, or i order pizza with friends. not saying that those things are bad. i need to do "normal stuff" but i want to be going to the museums, going to the markets, seeing the touristy sites. i've been pretty good about seeing some things. like the pubs. haha...not that thats hard, but some of the pubs around here are really cool. i was looking in my guide book the other day, and i've already been to half of the "top 10" ones in london :) i was proud of myself. but i've only been to 1 market, 1 musuem. i've been on tons of walking tours, but that was the 1st week. i wanna get out there and see more stuff. im in london for goodness sake! i dont wanna think of my time here and remember being in the dorm or doing homework or whatever. i want to remember the trips that i took, the coolest places i saw in london. in a way i think its cuz i've been here for so long that i feel almost like a regular londoner. i can navigate the tube system better than some of the ppl i work with, i know how to order food like a normal londoner. the only difference is my accent, but really, there are tons of ppl with american accents in london who arent tourists. and thats the thing. i dont feel like a tourist anymore. which is good...but bad cuz i get complacent. i think i know everything there is to know about london, even though i havent even seen the half of it. yesterday i made a list of some of the things i wanna do (mostly including shopping haha) and i wanna keep adding to that list. granted, some things im saving until mom comes (like the london eye and westminster abbey) but there is so much more to do! ... :) i gotta get on that.

so today is my 4th day at oxford house. if only they knew i was blogging right now, haha. its pretty chill here, so i think its ok. plus im on reception for the morning, so not much to do except answer phones. things are going well. me and cameron are working on reestablishing ties with oxford university, and the research is actually fairly interesting. im going to talk to john (my supervisor) about working with some of the tenants (like kids and mental health) ... maybe i'll do that next week. cameron is a fellow intern with me. he gets on my nerves sometimes. his major is psychology so idk why he's @ oxford house. plus he's super insensitive. yesterday we were going home and we had to walk the subway (walkway underground) and he was making remarks about how the homeless people were smelly and making him uncomfortable. ok....1st of all, i am a social work major. empathy and diversity are huge for me...and here he is talking about these people as if they're sewer rats. o i wanted to slap him. i was talking with my friend amanda last night about how im super sensative (u know how that is brit ;) haha) and she was saying she was too! finally someone here who actually understands that words are powerful and you cant just say things to people without thinking. ooo it was good.

so i emailed my advisor on monday to tell her i had started my placement and where it was and she emailed me back and so did another social work professor and they were like upset that they hadnt heard from me yet! um, excuse me but you are the professors and you never contacted me! i hadnt heard from them the entire time i was here. im in a frickin different country. i was starting a new life, and they expect me to be thinking about THEM??? oooo i was upset to say the least. i emailed them back with all the info they needed and was very short and did not give them any extra information. being in london has made me realize how little the social work department does to help you. isnt social work all about helping people? well my advisors and teachers here arent even in social work and they've been more helpful then my ones back home. ugh....not looking forward to going back that @ all @ this point in time. so frustrating. i guess in a way they have to be more helpful here because the students are foreign and all that jazz, but you would think my advisors back home would understand that as well. i've never gone through the social work program @ bethel before even though they've gone through it however many years they've been there. and i've never studied abroad before. how the heck am i supposed to know what the heck is going on. gah...ok....done thinking about them. whatever.

tonight i'm going to legally blonde and im so excited!!!!!!

oh and i miss brittany...and my sister...and bailey