At Home (Almost) Cherry Limeade – 0 Calories!

I made a pretty great discovery today, and I wanna share it. When you add

+

+

= the taste of Cherry Limeade.

I know the MiO is not actually cherry flavored, but when it’s with the lime water, it tastes so much like cherry limeade! And for 0 calories and a lot less money than you would pay to get it at Sonic. I also wanted to put this on here for one of my BFF’s who doesn’t have access to a Sonic (how depressing, right?).

If you like cherry limeades but don’t like the calories in them (or you’re cheap like me!), this is a great trick to try.

TGIF!

Thank God It’s Friday! Mainly because after this morning’s workout, I’m so sore I don’t think I could do any more strength training this week. Also because I finished my law review case summaries. Not because I’ve been working, because I haven’t been doing that. I’ve been a lazy-bones.

This has been my only week since this time last year to have zero work or zero school. I did have to do some law review stuff, but that didn’t require me to leave my house, so I’ve basically been living like an agoraphobic. It has been great.

I did leave my house Wednesday to do some shopping. I got such good stuff for so little money that I felt like an extreme couponer. I got these work pumps from Banana Republic for $35 for using a 40% off promotion + $10 rewards card + $30 gift card. Awesome! And they’re going to look so good with my beautiful navy suit!

I also got some pants hemmed for free!

Then I went to Sephora, returned 2 nail polishes, used a rewards card from my legal research company, and got Gucci Rush for $10!

I have loved/coveted this perfume since it came out in 1999, so I am really excited.

I’m glad I’ve had a little fun, because next up is laundry, diet food, and cardio workouts. Booooo.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!!

It’s good. It’s going to be good.

Welp, I full-on did my diet today. It wasn’t exactly fun getting back to the swing of things, but not bad either. I ate only Jenny Craig meals, yogurt, and vegetables, and drank 96 ounces of water! (And 2 Coke Zeros! Shh, don’t tell!) Wowie kazowie, that’s 3 quarts of water plus 24 oz. of coke! How I squeezed this much liquid into my body: I just kept my water by me and drank when I was thirsty.

I also put this MiO stuff in there. Deelish. You can control how much you want to add so it’s not too strong. Also, it’s already liquidy so you don’t have to really worry about mixing it. (I have those powdery crystals with other drink mixes.) I have the red drink fruit punch flavor, but I plan on getting more flavors soon! I’ll let ya know which ones are good.

About the vegetables I ate: I impulse bought these canned collard greens a while ago, and they’ve been on my shelf ever since. I hadn’t really been eating at home, so I hadn’t gotten around to eating them. They’re Glory brand Southern-style seasoned collard greens, and THEY ARE DELICIOUS.

Good thing, too, since I bought a family sized can for one person and consequently will be eating them for a week. They’re as good as any greens I’ve ever had (not that I’m an expert on greens – I only started liking them a couple of years ago and my non-black family probably doesn’t know how to make them right). Another plus is you can heat them up in the microwave. This is good with me because I feel like when I heat things up on the stove, I have a lot more dishes to wash. That’s a real problem for me since I don’t have a dishwasher and loathe washing dishes by hand.

ANYWAY…

In addition to my dieting, I did a cardio workout this morning. It’s the same one I used to do all the time, only I haven’t done a cardio workout in about a million years. I was breathing pretty hard by the end of the warm-up + one segment (the Cha Cha), and I used to be able to do that plus a good portion of the next segment too (the Jive). I don’t really like the other segment (the Paso Doble). It’s not fun, and I don’t like the music.

Good morning, Julianne Hough! Cardio Ballroom Cha Cha? Don't mind if I do!

Ps: I know Cardio Ballroom sounds stupid, but it’s really fun! I danced basically my whole childhood and adolescence so it’s much easier for me to do this than to run or something. I’ve just got to get my stamina back up! I’m a little off my game, but I’m getting back in the swing of things!

It’s good. It’s going to be good.

Welp, I’m going to try this whole blogging thing again.

