family time :)

Heyo,
So, I thought I would put some pics up from when my mom and aunt came to the UK and some updates on Spain with Kathy.
Right now Kathy and I are chilling in her apartment in Florence. We did end up being able to see a bullfight in Madrid, it was really cool in a strange oh-my-god-this-is-kinda-really-disgusting kinda way. For those of you who don't know, yes they really do kill the bulls in a bullfight. To sum it up, first the bull runs around and they wave capes at it. Then these guys on horses come out and they stab the bull twice with spears. Then more cape waving. Then they stick sharp sticks it its back and jump out of the way before it runs them over. Then the real bullfighter comes out, waves his cape all fancy like and then stabs it with a sword in the neck and then more cape waving until the bull falls over. Then they stab it in the head to make sure its dead. We were there for an hour and they killed 3 bulls and one got away cause, as the old lady next to me said, it was "bad".
Anyway, in Barcelona we went to a flamanco show and explored a lot. We were able to meet up with my friend Marlena from Miami and went out to dinner with her friends from the photo program she was doing in Spain. Today we got up at 3:30 to take a taxi to the bus station, a bus to the airport, plane to Pisa, train to Florence.
My train to Vienna then Prague leaves at 9ish tonight, I get in Prague at 2:20ish tomorrow in the afternoon.

where my mom aunt and i had afternoon tea

in Bath by our hotel

cutest little nook ever!

a bitty baby cow in the highlands

westminster back in london

puerta del sol in madrid

bullfight ring

view from our room in Madrid

Gaudi house

chilling in the Giroma airport this morning

Espana is going thwimmingly!

So Kathy and I are in Madrid right now! Friday and Saturday we were in London with mom and Aunt Janet. We saw all the big sights and saw Dr. Faustus at the Globe, which was amazing! (If any of you watch Dr. Who the guy who plays Rory was one of the leads).
Today Kathy and I are hanging around, we're going to try to see a bullfight, but it says the tickets are sold out online but we're going to go to the bullring and see if we can buy some there.
I'll try to get pics up sometime in the near future from the family visit and pics from Spain this time around, but I'm not sure when I'll have time/enough time with a stable internet connection.

Family time :)

On Saturday my mom and my aunt Janet came to London to visit me! I met them at Mile End station, showed them around Queen Mary and then we went to have afternoon tea at the Haymarket Hotel. Tea was AMAZING! After that, they were pretty jet lagged and we went back to the hotel. The next day we took a train to Bath and went to go see Stonehenge. The next day we went to the Roman Baths and then walked around Bath (making a top at the Jane Austin center of course). Bath is really one giant shopping mall. Then we went to Windsor and the next day went to the castle, which was really neat. Then we took a 5 hour train to Edinburgh. Today we went on a highland tour up to Loch Ness and rode a boat about half the length of the loch and explored the ruins of a castle (which basically was under a continuous cycle of being attacked and then one guy apparently decided to just screw it and blew it up). Tomorrow we are going to explore Edinburgh and then going to London that night where we are meeting Kathy :) Two days to explore London and then Kathy and I head to Spain for a few days before she goes back to Florence and I go on to Prague!

On Saturday Julia, Hannah and I went to walk from Covent garden to the Embankment. We sat right by the Eye and had some Pimms and generally lazed around for the afternoon. I had never been bye the Eye before, so it was nice. On Monday Julia and I went to the Tate Britain, so I have now been to just about every free museum in London, which is awesome.

CHanging of the guard

 On the 10th I went with Lauren to go see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We got there about and hour early and barely managed to get a decent spot!

 It started raining halfway through (gotta love London in the spring) but it was still pretty cool. It was the Queen's birthday, so a band played Happy Birthday to her before the rain got to be too much and they ran away to protect their instruments.

 

A lady standing next to us was watching her daughter play in the band, so that was pretty cool. 

After that I went to go meet my friend Ashely and Hannah at the Victoria and Albert museum where we went to a special exhibit they had called "the cult of beauty" about the aesthetic movements in art and design from 1860-1900. Then we went to check out an exhibit they had upstairs about theater. They had costumes from a lot of different shows on display, including the Lion King which I love. They also had a model of one of the stages in London with a little miniature set of Sweeney Todd with switches so you could turn different combinations of lights on and see how they lit the stage/scene. I spent about 10 minutes in front of the little box, it was pretty cool. 

After that I went back to campus to pack up my room and then I went to Hannah's house to meet my friend Julia who came into town from Brighton for the weekend.

The next day I said goodbyes and moved the last of my stuff from my room to Hannah's house and turned in my key to my flat on campus. 

Leadenhall Market

 Hello! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been busy moving out of my flat and into Hannahs and finishing up my exams.
After my exams were over (finally! my last one was June 9th) I decided to go check out Leadenhall Market. It was really neat, it is where Diagon Alley and the Leaky Caldron were filmed for the Harry Potter films and other films have been shot here as well. 

There was a Charles Dickens festival going on while I was there, so there were a lot of people dress like in the photo above milling about. 

 

Last night I went and saw Fleet Foxes!!!!!!

 

Yeah we were there really early, got a great spot though! second row and ended up right in front of the stage.

 

So. Many. Hipsters. 

and a strangely large amount of old people

 

The opening band

 

Fleet Foxes

 

kid was playing the guitar with a bow.

 

It was an amazing concert. 

In other news, I was on the longest escalator in the tube today. Its at Angel on the Northern line fyi.

The other day I went to the Tower of London! Yaaaay!  

  

The White Tower

 

Traitor's Gate

 

The Bloody Tower

 

a cage where they keep the ravens

 

People actually live there, they had pretty blue doors!

 

These ravens were like 2 feet tall!

 

Some pretty impressive carvings

 

Room where Anne Bolyn and all those other famous people were held

 

where the scaffold was

 

staircase where they found the 2 skeletons that they think were the 2 princes who went missing.

 

and starting the long parade of Henry the 8th's armor. 

IIIIIIII'm Henery the 8th I am I am

Henery the 8th I am I am

I got married to the widow next door

 

She's been married seven tiiiiiiimes before 

and everyone was a Henry (HENRY!!!!)

she wouldn't have a Willy nor a Sam (NOR A SAM!)

 

I'm her 8th old man I Henry

Henry the 8th I am!!!!

Yeah, the sad thing is all his suits just kept getting bigger...

 

a suit for a giant man and a dwarf.

 

It's called a LANCE... DUH!

 

big ol book

 

this dragon was there too...

 

the coins had shield designs on the back, this is what they look like all put together

 

There was a well in the gift shop

 

say what?

 

oooohhhh, apparently we were some sort of fighting group. Defend the Tower!!!!!

 

My fellow comrade-in-arms.

 

Our enemy... hey I'm jealous that they get to live in the Tower too!

 

?

 

cool beans!

 

another cool picture of traitor's gate.

 

where the scaffold was on Tower Hill