ANNIE CHAN!!! YOU PROBABLY ALREADY FOUND THIS PIC BUT I FOUND IT IN ONE OF DAVID'S MOM'S FRIENDS PICTURE GALLERIES!!! LOLOLOL I THOUGHT OF YOUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I feel so far away from lj!!!  Anyway, I'm super excited but not conceited enough to post on facebook so everyone sees.  I have made 2 major decisions today, for no reason other than for myself. 

1.  I promise myself to learn 1 new thing everyday over summer about the Adobe programs.  Whether tutorials, personal messing around or art, I am going to do 1 thing per day (or do 3 things in 1 day to knock them out, yes I have loopholes don't judge me!!!)

2.  I am making a poster-sized list of things I am gonna do this summer.  Not <i>think</i> of doing, not <i>maybe</i> do, but hardcore gonna finish it to the end (sounds so dirty)!!!!  I hung it up in my room on my door so that every morning when I wake up and every night at bed I will see it and know that my summer is gonna be kick ass.  I am keeping my awesome markers right nearby so that I can write new ideas when inspiration comes and allows for everyone to add.  I failed to get my dream internship this summer, so fuck it all I'm gonna have my last hurrah and make myself happy!!!! 

Already I have at least 20 things I'm going to do including: shopping spree (more than $100), make iced tea with mom, learn something about a car, have an girls only sleepover, call in sick 1 day from work, get drunk with a disposable camera and actually get the film  developed and skinny dipping!!!!  I am gonna do it!!! Any suggestions?  YES I shall do them!!!  Within reason >__>

I feel inspired!!! Oh shit...now I have to do my goddamn religion paper.....poof....there goes my inspiration.......NO IT'S BACK!!!  I can do it!

</excited rant>  lol html

Stonehenge was cool yesterday.  I am glad that I went on that trip to there and Bath.  The rocks are huge and you can't get close at, but still to see it live was pretty surreal.  Especially when I've only ever seen pictures (well, I'm sure everyone has seen pictures) and my art history teacher talked it up last year in school.  It also was sunny and beautiful!  A little chilly, but my sweatshirt was enough.

Then we went back to Bath where Echo and I did not go into the bathes again, we decided to go walking around.  We found this amazing little shop (I really wanted tea for the last time) and for about 3.95 pounds you got tea and two scones which doesn't sound like much, but they were charging 7.50 near the bathes so it was a steal.  Plus we got to overlook the river which you can't beat that!  And surprisingly the scones and tea lasted me all the way until we got home last night.

We also saw an Asian art history display and where Johnny Depp and Nicholas Cage both own houses!  But they are apartments and all look the same so our tour guide could have easily lied, but why bother?  We also went to this amazing lil' tea shop (which I guess is the oldest building in town) and they are famous for "Sally Lunn's Buns" and it was a huuuugge bun and I ate half last night and ate the rest as I sit here.  It was delicious and so light.  Probably would have tasted good toasted.....anyway I digress!  Bath was pretty and we went into a few random stores, but we had 3 hours to kill so it wasn't too hard.

I really hope my luggage does not go over the weight limit. I am very scared that is going to happen.  I really don't fear anything else at this point, just my goddamn luggage fitting.  I don't know how I managed to get sooo much more stuff.  I'm kinda pissed actually.  I don't remember getting any more crap!!  Please be under the weight limit...please please please!!!

Yesterday was my last day of school and all that.  Boo.  :(  Well, I took my essay final and I think I passed.  Then we all went out to a pub after the test which was nice to talk to my teacher and another classmate who is from Spain and she's actually in her 40s and just took the class for fun and she's an English teacher back home in Spain.  She's quite fun to be around and it's funny because when she speaks English she'll sometimes say certain words with a British accent!  Which makes sense, but I find it amusing!

I went out for lunch with two girls to a Korean place and it was amazing!  I got don katsu and they gave us free kimchi with bean sprouts and radish on the side and it was soooo good.  I wish we had found that place sooner!  The only issue was that they wouldn't take my card since my meal was under 10 pounds and so I had to make another trip to the damn ATM (and mind you I just went on Tuesday!!!!) for some more pounds just in case whilst here.  

