Birthday, Christmas, Munich, London, and Paris!

Yikes! It’s been a long time since I wrote about what’s been going on in my life! Sorry about that! I’ll do my best to catch up to the most recent ‘experience.’

November 28th 2008: Day Trip to Oxford (the last SIE group field trip till second term)

What a beautiful place! We woke up bright and early to jump on the coach to make our way down to Oxford for a pretty short day trip. When we arrived our group got split into two for the separate tours that would take place throughout the day. My group first toured around the city of Oxford itself. We saw some beautiful architecture, but mainly focused on Oxford University and the colleges that make it up. It was rather fascinating learning about the Oxford University system. There are 38 colleges of the University of Oxford and 6 Permanent Private Halls, each with its own internal structure and activities. Undergraduate teaching is centered upon the tutorial, where 1-4 students spend an hour with an academic discussing their week’s work. Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. It is also regarded as one of the world's leading academic institutions!

Next we toured the famous Bodleian Library! The main research library of the University of Oxford and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. The Bodleian Group now cares for some 8 million items on 117 miles of shelving, and a staff of over 400. Over 1.5 million items are currently stored in locations outside Oxford! Dang! When you enter the library you have to leave your bags and jackets in lockers or have to go through security where they have to go through everything you’re bringing into the library. They also don’t allow you to check out books, you have to read them there! I noticed as I toured the library that some books were chained to the wall; this is to prevent people from stealing the older books and most precious books in the library.

We also saw the room that was used for all the hospital scenes in Harry Potter. After touring the library we had a few hours to kill till the bus would depart. So a few of us went off on our own to do some shopping and explore. Well….some of us really had to use the bathroom and we didn’t want to pay so we walked around for a bit till we saw an open door into some huge building….looked legit. We walked in the huge double doors and discovered it was one of the many colleges! One thing that we learned from our tour is that unless you go to the college or are on an actual tour, you are not allowed in the college…oops. In a very sneaky way we found another door that lead downstairs. This huge building was shaped as a rectangle and a garden was in the middle. We found the loo and left as quickly as possible…phew! We stopped at the markets to look around in some shops and next to a shop where I bought a cute black hat was dead animal’s hanging above the meat market….rabbits, foxes, birds, you know the usual. Since one of my friends who I was with is vegetarian, we left ASAP. One our way to the bus we were walking down a busy shopping street and I could hear a group of boys singing, naturally I told the girls that we needed to pursue in that direction. We listened to the group of boys singing; known as “Out of the Blue,” while they finished the song they were on before heading back to the bus. My day in Oxford was a very interesting and I learned a lot! I’m defiantly considering making another trip down there…


December 5th 2008: My 20th Birthday!

Yay! I’m 20! Woot Woot! So this day started with my friend Jared taking me to my favorite place, Selly Sausage, for some yummy full English breakfast! Then Katie and I went down to City Center to do some shopping for my birthday party that would take place that night. Katie also bought me a Coldplay mug and Troy HSM3 poster…YEAH! Ashley left the night before for a trip to Sweden! After some shopping we got ready for my birthday party! So about the size of my flat…very very small, but we managed to have just over 55 people show up! Daaaang! Good times!

December 7th 2008: Carol Singing at Nursing Home and SIE Christmas Party

For my Marriages and Families Psychology class, our teacher asked if a few of us would be interested in earning some extra credit by volunteering at a nursing home to do some carol singing! Naturally, I was all about that and my friend AJ and I decided to sing a duet for it. We sang Christmas Shoes as a duet and with the choir we sang all the usual fun Christmas songs to a bunch of people at the nursing home. It was a fun time, especially when some of the older ladies started singing with us. My Professor brought us Santa Hats, but naturally she found one that she thought suited me better! Hehehehe!

After singing at the Nursing home, I hurried back home to get ready for our Study in England Christmas Party. This would be the very last get together till second term! Crazy! It was more of snack party with mince pies and Christmas crackers! We also did Secret Santa which was a good time! After a few hours of chit chat with our first term professors who also came to the party, Greg who is the director of the program came into the room dressed as Santa and it was fantastic!
Thursday 11th December: Last day of first Term in England!
Wow! I can’t believe how fast this semester has gone! It feels like just yesterday when we got off the plane. Time sure flies, but it feels as though here it’s on high-speed! Stop it! I had a wonderful first semester here in England filled with wonderful experiences and meeting some wonderful people! Academically school went great! Which of course I can’t forget is the reason I’m here! Hehehehe! I’m very excited for what is in store for me second term but hoping it doesn’t come and go so fast!

