Field trips and Museums

Tuesday was our trip to Burberry. It was kind of interesting, we got to talk to the CEO and the person in charge of Merchandising for non apparel and menswear. They let us go through the showroom as we were leaving so we got a glimpse of next spring/summer's accessories.

Wednesday after class I went to the Victoria and Albert museum and wandered around for a little while. I got a ticket to go see the Grace Kelly exhibit but got an offer to go get Wicked tickets about an hour before I was supposed to get to go in, and the ticket didn't cost very much so I abandoned my plan in favor of Wicked. (which I get to go see on Wednesday!!! :D :D)

Thursday was our trip to the Bank of England, which was kind of disappointing because they just took us into the museum part of the bank and made us listen to someone talk while we froze to death. After the bank I went back to the V&A and wandered most of the museum. I realized when I got back that I missed an entire section of exhibits so I have to go back...plus Grace was sold out for the day. lol

We leave for the Lake District in about an hour and will be gone until Sunday, when Brittany comes in town for a few days!! :D I'm so excited to see her! There's nothing like roomie bonding in London.

Class is going pretty well, we have lots of extra credit opportunities which is nice because it increases my chances of getting my A. We finally caught up to where I was in the workbook, so I'm not ahead anymore, but I have a 3 hour train ride to the Lake District to change that. lol We aren't taking computers with us, so there won't be any more pictures up until Sunday, then there will probably be a bombardment of them.

Julianna

"Please look after this bear. Thank you."

Well, I suppose I've left you in suspense long enough. lol

Saturday's trip to Wales was wonderful, though freezing most of the time. We took the 8:45 train out and got to Cardiff around 10:45 so we had most of the day. After wandering in and out of a few stores we eventually headed to Cardiff Castle. So awesome. The castle is nearly 2000 years old and was used for everything from Roman times to shelter during WWII. We spent probably an hour and a half to 2 hours just wandering around inside the castle and exploring the different parts of it, taking pictures. As you've probably all seen from my pictures by now, we also picked a great day and time to go because they shot off the catapult while we were there, which they said they only do about once a month. After the castle, we went into a souvenir shop across the street to find some souvenirs from Wales and to get advice as to a good place to get fish and chips (well, for everyone else to get fish and chips lol). We were directed to a place in Cardiff Bay which apparently holds the record in the Guinness Book of World Records for best fish and chips. I must say my chicken and chips was quite wonderful. :) The others said the fish and chips were awesome too. After lunch we walked the pier a little bit and wandered some more shops, then decided we were out of things to do and headed back early. Have I mentioned this was all in 68 degree weather with winds of 10-20mph? It was cold!! I think I wore 2 jackets most of the day. lol Sadly, one of the things I was probably most excited about didn't end up happening on our journey. We had to come and go from Paddington Station, which is home to a statue of Paddington Bear, and I was hoping to get a picture with him.....but he wasn't near where we were (or if he was I couldn't find him...) and we didn't have alot of time, so no picture for me. But that just means another journey over to Paddington for me to hunt him down. :)

Sunday I was going in search of flats to wear to my business casual field trips, but was derailed when I ran into a couple of Baylor girls who were headed for the Toy Story 3 premiere (yes in the middle of the day) and said that Tom Hanks and Tim Allen were supposed to be there. lol So I headed off with them on our celeb hunt, but we were disappointed when they didn't show up. We DID however get to see Woody, Buzz, Jessie and their new friend, Lotso, who is pink and supposedly in the movie smells like strawberries AND is a boy (sound familiar to anyone?) lol After the premiere, I hit the shops and found my flats. Have I mentioned I love London? Little shoes everywhere!! :D

Today my class didn't meet because of our field trip, which was exciting because it meant I could sleep in a bit. We headed out and went to the Jaguar factory where we were educated on the correct pronunciation and learned that Europeans call Americans "door slammers" lol. Watched some cars being put together, and eventually headed back.

That's about all I've got for today, I'll try to do better about updating.

Julianna

Just when you thought nothing else could happen....

You know that saying "Everything that can go wrong, will"? I think this trip has thoroughly proved that to me and, though I thought we'd already experienced everything that could possibly happen to us, I was sadly mistaken.

Due to the fact that I a) was already falling asleep and b) have to be ready to go to the train station at 7:30am for our Wales trip, I went to bed at 11pm tonight (crazy I know). A little before 1 (probably around a quarter til if I had to guess), I woke up for whatever reason. A minute or two later, BAM!: fire alarms go off. Epic fail.

So like a good girl who's half asleep and thinks its early morning, not the middle of the night, I grab my phones, jacket and flip flops and go out the door to go outside. As soon as my door closes behind me, I realize that my key is, in fact, still inside my room. Again, epic fail.

At this point, there's obviously nothing I can do about getting in my room, so I follow the rest of the herd downstairs and outside (with no contacts or glasses). We end up standing around outside for about 20 minutes or so, with me still thinking it's early morning for most of that time, until the people I was standing with said something about having just gotten back and I looked at my phone and realized it was nearly 1am. So they finally let us back in and I have to stand around for awhile longer waiting on the guy at the desk to come back and let me in my room. So, after much standing around and about 30 minutes or so, I finally managed to get back in my room and shall soon be heading back to bed.

once again, adieu,

Julianna

"If we could bottle your luck, we'd have a weapon of mass destruction on our hands."