I’ve decided to try to blog again. My posts will not be as spectacular as they were before. Mainly because my life is not as spectacular as it was before. I live in Little Rock, Arkansas again (womp, womp), and I basically work and go to law school (womp, womp), and I’m dieting again (womp, womp, womp). BUT! I have amazing friends. And we’re funny. And I’m happy! Happier than I have been in my whole life! And I wanna write about it here.

In addition to chronicling my misadventures with my friends, I want to write about my weight loss/fitness journey, cooking/baking when I get to do that (weight loss and baking don’t exactly go together so we’ll just see how that works out), and my life in general. Since law school isn’t exactly all S’s & G’s, I will probably vent on here from time to time. Sooorrry.

What’s on my mind tonight is starting back on my weight loss endeavors. I started Jenny Craig about a year ago and lost 17.6 lbs. Since then, I’ve gained about 5 lbs. back. Nothing too serious, but I want to get it off. Beyond that, I want to get to the “goal weight” I arbitrarily set for myself on my first day at Jenny.

Note to anyone who is considering doing Jenny Craig: On your first day, your consultant will ask you what you want your goal weight to be. THINK about this before you answer. Whatever number you spout off at that moment will determine your goal weight for your whole Jenny experience. This isn’t really a huge deal since obviously you want to be happy with your body and that’s all that really matters. But what also matters to me, and this is where that number is important, is that if you reach your goal weight and keep it off for so long (a year, I think) then you get 1/2 of your program fee back. In my case, I will get back $275. That is a good amount of money to me and something that I want back.

I am also a very goal-oriented person. If I want something bad enough, I am going to do everything I can to get it. Best believe. So I have decided I am going to get that $275. I have to lose 14.2 pounds. I don’t have any sort of time restriction, which is nice, but I’d like to do it sooner rather than later.

In addition to Jenny Craig, I have also started doing a bootcamp workout. My second week of bootcamp started tonight, and I am going to be SORE! My legs felt like jello afterward, which is a sign of a good workout…and upcoming soreness.

More on this later, I have to work on some case summaries for stupid law review. Ugh.

Glad to be back on the blog!

London

Well, we made it to London… about a week and a half ago. Sorry for the delay! I’ve been having to much fun to relay my stories.

So we took a bus with our classmates to London so we could do a “Legal London” tour. Our big group divided into two smaller groups and my group was led by a tour guide named Joanne. I really wish I had taken a picture of her for you because she was quite interesting. She had what we Americans think of as “bad British teeth” in the very worst way, and by the looks of what was going on with her, she clearly hadn’t worn a bra in about…hmm…ever. But she’s a solicitor in London AND a tour guide so she was very well qualified for the task at hand. The first place she showed us was the offices of a very big firm of solicitors (one type of English lawyers – they have two types over here. Solicitors give advice and refer clients to Barristers; Barristers argue in court. Weird system.)

Anyway, this is the firm of solicitors that the Royal Family uses for a lot of things and the firm is known especially for having an awesome divorce attorney who handled Prince Charles’s divorce from Diana and Paul McCartney’s divorce from Heather Mills. The firm is called Farrer and Co.

As we were walking, we saw this building that survived the Great Fire of London. This means this building dates to pre-1666. Super old. Now it is pretty much just the facade of the building because there have been strict rules about what types of building materials can be used ever since the fire. Pretty cool to see something that old though.

Next we saw some of the Inns of Court. There are four Inns of Court in London and some people think that J.K. Rowling used this as one of the bases for the four houses at Hogwarts. This one was Lincoln’s Inn. The Inns basically work kind of like a club and all Barristers have to join one of the Inns before they can be a Barrister. Every Inn has a dining hall and a library and offices that the Barristers can use for meetings with Solicitors or clients.

This was another angle of the Lincoln’s Inn.

Then we saw this place called Ede & Ravenscroft. This is the place where most of the Barristers and Judges get their robes and wigs for court! They wear wigs every day they go to court and there are special wigs and outfits depending on what your role in the court is.

Then we saw the Middle Temple and Inner Temple Inns of Court. They share a chapel and hall. That round part of the building is the chapel. According to Joanne, it never really got much tourist action until The DaVinci Code came out, but since it was featured in the book, the Inns have seen an increase in tourist traffic.