Since my family was coming the 21st of December, I decided to just hang out at the flats the first week and just relax and save some money! It actually turned out pretty good that I did that because I was terribly sick the first 4 days! In bed all day…ick. Unfortunately, so was Katie. The good thing about staying here the first week, not only saving a lot of money, but Katie and Ashley were here as well. Katie left that following Tuesday for her flight back to the states for Christmas and Ashley didn’t leave till that Friday to go meet her family and head of to Ireland. Throughout the first week I read the first 3 Twilight books, therefore you can come to the assumption that I’m in LOVE with Edward Cullen….and I am. Just about to start the fourth today!

So it came the night before when my parents were suppose to be getting on a plane to come see me…..there was a snow storm taking place in Nodak. Yay. I get a call from my mom saying that they were going to head into town early and try to catch the earliest flight they can to get to Minneapolis to catch their flight to Heathrow. So I’m in my flat pacing around and very anxious. I go to bed leaving my laptop on so my Dad or Jill can call me and let me know if they made their flight or not….2 am England time rolls around and I’m awaken by the sound of my Skype ringer. Crap. Turns out my parents missed their flight by 30 minutes to Heathrow. Of all the flights that day out of Minneapolis, the one that they missed was the only one that left EARLY! What the heck! Just my luck. So I already had a train ticket down to London that day and my parents had a hotel book, I decided I would just go down and spend the day in London on my own since they were to arrive Monday at the same time they were expected to arrive that Sunday. I took a noon train down to London, a taxi to the hotel to freshen up and then made my way down to the theatre where “Lion King” was to be performed. We bought theatre tickets about a month ago to see Lion King, but since they missed their flight I wasn’t about to NOT go! So I saw the performance with 4 empty seats to my left but I still had a fantastic time! The musical was amazing!

After the show I went across the street for some dinner and then headed back to the hotel. The next morning I hung out in the lobby of the hotel for 2 hours waiting for them to walk through the door….tick tock tick tock. I decided to go upstairs and make a quick cup of tea and just as I walked into the door I got a call from the front desk…it was Steve! Crap! So I ran downstairs and AHHH! There they were! It felt so weird having them in England! After they settled a bit, we went out to eat at Pizza Express and then made our way to Central London to show them Big Ben, Westminster Abby, and other neat places around London. The next day we headed off to Munich! We stayed at a friend of my mom’s while they were in the States and it was a wonderful time! We made German Stew in Germany and slept in till noon! The day after Christmas we drove to Nurnberg, where my mom was born! Although a lot of places were closed due to holiday, we still had a great time! We came back to Birmingham the next day for a few days before making our way to Paris. The best part of them seeing Birmingham…..GROCERIES! We left Birmingham the 29th to fly to Paris for New Years! New Years Eve day my mom, Steve, Molly, Barb, and I stood in line at the Eiffel Tower for about two hours in the bitter cold, but it was worth it! The Eiffel Tower is a lot bigger and more elegant that I ever thought! After the Eiffel Tower we took a taxi to the Louvre! We waited in a long line for a bit only to realize we were in the wrong line. Oops. By the time we found the right line, they had signs up saying it was closing and that no more people could go in. Sorry Mom! We left the Louvre to go back to the Hotel where Katie and Ashley were! They were meeting us in Paris because when my parents left, I would stay with them and we’d travel France a bit. New Years Eve my parents stayed in a the hotel and Katie, Ashley and I made our way back to the Eiffel Tower to meet up with some people on the program who were also in Paris! We stood on the Balcony of Palais De Chaillot across the bridge from the lit up Eiffel Tower! It was beautiful and such a fun night!