Then I went to Camden Town for one last gift, and back headed straight back to my dorm to relax for one hour before we had our Westminster farewell party.  The party was nice, I stuffed my face with crackers, veggies and pita bread (that was my dinner!) and they had at least 5 different champanes and wines.  My teacher and Maria from ISA came so I got pictures, but it was nice!  I even bought myself a Westminster Hoodie!  I'm an alumni now!!!!  It's so weird to think that....or write it or say it!

I stayed around a little bit then we went to this pub that had awesome Pimms drink.  The bartender was a jerk when we asked for a pitcher of it, but they had to do it.  It was pretty good, but after the second round my stomach hurt a little.  It was just nice to be out and know I didn't have school the next day!  I enjoyed it, even though the staff were weenies.

Today I am going to Stonehenge and Bath again with this girl Echo.  I hope it goes all well, I don't see why it shouldn't.  It's a little chilly out so I hope that doesn't carry over to Stonehenge!  As far as anyone I know has gone there, they always say it rains!  *crosses fingers*

Yesterday was our last ISA event!  :(  It made me sad to know I'll never see Pippa or Hazel (assistants to Maria) ever again!!!

School was bland, we watched part of "From Hell" but didn't see the ending.  Then I went back to make lunch and take a shower for the river boat tour and trip to Greenwich and dinner.  I thought the party was suppose to be on the river boat, but no, we just took a river boat to Greenwich.  And I wore a dress but forgot to bring a sweater or jacket so I had to stay below on the river boat tour because it was so bloody chilly up there!!

The riverboat was nice and it went down the Thames and we had good views of the bridges and such.  Very pretty.  We landed at Greenwich (pronounced Gren-ich, short "e") which is where the Royal Observatory and the Naval School is.  The Naval School is actually known more so for the filming of movies on its beautiful campus (I guess Anthony Hopkins was there earlier in the last summer  session).  We got to see (from afar) the location of where the royal observatory is and there is a red ball at the top of it that indicates where the prime meridion is in addition it sends out a laser beam at night that goes across the sky!  Ooo ah.

Then we went to a Medditeranian restaurant that Maria picked out and it was amazing!! They gave us appetizers of hummus and cucumber sauce with pita, stuffed grape leaves and breaded/fried fish pieces.  The people at my table are lammos so I ate all the amazing grape leaves myself, and I started eating the fish until Erin found out that they were whole fishes and their heads were still attached and which point I was done with the fish.  However, Echo, another girl, was being so bitchy and she kept saying to us we should just eat them, just eat them.  And I was getting quite cross with her persistance because she wasn't about to eat the fish! So why was she pushing it off on me?  She actually spoiled a wee bit of the dinner because she had such a nasty attitude.  I was sorely dissapointed when I knew I had to sit even near her, because when she's upset, she tries to make everyone else pissed too.  But I didn't let her get to me and I tried ignoring her as best I could.  I wanted to tell her to shut up and eat her damn food, but I have to go to Stonehenge with her on Friday and I'm sharing a cab with her "best" friends here so if I piss her off she's gonna spread the word to every boy and girl.  But I realize that just because someone is upset, I don't have to worry myself over it.  We asked her what her beef was and she said she was fine, and that's all I care about.  If she doesn't want to explain and just wants to mope and be moody, then fine.  But don't try to ruin my dinner too.

We had lamb and chicken pieces for dinner with rice pilaf and that was good.  And for dessert we got BAKLOVA!!! Oh it was heavenly!  And two other girls didn't like theirs, so I ate it!! Oh it was good, so yummy!  So much honey goodness!  Anyway, moving on, we gave Maria our gift of red wine with some chocolates (picked out by Jamie who planned the whole gift getting thing) and we got smaller boxes of chocolates for Pippa and Hazel.  Then we had to head to the tubes and say tender goodbyes to Hazel and Pippa.

