Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End.

I don't want this semester to end. Period. End of Story. This group is amaze. I'm not sure anything could ever top it. But everything has to end sometime. Watch out next semester because I'm not sure I'm done with Florence yet. The best is YET to come.

I'm in LOOOVE with it all. GIF Fall 2010

Music Guide: "Closing Time" by Semisonic

I'm in London Trick!

London was snowy! and FREEZING!

Buckingham Palace during the Changing of the Guards... in the frozen air. 

The Queens Personal guards... can I please get that outfit!

Trafalger square was frozen...

Typical Big Ben and a Phone Booth... HEY LONDON

Westminster Abbey in the Snow.. sooo pretty!

I love Christmas...

and so does London!

Seriously shopping in London is on another level...

apparently waist high boots are in

Harrods does Christmas right!

We'll Frolic and Play the Eskimo Way... Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland

Well... I went to London and made it back in the very same weekend... WHAT A SHOCKER! I was so nervous, even though I was beyooooond excited for this trip, because half of our school had been stuck in the UK since Sunday. But we flew into Stanstead which was still open and that went off without a hitch. What happened next was a little bit more what I expected... CRAZY! Stanstead is about an hour outside of London so we bought bus tickets to get into the city. We had to go through customs so we missed the first bus by 5 people, but we were told the next bus was coming in 10 minutes. We waited, waited, and waited... turns out that it was an hour and 10 minutes... So we were hungry and had seen a Burger King in the airport... so we headed up there. So with like 20 minutes to spare we headed to the Bus Park and were greeted by a monster line.. so being typical Americans we missed the second bus in order to chow on fast food. Luckily the next bus did only come 15 minutes later and we were on our way to LONDON! finally... but that was not the end of the story. When we got to our liverpool stop and were ready to hop off the bus, we found the bus to be completely surrounded by cops... probably 15 or so of them! All of the sudden two cops came on and were videotaping us and wiping down the seats for finger prints... So needless to say we were FREAKING OUT. Fifteen minutes of "Was it a murder?" "Is there a bomb?" agony later they finally came on the bus to tell us we were in the middle of a city wide search of buses due to an increase of drug trafficking on the buses and that we had to now put our bags through a scanner. Fine... but then I was in line and their drug dogs (who were way more cute than scary.. a springer spaniel is just not as menacing as a german shepard) sniffed my bags and "identified drugs." Seriously the "hard drug" I had in there was nyquil... so they had to search my bag and found nothing, but it was probably 15 degrees out and I was not in the mood. So it was an eventful start to the trip.

The next day was COLD. The UK is in the midst of an Arctic chill and all of London was covered in snow and 25 degrees. We went on a free walking tour through beautiful, snowy London. It was actually excellent, even though it was review for me. My friends had never seen it, so it was awesome to experience my FAVORITE city with people who are seeing it for the very first time. After the tour we were on a search for the Chipoltle. We literally looked for days in the freezing cold, and couldn't find it so we settled for a nice WARM restraunt to warm our bones. After that it was shoppping central. London seriously has the best shopping in the entire world! The boutiques are to die for and then there is the shops we know and love like Gap, H&M, and Nike. We wandered for probably three hours through the christmas decorated streets. seriously London was beyond decorated for the magical holiday. It was like walking in a winter/Christmas wonderland. So a couple of hours and a couple of starbucks later... we were freezing again and needed to eat dinner. We went to Wagamama which is seriously the best. My aunt and uncle took us there the last time we were in London and it is the asian kick we needed after the months of italian. Seriously the ramen was almost Pho. So good. We then headed back to the hostel and to a bar nearby which actually carded us.. first time in Europe I think... shocker!

My friend Katy and I didn't have much time in London the next day because we had to go home to write papers and well she hadnt been home for a week and a hald becuase of the UK Snow storm... so we had to go to possibly my favorite place in the entire world.. HARRODS! I could probably spend an entire day in that store. I am beyond obsessed. We started the day with starbucks and krispy kremes.., yum america! The stuff in that store is beyond unreal and so is the price. It is fun to look at all of the stuff that I can't buy yet... but its my goal in life to be a regular shopper in there! Sooo we soaked in the unreal prices and the Christmas decorations and hopped in a cab back to the hostel. We didn't know how we were going to get to the airport (Heathrow) and hopped in the right cab! Our driver was a nice old guy who offered us a sweet deal and the perfect ending to a nice little jaunt to London. That is a city that I could live in. It seriously is beyond my favorite city and I'm trying to go back as much as possible!

ANDDD can we talk about how fast the end of the semester is coming. I can't believe we have a week to go. This is unreal. My family will be here in a week and a half and christmas is two and a half... Weren't we JUST on opening tour!?!

Music Guide: "Winterwonderland" by Basically any artist that has ever had a Christmas cd