The next day my parents left bright and early to catch a flight back to London. Katie, Ashley and I slept in as long as we could before we had to sneak out since they weren’t supposed to be in our room! Hehehe! From the hotel we walked about 45 minutes to the nearest train station to catch at train to Strasbourg. So we made it to the station to find out that the train left from a different train station across town…crap. We took the Metro to the station and waited in line yet again for tickets. We found out that it would cost each of us a little under $300 for a round trip to Strasbourg! Um…yeah no thank you. So with that plan falling through we got back on the Metro to find a place to stay for the night till we figured out what we wanted to do with our lives. Keep in mind we all had return tickets for Friday the 9th of January back to London. The night before, New Years Eve, we remembered one of our SIE friends saying that they were staying at the “Peace and Love” Hostel near the Le Blanc Metro stop. So we took the metro there and decided we’d just try to find it. Once we finally found the hostel, it had already been a long long day with walking and jumping Metro’s with all our huge backpacks. We walk into the Hostel, obviously looking tired and desperate. There was a lady sitting at a table eating her lunch and when we asked if there were any rooms available for the night she just shook her head very slowly with a sympathetic expression on her face. She told us No, but to sit down and talk to her a bit. We told her about our day thus far walking around Paris and that our friends stayed here the night before, which was the only reason why we knew of this place. She gave us a plate of Salmon and a baguette to eat…we must have looked hungry too…. She said she knew of a lot of different hostels around the area and people she knew who might be able to give us a place to stay. She was making a few phone calls when a man came down the stairs with all his luggage. She looked at him in surprise and said “Leaving already?” He told her that he needed to leave a day early in order to catch the right train to where ever he was going. She looked up at us and said, “Can you girls wait an hour?” A sudden relief washed through us knowing that we had a place to stay! We had no problem waiting while they cleaned the only room available…a two person, one bed room with us three girls…that was going to be interesting. Although we didn’t really car, we were just so relieved to have a place to stay.

That night we hung out with our SIE friends who were still staying there. Actually their train ticket for that day actually didn’t exist so they had to stay an extra night. Bradie, a boy in my SIE program, didn’t have a place to stay so we let him sleep on our floor in the Hostel…..that was also very interesting. We had to be out of the Hostel by 10am the next morning so we packed all our things and left them in the closet of the hostel till we figured out what we were going to do. They weren’t sure if they had room for us that night either so we just had to wait. We ended up doing our make-up in the upstairs of the McDonald’s across the street while we waited for news of a room being available as well as for the boys to meet us. Ashley, Katie, me, Bradie, Andrew, Andy, and Mike, all SIE students besides Andrew’s friends from home Andy and Mike, decided to spend the day together around Paris. We went to ‘Cimetiere Du Pere Lachaise’ where James Morrison from The Doors is buried. Next we walked to the “Bastille” and from there we decided to just walk around Paris for the rest of the day. We saw a lot of really cool architecture! We ended up staying at the Peace and Love Hostel that night as well, this time Ashley and I were in a two person room and Katie was in a dorm style room with two random boys but we didn’t care, as long as we had a place to stay. The next day we also could stay at the Peace and Love, although this time we had a three person room! It was a three person bunk bed! That day we took a tour from the Hostel! The hostel does tours for 10 Euro and we meet a lot of really cool people from all over the world! Here is a list of everything we saw on our tour: Notre Dame, Napoleons’ Tomb, Pont Neuf (Oldest Bridge in Paris), Comedie Francaise, Opera House (Phantom of the Opera!), Ferris wheel, Louvre, The Grand Palasis, The Arc de Triomph, La Madeleine, Petit Palais, Palais Royal, Place des Vosges, and the Pantheon. It was a fantastic day seeing so much and learning so much fascinating history about Paris.

That night we meet two boys from South Africa who were staying at the Hostel and decided to go to the Louvre with them the next day. I have been to the Louvre twice now, but only on the outside! Sunday it was going to be free admission, therefore the perfect time to go! We meet them in the lobby of the Hostel at 9am to make our way to the Louvre! The inside of the Louvre was amazing! I got to see the Mona Lisa and when we saw it, one of the South African’s was like “Nice Frame.” We walked around a bit in the art portion of this huge museum and I saw paintings in front of me that a few years ago were pictures in my English book! It was so cool! I saw real Picasso’s! Ahhh! After the Louvre we were so hungry that we found a little shop and got something to eat. After that we walked down to Angelina’s which apparently has the best hot chocolate you’ll ever have…..it was true! It was thick, warm, melted chocolate almost, with almond whipped cream on top….yum! After hanging out there for about an hour, we walked around the Jardin des Tuileries and then went back to the hostel. The South African’s hung out with us a bit at the hostel before they had to go check in to their new hostel on the other side of Paris. We were sitting in the lobby area of the Hostel and Karin, who works at the hostel, asked if Ashley could go downstairs and lock the closet door where all our luggage is in because some guy walked down there a long time ago and was acting suspicious….When we went down to grab our luggage and take it to Karin’s house to stay, our bags were open and some of our stuff were out of our bags! I man went through our stuff but didn’t take anything! How lucky! Turns out when Ashley went downstairs, it spooked him and he dropped everything and left. Phew. Lucky Lucky Lucky! Although there really wasn’t anything to steal besides come dirty clothes and shampoo because we all kept all our money, credit cards, and passport with us at all times.