Tonight at the Westminster goodbye party Maria should be there.  But it's so sad!  She's such a cool lady and I liked being around her!  Today I have my final essay test (which I'm moderately nervous about) and then I have to finish up some last minute shopping...mostly for David because he sucks at telling me what he wants >__>  I am happy to be coming home and I did so much stuff I've never thought I'd ever do!!  I'm so glad I came here and I have so many great experiences!  But...home is nice.  I can't bare to be away from everyone.  My whole "need for people" will kick in soon, cuz these people (except Maria) really don't fit the bill.  More ranting on them:  most are moody and some downright bitchy.  The pretty girls are all tanned to a crisp with bleached hair and coach purses and act like they can do whatever the fuck they want.  The regular girls I tend to hang out with have their own faults, and I'm sure I do as well.  But I have to be around me, so i deal with my own issues and tolerate myself.  But each has some driving problem I can't seem to get over.  And I would think since being here I'd have made one true decent friend, but these people are....just okay.  It makes me wonder if I'm just okay too.  If I have a real big issue that drives people away but I just don't see it.  What's my error in all this?  I can name a few for each person I've interacted with.

Yesterday was delightful, I think.  Class we presented our powerpoints and our teacher told us we all passed.  My one group member, though, totally went over the time limit and I hope she gets docked and not us.  It's not our faults she took forever!!!! *grumble grumble*  And then our teacher took us on a field walk to Soho Square and that's when it got interesting.

In short, a lady came over to our teacher and talked with her.  It turns out this woman is a publicist and there was a group doing a photoshoot to promote this new book and this new ice cream (like women love the book and they love ice cream blah blah).  So the woman said we'd get free ice cream and I was so totally in.  It was 3 really hawt guys (one black, one Hispanic and one white dude) and they were shirtless and had nice six packes (although I am bummed I did not get their picture).  They basically were to hand out ice cream to us ladies.  I was in the back the most of the time which sucked, but I got my free ice cream.  And the one guy smiled at me....oh wait, he was suppose to smile....oops, oh well.

So we got some free ice cream and a lil mini book with the author's first 2 chapters in it.  I got the author to sign mine instead of getting pictures with the hot men.  It's a good trade I think.  She smiled and wrote in "to kelsey with love"  ^.^  Such a nice lady!!!!!

Then after class we went to the National Portrait Gallery and my stomach hurt soo badly.  I believed it was because I hadn't eaten so I rushed around the museum looking for the  cafe and bought an expensive meal *grumble grumble* then wandered a little in the museum seeing Seurot, Van Gogh and Rembrant to name  a few (the only few I remember)  You couldn't take pictures but it was still cool to see these amazing paintings.  It was truly mind boggling to think that someone painted something that looked so damn real!!!  The one that stood out the most was a simple still life painting of a lobster dinner and I can't tell you how much that lobster looked like it was right there in front of me.  It was amazing to see.  After being unable to take the pains in my tummy, I went back to the dorm, goofed off for a little while and then decided I was well enough to go to Hyde Park!!!

So I went to the park and sat at a bench and read and tried studying for my test tomorrow.  Then I walked around and tried to understand how huge that park really was.  It is truly large.  I didn't even see it all!  But I saw a lot of soccer, excuse me "football" players in the fields, a group playing cricket, a couple of cute doggies and a lake.  Yes, there is indeed a lake.  A large lake.  With paddleboats. So I tried walking around the lake and it was a long walk.  I had two people come asking for directions, both of which did not speak English well.  The first could only say "harrods" and "marble arch" and then a couple only spoke spanish to me.  I got like every other word.  They said "us' and "she" and "but" and "no".  Oh yeah, I'm good at this.  I hope I guided them correctly >__<

Then I went back to the dorm, made dinner and talked with this nice gay vegetarian in the kitchen, and then tried to go to a pub with Echo and Erin.  I say try becuase they wanted nachos and the one place the nachos are good they closed the kitchen and then everywhere else did the same.  So Echo got a pizza from pizza hut across the street from where we live.  And they came up to my room and we ate a little and then they left.

