Prague!

So I just got back from Prague, Czech Republic and it was an AMAZING experience. I am so glad that I chose to go there! Jessica, Karissa and I headed out on Wednesday afternoon to Gatwick. One unfortunate even that happened was that I sat in gum in one of the trains....and I was wearing the only pair of pants that I brought for the trip. haha

Our flight was delayed a little bit so we ended up getting to Prague later than we thought we would. When we arrived it was 11 pm there, and lots of things were closed. We ended up finding the bus we needed and then getting onto the Metro, and then finding our hostel without too much trouble. We were really proud of ourselves.

We woke up the next morning and decided to head to Old Town. On the way we passed a lot of tourist shops and we saw a bunch of puppets everything in the shops. We thought this was really interesting and we want to research if maybe the story of Pinocchio originate somewhere near Prague because there were a lot of puppets of him too.

This was the view that we saw right as we came around the corner to Old Town. All the buildings have a Gothic, majestic feel to them and the architecture is amazing.
This is the famous astronomical clock. Every hour people crowd around it as little wooden figures come out of those two windows at the top It was kind of strange and I'm not really sure of the meaning but it was cool to see.
After walking around for a little bit, Jessica and I went on top of the clock tower and below is one of the pictures that I took while on top of it.
We then went on to the famous Charles Bridge, and it was really neat. There were a bunch of people on it, and there were vendors selling all sorts of things. There was even a band playing. The view was amazing, as can be seen from the picture below.
After walking a little more, we came to St. Nicholas's Cathedral. It was the most beautiful church I have ever been inside of. Mozart played concerts here, and everything was spectacular wherever you looked.


Day Two- We woke up and went to Prague Castle, which is not just one building, it's a whole little village on top of a hill. The steps to get up there were quite extensive. Touring the Castle took a long part of our day and it was really neat. The frustrating part was that because we don't speak Czech, we were not able to understand the history of a lot of what we were seeing because we did not want to spend an extra 30 dollars for the audio guide, when it cost 20 dollars to get it. The picture below is of St. Vitus's Cathedral.
In Prague, there is a whole Jewish town that is still active dating back from World War 2 when they went into hiding. There is a wall up in the town that sectioned off and hid a large part of the town, and unfortunately it did cost a lot of money to get in, so we walked around other the outsides of the town and got to see a few of the buildings, including the Jewish synagogue below. It is fascinating that Czech Republic was a communist nation and how they willingly surrendered to that lifestyle without much fight. I can only imagine how these Jews lived in so much fear. The fact that the original town still exists and that I got to walk through it was really neat.

At lunch, for dessert, Jessica and I got these amazing fruit sorbet things where the sorbet was put into the shell of the actual fruit. I got Coconut and Jessica got orange. We were really sad when they were gone.

There was some kind of weird art work on one of the hills in Prague, and the ending mark of the art was a foot. The picture shows how I feel about this.
After the weird artwork there was a pathway up this hill, called Petrin hill. It was a steep and semi long climb, but it was SO worth it for the views and on top there was a whole little tourist village. The building below was in this village.The pastries in Prague were very good. The ones we are eating below were our favorite. We don't really know what they were, it has cinnamon and sugar on it...yum. We kept going back for more.
Day 3-On Saturday before we flew out we went to the Prague zoo. We had seen all the sights that we had wanted to see in the previous two days and Jessica was super excited about, so we went. My family will probably think this is funny because they think I hate zoos. I would like to confess that I really don't, in fact this one was REALLY cool. I just don't like to be overloaded with zoo experiences everywhere we go, but I am not as opposed as you think I am. This zoo had a lot of kinds of animals that I have not ever remember seeing before. There were a lot of indoor catlike animals that lived in the dark that I had no clue what they were.
I took a picture of these birds for you mom, because I thought you would like them, they are ruby ibises. Their color was awesome.

My favorite picture at the zoo, adorable kangaroos with a beautiful Prague background.

Jessica and I with the Polar bear

These last two pictures are of when we were on top of Petrin Hill and had climbed this tower, and it's the highest viewing point in Oxford. It was INCREDIBLE!


So, this was an awesome trip. Now I have to try to catch up on sleep and homework. I go to Ireland in 2 weeks! I really can't believe its almost March. I guess time does really fly by when you are having fun, and you have stuff to look forward to all the time.

