"Hello Pretty Ladies"

Sunday October 16^th

Today a grand adventure is planned…we are going to Dover!

Now in Dover there are a bunch of cool things to explore. First the ocean, then forts, castles, lighthouses, and of course the White Cliffs of Dover…and yes I explored them all.

It is 7:15am and I am ready to go…all bundled up, backpack packed, and a pop-tart in hand ready to head to Victoria Coach Station. Dan, Cobie and I made our way to Victoria Station...and thus began a most epic Sunday adventure. We were already lost in our own backyard, we had a very difficult time finding the coach station and ended up having to sprint for a good five minutes to find our bus just in the nic of time. Once on the bus a nap was in order due to our unusually early start on a Sunday morning. Awakening as the bus made its first stop in Canterbury, I saw the ancient walls throughout the city and decided that I need to visit there soon...Maybe this weekend. Nap time again and this time I woke up to an amazing view. The White Cliffs of Dover contrasting with the sparkling sea; my first sighting of the ocean in over a month and a half and it was amazing. The coach dropped us off at the station which was quite out of the way and not very close to town. As we began walking toward town I saw the boardwalk and pretty much started running toward it to find a way onto the beach. Once I found a way onto the beach were the customary sand was replaced with small, round and smooth pebbles; the water was clear with small waves. It was perfect! After spending some time on the beach wandering around exploring its shore and searching for sea glass...I found a few pieces to add to my collection. After we had spent a fair amount of time on the shore looking toward France we decided it was time to find food. After making our way into town we found a pub that had a deal on a full English breakfast, only £3.99, and as we were sitting there at 10:30am I witnessed some men sitting there on their third beer watching a futbol match. After breakfast we decided to follow this path up the hill looking for the Knights Templar Church ruins, and as we followed the winding path up a large hill we saw cows and came across an old fortress built into the hill. After finding a way into the old fortress Cobie and I decided we had suddenly been transported into the world of Monty Python; all we needed were some coconuts and the scenery would be perfect. As we explored further we found interesting trees, felt insignificantly small in comparison to the mammoth structure we wandering throughout, and found a fence blocking our way to further investigation of these fortifications.

We continued on searching for the church remains to hold our own church service which Dan had prepared for us, but to no avail we wandered for probably an hour and still could not locate it. Defeated we started making our way back to town to find refreshments and decided how to spend the rest of our day. We decided to split up since we wanted to explore different things. Dan went up the White Cliffs toward the lighthouse while Cobie and I decided to hike up to Dover Castle.

Dover Castle was quite incredible; the views were breathtaking from the top of the hill. We explored an ancient church, and went through the Great Tower and were able to walk on the top of the tower...yes the part of the sand castle that has the square ridges on top. I could see for miles, the mixture of hills, ocean and cliffs blended together to create perfection. After we had finished exploring Dover Castle...and when I say finished...well we didn’t see everything, not even close but we saw the thing that were most important to us...we headed to the White Cliffs again to meet Dan.

After intense hiking for about 45 minutes, our legs burning and my back killing me due to my backpack filled with the layers I had been wearing previously in the morning, we see Dan sitting on a lovely jutting edge of the cliffs. As we make our way toward him we are greeted with “Hello pretty ladies!!!” Dan had a picnic on the White Cliffs of Dover including a bottle of red wine. We decided to watch the sunset on the cliffs and as we were walking back we found a lovely view as the sun was dipping beneath the cliffs and Dan held our church service that he had prepared. We continued to head back down the cliffs and decided to follow what looked like an easier path, however, it turned out to be quite the opposite...we were crawling through the bushes and ended up sliding down a hill into a pile of garbage in the dusk. After retracing our steps and finding the original path we finally made our way back down to the coach station and too exhausted to walk back into town to find dinner we parked it in the station and waited...until finally our coach arrived and I was asleep within minutes.

A Sunday in Dover was amazing, hilarious, and slightly painful at times, but it was all worth it...we walked close to 30 miles up and down steep hills and explored nonstop from 9:30am to 7:30pm. The weather was also so of the best we have had since I have arrived in the UK.

Fish and Chips with Vinegar

October 15^th

It is Saturday, which means a family meal for the three musketeers…or Fish, Chips and Vinny. Our new nickname was inspired by the British meal of Fish and Chips(fries) which are typically salted and have vinegar on them (a little gross right??) Anyways so Fish (Sarah Fisher) has had that nickname for quite some time…then comes my nickname, Chips, spurred from my love of the chips served at the Strutton Fish and Chips shop or because Fish and I spend a lot of time together and people had to come up with a nickname, either way I like it. Then we encountered a dilemma, Dan, the person who makes up the other 33.3% of our group was nickname less. After some brainstorming in the kitchen it was decided he would be Vinegar shortened to Vinny. Dan LOVES his nickname haha. Moving on now…that morning we went a market that Cobie had somehow stumbled across, I don’t know how she found it because it is kind of in the middle of a residential area that most people don’t wander around. There we bought some of the ingredient for the delicious meal I was planning for that evening. After that Fish and I snuck off to Hamley’s (any child’s dream toy shop I even think it is magical) in search of pin-wheels for Fall Break…confused?? Let me explain…Vinny has a particular hatred for the car insurance commercial that has the adorable pig that says WEEE!!! All the way home. Here is a link to refresh your memory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F_G2zp-opg

So we devised a spectacular plan to get pin-wheels and surprise Vinny on Fall Break with them…pulling them out when exciting things happened. However, Hamley’s did not have any pin-wheels…what toy shop doesn’t carry an essential like pin-wheels?? After failing to find pin-wheels we returned to Vandon House comforting ourselves with delicious chips from Strutton (our tradition Saturday lunch, I know it’s super healthy). These chips are amazing and I think it’s because they are fried in the same oil as the fish which gives them amazing flavour (which isn’t fishy) and they are cooked perfectly…the plan is to marry the owner and have him open up shop in America so we can have these chips whenever we want. Sounds good right?

