Thursday, 27 November 2008

Happy Thanksgiving / My Birthday

Hey everyone,

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving! Eat lots of turkey and food for me. I celebrated Turkey day this past Monday with my "London Family" and suprisingly it was really really good! However it is not the same without my family and friends. Hope everyone has a great holiday!

- nicole


Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes!!! I can believe how young...uhh i mean how old i am :) I know i wasnt able to celebrate it with everyone but i will be home soon enough. I cant believe that i finally get to let my rowdy teenage years behind ;) because i was always a rowdy teen.

Cheers
Nicole

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

Lion King

So Last Night i went to go see Lion King of Broadway. Whats cool about over here, is that if you go to the box office about an hour before the show and ask for a student discount, they give you the best ticket available for 20 pounds. So i chose an aisle seat without knowing that this show has characters go down the aisle way. anyways i had a really good seat and the show started and they had the people come down the aisles and it was amazing! and at one point the cast was dressed up like hyenas and they were coming down the aisle and one of them hit me with their leg and then as i was watching the last one come down the aisle he came up to me and growled loud enough that people around me were like WOW...it was soo amazing! and then right before intermission one of the workers who sells stuff had a prop up table and apparently was talking to the people across the aisle from me and as i turn to my left table legs swooshed by my face and i moved quickly but it was so close that i felt the wind on my face and everyone around asked if he hit me and they had that face of "o my goodness". The rest of the show was as you guessed...amazing, i was able to get the girl who plays Rafiki to sign my playbill :) i also got a tee shirt that i was excited for because it looks cool and on top of it all it says London on the back of it.


ok so below is a video of the cast that i saw perform the Lion King here in London...the clip is amazing and imagine it with double the cast and their own stage...



so i found an actuall clip of the musical on their own stage so you can get a better image of what i saw :)




Rome


ROMA


coliseum


in the city

Spanish Steps


Trevi Fountain


Vatican City


Train Ride to Airport

Saturday, 8 November 2008

Charger Vs. Saints














So i went to the NFL International Series Game here in London at Wimbley stadium. It was the Chargers versus the Saints. Chargers lost because of some bad calls and because they just didn't play that great. Anyways here are the pics


Halloween

So i know this is coming about a week late but HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! Fall is definitely happening over here with lower temperatures which don't seem to be that bad (i think i have slowly gotten used to it) and rain and surprisingly SNOW! Yep it snowed over here in London, i think it was the first time in 70 years that's it snowed in London during October. So yes i did dress up and i dressed up as a Chargers Football Player. We went out dancing to a club called PUNK that one of the girls here is a promoter for (her internship) and it was funny because everyone on the streets and in the tube were looking at us like they have never seen anyone dress up before they were pointing and whispering and it was really a culture shock.

Parliament


I was SUPER excited to visit Parliament, not only because it has to deal with politics, not only because of Big Ben, but because it is the place of my internship. How many people from my group could say that we went on a field trip to the place where they are going to have their internship? None, zero, goose egg. As excited as i was to see Parliament i couldn't help but feel a little bad in not remembering all details, because i had such a long day. Mind you i visited the globe theater, Tate modern, and Parliament all in one day! So it was a lot to take in but i hope you enjoy what i do remember.

So the first thing about visiting Parliament that was cool, was when you first enter into the security area they have you look up and smile and before you know it you have a picture ID that it attached to a necklace that you have to wear on the outside of your clothing. It was like airport security and whatever. When you enter, you enter through the side like my photo to the left shows. You enter into this amazing enormous hall that has an all wood ceiling and has lights.
What i didnt know at the time, was that this is going to be the way i have to get to work every Tuesday-Thursday. Unfortunately there are no pictures allowed to be taken after this hallway. However i can tell you that it is enormous! and there are painting all over the place showing the rulers of the pasts. We were able to walk the halls that the Queen walks every year and visit the rooms that the MP's work in and that are televised. It was amazing to see how many cameras and microphones were in the rooms. As old fashioned as everything is, there was a lot of new technology as well.

there are two colors in Parliament. In the House of Commons (where i work) everything is green. And in the House of Lords everything is red. Like i said before a lot of details are fuzzy because i was extremely tires from the whole day of events....but one of my coworkers said that he would be able to give me a tour again so i think i may take him up on that offer to get a personalized tour of parliament and hopefully get some more pictures!

Along the Thames River



















Hey these are just a couple pictures while i walked along the Thames River to all the different locations that i went to :)

Tate Modern

So the same day that i visited the Globe theater i also visited Tate Modern Gallery. This has some of the most amazing paintings like Monet's Lillypads which was absolutely beautiful in person and really big. But it also had a lot of modern (hince the name) and weird stuff. I wasn't too impressed by the artwork in there except for the Monet and there were some paintings in there by people who we have researched in class like Vanessa Bell (the Charleston house) so that was cool but besides that it was this huge place with a lot of weird stuff in it that some people consider to be art.

However at the top floor of the Tate Modern is a cafe with a view of the Thames River and St. Paul's Cathedral so here are some pictures, hope you like them.

Monday, 3 November 2008

Sorry

Hey everyone!

sorry i haven't put anything up in a while. I am feeling very sick and as soon as i get better i will update my blog with everything.