After the Legal London tour was over, we went to our hostel, threw our bags down, and went to see more stuff. We took the underground (or the tube – you can call it either one), and when we came out of the tube station and looked up…

we were underneath BIG BEN!!!!!

It was pretty cool and Elizabeth had a little bit of a freak out about “Oh my gosh!! We are in LONDON!!!”

As we walked across the bridge, we saw the London Eye! Very cool. Then we hopped on one of those open-top double-decker bus tours. It was recommended by my friend Zaff and was a very good way to see a lot of the city in a short amount of time. We had awesome weather for the bus tour – sunny and warm!

We saw Westminster Abbey,

this Jelly Baby statue in Marble Arch,

this awesome giant ship in a bottle in Trafalgar Square,

the countdown to the Olympics clock in Trafalgar Square,

and Trafalgar Square in general! We actually saw a WHOLE lot of other stuff too but uploading pictures on here takes a while and I’m trying to be economical with my time.

Sorry.

At least I’m honest?

Next was the London Eye! It was getting chilly at this point, and I forgot to bring a cardigan with me that day (stupid), so I was really happy to get into one of these big ole bubbles, even if it was going to be going way up in the sky. (I don’t do well with heights)

Here was Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and a view of the city from the Eye!

And here are Barbara, Elizabeth and me with a great view behind us. It was a really cool experience and maybe my favorite part of our London trip.

After the Eye, we went to our hostel, got cleaned up and went to dinner…at 10:45 p.m. We went to a restaurant recommended by my good friend Gwyneth Paltrow (Juuuuuust kidding. I am a huge fan of her Goop website…and like to pretend we are close personal friends. What’s wrong with that?) So anyway, Gwyneth recommended Bocca Di Lupo, a restaurant in Picadilly (near the West End theatre district) that serves small or large portions of everything so you can mix and match your dinner. It was awesome! We got there kind of late but the host said he would sweet talk the kitchen into letting us in. Then they squeezed us in at the bar by making some people move closer to their parties. Basically it pays to be nice southern girls or we would have been looking for like a kabab stand or something. Since we were so late, we just went straight to the main course, no mix and match fun for us, but our food was delicious! I had the “orecchiette with ‘nduja (extremely spicy home-made salame), red onion & fresh tomato.” I was a little hesitant so I asked the waiter how spicy the salami was and he said “spicy enough that we say ‘extremely spicy’ and underline it in the menu.” Hmm. Well I guess I did deserve to be made fun of a little bit but how was I to know what they considered spicy? I ordered it anyway and it was so good!!

I never really tasted salami, just spicy tomato-y goodness! It was spicy enough (and hot enough in the restaurant) that I was sweating at the end. But it was WAY worth that!

After dinner, we asked the host where we should go out and he told us about some new really cool place called the Experimental Cocktail Lounge. We found where it was but it was an unmarked door with two giant bouncers outside and we got a little intimidated. It looked a little too cool for us. So we met up with our new friend Josh (he’s in our program at Oxford) and went to this bar called O’Neils.

It was a lot of fun and we watched a lot of awkward British boy dancing. Hilarious!

The next morning, we stopped at a diner before heading to see the changing of the guard. I wish I had taken a picture of the diner because it was like a British equivalent of the diner in Seinfeld.

I had this breakfast sandwich, and while it doesn’t look like much, it totally hit the spot.

After breakfast, we headed over to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. It was crowded and raining and put me in a really bad mood.

Even worse, they didn’t even do all the cool ceremony stuff. So we waited in the cold rain next to some VERY pushy Russians for no good reason! Not good at all.

Next, we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral.

It was very lovely but they don’t let you take pictures of the interior. Inside, Barbara, Elizabeth, and I climbed the stairs to the wispering gallery, and the two of them climed all the way up to the top of the dome!! Like I said, I don’t really do heights, so the Whispering Gallery was enough for this ole gal. I was really proud of them though for going all the way to the top! I made good use of the time they were doing that to take a little napski in one of the pews. (Shh! Don’t tell anyone!)