I love and miss all of you so much!

The "Catch Up" Post

I have gotten really lazy in my blogging latley so this will update you on several things that happened this week. For OXTA this week we toured the Botanical Gardens, the Radcliffe Camera(Camera just means chamber) and then we went to St. Mary's. The tower at St. Mary's is the highest view in Oxford. Karissa, Cole, and I paid to 2 pounds to go up there. There is a nice tea room connecting to the church so a group of us had pastries and tea after we toured the Church. By the way, I am still mixing up the order in which i upload the pictures on here, so right now everything is in backwards order of when it happened, sorry!

For Valentine's Day the guys went all out here. They have been planning since they got here to do something. So when we woke up on Thursday morning all the girls had a printed out invitation by their door that told to be ready(we got all dressed up) at 5:50 and that their escort would pick them up to take them to dinner downstairs. Us girls were VERY impressed. They had set up dinner tables with candles, and served us salad, spaghetti, and chocolate cake. Jeremey came in and sang, You're Beautiful by James Blunt on his guitar. They then took us to the other house in the common room, and after we had sat down, they brought a band in that they had paid for. The band, Joe Allen, was this guy who could sing REALLY well and play the guitar and a girl who played the violin. They were SO good and I bought their 4 song CD on itunes later that night. Then we ended the night by watching Love Actually. It was surprisingly a very good Valentine's Day.

We spent the day in London again on Friday. It was very cold! A group of us went to the changing of the guards ceremony right outside of Buckingham Palace. It was mobbed, and it was hard to see. It did not last very long either. We were glad we had gone for the experience but it was not something that we would choose to go to again. It was kinda funny being behind a mob of people and raising your camera as high as you could, and then just snapping it, not even knowing what you were taking it of. My favorite thing about London on Friday was touring Parliament. It was really cool. We had a good tour guide, and she told us everything in a very interesting way. We got to see the Lords and the Commons Chamber, the room where the Queen comes to get ready right before she gives her speech every year, her throne. The building was beautiful and filled with 24 karat gold everywhere. Since we have been required to watch PMQs, it was really neat to stand and be in the room that that takes place every week.

Today I have been doing homework all day long. I am trying to catch up and get everything done before I leave for Prague on Wed. I am SO excited!

I can't believe its already Feb. 18th. We have about a week and half until March, or something like that. It's so crazy how fast this experience is flying by.

Jessica and I went to a pub tonight, the Rose and Crown. It was very tiny, but it was pretty good. I got a brie cheese sandwich with apples and walnuts, with chips(french fries). We sat there and talked for a long time, and it was good to get out of the house since Ive been doing homework all day.

I love and miss all of you so much! I hope all is well.

Cheers!!

St. Paul's Cathedral while I was walking on the London bridge
Big Ben
outside of Parliament
on top of St. Marys
Krisann and I at the Valentine's dinner
Joe Allen
my grand view from the changing of the guards ceremony
pretty tulips. for mom

Sing Song Baby!!!

So we are the first study abroad group EVER to have our own Sing Song Act and we are pretty excited about it. Its not going to be up for judging, so we got to have all the fun of singsong without the stress!
I have included the link for your enjoyment! Please watch and comment on it! =)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6Fydco3amw

York and Whitby trip

Sorry, these pictures are all out of order! :(

This was our hostel from the backside

A window in York Minster

A fooseball table that was in York Minster, I got really excited!...but dont worry I did not play it.

The African group, they were so happy and it was fun to watch.

Molly and I with our bananas on the bus

Me in front of BEAUTIFUL Whitby
Whitby Abbey(which inspired the story of Dracula)

Sunset

Sunrise

Our room in the hostel..at the least the window, we couldnt fit the whole room in a picture...
The view from our window (I didnt realize that I took it in black and white at the time)
The view from the steps on the way into town

Sondra and I with the beach background


Warwick Castle
Jessica and I were very naughty and look at our punishment....
My European boyfriend...except he's made of wax.
What would have been an awesome picture, if the wind hadnt blown my hair that way...
Warwick Castle.

I went on my first overnight trip with the whole group, and it was really fun!

