Chinese New Year in London

This parade started at about 11 in the morning and the festivities went on all day. The parade was the most colorful part of it though.
They really put on quite a show, these dancers in particular were really fun to watch.
Then came the dogs.... I'm pretty sure that's what they were anyway.

Yay for dragons.

Here it is trying to eat us. Scary stuff.
Not quite sure what I'm seeing. Fuzzy and colorful though.
Someone's punching Dave!

Fun little group waiting to leave the crowded streets. There's only so many times you can get shoved in all directions before you decide it's time to leave... there was seriously no room to stand without determined little Chinese people pushing their way past you.
Just in case I haven't said,... shown above is Dave, me, and Heather.

That's all for now... I'm going to Amsterdam in a few days, so after that I'll have many fun pictures from there. I'll be back to blog again when I can.

Brussels

This is from today. I only just got back from my day trip to Brussels, and am staying up to blog so that I don't have it hanging over my head as something I need to get around to...I have enough things like that already. The city is on a hill, and we started our walking tour from the upper end of it. This is what we saw as we came around the corner. It's just so beautiful.

Here is the Belgian Royal Palace. Allot smaller than Buckingham, but also used more for an actual home for the Royal family. I especially enjoyed the open gardens in the front.
Most of the streets in the lower parts of the city are small like this. While walking down this road, we had to stand next to the walls at times, and do our best not to get hit by cars coming through. Very cute little brick streets...with lots and lots of bikes like the one shown above.
Belgian waffle stands line the streets. This was the first one that I saw, and the only one based out of a van. I almost stopped here, but decided to wait until I'd eaten something real, to have these desert-like waffles.
These pictures are from the streets upon streets of restaurants...
Most had pretty much the same thing to offer, and were incredibly expensive.
I stopped into one with a couple of the other girls. The man decided to be competitive with the restaurants all around him selling the same thing, and offered us a free drink for coming into his place. The other girls ended up paying for three course meals. I bought a salad, but ended up getting my drink (wine), some bread, and my desert (on accident), for free. It ended up being allot less expensive than what they had paid for, and I had a really great meal.
These are just some pictures of the really cool old buildings that are all around Brussels.
This was a hotel!

Crazy expensive restaurants and pubs.
This is in the marketplace in the center of town.
Later in the afternoon, we decided to treat ourselves to some Belgian chocolates...the last one of which is sitting in front of me as I blog, I'm trying to be good and not eat it, but it looks so tasty.
The best part though, I'd have to say, would be the Belgian waffles that we got at this little sidewalk stand. The choices are many as you can see... with anything from a plane waffle, to toppings with strawberries, bananas, chocolate, nutella, cool whip, syrup, powdered sugar, and a whole lot more. For myself though, I got a waffle dripping in chocolate, and with lots of whip cream on top. Talk about a fast way to get fat.

In short, the food was amazing, the city was beautiful, and I am really glad I went. I am also incredibly tired right now, it's two in the morning and I'm going to try to get some sleep...maybe sleep in tomorrow (what a thought!). I'll blog again when next I have something of interest to show you. Until then...Good-night.

Snow!

As you can see we had snow recently. This is what it looked like in the morning as I was leaving for class. I was so excited, and was probably the only person out and about that had a smile on their face. The city isn't used to snow, and therefore aren't very prepared. The underground was stopped, and many of the classes that day and the day after were canceled.
My classes weren't canceled though, and I got to walk to class in this beautiful weather. It took me longer than usual but it just made me so happy. Not even slipping and sliding all the way there bothered me. By the time I got out of class the snow was gone, and there wasn't any sign that it had ever been there, ... except these pictures.

The Absolute Icebar

The actual 'ice' area wasn't very big, but it was amazing. Even the glass you drank out of was ice. They were hard to drink out of because they were square, but other than that it was awesome.From left to right, it's... me, Liz, Heather, Alicia, Dave, Steve, and Rachel. The cloaks were great, I felt so retarded wearing it, but it was crazy cold in there and it was totally worth wearing the cloak that makes you look retarded. Not that it really mattered anyway until I realized I was going to be blogging these pictures.
I didn't take others because it was so cold, and I had to keep my hands in my gloves as much as possible. You pay to get in, and have to have a reservation...you only get about forty minutes inside because they have to re-freeze everything and get it ready for the next group.

I'm still sick but feeling a bit better... going to attempt to do most of my homework this weekend. (it's a nice thought anyway).
I've fallen behind in my picture taking, so you actually are almost caught up. The icebar was last weekend. I'll try to start taking pictures again, it's just hard to have a camera always out without feeling like a complete tourist...I don't like that.
Anyway, I'll blog again later this weekend.

