Second and Third Day in London!

So after my relatively sleep deprived night in England and my early breakfast our whole group headed over to St. Paul's Cathedral where we were going to attend church. It was beautiful! I can't give you any images from the inside of the church, because no photography was allowed, but here's an image of the outside.

 The service was beautiful. There was a boy's choir and a men's choir that sang together, and it was so gorgeous. Breathtakingly so. The sermon was given by the Bishop of London, and we also received communion from him. After this we had lunch in a different part of the church Dr. Ryken referred to as "the crypt." We had tea despite the fact it was a little early by British standards.

Next on the itinerary was a literary walk. We saw a plaque commemorating William Wallace, A few John Wesley memorials, and ambled through several parks before ended up at the London Museum.  This went through the history of London if you could not guess that from the name. I found the most interesting part of this exhibit was the section on the London fire. It was a fire that burned for five days that was only stopped when they started blowing up houses to keep it from spreading farther. It was so intense that the stone St. Paul's Cathedral (yes, the one mentioned previously) was destroyed. After my time in the museum, I headed back to our hotel on the Underground and stopped at a nearby grocery store for foodstuffs.

After I ate an entire box of British strawberries by myself and had prepared myself a nutella sandwich, I met up with my friend Katie and a new acquaintance of the trip named Joanne met up for the relatively long underground trip to Westminster and the London Eye. Despite the fact it had rained in the morning, the sun had come out in the afternoon and it was the perfect evening to go up in the Eye.

Near the Eye was the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben of course.

After that we once again made our way back to the hotel, this time for good (or so I thought.) We probably passed three pubs on our way from the underground station to the hotel (three that I noticed) and every one was full of people! Turns out there was a football game between England and Italy that night. Katie got really excited and asked if I would head back to the closet pub and watch the end with her. Since both of my roommates were asleep even though it was only 9:45, I agreed and we headed out. This was one of the most entertaining events to watch I have seen since I have arrived. Oh, not the game. The English WATCHING the game. There was singing, shouting, smoking, and drinking. When they got excited and started screaming, people were literally running from all parts of the street to see what had happened. Katie was giving me running commentary, which was also very entertaining. Finally we headed back and I got a good nights sleep, despite the rumble of the underground beneath me, and the continued shouting from outside.

This morning I again headed to breakfast, my roommates STILL asleep. I had more tea, which was lovely, then headed back to my room to continue the long process of editing a lot of pictures. Then we headed to the British Museum. The coolest thing here was the Rosetta Stone. I had heard about this for years, but had never expected to see it in person. We also looked at a lot of relics from Medieval Europe. There were also a couple of medals that match the design of the ones that are going to be used in this years Olympics.

After lunch we divided into two groups. I choose the group heading to Kensington Park as I wanted to be able to walk around and take more pictures of the outdoors. It was full of people! There were woman jogging with strollers, people on bikes, and lots and lots of dogs! They were everywhere! Many of them not on leashes. It made me so happy. At one point a huge dog came careening through our group to my delight and many others alarm.

Now once again I am back in my hotel room. I've taken the time in up til now to work on editing a lot more photos and craft this blog post. I'm caught up on this trip! Tonight we are heading to Regent's Park again to see Midsummer's Night's Dream in the open air theater. I'm really excited! Check out my facebook page for lots of my pictures.

We are here!

So yesterday I woke up and we were flying over Ireland. Naturally, I was ready to set the plane down there and start exploring, but that was not my end destination (this time!) Our plane landed in Heathrow airport in LONDON ENGLAND!!! Despite the fact it did not feel like I got any sleep on the plane, I feel like I had to have gotten some. It did not feel like an eight hour plane ride. So we disembarked, and made our way through immigration. I was right behind another guy in the WiE program and when I was called up and stated I was doing the same thing as the guy in front of me, the immigration man asked, "Is there anyone left in America?" Well, I certainly hope so, otherwise I'm not sure who would be reading this blog. :)

We gathered up our luggage and climbed onto a coach. I discovered the full extent of my directional difficulties, when I only had a vague feeling that something was different than usual, where my friend Ian was freaking out that we climbed onto the bus on the opposite side from the States. We dumped our stuff at our hotel, and went for a looooong walk in the city. We went all the way to Regents Park which was absolutely filled with beautiful gardens. I only took about 200 pictures my first day here. Hopefully I can get some of those edited and put up soon. Unfortunately I had felt pretty rushed out of the hotel by my roommates and left without a pound on me, which became important when we stopped at a grocery store to buy food. I ended up mooching off of four different people. In a way it was a good thing because I had a good idea of what other people had bought for when I manage to go back. After our walk I was REALLY tired. I took a nap even. This was a very poor idea. I'm never taking a nap ever again (at least on this trip.) Sleep did not come last night until probably 10 at night Illinois time. I did get a lot of reading done. I'm hoping tonight will be better. We dined at the hotel this morning and after some experimenting I discovered how to drink black tea! I had avoided it up to this point as I prefer to drink my tea plain. Black tea is not delicious (to me) by itself. By adding a tiny bit of milk and a small amount of sugar, it was actually quite nice. Good first lesson to learn in England.