A rainy day in London town

I've now been in London for about 2 and a half days. This is probably at least one of my favorite places I've ever been to, if not my favorite.

I guess I should finish up on Denmark before I start with London though. lol Copenhagen is very much like NYC, and, while I enjoy NYC, it definitely was not what I expected out of Copenhagen so I was a bit disappointed and not really a fan. The castles we went to were really cool and pretty. One has been turned into a museum now and was gorgeous and really cool. The other one was funny because it's still in use and they made us wear the little shoe cover things that are kind of like shower caps on our feet in order to go in. We got a bit of rain in Denmark, but that helped to cool off the temps a bit so we didn't really complain. lol I think that about covers all there is for Denmark.

On to London. My group got here around 1 or so on Wednesday so we had a bit more time than the others before we had to meet up for dinner and our meeting. Mostly, we just went and acquired our phones so that we had a contact method (I think most people were just secretly dying from being cut off from their cells lol). One of the girls managed to get the guy that worked there to say both "y'all" and "awesome" which was hysterical.That was about all there was to the first day other than unpacking.

Yesterday Dr. Weaver (co-director and psych prof) took a bunch of us on a walking tour around London to show us how to use the tube and buses and give us our bearings a little bit. It was really nice and helpful. We lost most of the group after lunch, but there were a few of us who stuck it out for the whole time. Today we and Dr. Weaver went by Westminster Abbey, Parliament and Big Ben, then walked down the south bank of the Thames past the London Eye and St. Pauls and a few other places. We had a very small group, just my usual little travel group, Dr. Weaver, and Dr. DG (the other psych prof) and his wife and kids, which was really nice because we could go a bit slower/faster and play things by ear a bit more than we could when we had the whole big group. Tomorrow we're off to Cardiff in Wales for the day so I should have some good stories and pics to share.

Class is going well, I seem to be the only person that's actually looked at any of this stuff before going to class, much less done any of the homework ahead of time, so I'm kind of the main talker. My class has 9 boys and 2 girls, so it gets pretty interesting. lol

The London weather is wonderful, but a bit chilly at times because of the winds. It drizzles off and on alot, but not enough to bother messing with an umbrella. Like I said, I could totally live here quite happily.

Anyway, that's all the news from across the pond for now.

Adieu,

Julianna

"Winds in the east, mist comin' in, like somethin' is brewin' and 'bout to begin..."

The train trip that wouldn't end

So....yesterday we rode the train from Stockholm to Copenhagen. This train trip was supposed to last a maximum of 5 hours.....and it ended up taking 15. Slightly ridiculous to say the least.

Our day began at 9:30 when we were supposed to meet to go to the train station....at which point we found out our train was delayed 30 minutes. So we sat back down in the lobby since there was neither places to sit nor air conditioning at the train station. So we sit in the lobby for about 30 minutes or so until almost time for our train to come in. Train gets there, we get on, and the train turns off. And thus begins the beginning of the madness. They came over the intercom and informed us there were technical difficulties with the train and we'd get going when it was fixed. A little while later they manage to fix the train and we got going. However, the air conditioning barely worked and we couldn't feel it hardly at all so we were all hot, some more than others. lol Shortly after we got going, they came over the intercom again to inform us that those of us going to Copenhagen have to switch trains shortly before the Swedish border because our train was for some reason incapable of going across the bridge to Copenhagen. So the forthcoming chaos was pushed aside since we still had hours left til then.

Unfortunately, here we hit our next bump in the road. We pulled into a station at a tiny town in the middle of nowhere for a short stop. About the time we get back on the train to leave again, they come over the speakers again and inform us that the next town had lost power so no trains could go in or out of the station. So we sit around for awhile waiting for them to regain power. The professors and tour guide started calling around trying to get buses for us, but they could only get one and it couldn't be there for like 3 1/2 hours. So we continue to wait on the train until we eventually got going again hours later. (Have I mentioned this is all without air conditioning?) So we head for Lund and are enroute when the train breaks down. One of our professors informed us that we were officially in between the middle of nowhere and the middle of nowhere. So we sit there for a significant amount of time until they got it fixed. Eventually, we get going again and are cruising right along and it starts raining, like thunder, lightening, the whole nine yards. At which point the conductor comes back over the intercom, a sound we'd learned to fear and loathe.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you aren't going to believe this, but lighting has hit (insert town name here) and they have lost power." Naturally, we all groaned collectively. So we once again found ourselves sitting on the tracks in the middle of nowhere, waiting to be able to continue our journey. Eventually we continue on, where we somehow managed to get stuck behind a freight train thus further prolonging our little trip. (Have I mentioned that by this time it's at least dinner time if not after and we hadn't actually eaten a "meal" since noon?) Meanwhile, we're getting closer and closer to time for the World Cup game and the boys were getting progressively more cranky. Long story short, we eventually made it to the station where we had to change trains after over 12 hours on board. I wish I could say everything went smoothly from there. First the station is only using half of the tracks due to construction or something, so it took forever to get in. Because of this, we missed our train to Copenhagen, and they'd told us the next train was at 11:42 (the original one was at 11:22). By this point we're all thinking what's another 20 minutes and were unconcerned. However, then they come over the speakers to inform us that they told us wrong and it isn't until 12:22. Which ended up working out because we got into the station with minutes to spare, or so we thought.