Madame Tussauds

Jack Sparrow!!! I wish it'd just been Johnny Depp, but I guess you can't have everything. I like this picture, but I would have liked it allot more if I didn't look so terribly pale. Oh well.

One of the most classy actors...Humphry Bogart. You have to love Bogey!

I just had to get one with this guy. He looks a little bit angry. It makes me laugh that I got a picture with Mr. Hitler.

Sean Connery... his drink really didn't look all that good...it seemed a little stiff.

If Angelina is actually that tiny I should really consider loosing some serious weight. I just didn't think she was that small. Then again, Brad doesn't really look like I'd thought he would either. Hmmmmm.... I didn't mean to match with the Beatles....I didn't even realize that I had until I went back and was looking at the pictures. Once again... the Beatles rock!

Anyway, those were the more interesting pictures from the wax museum... I hope you enjoyed seeing me with some of the celebrities. It was a good time. There's still the Serial Killers live chamber where you walk through, the lights are all either off, flickering or really dim... Half of the wax statues are actually actors and will jump out at you and get in your face. My flatmates were screaming really loudly, and all I could do was laugh. It was awesome!
I'm sick at the moment, but I've still got lots of procrastinating to get busy with so I will have to stop blogging for now and come again when I have more time.
My boyfriend is going to try and come see me around the 28th...if anyone knows of some cheap plane tickets please give him a call. It would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway... I'll be back another time to dazzle you with pictures of my amazing trip.

Stonehenge and Salisbury

This is the famous pile of rocks in a random spot in the middle of nowhere.
From left to right this is Shavare, Liz, yours truly, and Lydia.
Shavare and Lydia are from our flat...they share one of the rooms next to us, but we barely ever see them. Another picture of way cool rocks up close! They actually are very cool.
Liz and I agree that they'd be more interesting if there was a designated pagan to show us what Stonehenge was once used for... but they don't.
this is the little French restaurant that we went to for our short lunch break...excellent food.

This is the Salisbury Cathedral. They have one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta stored here.
This is really a very beautiful cathedral, and I wanted to take more pictures but my camera was wanting to die.

This is just a picture of part of Salsbury, but our guides pronounced it Sulsbry. I think it sounds cool. Anyway, I'm just doing what I can to get these pictures updated...I've still got quite a few, but I'm just trying to put them up in some sort of order. It might just take awhile. You're lucky I'm taking the time to start anyway. I've got lots of homework that I'm procrastinating on, so I should at least start. I'll post again sometime soon.

This Gorgeous City

These are from some of the exploring we did,...not knowing where we were going, and just walking in whatever direction we wanted to. The first picture is actually taken from the tube station, cause we'd decided we wanted to make sure it wasn't too complicated. We ended up walking out of the tube station to see that. The second is in Piccadilly circus, which ended up being not far from where we live... about a thirty minute walk.

Farther down is Trafalgar square. This is it. Crazy busy area, but we got to it for the first time with relatively few people walking around. I really think it's beautiful.
From left to right is ... Elizabeth (Liz), Phylisha, and Heather. Liz is one of the girls that I share a room with. Heather and Phylisha are in the room next to ours.


The pictures below are of Buckingham Palace (if you were wondering). I'm not sure how we found it, but the words "that building looks important" were said while we were still a long way off, and we decided to head towards it.
Oops. If we'd thought about it harder, we might have known before we got there what it was,...
mostly because the huge gates at the beginning of the road that stretched on for miles, leading to the one "important looking building". Oh well, it's pretty funny...and we got to see Buckingham Palace.

I did get one of this solitary open gate without the little girl in it,...but her expression had made me laugh at the time, and I decided this was better. She was being goofy for her moms sake, and I happened to snap the picture while she was still doing it. It made me smile.
From there we walked to Big Ben. By this point my cameras batteries were dying, and it also was giving me grief over taking anything clear...but I got some cool blurry pictures of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.
I took allot, but these are just the ones I really just randomly picked. It's a beautiful place...especially at night when everything is lit up...I just wish my camera hadn't been giving me struggles.
This is crossing the bridge back to the side of the river we had come from after eating at a little Mediterranean restaurant. the reflections in the Thames are amazing.


This might not seem like much, but we did all of this in one day! We've been back to most of these places pretty often already, and I'm hoping to get some time and walk back down to Big Ben and take some real pictures.
Anyway I'll keep trying to get you all updated, but for now you'll just have to be patient.
If you really need to find out what I'm doing, ask my boyfriend... he's pretty up to date on what's going on over here.
Ryan is working on the last parts of his script...cheers for Ryan. YAY! If you haven't talked to him recently though it's probably because he's a crazy man and is at work all the time! He's a totally handsome guy, and even though I'm having a great time... I miss him.