We left early Thursday morning and drove to Warwick Castle. It was huge and we had a pretty good amount of free time to walk around and see everything. One of the exhibits was a reanactment of Medieval Times by using wax people. It was very creepy, they looked real, and they just kind of freaked me out..but i took pictures with them anyways. The views were amazing and the castle was really big. They also had a peacock garden. All the peacocks were really far away from us, but then I got my sandwich out and they all started flocking towards us, which was really cool. After we were done looking at the castle, we still has some time left, so we walked into town and found a famous church to tour. I think it was St. Marys. Robert Dudle was buried here, and while this did not previously excite me, I found out that he was Queen Elizabeth's supposed lover.

After Warwick, we got on the bus again and got to Whitby around 6. I was SO surprised at how nice the hostel was. The rooms were very spacious, we had our bathroom, the bed was nice and comfy, and breakfast, lunch, and dinner were served there. I could not have been more pleasantly surprised. We stayed right next to the Whitbey Abbey and it was on top of this huge hill. We had to walk down and down 199(yes we counted) steps to get back and forth from the hostel to town. Let's just say my calf muscles are VERY sore....but it was so worth it. Everything about the town of Whitby was quaint, and relaxing. It was just so much fun to sit on a cliff and look at the beautiful surroundings. We didn't really "do" a whole lot. We did tour the Abbey, and we walked around in town a lot. There was lots of time for playing games. I dominated in fooseball, which was very exciting and then we playes this game called "signs" with a lot of people both nights in a common room.

We left for York on Saturday morning, and we toured the York Minster when we got there. Then we had free time for about 5 hours. This was way too long. We did not know really what there was to do in York, and we were so tired that we really just wanted to head back to Oxford at this point. However, Jessica, KrisAnn, and I walked around and we saw this group from Africa performing and they were REALLY cool, so I am glad we got to see that.

It was exciting to come back into the house and for it to feel familiar. I really am enjoying being here, this is such a cool opportunity. If I ever get the chance to go back to Whitby, I will. I really did like it.

It was a luxury going a trip where everything was planned, and I will soon see how much of a luxury that really is. I loved going as the whole group too. I can now offically say I have caught the traveling bug!

P.S. Everyone is getting sick and it seems it is only a matter of time that I will get it...please pray my immune system stays strong.

Also, I put a lot more pictures up on facebook if you want to see them.

Christ Church

KrisAnn, Katie, Casey and I, drinking English tea and represen-

ting

Siggies!

This was the Great Hall in Harry Potter.

Today my OXTA class went on a tour of Christ's Church. When I say tour.. I mean a 3 hour long tour. (No, not like Gilligan) The lady that was the leader of our tour was VERY excited about stained glass and described every detail. It was very interesting at some points, but it just kept going on. Anyways, I do not mean to sound like I did not enjoy it at all. The church was beautiful, and i had seen it previously because that's where I went to church 2 Sundays ago. My favorite part was seeing the stairwell and the Great Hall where scenes of Harry Potter were filmed at. The movies made it look a lot longer and bigger, but you could still definetley recognize it from the movies.

This weekend, we as a class, are going to York and Whitby in England from Thursday to Saturday. None of us really know what is there and I'm curious to see what they have planned for us. I looked up pictures and it looks like its near the coast, so thats cool.

I have been doing my best to keep up with my homework, and I'm doing fairly well. It is just hard to get into the mode of school when I dont have class from Wed. afternoon to Sunday.

I still am loving seeing all the new places and learning the history of this great city, so much really has happened here.

Tonight, KrisAnn, Jessica, Beth, and I attempted to do a yoga video in the common room. We propped the door closed and put a chair in front of the door so people couldnt make fun of us. However, some people still managed to come in and laugh. It was funny because I wasnt very good and I had a hard time taking the video seriously. I bought THREE cookies today, which is a lot! and it was kind of expensive, but people have been talking about Millie's cookies and Ben cookies and I just finally broke down and bought 2 of Millie's and one of Ben's(because those were better). Let's just say they were so good but I felt a little sugared out afterwards and I definetley felt like I needed that yoga session.

I changed my settings on this so that anyone can leave me a comment without having an account on this thing..so go comment away!!

I love and miss all you in the states very much!!!