After St. Paul’s, we went across the street for lunch at an Italian place where I got this big ole pizza:

I thought it would be personal size! Obviously, I thought wrong.

After our very late lunch, we went to the Tower of London…just in time for it to close. It actually closed thirty minutes later but they weren’t taking anymore visitors.

We took some pics (mainly of “the menagerie” of animals made out of metal), went to the gift shop, and made plans to come back the next day.

We went home, stopped by the movie theater in our hood to get Harry Potter tickets (an ordeal in and of itself – not the same simple process as getting movie tickets in the US because there are reserved seats involved), and went home to clean up.

We went to dinner at another one of my girl Gwyneth’s recommendations: Taqueria in Notting Hill. We had to wait a long time because of some annoying people who everyone wanted to leave, including the waitstaff. We finally got to sit and eat some DEELISH mexican food!!!! I got shrimp tacos and Barbara got a taco with steak, onions, and guacamole and we shared.

It was so, so, so delicious that I have been wanting Mexican ever since. Worst part of the meal was that since those a-holes took so long to leave the restaurant, we had to seriously rush our meal so we could make our movie!! We had to walk so fast for so long to our movie theater that we all got stitches in our sides!!

Then we got to the movie just on time…for the 35 minutes of previews. Yes, in the UK, they have over 35 minutes of previews. They show some of them twice. It is ridiculous. Especially if you’ve just gotten a stitch from running down the street after wolfing down amazing tacos. But whatever, Harry Potter was SO GOOD we didn’t even care by the time we got out of there!

Yes, we made someone take a picture of us with the movie poster.

After Harry, it was bedtime.

The next morning, we got up and went to The Globe theater (the reproduction of the theater where Shakespeare’s plays were shown – the original Globe burned in 1613). On the way there, we walked across the Millenium Bridge and got this lovely view of St. Paul’s:

So pretty! And on the other side of the bridge, is The Globe:

Please ingore that scrub in front of The Globe.

The inside of The Globe is really interesting:

A lot of it is painted to look like marble, and overall it was much brighter than I expected it to be. It is supposed to be a very good replica of what the original is like. I was impressed with the theater but a little underwhelmed with the overall tour there. They mainly just take you into the audience seats and tell you about the theater. There isn’t much “tour”  to the tour. I wanted to see backstage and stuff. Oh well.

After The Globe, we went next door to the Tate Modern. It is a large art museum (7 stories) that houses a lot of things that are just a little too modern for my taste. For example, I love the Picassos,

but don’t really understand what this is all about:

They also had stuff like a white octagonal piece of paper that was stuck on the wall as “an installation.” I love art, but I don’t consider that art. Maybe that stuff was just beyond me?

We did have a really yummy lunch at the Tate Modern’s restaurant. I had fettucine with wild mushrooms and parmesan.

So tasty and light! I also had a cup of hot chocolate because we had been rained on all day and were mighty chilly.

After the Tate Modern, we went to the Tower of London again.

It was really cool, but we had to hustle because we had a reservation for afternoon tea at 6:00 across town. We got to see the crown jewels, but obviously they don’t let you take pictures of anything. The crown jewels were all we had time for there (we had to miss the prison), because we had to get to tea at The Wolseley!

The Wolseley was recommended by my friend Sarah who lives in London (but sadly missed that weekend), and it was fantastic. The room is very cool:

(My camera had died so I got this image here.)

And the tea was delicious! Tea over here is more of a big snack time than just a cup of tea. The spread at The Wolseley looked like this:

On the bottom tier, there were 5 different flavors of finger sandwiches: smoked salmon, cucumber, goat cheese with celery, chicken with tarragon, and egg salad.

On the middle tier, there were about 6 little pastries: a pistachio macaroon, a strawberry tartlette, a mini chocolate eclair, a mini cheesecake, that yellow and pink cake (I don’t know what it was – it didn’t really have a strong flavor), and a chocolate mousse.