After getting all of us and our luggage onto the train, we hear once again the speakers come on, this time informing us that our conductor's train has been delayed and we're waiting on him so we're going to be leaving 20 minutes later than planned. About 30 minutes or so later, they come on to inform us that we're about to leave. Following this announcement a guy in the front of the train car was like "Finally! I've been waiting an hour! I think I should get a refund or something!" Naturally we just laughed at him incredulously. So our train finally starts moving....and we get to Copenhagen and get off the train at 1:40 am (10 hours AFTER the time we were supposed to get here) at which point we have to wait because we only have one rather than the two buses we were supposed to have because one of the drivers contractually cannot drive after midnight so the bus has to make 2 trips so half of us get on the bus while the rest of us stand in/by the street waiting for it to return, supposedly 15 minutes later. After watching some very entertaining Copenhagen natives, we get on the bus when it returns nearly an hour later and head for the hotel and our dinner of pizza that has been ordered for us about 6 or so hours earlier. Meggan and I got to our room at 3:30 where we then couldn't figure out how to turn on the lights because you have to put your room key in to get electricity which we discovered after at least 10 minutes of searching while using the tv for a light and leaving the door open and her suitcase in the hall (and of course both of us nearly crashing into a very large pole in the middle of our room). At which point we see the sky lightening up as the sun begins to rise and gave up on the idea of sleeping because the hotel doesn't have any air conditioning and it was incredibly hot so we kept our window wide open and got online instead, finally ending our epic day with a nap before breakfast at 6:30.

The End.

For those of you wondering, it's about 80 degrees in Copenhagen currently, and most of the buildings don't have air conditioning because they only get this weather about one week a year...lucky us. We went on a walking tour of the city today and then did a bit of wandering, though not quite as much as in Stockholm because a) this city is way bigger and b) it has a tendency to be quite a bit sketchier.

Two castles tomorrow and headed for the airport and London Wednesday morning so my time here is almost over....time to start class. :-/

Stockholm

Well loyal followers, my time in Sweden is almost up. Today is our last full day and after breakfast in the morning we're headed to the train station and on to Copenhagen. Our first night was pretty uneventful, mainly because we were all pretty tired and off, (plus we had no idea where we were going) lol.

Yesterday morning we went on a walking tour of Old Town and got to hear a bit of the history of Stockholm then headed out to the Vasa Museum which was built around an old warship that sunk on her maiden voyage before it ever got out of the bay and was found 333 years later. We wandered Old Town a little bit more after the museum and at dinner time, which was fun since we could go slower and take more time looking around and taking pictures than we could with the tour guide rushing us on. lol

Today we went out to City Hall and saw where they have the banquet after the Nobel Prize awards every year and looked around, then headed out to Drottningholm Palace and explored a bit. We didn't have as much time as we wanted before the bus was supposed to come pick us up to go back to the hotel though, so a few of us branched off from the group and stayed so we could look around at the gardens and such. The Palace was gorgeous inside AND out, but they wouldn't let us take pictures inside so none of y'all will get to see the inside....sorry! We had our first experience with public transportation to get back and rode the bus and the metro. Luckily everyone here speaks English and is really nice and helpful since we had no idea where we were or were going and couldn't exactly read the maps at all. lol We're taking a little rest break now before heading out for some souvenir shopping and dinner so I thought I'd update since my pictures took so long to upload yesterday that I didn't have time or energy to post.

Adjö,

Julianna

And Heading Out

Well folks, I've made it to Stockholm, Sweden and let me tell you......after my airport and plane time the last 24 hours, I'm over flying (at least for now). Nothing planned for the group today so I'm just chilling in my hotel room for now. I might go out and wander a bit when the other group gets here. Tomorrow we have a walking tour of Old Town, the Vasa museum (the one built around a huge ship they pulled up out of the ocean) and I can't remember what else. I'm trying my best to stay awake until an acceptable bedtime......though I doubt I'll make it until the 11pm sundown they told us to aim for.

Nothing else to say really....so I guess just keep an eye out for pictures. :)

Cheerio,

Julianna

Packing Up

So.....I leave in less than 2 days. I have nearly finished packing in a mere few hours and am only up to 27.6 lbs in my big suitcase that will be staying in London the whole time (quite impressive if I do say so myself). All I have left to do is a couple of last minute errands, throwing the last few things in my bags, and (of course) a marathon of workbook pages for my class.

Jamie went back home today and took Diamond with him for safekeeping while I'm gone. I'm really glad he got to come up even with all the chaos there was trying to get him here on Friday with the hurricane wreaking havoc on the weather and all. We made Jenny another peach cobbler today before taking him to the airport which was even easier than making the first cobbler because Jamie is such a good helper.

Anyway, that's all the news for now.

Buenos Noches,

Julianna