London!

Currently cruising the beautiful city of London! Since I'm about to embark on about 4 weeks of travel I've left my luggage and computer at the office and I'll be updating with iPhone photos when I can. Here's a view that I could never tire of:

Also I leave tomorrow on the over night bus to Edinburgh, Scotland! Yeeeehaawwww!

OH YEAH!

I FINISHED MY CLASS! NOW TIME FOR SOME MORE TRAVELS!

COMING UP: Scotland with George and Gloria! Then I'm off on a 2 week tour around 8 different countries in Europe including France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and they count England since it's our starting point. So what I'm saying is that I'll be leaving Poole on Tuesday and then it will be fairly quiet around here, but don't worry I'll be back!

Bath!

Remember how I love Jane Austen? No, really? Cause I'm pretty sure I told you, hmmmm, interesting. Well either way, I LOVE JANE AUSTEN! So much so, that George and I went to Bath for the Jane Austen Festival! I love Bath, it is so beautiful. I could live there and get lost in all the little streets and eat amazing chocolate (Jenn- I went back to that chocolate place and the rose and lavender candies were amazing! Again!) and go swimming in the natural hot baths. It is very quant and has a very old world feel.  

Well, the weekend started off horribly. We rented a car since Bath is a little less than 2 hours away from Poole. George was driving and seeing the country side was great, but our car was 3 HOUR LATE! So we missed a few events of the weekend we were desperate to see. Mostly we wanted to see the promenade, the parade of all the people dressed in period clothing. Then once we were on the road the GPS wouldn't work, then there were detours on the road that took us an hour out of our way! When we finally got there we were a bit cranky. We did see a few people dressed up and managed to get to the Jane Austen museum on our first day. We did some exploring around town and even found the apartment where Jane lived for a short while, which is now a dentist office. Want to see? 

 If you can imagine, it was rainy off and on all day. 

A few dressed up ladies

Swanage

Here is a little treat from me to you! These are Morris dancers, traditional English folk dancers in traditional dress. There were many different groups when George and I went to the Swanage Folk Festival, which all in all was a little sad. But we had a mission to see these dancers since Rich was so annoyed at the thought of them! Tracey and Rich are the couple I've been living with for the past month. They are lovely and both come from Swanage, so we had to see what this was all about. 

Holland part 2- Leiden!

Me and Gloria hanging by the canal after the market!

So this is going to be a post with a slew of iPhone pictures. Sorry, I know they are really crappy, but like I said my camera was low on battery so I had to conserve! Anyway, I documented some adventures with my trusty iPhone (seriously what did I do without it?!). Most of these photos will be food and that's because Gloria and I ate like Kings! Ok, well, at least we were really loving our choice in foods. So here we go! 

Holland Part 1

Alright I'm sorry I've taken so long to update with photos and such from Holland. The only excuse I can give is that I was lazy, but also that I had many more photos than I remember taking to sort through in order to share them with you. So without any more delays let me show you what I got to explore while visiting Gloria in The Netherlands. The first two photos are of Gloria's dorm room at Leiden University where she is spending her fall semester. I was lucky that someone had an extra mattress in their room so I didn't have to sleep on the floor! Isn't her room big?

(Warning:This is very photo heavy, so I'm putting it behind this link. Just click and enjoy!)

Welp...

        I'm sorry to report that I don't have any photos to show you. I know, I know, I'm bad. It's just that my camera said it had a full charge when I left the house and then as soon as I got to Holland it decided that, nope, sorry no battery at all! Also my iPhone isn't working properly over here, so I guess what I'm getting at is you just have to wait til I get back to the UK. Oh, I forgot to say, I'm in Holland!!!!!! Specifically I'm crashing at Gloria's dorm room at Leiden University, just about a 15 minute train ride outside of Amsterdam. It is beautiful here and I'm having a ton of fun hanging with Gloria and meeting new people from all over the world. I'm starting to feel like I'm back at college. I love talking to new people about anything and playing charades (as glo likes to call it) in order to communicate. It has been simply lovely.


     So since I haven't been able to use my camera I've been learning to take more mental photos. When I find myself feeling overwhelmed with happiness and wanting to take a photo, I take it all in and remember exactly what is happening in that moment. It's pure happiness, but I have to admit later I wish I had a photo to show you all and let you in on what was so great. So with that said I'm going to leave you with a quick mental photo that I will keep with me forever, I felt disgustingly and immensely over run with joy.


     Gloria and I were going out with some of her pals and they wanted to ride bikes, so in true dutch style we climbed on the back of the bikes (skirts and all) and headed out into the warm summer night. The most important part is this: A gaggle of girls riding through the town, giggling, smiling at each other and racing bicycles through town. It might not seem like it was DA BOMB, but in that moment I just felt so much admiration for all these lovely girls who have been so kind to me and they don't even know me. The smell of Holland at night and feeling like a kid on the back of a bicycle.