The next day it snowed and it was so very cold but we still had stuff to see before we leave the next day for home! We first went to Sacre Coeur Basilica which was beautiful! It’s the highest elevation in Paris and you see the entire city, although when we were there it was snowing and foggy! From there we walked down Moulin Rouge and then took the Metro to Notre Dame to go to the Shakespeare and Company Bookshop to look inside a bit. After that we stopped for some hot cocoa at a little restaurant nearby, we then made our way back to the Farris Wheel to meet up with the South African’s again. We went to the Arc de le Triumph and then to the Latin Quarter to have some dinner and hang out with Diederick and Gary for a bit.

So now I can tell you a little bit about the stress that was taking place throughout our travels thus far…..

Our flight got cancelled on Friday and changed to a different time that same day. Since our Strasbourg plans feel through, we decided it would be too expensive to stay in Paris till Friday so we decided to go online and change our flight to Monday. We were online for about 2 hours trying to find contact information and we found a few numbers for which we had to walk down the street to use a pay phone to call them at and NONE of the numbers worked! There was always a message saying that the number for “Easyjet Airlines was no longer in use and to please call this number….” Well long long long story short, none of the many many numbers that we called worked and there was no way of contacting the airlines to switch our flight and everyday online the price got more and more expensive. It was very frustrating to be in the middle of Paris trying to get a hold of someone to get us on a plane out of there to get home! We decided to just pay the money to leave on Tuesday because it would be cheaper than paying to stay and buy food. We actually ended up staying at Karin, our hostel tour guides flat, for the last two nights in Paris, she charged us 25 Euro each, but it was still cheaper than the hostel. Okay, so by this time we HATE Easyjet and aren’t very happy with their customer service. We started our long day of travel at 7am Tuesday morning. First we took two Metro’s to the Airport, about an hour long journey, then waited in line at Security for about 30 minutes to enter a locked room with no TV screen of what’s going on with our flight or a loo. 11:05 rolls around, the time where our flight was suppose to leave and everyone was clumped around the front desk asking questions about what’s going on…..Apparently the flight from Paris to London Lutton doesn’t exist…um????? After a bit, we all get herded to yet another security line to the plane that they finally FOUND!

After security the second time, we go down a staircase that leads us outside to the freezing cold to stand on a crowded bus with all the doors open to take us to the plane. After about 20 minutes on the bus, we finally move towards the plane. Once on the plane Ashley, Katie and I fell asleep right away to wake up an hour later thinking we already landed to find that WE HAVEN’T EVEN LEFT YET! I HATE EASYJET! Once landed in London Lutton we grab our luggage and head to EasyJet Costumer Service desk. Sorry EasyJet, but a storm is coming! Once there they give us yet another number to call and after a little over an hour on the phone mixed with being on hold to some yelling……Ashely, Katie and I got a full refund for our plane tickets to get switched from Friday to Tuesday. Yeah, that just happened.
Ashley, Katie and I at this point are very happy about our refund but then suddenly hit by that fact that we are in the London Lutton airport and we still have a long day to go to get back Birmingham. We had to walk to the Holiday Inn Express to pick up the luggage that they left before heading to Paris for New Years so we walked to the hotel, picked up the luggage, walked back to the airport, jumped on the bus to the train station, got our tickets for the train to Birmingham, jumped back on the bus back to the airport cause that is where the bus to take us to the right train station would be. Once on the right bus, we had about a 45 minute drive till we could catch our Train to Birmingham. We arrived in Birmingham around 7pm Tuesday night. Took a taxi home. Went to bed. Yikes. Definitely was a day of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.’

Paris was a fantastic experience and we learned a lot! It was a beautiful city and I would go back in a heartbeat! Although, maybe when I have more money! We meet some wonderful people and I could probably write about our Paris adventure for ever….but I’ll stop here!

Miss you!

Kirsten