Anyways, I'm here in England. It doesn't quite feel real yet. Maybe it's the combination of the sleep deprivation and the newness of everything. I can't believe I have so many weeks to explore this country. I love the people I'm with and I'm excited to get to know them better in England of all places. :)

So..... England!

Do you know what I should be doing right now? I can tell you it isn't write a blog post. But as I have been on campus for a whole week now and I got a LOT of work done already, I figured I could take a break. Another break. Ahem. Anyways, my last post was an ode to superheros that I wrote whilst at home. I am currently sitting in the apartment I have been sharing with a pretty good percentage of the other Wheaton in England participants. After a week, I've decided I'm very glad none of my off campus options ended up working out. Especially for my poor little awkward shy self who finds it insanely hard to be suddenly thrust into large groups of people I don't know, living at a central location as most of the other students has given me far more opportunities to interact with the people I will be spending LOTS of time with. I have not felt nearly as overwhelmed interacting with these people, which I am so thankful for. There were a couple meals that the group where I went to where I was overlooked, which really was not fun, but I did not starve, and I am sincerely hoping that it won't be repeating.

So I am taking eight credits this summer. I think I possibly could have taken only six, but I'm feeling pretty good about my decision right now. I'm really enjoying both of my classes, and with only two classes every day I feel like I can commit the time required to learning the class materials and get all the reading done (and it's a lot of reading! That's what I get for taking two lit classes!) This year with be Leland Ryken (or Ryken Sr.)'s last year participating in Wheaton in Englad (so it's said) and I have really been enjoying him in class. Here was the quote of the day in today's class. "On the plane, the exhausted female student leaned over to the boy sitting next to her and rested her head on his shoulder. MARRIAGE!" Now, this in part is funny, because honestly, that is a little bit how marriage at Wheaton starts. Oh dear. Professor Coolidge is also really a fantastic teacher, and I am learning a lot from her. I don't think I'm smart enough for her class though! We have also been doing daily "chapel" services in between my two classes (I'm completely done with everything at noon! It's beautiful and fantastic.) I was singled out the first day of class as a singer, and since then I have been called to the front of the class to assist Dr. Ryken with leading the class. And by assist, I mean he impatiently urges me to start the song already. Thankfully I've known all the hymns so far. I hope that trend continues.

Saga has been a little different, and yet, so much the same! When we first got here, it was full of conferences. Then we got some high school football players, which was actually extremely entertaining, because the herds of them part before a college girl like the Red Sea did for Moses, much to our great amusement. Then came.... THE CHEERLEADERS!!! I kid you not, Saga for the past week has looked like something out of my worst nightmares. Our little group of Wheaton in Englanders have been surrounding ourselves with the dwindling members of the conferencers in the hopes they can provide some protection from the hair spray and glitter. Also, Saga full of people who have no idea how to get a meal swiftly and skillfully is.... really painful.

I've also just now thought of something. So I've been slowly friend requesting people in my program as I figure out their names and most all of them are actually English majors. And when I finish with this post, I'm going to put it on my facebook page. If any of you are actually reading this, please do not judge the poor art major in your ranks for any grammatical travesties I may have unknowingly committed. I probably should have thought of that one BEFORE I decided to blog about my adventure to England with a bunch of English majors. Ah well.

So, tomorrow is Friday! We are all pretty excited about the break we get from everyday classes and hours of studying. But before my temporary freedom is nigh, I have a quiz to take and a paper to turn in. A paper I am currently procrastinating to avoid.... starting. I am honestly having much more fun jamming to my iPod. I'm also hoping my roommates do not peek into my room and see me jamming to my iPod. They probably think I'm weird enough without that. Ah well.

I've had some surprise run-in's with some good friends in the past couple of days. One of them happened to be an actual run in when Doug just happened to bump into me after church on Sunday. That boy makes me smile. So does Lindsey! Especially when she makes me fantastic home made Italian food for lunch. At 3. Does that make it dinner? It sort of served as both of those for me today. Here's hoping (and praying) for more pleasant surprises, a good work ethic, good weather (without sunburns!), and not forgetting anything important when we leave for our travel abroad. Like my passport. Or my camera.

