If You Say So....

I was skyping with my oh so loving boyfriend, this morning and he asked me what I had done yesterday. I said my usual, "not much, read a lot, walked around town a little, ate at some point....nothing exciting" and we then started talking about movies and football and I forget what else (sorry, Javi). Towards the end of our conversation I said something along the lines of "oh! at the Natural History Museum yesterday I saw...." to which he replied, "Kristin! you said you didn't do anything!" Now in my defense, I was only there for about 2 hours and I wasn't nearly as in love with this museum as the Imperial War Museum but I know what he meant. After (gently?) reminding me that some people actually do care about what I do on a day-to-day basis out here I decided I would blog a little about this museum as I've now been there twice this week. 
For starters, I wish I had not begun my tour of the museum with the "creepy crawly" exhibit. It really, honestly was creepy AND crawly and I certainly did gag a few times at the life size spiders and MASSIVE crabs. However, I did enjoy learning about how much more dominant female spiders are over their male counterparts! I'm pretty sure I knew this at one point but reading it and seeing videos showing it was pretty cool. This crab here on the left is 3meters and all I could think was, "I really, really, really hope I never ever, ever, EVER see that in real life." That shouldn't be too hard as I'm pretty sure this guy lives at the bottom of the ocean BUT point being, I was disturbed. Even worse in this exhibit was finding out about the bugs that live in ALL (it continually said nearly all but that means all right?) of our eyelashes that are supposedly necessary to keep our eyelashes clean. I hate the idea of that so much I wanted to cry right there on the spot but hey! I guess I haven't noticed them up until this point so I'll keep letting them do their thing. *insert shudder here* 

After being sufficiently scarred by this exhibit I moved on to.....DINOSAURS! Why is it that something so far removed from our past still continues to fascinate us? I know I came home and immediately started googling more about dinosaurs. How crazy that these animals ruled the world before humans were even a possibility! 64-65 MILLION years before humans are known to have been on earth. Oh history, you never fail to blow my mind! Anyways, I of course spent much more time among my new prehistoric friends than among the creepies and crawlies and actually learned a lot about the different types of dinosaurs and what they ate and who would have one battles against who.....Don't ask me to tell you any of it offhand because I won't be able to but it was fun to read about! This "little" guy over here on the right was probably one of the smallest replica's of dinosaurs they had on site but I thought he looked funny because he looks like he's searching for someone or something. I think he would have been one of the more friendly dinosaurs but what do I know.... 

Today I ventured back to the Natural History Museum for lack of anything else to do and not in the mood to wander to another museum today, and I walked upstairs to the exhibit on Darwin. Now, as controversial as this may be to some peope, the man makes a point! First off, I loved walking in on the side with all the cute lil monkeys!! I love monkeys! Probably because I wish I could move among the trees like they do, I just loved climbing trees as a kid! Ask my parents, I'm pretty sure I gave them a heart attack or two growing up. They'll probably claim more than that. I digress... DARWIN. Although the exhibit started with him and talking a lot about his ideas I was more intrigued by the comparisons between humans and the many different kinds of apes humans, or should I say homo sapiens, have similarities with! There are of course significant differences that distinguish us from the monkey family but did you know that some species have the same size brain as us?! Did you know that some of them even know how to make tools? There was even a video example of how certain monkey's understand the idea of seeing something from someone else's point of view. In the example it showed how a female monkey was hiding behind a rock with a male monkey who was not the dominant male monkey of her group so she should not have been with him. On the other side of the large rock the dominant male could see only her but not the other male monkey. It was all quite scandalous really, I guess it didn't matter since the screaming children were more interested in running around and through the exhibit hitting each other rather than actually reading anything about it. Though in fairness to them, a lot of them weren't tall enough to read the signs anyways...Side tracked again....
ANYWAYS. I didn't stay long at the museum today because I was tired and need to pack because tomorrow I fly to GERMANY!!!! 
I cannot express how excited I am to be going to see Thorsten (for all who don't know Thorsten is Javi's sister's boyfriend and he lives in Bremen, Germany) and spend time in the Christmas markets and enjoying more time traveling abroad! It still amazes me how easy it is to travel around Europe and reminds me on my more homesick days why I want and love to be here! I do have class tomorrow so I need to get off to bed now but I of course will keep you posted on my next adventure!