On the top tier, the covered one, there were scones. They came with clotted cream and strawberry jam and were so delightful. I know that sounds silly, but after trudging around, and being late, in the rain ALL day, it is really nice to have a warm scone with some clotted cream and some hot tea.

It was the perfect end to a very busy day!

The overall impression I had from London was that it is a really cool city with terrible weather. We also spread ourselves a little too thin and didn’t use our days efficiently. Oh well! It was a great time and we did a better job as travelers this past weekend the next weekend in Paris.

Home Sweet Home: Brasenose College, Oxford Univeristy

We arrived at Oxford, hopped in a cab, and rode up to a little alley. When we get to the square in front of our college, we were met with this view:

Then, we walked a little bit, turned around, and got this view:

Then, we walked closer to the college and saw the entrance:

I couldn’t believe this was really my home for the next 5ish weeks!!! Eeeekkk!!!!

I wanted to stop and admire the view (I actually took those pictures yesterday – the 4th day), but we had to hustle if we were going to get cleaned up in time for orientation. We had missed our train after all!

We did hustle though and got cleaned up just in time for orientation. Luckily. At the orientation, one of our advisors, Sir David (a real live knight!), told us that the most important thing we could do during our time at Brasenose was research. He then informed us that there was a research facility just below us, in the basement and that we should try to spend some time there every night if possible. Underneath us was Gerties, the college pub! So I’ve been trying to follow Sir David’s advice. I mean, he is a knight after all. He’s gotta be doing something right!

After orientation, we were led to a reception in the Deer Park, which is an incredibly pristine little grassy area bordered by flowers and shrubs on two sides. It is super cute. They had champagne, red or white wine for us and I think everyone had a little too much on an empty stomach did a bit too much research, so it was time to move on to dinner.

Me, Elizabeth and Barbara in the Deer Park

Dinner was okay and then we went to the pub for a little research time, not too much though because the next day was the first day of class. That day and all of the others this week have been pretty alike.

Everyday for school, I wake up, eat a “traditional English breakfast” which consists of eggs, sausage, some sort of potato, toast, and terrible baked beans. It is weird to have baked beans at breakfast, but these aren’t even good baked beans. For the first few days, I would just eat everything except what was touching the beans and then today I finally realized I could get breakfast with NO BEANS!!! Whew. I can’t tell you how bad they are. They’re worse than ones straight from a can.

Now I know that breakfast sounds like a lot, but they don’t serve us lunch over here and I don’t wanna spend a lot on my lunch food, so I try to get a good start at breakfast.

After breakfast, I go to my 9:00-11:00 a.m. Family Law class. There are only ten people in there and we cover a good amount of material so I was really worried at first about being super prepared for class. Then I found out that my professor is awesome (funny, nice, and knowledgable) and that he gives most of the lecture himself so I’m not as worried anymore. He is like “the man” as far as Family Law in Oklahoma goes and has taught this course for forever. He just retired from OU and this trip is his last time teaching! He’s kind of has like senioritis of the professor world AND he knows we’re here to learn but we’re here to have fun, so he expects some work from us but not a ton.

After Family Law, I have a 3 hour gap. Everyday until today, I have used this gap for running errands, getting something for lunch, talking to my mom, and trying to catch up on reading. Yes, all of those things. Everyday. But I’ve finally gotten most of my move-in errands handled and I figured out I can buy food for at least two lunches and keep the other half in the shared mini-fridge. So today I got to take a glorious nap! And talk to my mom. And catch up on reading for Evidence.

After the break, I have Evidence class from 2:00-4:00. For you non-law people reading this, Evidence class is all about what kinds of evidence are admissible at trial (what kinds of stuff you can present and what things aren’t allowed). My teacher for Evidence is really cool. I don’t know if it’s just because of the way the course is, but she’s more of a teacher than your typical law professor. She doesn’t use the socriatic method much because we don’t really have cases in our reading. She teaches us about a rule and then we talk through examples trying to apply the rule. It’s pretty interesting because it’s not really like other law classes. Plus our teacher is super friendly and will try to help you if you get stuck. Pretty much the opposite of the little Dianna Ross I had to deal with all last year.