Today is our farewell party from ISA and they're taking us on a riverboat cruise!!  And food!  I just want the food!  Kidding!  I want to go on a riverboat as well.  And then tomorrow is my test and then the Westminster farewell party.  And then Friday I go to stonehenge and bath with Echo and then Saturday *sniffle*  I leave!!!  But I'll be glad to come home!  This place is cool, but I miss everyone!!
 

OMG Birthday fun!  I went to this pub for breakfast and got the traditional English Breakfast which is sunny side up egg, mushrooms (I didn't get those), toast, bacon (which is just thinner slices of ham, not normal bacon), sausage and the piece de resistance.....baked beans. I ate pretty much all if it, except part of the egg.  It was pretty good, but not something I'd do regularly, that's for sure.

The tubes were awesome and almost empty just for me ^.^  The whole day I didn't have trouble with the tubes or anything!!!

School was okay, I was annoyed at my one groupmate because she failed to give me her powerpoint notes (which I shouldn't have even had to do in the first place) and I let her know it.  Oh yeah, I was pissed at her.  Her excuse was she was too tired.  Well so was I and I waited for that idiot to email me her stuff and she never did!!!

But whatever, I had my frozen Indian food for lunch which was devine and I received lots of birthday wishes which made me feel very appreciated!  Thank you everyone!!!

Then we met for Buckingham palace and it was intereresting.  We saw the state rooms and the "garden" and I use the "" because it's not a garden it's a big open field of grass.  and not even pretty grass, there are splotches of yellow.  But whatever, garden.  the rooms were beautiful and I even got to see some of Rembrant's work on the walls, but you can't any pictures cuz they're weenies.   They gave you little headsets that had audio tours on them and I tried walking slow, but I got done about an hour before we had to meet Maria for dinner.  oops.  She gave me a present and it was a little stuffed bear called Paddington?  I guess it's from a children's book here. 

We went to this pub for "snacks" as it wasn't actually a dinner place.  Their menu of dinner items consisted of.....4 things.  A tomato mozzerella panini, french fries (i.e. chips), nachos and spring rolls.  Take your pick.  But the drinks were cheaper due to happy hour.  So i got the panini and it tasted good, but mostly because I was very hungry.  And I got two drinks, one was a passionfruit/lychee margharita and the other was a drink the bartended made himself which had vodka, amareto and strawberry in it.  That was very good!!  Then Maria brought out a cake for me and she told me later that she picked out her favorite cake for my birthday!!! I was so honored!

The musical afterwards was freaking amazing!  We had great seats about a quarter of the way in front and although the theater wasn't large it was loud...and hot.  Very hot... ugh.  But the musical was "We Will Rock You' and it has the music from Queen in it and it was really cool.  The storyline was....weak to say the least, but the costumes, singing and all the effects were amazing!  Sold out for seven years, Maria told us.  I can see why.  They even got the audience singing and waving our hands for the "We are the Champions" part.  It was good.  And funny.  They made a lot of musical references and most I got, but some I really didn't catch onto.  They even threw in a teletubbie reference and that was awesome!!

So it was an awesome birthday.  Now I have to give a presentation and write a paper and take a test on Thursday.  Oh boy.

Yesterday was the best me-day I've had in a long while!  In short I went to Spitalfields Market, Petticoat Lane and The Natural History Museum and enjoyed a delicious Indian (frozen) meal all to myself whilst reading a darn good book.  I'd say that is a good day!

