Pear-ee.

How much did i love paris? too much. How much did I love my camera? a lot. thanks mom and dad! How ridiculously stupid am I to take ALL 700 pictures in RAW? SO dumb. I am bummed, because I still haven't uploaded the pictures which is a huge bummer because there were some good ones, so these will have to suffice. Nonetheless Paris was magic, and i loved every minute of it. 

Here are a few statistics from the 3 days. 

Sleep: 9 hours

Crepes: 4 (yes, that means 2 in one day)

Eiffel visits: 2

times lost: too many

money spent: can't remember

pictures taken: 696

marriage proposals: 1

# given to me on a receipt: 1 (cristoph our crepe maker)

Did you know Paris is also known as the "city of light?" it's no wonder, look at this! I wish I had pictures of the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs De Elysees because they were some of my favorites. 

I do have this...me wanting to go into Louis and getting there RIGHT after they closed, sad day. 

The paintings we ALL decided to purchase, outside of the Louvre walking down the Champs De Elysees. 

Dinner. So divine. But I hated our waitresses. 

My first crepe, opening a big can of worms...to say the least! 

View from the 1st platform of the Eiffel Tower. 

Monte Marte, a must see if you ever go to Paris. One of my favorites. 

Near our hotel. 

i love paris. i love the eiffel tower. i love that the city stays awake so late. i love monte marte and visiting the street vendors and watching the painters on the hill. i love st. paul's and saint chappelles cathedral. st. chappelles is incredible, the most intricate and detailed stain glass church, unbelievably gorgeous. i love crepes and was actually happy them in London, it'd be a problem. i love the louvre and want to spend a week there. i love eiffel, if you can't tell by my pictures on this post. i love paris and miss it already. 

Platform 9 3/4

I know this post is self explanatory, so I won't write much, and I couldn't post 8 pictures of the same thing. But, on our way to Paris we stopped at Platform 9 3/4 how could we not? Anyways, here it is! 

not a queen, a dutchess.

I've decided that rather then marrying a prince while i'm here in london, i'll just marry a duke, if i must. i think it will suffice. i fell in love with Blenheim Palace today, it was beautiful. The house itself is incredible, but the surrounding grounds are even better! 

We toured the home and then we explored the secret garden, the maze, and the italian gardens. Needless to say, it was one of my favorite visits so far. Too bad the current Duke has mainly daughters :)  

i told you the glasses would be back!

the maze: second largest in England. 

"don't you wish you went to Oxford too?"

I do. look at this place. when i was in high school talking to my counselor about colleges, why wasn't this ever an option? Oh i remember. its a million trillion dollars, impossible to get into, and a million miles away. but somehow i think it'd still be worth it. 
not a big deal that these are the student dorms! so nice.  Leading into the Grand Hall where HP was filmed! sorry no good pics.  I bought these great glasses the day before going to Oxford and just had to pop them on for the day. love them, more pictures of them to come, no need to worry. 

SO behind

ok so I'm officially the worst and most behind blogger in the blog world. I need a whole catch up day where I can just sit and edit and post pictures and write, oh and have high speed internet connection. But since it's not a perfect world, I can't. I wish it were. There is so much I need to post about. Just a few: Paris...2 weekends ago, Scotland...this last weekend, and all the fun days in between! I'll try my hardest to get some good posts up. I don't really know how faithful I can be to that, considering we have 13 days left in London and the to do list has piled up beyond belief! like i said, i'm trying! 

carnivals and cotton candy

today we got lost. we get lost a lot here in London. but, today we didn't care...because we ran into a little something called a carnival. we loved it too much. i've never made so many impulse decisions, and yes they were all worth it. mainly because of the bumper cars, i have a feeling i'll be sore in the morning.

three reasons i loved this weekend.

1. i enjoyed four crepes in three days.

2. mona was good to me...even though i wish she was bigger and i could get closer, eiffel i love you, monte marre you are paris' best kept secret, and champs elysees i love strolling in your shops while staring at the arc de triomphe

3. i've never been so tired or exhausted and loved every second as much as i did.

paris...I will be back...soon

au revoir!

I'm off to Paris for the weekend! Can't wait...I'll be there in exactly 4 hours. Lots of posts when I get home! 