After Evidence, I try to do my reading for the next day but sometimes get sucked into facebook really important things. I generally get some good reading time in, and then it’s time for dinner!

Dinner everyday is a three course meal served in a dining room kind of like the one in Harry Potter. But smaller. And not magical. And without house elves. But there are regular Oxford students that serve the meals. Most nights dinner is pretty tasty. For example, last night’s was a pea soup, followed by guinea fowl with mashed potatos and broccoli, followed by caramel tasting cake “pudding” topped with a custard sauce. But it was kind of a special dinner because we were having a theme party. They don’t always get it so right… Another day this week was “American Night.” We had a spinach salad topped with guacamole and chips (slightly weird but I miss Mexican, so okay…), followed by lasagna with corn on the cob and curly fries (WTF?), followed by a brownie with ice cream. I guess they got it right on what we eat in America, just not what we eat it with. I don’t think I would EVER have thought those foods go together!

Now back to that theme party! Last night we had a 007 James Bond Party which is really just a good reason to dress up. It started with that yummy dinner and then continued in Gertie’s, the college pub.

Barbara, Elizabeth, and I at Gertie’s in our 007 clothes

They had Gertie’s decorated with lots of casino type decorations, martini glasses, and balloons shaped like tuxedos, and it looked really good! I really should have taken more pictures of it. Well of the entire night really. We hung out there for a while and then we made some new friends and went with them to another pub: The Eagle and Child.

The Eagle and Child is kind of famous because it was the main hangout for C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien! It’s not the coolest pub, but you definitely want to swing by if your here. We kind of took over a back room and had a beer before we went to the club where the official after party to the 007 party was. It was at a club called Camera (weird name, right?) and it was a lot of fun! Our Oxford student advisors (the ones who planned the party) told us it was a “fusion” club, which means it plays American and British music. I really wish I had taken pictures but I forgot. Oops.

After Camera closed (different kinds of bars here close at different times), we walked to a club called The Purple Turtle. It was underground with low-ish ceilings and kind of smelly. Definitely an end-of-the-night kind of place, if ya know what I mean. They were playing terrible pop-punk music from the early 00’s (think Sum41-ish) and my drink tasted like nail polish remover, not an exaggeration. I couldn’t really stand dancing to that music but soooome of our group were having a great time! I captured this little gem to prove it:

Needless to say, this morning was a little rough for all of us – way too tired from staying out late.

Since today was the first really nice weather since we arrived in Oxford, but mainly since we needed laundry detergent, Barbara, Elizabeth and I ventured out after Evidence class and took a really nice walk! Our first stop was a place in the market called Ben’s Cookies, a.k.a. “the cookie place.”

It is very well known and we had even been told about it before we came over here by our friend Vu Ritchie. All of our classmates who had tried the cookies highly recommended them. I wish I had taken a picture of one, but the came in a bag and I didn’t think of it. Plus, I never remember to photograph my food until Barbara pulls out her camera. I guess I just have to get another cookie so I can show y’all! Shoot!

After our cookies, we got our laundry detergent from Tesco, the UK equivalent of Walmart, and continued our walk laundry detergent in tow! I took a pic of a typical Oxford street so y’all could see what it looks like over here:

What’s weird is all of the facades look the same, and look very old, but they have all sorts of new businesses in them. Like the outside of McDonald’s looks like the ouside of everything else! It’s so nice. Then there are super-historical college buildings, hotels, and banks tucked in with the stores. One of my professors said he and his wife even found a gym to join over here for the summer and it looks like everything else on the outside with all of the gym equipment stuffed into a relatively small space. He said you would think it was a really crappy gym in the US but that’s just how things are over here!

We walked a long way and walked far from the college. I saw this beautiful ivy covered building and thought it would be nice to share.

After our walk, we came home to freshen up for dinner and then decided to try a Thai place recommended by the students who went on this trip last year. It was called At Thai. It was oooookay. I don’t think we’ll be going back any time soon. Elizabeth and I shared some spring rolls that were pretty good:

See what happens when Barb doesn’t get out her camera immediately?