I got a late start around 9:00 am (I know, that's sooooo late) and left the dorm around 10:00.  The tubes were not too busy but the issue laid with the fact that some of the lines were down, like the quickest way to get to my destination of course.  So I had to take the long way so I didn't get to Spitalfields until well after 11:00.  But I wandered the market and it was open air, a little more expensive but the quality was much nicer.  I found this awesome corset/halter top made of ties but for 45 pounds, I couldn't afford that.  But anyway, I wandered there and then went to Petticoat Lane.  I was so pleased with myself because I have a horrid sense of direction and trying to find these places wasn't too easy because although they are large, they are in between streets and if you don't look down the right street you miss it completely!!!!  But Petticoat Lane is named since the late 1800s and they just kept it.  It was sooo much busier and with a large vast of ethinicities (and interestingly enough a lot of Arabic women wearing the entire outfit that covered everything but their eyes).  And it was cheap!  So cheap!  But it was probably Wal-martish kind of stuff.  There were some cute things, but I was in the mood for browsing not buying.  I got some shirts for my family (2.5 pounds a piece, hellz yeah)

Then I went to the Natural History Museum and it was awesome.  Huge.  Huge and awesome.  It looked like a freaking church from the outside with the ornate decorations and even so inside with the wall carvings and ceiling decor, but it was amazing.  I went through all the exhibits except the Darwin one (you need to do a paid tour, boo) and it was cool.  I got there around 1:30 and left around 4:30 ish. 

There was a large dino exhibit but it didn't really impress me too much.  Their big selling point I guess was a lifescale mechanical T-rex but...it was mechanical!  I would have liked a bone version, myself.  But they did have a good collection of skeletons.  The animal exhibit was really decked out and have real dead animals that were stuffed on display.  (BTW, emperor penguins are huge, they come up to my waist if not a little higher).  the only animals that weren't real-life were the sea mammels and I'm sure for reasons having to do with decomposure.  Oooo and there was a real football fish on display!  It was sooo eerie!  My favorite room was the huge room with the lifesize scale (although fake) blue whale!  it was ginormous!  And it had elephants and a giraffe and also a skeleton of a sperm whale in it too.  It was pretty cool.

There was also a human exhibit that was mostly interactive stuff, one on plants that wasn't too amazing and also one on the earth and minerals.  They had so many specimins of minerals and many were so beautiful!  I especially liked the ones that the crystals were so thin, they looked like the rock was fuzzy with hair!!!  I took lots of pictures but my camera started to die by the end of my visit.  At least it waited until the end!

I wanted to go to Hyde Park after and eat dinner and read my book, but it starting raining and was quite overcast so I just went back to the dorm.  It still was a very nice day.

And today is my birthday and I got to open my gift from Liz which is a keychain that I absolutely adore and can't wait to put it on my keyring when I get home!!  Oh and it's raining but I don't care!  It's my birthday for goodness sake!  I'll take the rain with it!

Yesterday was all about walking!  Well, not really...but it sounded good.  I woke up early and 2 others went with me to Portobello Road which is a huge open air flea market like street that gets really busy on Saturdays.  We kinda got lost, found it and it wasn't too great.  but then as we walked down the road it got busier and busier and I loved it!  However, the two girls i were with are weenies and don't understand the idea of flea market.  They were "tired" and "bored" and I just wanted them to leave me alone!!!  But for some reason they wouldn't just leave!  They kept walking with me and we finally had to leave around 11:00 to get back to the dorm in time to make our train to Windsor Castle. 

The train ride wasn't as exciting.  It didn't go very fast and it had multipe stops before we got to where we wanted to go.  The castle is hugggee and you can't go in most of it (for obvious reasons)  I was so disappointed I wanted to see the queen's toilet!! It was a bit of a bummer because the girls I walked with were not too fun to be around.  They were very mean about other people totally unprovoked and they would say nasty comments with a person right there!  And constantly complain about how boring it was.  I was so fed up.  I don't want to be around them anymore.  So that's a bummer because I thought they were cool until they showed their real colours.

But the castle!  Oh the castle.  We were allowed to see the St. George's Chapel (?) can't recall the name.....and then we were allowed to look at Queen Victoria's private doll house collection >__>  Yeah, what the royalty waste money on.  And then the walking around the cool rooms inside the castle that were not necessarily used (if at all) by the royalty, but they were decked out with fine paintings and beautiful artwork and flooring.  That was all really neat to look at but you can't take any pictures!!!