Love from London,
Kristin

A London Thanksgiving

I know it was almost a week ago now and I'm just getting to posting about it but Thanksgiving in London was lovely! Although it took trips to 4 separate grocery stores to find all the ingredients we needed to make everything, Thanksgiving dinner went off without a hitch! We had everything we would have had at home! Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, bread, cranberry sauce and pie! It was actually a lot of fun to celebrate such an American holiday here. I had class all day on Thursday and because I was going over to Caitlin's house after class to cook dinner I had to carry a glass pan and ingredients with me haha I must have been quite the scene walking around waterloo, Covent Garden, Oxford Street and then finally Kengsington with all my bags.
Upon arrival I was introduced to some new English friends of Caitlin's as well as meet up with friends I had not seen in a few weeks. We opened a bottle each of red and white wine, poured us each a glass and toasted to productive cooking! The turkey was in the oven, the casseroles just needed to be warmed up and the rest was ready to go. The hardest part of Thanksgiving to explain to our English friends was why we put marshmallows in our sweet potatoes. They just couldn't understand why it would be necessary to sweeten sweet potatoes anymore! After a (nearly) heated discussion they decided it was just a weird American tradition and let it go. I wouldn't trade that dish for anything, make fun all you want!

In the end I finished three HUGE plates of food and didn't even have room for pie. Sad day but I guess that means at Christmas dinner I'll have to have extra dessert. Anyways, this plate I have here on the left doesn't even begin to tell how much I piled on that plate. Don't tell anyone but I definitely had to undo the button on my jeans after finishing the third plate. As I was getting ready to leave a while later it was still quite painful to button them up again but I figured no one on the tube needed to see me being such a slob after having stuffed my face for over an hour.
Thank you Caitlin and friends for helping us celebrate one of my favorite holidays! (because it involves food of course!)

Love from London,
Kristin

My First Visitors

I have finally had some visitors here in London!

My mom and sister came to visit and let me tell you, it has been a VERY busy couple of weeks.

Lets go back to November 7.....My mom flew in to Heathrow on November 7 and I picked her up from the airport and headed back to my flat in Greenwich. It's about a 2 hour journey but it seems to go pretty quickly (I think so anyways.) I think she realized very quickly how much walking I do in this city as we had to switch tube stations multiple times and then walk back to my flat once in Greenwich. We didn't do much that evening besides relax and catch up on things because early the next morning we left for Edinburgh, Scotland! I had been wanting to visit this city since before I moved to London so I was thrilled to have the chance to travel more this term!   

We had 4 full days of seeing castles, and cathedrals and meeting locals at a pub nearby. We took a tour bus all around the city and learned a lot about the history of the city and the people who live there. It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL and worth the 4 1/2 hour train ride. Because we were so close, we also had the opportunity to visit Glasgow for an afternoon as well where we walked around the city center, had some dinner, and found ourselves laughing hysterically while shopping in the north face store. That story is for a different time ;) I can't wait to go back to Glasgow though because we literally only had about 5 or 6 hours to walk around and I know there is so much to see in such a historic city. We passed old universities you can tour and an old cemetery that I want to walk through, even though that seems creepy and weird. It was beautiful and for some reason I just wanted to walk through and read all the old headstones.