Superheroes!

So I was all set to write a post about how I've been packing for two weeks and about how this is my last morning home and then I was walking my dog in my new Batman T-shirt, and I thought to myself, "You know what? I really like superheroes. I'm going to go and write a blog about them instead of a relatively boring one about packing and my 21st birthday." Though my 21st birthday was pretty awesome. Anyways...

I love superheroes. I think a good percentage of the nation would agree with me at this point in time. I've only seen the Avengers three times in theaters, one of those times being midnight of that glorious day it came out. But more on that later. I have been a fan of superheroes for a very long time though. Since before the first new Batman movie came out. I still have a whole group of superheros (mostly superheroines actually) that I created myself. My middle school/Jr. High friends and I would create elaborate scenarios with all of them and there would be epic battles and daring schemes. I could still tell you far more than you would actually want to know about Nightingale, Nina, Emerald, Vivia, and Libby. And those were just a few of them.

I also shared this passion with my lil brother. My not so lil brother at this point. >< He takes great delight in calling me shorty. I'm only an inch or two shorter! Uh... sorry about that. *cough* Anyways, I think we still have books on Superman and Batman up in his room. We would pour over these books for hours. I'm pretty sure both of us read them both from cover to cover. Though I think we both prefer to Batman to Superman these days. Anyways, it was around this time that I developed my obsession with Wonder Woman. I got a book on her that was bigger than the Superman and Batman books combined. It has anything you would ever want to know about WW. It's probably a little behind at this point, but still is epic. It's also not hard for me to see why I love Wonder Woman so much either. This is a kick butt woman who can hold her own up there with Batman and Superman. She is one of two woman in the Justice League (at least the animated series that was on Cartoon Network) and unlike Black Widow of the Avengers, Wonder Woman is without a doubt one of the heavy hitters of the group. It an interesting coincidence, both my brother and my boyfriend are big fans of Flash. The final reason I have for loving Wonder Woman so much is one of the reason Thor is one of my favorite members of the Avengers. Her backstory combines two of my favorite genres if you will: superheroes and MYTHOLOGY!!!

What followed my Wonder Woman obsession was Teen Titans. Back when Cartoon Network still played good shows, Teen Titans was at the top of that list for me. This was such a huge part of my childhood (or teenagehood if you will) I'm having a hard time even deciding where to begin. My siblings and I watched it. My two best friends from school watched it. I have seen every episode and the movie they released. I have a TT gameboy game. It was just the show we always talked about. We would plan to go over and watch it at our grandparents house since we didn't have the right channel. We picked favorites and stuck to them with tenacity. I was and continue to be a huge fan of Raven. Jonathan like Cyborg I think. Olivia had a passion for and Starfire. And I'm pretty sure Daniel will always love Beast Boy.

High School came around and this passion for superheroes continued. After I finally got plugged in with the right people at high school (the awesome nerdy group of course!) the superhero theme continued. At a much more literate level than before our group would write complicated stories each with their own character. I brought back Nightingale and Nina and Emerald for these elaborate tales and managed to develop them even more. It was also around this time the current fad for superhero movies began. There was Batman Begins, Dark Knight, Ironman, and the Spiderman movies (though I have never really liked Spiderman.) This is also around when my brother and I discovered the City of Heroes video game. Which we are still playing as college kids.

And now, in 2012, The Avengers has finally been realized. This has to be one of my all time favorite movies. It has everything a good movie should have. First of all, it has JOSS WHEADON AS THE DIRECTOR! I know most people don't pay any attention to directors, and I don't usually either, but I make an exception for this man. He is brilliant. The build up through the previous five movies was so well done, and everything just tied together so well in the final movie. I will admit I have a soft spot for Thor as previously mentioned, but I am also kind of a fan of Loki. My friend Maggie said something offhand about this during a pretty in depth and nerdy discussion of the movie. She said something to the effect of, Loki is a character you sympathize with and one you want to see saved, but his nature makes him irredeemable. I thought it was a fantastic way of putting it. Anyways, the movie was dramatic, hilarious, and just almost perfect. I'm not a huge fan of the Hulk, but they did a great job with him in the movie, and despite the fact Black Widow and Hawkeye are at such a different power level than the rest of the group, they were well represented in the movie, and were two of my favorites. Secretly, most of them are my favorites, but don't tell ok?

I'm not sure why this is a passion of mine, but it undoubtedly is. It's something I've shared with my brother, almost all of my best friends through the years, and boyfriend past and boyfriend present. If I could pick any superpower, what would it be? I would have wings! And with my wings I would be able to fly. (I thought that was probably obvious but I thought it was probably still a good idea to articulate it just in case.)