So those weenies went back on the first train home, and I decided to stay with the rest of the group.  Maria took us to Eaton which is a smacy-fancy all boys prep school for kids aged 13-18 and it's super expensive (20-30 thousand pounds a year).  We didn't go inside but we saw the exterior and it looked pretty intense.

Then we walked back to Windsor's town and had a nice dinner in a restaurant by the Thames.  And then we went back home.  After I got off the train I decided to walk home (which is only about 25 minutes) and I relayed the info to Erin so she would know why I was not going into the underground but I think she took it as an invite and she came with me.  The evening was cool and really crowded on the bridge with tourists (LOL I'm not a tourist!!) and once we got through past Westminster Abbey it was quiet.  

Today is a me-day I've declared!  I'm going off by myself and no one shall bother me!  Mwahaha!  I'm gonna go to Spitalfields Market and check it out, then maybe Petticoat Lane, the Natural History Museum if I feel so inclined and then off to a park to sit and relax and read my book.  I can't decide if I want Regent's or Hyde Park, but I'll decide when the time comes.  I still have to find directions to these places, but I'll do it!!!  

So I was very independent yesterday, yea for me!  I went out to the post office early like 9:00 and then I travelled out to the Sherlock Holmes museum to get something for my daddy and then also went to Abbey Road.  It doesn't seem like much but I did quite a lot of tube travel and I had to navigate to the perspective places on my own (totally went the wrong way on the Sherlock Holmes museum).  I was so happy to be out and not have to worry about anyone else keeping up with my pace or not boring another with my indecisive souveneir buying.  I took the tube all the way to the Westminster Bridge hoping to see if the Florence Nightengale museum was open and/or free and then it started bad raining (i.e. really cold, and it seemed to be coming in all directions, even horizontal I betcha) so I had to high tail it home. 

I made myself some lunch that was better than expected and then I went with two girls to Camden Town again.  I got mummy something that I hope fits and I also got Mrs. Freelan a purse for Sarah.  It also started to downpour there so that limited our ability to shop.  But we had lunch at Gilgamesh again and it was good a second time, but the waitress was such a bitch.  She ignored us, barely came to give us drinks, and didn't even bring us our food (some other dude did).  She also walked by once and gave us a look and the waiter following her started to giggle and I made eye contact with him to let him know I just saw that.  He skulked away thankyouverymuch!!  If the food wasn't good, I think we were gonna throw an all out American brawl, ayup.

We then went to the seven dials which Erin and I went there before which is a big shopping area and I bought a cupcake and stuff last time.  I didn't get anything this time, but those darn cupcakes were attractive.  If only they weren't ya know.....$7.00 American.  They weren't even that big!

After wandering around there we went back home, very very tired and it was only around 5:00.  And walking through the tube exit a guy was walking behind Erin and she wasn't moving super duper fast and then another guy started walking behind her and said, "Hey mate, just push her outta the way!" rudely.  So Echo in turn got pissed (as was I) but she actually said something and told the guy why don't we push him out of the way.  he turned and glared and he was nasty.  He was bald on top but had hair like Larry from the Three Stooges, he had thick ugly eyebrows that remind me of a sleezy mob Italian guy (no offense to non-sleezy Italian guys) and he had such a beerbelly it was...amusing.  And just to show him up, we actually beat him up the escalators to the top.  So take that, mate.  He didn't say anything, but we totally snubbed him.

That night I let Erin borrow my computer for an extended period of time and met with our other groupmate to "work" on our project.  I've decided to take having to do the powerpoint with some ease because we have to write about our contribution to the group and I have quite a sealed deal with mine.  I mean, I basically broke down our topics and they're using my books I got out of the library and I'm doing most of the powerpoint.  So that's quite  a lot I get to go on.  But that's nonessential.

Today is Windsor Castle but before, Erin and I are going to Portobello Road and check it out. I'm leaving really early (8:30) and hopefully coming back early to get to the train station on time!  Hope it all bodes well!!