The Best Day

I had the best day...I'm sad it's over! I have no pictures of it whatsoever but I thought I'd post it anyway. After class I headed a few blocks over from our place and decided to take a second, third, or maybe it's my fourth look at some of the shops! There is so much to see there and I've found a new favorite place each time I've gone. This time I went on a Tuesday so there was 1% as many people as there are on Saturday's. While there I ran into the cutest cupcake shop called "hummingbird" it was ridiculously tasty! I indulged in a RED VELVET cupcake mmmm. To top it off, I headed outside and it was pouring rain, which sounds miserable...but I LOVE the rain! So I opened my cutest pink umbrella and enjoyed my cupcake, and shopped a little more. 

For class I needed to go to the British Museum...before Thursday. Since we would be gone Wednesday I decided to make my way there. I was trying to boycott the tube but decided I needed to use it to go to the museum considering I had no clue how to get there. The British Museum is amazing. Just the building itself is so incredible! I spent a few hours strolling around and marveling at the different artifacts. It made me so excited to go to Greece, it made me want to go to Egypt, and it made me SO happy to be in London. I feel like I'm living the dream! 

I then continued my day by walking around Bloomsbury, then to Leicester Square, then through SoHo, around Picadilly Square, then to Trafalgar Square...took a pit stop at the National Portrait Gallery, and then walked down Regent Street and Oxford St, and then home! It was a lot of walking but I loved every second of it! I love my group and love spending time with new friends, but I also love the days where I venture off by myself and explore! Total hours: 6 h 35 min. I couldn't believe how much I got to see in that amount of time! I came home, took a quick run in beautiful Hyde Park and then home for a delicious dinner! 

Quickly after dinner I ran to Covent Gardens to check out the dance studio "Pineapple!" I was so nervous, and unfortunately got there too late to take a class but I checked it out and decided which classes I want to take next week. I headed back to Palace Court and had the best night hanging out with the girls in dorm 3 and having some great wholesome conversations. It was the best day.

Cornwall

On Wednesday at 7 am we hopped onto what would be the "never-ending bus ride" to the Cornwall...south of London. It took us the entire day to get there. We took a few stops on the way there, which made it nice! Fortunately for us we stayed in a very nice hotel that was equipped with pools, saunas, steam rooms, hot tubs, the works! We felt like we were in a modern day version of "bath!" This is what the schedule looked like-

Day 1: first stop Porthcurno, cutest small fishing village and Truro cathedral

Day 2: Tintagel...supposedly where King Arthur lived. It was SO beautiful, I loved every minute of it. Some of the most breathtaking views I've ever witnessed. I wish I could take everyone there to know what I'm talking about but these pictures will have to suffice! We also toured theold post office built there, I think build in the 14th century, but I took no pictures. 

This was my favorite, sitting on the edge of this cliff looking out to the ocean and down to the cliffs. I could've stayed there for hours! 

After Tintagel we quickly visited St. Michael's Mount and Landsend

Day 3: first stop Exeter to visit the cathedral and Chawton, where Jane Austin resided for a portion of here life. 

The excursion to Cornwall was fabulous. We loved it! It was definitely exhausting and I was ready to be home. I do miss our suite that had 3 beds for 2 girls, hot cocoa and tea nightly, our pool and the sauna, fun bus rides with HP, and just good times being with the entire group! Cornwall is beautiful, it honestly is. Its quaint and some of the most beautiful countryside. Lots of history and much to see and we definitely saw a lot! 

.Bath.

Ok warning: there are a lot of pictures coming up...but, they are all worth looking at! On Saturday we took a day trip to Bath, England. After going to the train station three times the day before to get the right tickets (no thanks to Boop our ticket salesman) and an hour and a half train ride, we made it! It was cold when we first got there, but we quickly began our adventure. Bath is a very old city...it is most famous for the Roman Baths that were created when the Romans took over England. They wanted to make the place feel more like home. When we went on the tour I couldn't believe what I was looking at! The fact that they were able to construct something such as the Baths was so intriguing. I just don't know how they had the tools and the knowledge to figure out there was a hot springs below...and then turn it into the worlds first country club! It was so magical, and I felt like I could picture what it must've been like! 

It really looks this magical!!

After our the Bath's we visited the Bath Abbey, another Beautiful Cathedral. 

Bath is also known as the home of Jane Austin...we stopped by her home and saw some of the monumental Jane Austin sites as well! 

We spent much of the time strolling around the town and walking into every pastry, chocolate, candy, and cafe. It was dangerous! We ate good food, saw beautiful historical sites, and had a fabulous time!