Dinner that evening was delicious. It consisted of chicken enchiladas, fruit salad and chocolate tres leches. The fruit salad was amazing. The chicken enchiladas were a bit spicy, but I had to find substitutes for my normal ingredients…overall though I thought the turned out pretty good. Now the chocolate tres leches…called for a lot of substitution but it tasted oh so good. We knew it was good because you could taste how bad it was for your body with every bite, but that didn’t stop you from continuing to finish the cake!! I love good food!

Walking Where Time Begins

I know I have not posted in some time, but that is due to a schedule that is becoming ever increasingly busy. So here we go…beginning to play the catch up game.

Last week well…where to begin. Ah yes, I left off with my race in the park. That Wednesday October 5^th I had my internship again and after that the Shakespeare class attended Tartuffe by Moliere. I was quite excited about seeing this play because after reading the script I was interested in hearing the witty banter ensue. However, I was disappointed with the show. I think since I have started taking this class I have become highly critical of performances…in class we examine what we see on stage and compare it to the text and what we thought should have been done with the script. This critical eye of plays is very new to me since I normally just sit back and enjoy the performance knowing I most likely could never do what they are doing. Anyways, back to Tartuffe; the play is filled with hilarious conversations between the characters, and most of it is intellectually comedic. In the performance though I felt like they dumbed it down for the audience and tried to get laughs from cheap or crude humour instead. Also the set and lighting was distracting to me…too many mirrors. Onto Thursday, I have classes from 9:00 to 4:00 basically, (or as it is said here 9:00 to 16:00) but the good news is I found a group for my advertising class project, so that was a relief!! Friday I showed Dan and Fish around Hoxton (the area my internship is located in), we ate good food, found yummy fruit, and bought groceries for our Saturday night dinner which Dan prepared. The rest of the weekend was spent indoors resting because the cold that has swept across London got a hold of me. Dan did cook for Fish and I; the menu consisted of cheeseburgers which were very good, sweet potato wedges, some cucumber salad thing, and a blueberry cheese desert…now the desert was interesting not like a sweet desert but more savoury and the cucumber salad was very different from anything I had ever had before so I’m still on the fence about it.

Now we are up to October 10^th which is a Monday and that consists of Shakespeare class!! So we had class and discussed our mutual dislike of Tartuffe, and then that night we went to hear the King James Bible being read. It was beautiful. The set was simplistic so it would not take away from the powerful stories being told. They read the stories of David, and I just loved it.  

Tuesday and Wednesday…internship time again, and this week consisted of lot’s of marketing research about the mugs, designing, and getting in contact with our contact at the mug retailer. In other words, it was a bit stressful and I was still feeling under the weather, but I survived!!

October 13^th, Thursday…a day filled with classes from 9am to 4pm. The morning classes are dreadfully boring at times, however, unlike last week Fish and I were determined to sit in the back so we took the stairs at

Goodge Street

tube station. For those of you who don’t know that is a spiralling staircase of 136 steps plus some…which creates an intense burn in the muscles. But we were successful and claimed the back row of the classroom ensuring at least a bit more of an entertaining class! Now onto my afternoon advertising class, I have a group for the class research project but they have some severe trust issues with new members. Hopefully I can prove them wrong. And in the evening I am attending a performance of the Royal Philharmonic at Cadogan Hall, and it was beautiful…I just sat back closed my eyes and enjoyed the music washing over me. The violin soloist was amazing yet very scary at times because she became so intense with the music, and it seemed like she was trying to conduct between her solo…but I loved every minute of it and think I may go back and hear another performance!

Now onto Friday…the reason why this post has its title. We went to Greenwich which is literally where time starts! We took a boat along the Thames to get there and oh my word was it very chilly on the river. When we arrived we hiked to the top of this massive hill and at the top you can visit a museum filled with telescopes and other interesting devices having to do with time and space. But the main event was being able to walk along the Prime Meridian! Cobie and I once again lost the group, big surprise there…I feel like I always lose them because I get distracted by things, but eventually we found them and ventured onto the National Maritime Museum. I loved the museum, but then again I love the ocean and boats and basically anything to do with a salty body of water. I’m planning on going back to check it out in more detail because everyone was hungry and they wanted to go get food and who could blame them…however, I didn’t want to leave but I could spend all day there haha so I tore myself away from the boats and trinkets found in the ocean and headed to lunch. We ate at the “best tex-mex place in London” well if that is the best they have…that’s just sad. The food was ok at best, but I think growing up in Texas has spoiled me with good Mexican food and ruined my ability to accept mediocre Mexican food. After the meal, I decided I would cook up some real yummy enchiladas and chocolate tres leches during our weekly family meal on Saturday. We went to a crafts and antiques market where I bought a very bright green hat for fall Break and looked at all the vintage clothing and interesting trinket the vendors had to offer…Now exhausted from the excursion of the day we headed back on the DLR which is and I nearly fell asleep on the way home, and I did take a lovely nap when I got back to my bed!!

I am so sorry for the delay in posting since some of these events took place nearly a month ago, but better late than never…there is more to come as I catch up on all the adventures I have had.