Week 4

Another week (and our first full month) comes to an end! This wasn't my best week here- I definitely got hit with my first case of the blues. But it passed quickly, and apparently, is totally normal. So I'm not worried.

Sunday was so good- I absolutely love the church we've found here. It's in this amazing old gothic cathedral, but has modern worship, oodles of movie clips (yay!) and great speakers. The first time we went, our speaker talked about how Mission Impossible 3 shows us how we have to be on fire for Christ (it worked, I promise!) This week, the main pastor guy talked about a character in London history I had never ever heard of. His name is William Wubberforth (sp?) and he abolished slavery in London far before it was abolished in the Americas. A new movie about him is just about to come about called "Amazing Grace"- it looks like it has a great cast. Wubberforth is played by the guy who played Lancelot in "King Arthur" (dad, you know who I'm talking about) and the guy who played Truman Capote in "Infamous" is the bad guy. It looks really cool- and totally unabashed about the fact that Wubberforth was a devoted Christian. His story was absolutely fascinating, and I can't wait to see if the movie does it justice. I don't know if the church has some promotional thing tied to the movie, but somehow we got to watch all these clips of it and it hasn't even come out yet.

Monday was class day, and three hours of class are NOT so fun. But it was pretty cool- our class is split into two hours of class, and one hour of seminar, but I have an hour break in between. I'm the only one in my group of friends in that seminar, which I thought would be annoying, but it's actually pretty cool. There's this enormous bookstore called Waterstones (kinda like Borders on drugs) right next to our university, so I always go over there on my break and get coffee and explore the five(!) stories. I love it. After class, it was this awesome dark, stormy day, and I felt soo inspired to write. Something about all this history here really makes the writer in me come alive again. So I went off in the rain to this amazing old pub that's been here since the 1600's and just wrote for three hours. It was one of those amazing experiences I couldn't have somewhere else, and it was just the perfect day for it.

Tuesday was my bad day- I got miserably lost on the way to my class (again) and ended up only being able to show up for the seminar. It was so frustrating, but hey, it happens. It was also Amy's birthday, and I missed her really bad. The whole rest of the day was just one of those days you feel like you shouldn't have even gotten out of bed. But hey, I went to bed, and the next day was great!

Wednesday- Valentine's Day! They celebrate it here, but it's not nearly as big of a deal as it is in the States. Me and my four girls went and got Haagen-Daaz ice cream and went to see "Music and Lyrics" at the Odeon Theatre. It's the new movie with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, and it was actually a really good romantic comedy. Kinda predictable, but Hugh Grant is just so hilarious you don't really care. Plus, I saw the Harry Potter and Ocean's Thirteen previews on the big screen. So I was happy. Weird thing about Harry Potter- yesterday, this play opened here that he's in. And he's naked in it- the whole of London is in a tizzy over Harry Potter in this play- it's so funny. There's posters for it everywhere, every single paper has an article about it, it's the biggest deal. It is pretty weird- he's only seventeen. Our little Harry's growing up so fast...

Thursday was just an average work day- I feel like I'm really getting the hang of things. It's funny- they're in awe of my typing skills. Keyboarding classes are not mandatory in England, so practically none of them can type fast AT ALL. So whenever I type up things, they're just like ::jaws drop:: Mom, I finally found a practical use for my weirdly fast typing!

Friday was such a great day! Hilary and I went to the Tower of London. It's strange- I was kinda picturing a huge castle once we got inside, but it's like an entire village. The tour guides (Yeoman Wanderers- a name they've had since Henry VIII) have to serve 22 years in the army and be promoted to Sergeant Major or above, and then can even apply for the job. So it's a BIG deal to work there. And all 36 of the guys live there, in the actual Tower, with their wives and kids. How cool would that be for those kids? Someone at school asks where you live, and you can actually say "The Tower of London." Weird! Once you're inside, it's sort of like the place in Lord of the Rings where all the humans live- a castle, but with streets, and divided into different towers. There's houses for the Yeoman guys, a main square that used to be used for beheadings (people like Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII's fifth wife got the axe there), and some assorted little shops. Then there's a tower for all the queen's jewels (that was pretty awesome), a tower for the armoury, the infamous Bloody Tower, and a handful of others, and some that you're not allowed in for some reason. The Bloody Tower was pretty cool- it's the place where the two princes mysteriously disappeared, and everyone called it a conspiracy. Recently, they excavate around the tower and found two little boy skeletons. Creeepy. It was cool- in that Tower, they have this little place where you can vote on what you think happened to the Princes. It took Hil and I almost the entire day just to get through the place- by the time we left, it was dark!

That night, the whole gang reunited (Stacey, Chelsey, and Katie had gone shopping) and we all stayed in and watched "The Illusionist." That's such a good movie, and we had the lounge all to ourselves, so it was nice to just sprawl out on couches and watch a movie. Felt like home... ::sigh::

Saturday we went to Notting Hill. Hil's a bit obsessed with that movie, and wanted to see the places where they filmed it, plus they have a really cool market there called Portabello. The market ended up being kinda overpriced and overrated, but the town is ADORABLE. Rows and rows of the cutest little apartments you've ever seen, flowers sold on every corner, kids everywhere- it would be the best place to raise a family. Hilary and I eventually found (after much searching) the Travel Bookshop that Hugh Grant owns in the movie, and the owner of that place (who kinda had a Hugh Grant vibe to him, it was weird) happily pointed us in the direction of the apartment they used as Hugh Grant's. It was fun- I just recently watched the movie, so I could recognize everything really easily. Plus, we discovered a place that makes Nutella Crepes. Oh. Wow. Ridiculously good.

Saturday night, we tried to go out, but every club/pub/restaurant was PACKED. Like lines around the block. It was sad. So me, Hilary, and our friends Jeremy and Mike just ended up walking around Piccadilly Circus for two hours, trying to find somewhere to go. It was funny- but the four of us had a really good time on our endless search, haha.

And now here I am, writing this, Sunday morning. I hope everything is great with all ya'll back home... love and miss you!

Cheers,
Everlee