It is a hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this city is so old that the headstones I could see had dates in the early 1800's! I want to say some were even before that but....anyways. If nothing else, being abroad has made me realize EVEN MORE how much I absolutely love history and trying to follow as much of it as I can.  It's also funny to think that even when the US is as old as these countries are, it will still be a baby compared to Europe. (Duh, Kristin, Europe gets old along with America...you know what I mean, ok?!) After 4 days in Scotland, we headed back to London...for less than 12 hours haha we got back to my flat around 11pm and repacked for our next adventure to Paris, France! We left at 8am the next morning to get to the train which would take us through the tunnel and into France! It was hectic and I was exhausted but I guess I've always moved quickly in life so overall it worked out. That afternoon we walked around and gathered our bearings and had dinner at a lovely restaurant where I ate the BIGGEST salad I have ever had in my life. It was so yummy! The next morning I got up bright and early to go pick up my twinnie from the airport where she flew in to meet us!! I am proud to say that I managed to figure out their metro system, and the replacement buses being used because they were doing repair work on the line that went all the way to the airport and I did it allll by myself :D For those of you who know how directionally challenged I am, I know you are smiling right now. I have actually become very good at using public transportation out here. Mostly because I don't have a choice but hey! still a huge accomplishment I think. ANYways, I picked up Kimberly and we made our way back to the hotel and the three of us hopped on a tour bus and began the most touristy few days you can imagine. we saw the eiffel tower, the louvre, champs elysee, sacre coeur, and the arc d' triomphe! The tour involved buses and boats and it was actually a good way to see the city for the first time. Due to the fact that I had school work to work on (boooo) I didn't get to see any of Paris at night but I guess I'll just have to head back soon for that experience!!  My favorite part of being there was going to the tippy top of the Eiffel Tower and seeing the magnificent view.  There is nothing to compare it to that I have ever found. It was stunning and romantical and Kimberly and I kept waiting to see someone propose haha especially since they sell champagne (by the glass AND bottle) up there. But really, it was great and as cliche as it is, I LOVED IT. It has especially been fun to travel with my mom and sister and have the time to spend more than a day or even just a few hours in any one of these places. On previous family trips we've been able to travel to France, Spain and other places but they were on cruises and you only have a few hours really in the actual city. Point being, I LOVE TRAVELING and actually getting to explore the cities I am in. The three of us left Paris together, back through the tunnel and in to London! I had a lot of fun showing both my mom and my sis how good I have gotten at using the public transportation and how much I've learned about city. We walked a lot around central london....mainly covent garden area and on Thursday, when I had class they were able to do a lot of shopping around Oxford Circus. Both of them went home with more than enough souvenirs ;). We were also lucky enough to see two amazzzzzing plays! One was called Backbeat and is about the story of the Beatles. It starts in the eeearly days when there were 5 beatles (which I didn't even know) and goes through how they ended up with 4. I thought it was incredible and all the actors actually played their own instruments and well, I was impressed. We also saw a play called the Million Dollar Quartet and this one was even better! Absolutely INCREDIBLE. It is about the one and only night that Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins all played/recorded together. These actors/musicians were so impressive. I would definitely go back to see this one with ANYONE who wants to visit. *hint hint* 

Kimberly and I also had a lot of fun celebrating our birthday together for the first time in 5 years! I'm always in CA and she's always in AZ so we haven't been together on our actual day of birth in forever! We went out to a club called koko which is in Camden and we had fun dancing and such. 

We were fortunate to have really good weather in all our travels! Sun shining every single day in Scotland (crazy!), Paris, AND London! I think even the weather knew they were leaving today though because it was so foggy all day I couldn't see a foot in front of my face and it was very cold. I know it's only supposed to get worse so I best prepare myself!  

So as I said, the two of them left London, back for good 'ol Arizona and I'm sitting here alone in my apartment, skyping with my Javi and trying to get myself focused on school again. I need to start figuring out how to write my second essay because on Thursday we were told we would have to give a 30-40 minute presentation basically with all the information we will be putting in our paper. SO. I need to get on that. It was a lovely couple of weeks of distractions and I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to travel so much so far this term.

Next stop: Bremen, GERMANY!