I get too excited and forget to take the picture before I take a bite!

Then I had Pud Thai Prawns (Shrimp Pad Thai), which should have been the safest choice on a Thai menu next to Chicken Pad Thai, but it just…wasn’t good. The shrimp had a terrible flavor which made me appreciate how lucky we are to have gulf shrip in the US. Plus, the noodles aren’t what I’m used to with Pad Thai and the sauce wasn’t right.

Like I said, I don’t think we’ll be going back anytime soon.

Tomorrow we leave for London for the rest of the weekend!

Cheerio!

Baaaahhth – in other words: lovely.

This incredibly long entry is about our two-night, one-and-one-half day stay in Bath, which was one of the most beautiful, picturesque places I have ever visited! It was so great…except the first night.

After we road from Bristol to Bath with our disappearing cab driver, we arrived at the University of Bath. I had never really thought about staying in another college’s dorms until we decided Barb was smart enough to book us at the University of Bath. It really was a great place to stay – clean, you have a sink in your room, etc. – but we did not really think about what it would be like to arrive at an unknown college campus in the middle of the night. In other words, don’t arrive at an unknown college campus in the middle of the night.

You know how college campuses are: spread out from here to kingdom come with no drivable roads through the middle and buildings that all look the same that have little to no directional signage. We were wandering all over that place with our rolly bags trying to find a place to check in. It was miserable. Luckily, we found a guy who directed us to the library…and offered to let us stay in his room. We graciously declined.

After we got all checked in, I went to my room (we all had singles for this leg of the trip). I noticed that there was a little drawstring backpack left on the desk and an empty envelope like the kind that had held my key. In my delirious state, I didn’t think much of this, so I got settled in bed and wound down from the hellish night of travel (it really was worse than the transatlantic day – the ryan air flight, missing the baggage claim, wandering a college campus in the dark for 35 minutes with rolling suitcases). I am not a great sleeper so this took a while. Unfortunately, at about 3:45 a.m. a drunk British boy busts into my room claiming that it’s HIS room!!! Didn’t I see his things when I got in there? he asked. I told him I had been so tired when I arrived that I just thought they were left from the last person who stayed. We finally figured out that we both had keys to that room and that he would stay next door with his friend. He then invited me to breakfast with him. I graciously declined.

I was so shaken up from my intruder, that it took me about an hour and a half to go back to bed. It did not help that I could hear him and his friend Phil having a giggle-fest in the room next door for about an hour of that time. Ugh.

The next morning, I was really grouchy from being sleep deprived and then woken up from what I thought would be an awesome night’s rest, but then I put on my happy yellow sweater, met up with Barbara and Elizabeth, and ate the most amazing brunch food! The restaurant we went to was called Sally Lunn’s.

It is housed in the oldest house in Bath (built in 1494!) and is famous for the “Sally Lunn Bun.” They have these buns in different restaurants throughout Bath, but the originals are from Sally Lunn’s. I think I would need to eat one by itself to be able to acurately describe what the flavor of them is; I can’t do that because I had mine with a Welsh rarebit sauce (cheddar, mustard, worcester, beer sauce) and mushrooms and bacon. It was fantastic. And it was served with chutney and a lightly dressed salad. So, so good.

I think a combination of my wardrobe choice, this brunch, and the diet coke that went with it were the start of a fantastic day in Bath! We actually discussed this as a group. Barbara and Elizabeth agreed that Sally Lunn’s was the turnaround point from the terrible travel night before.

Also, a side note, a little off topic but I have to put this out there: “bacon” in the UK is not like what we call bacon in the US. There’s is a lot thicker and way less smoky. The bacon at Sally Lunn’s was closest to US bacon but it still wasn’t close. The worst “bacon” over here is actually a lot like country ham. That would be okay I guess, but not okay when you’re expecting delicious, smoky, crunchy bacon!

Okay, now that this blog sounds like a commercial for Beggin’ Strips, I’ll get back to talking about the travel.

After the delicious Sally Lunn’s, we bought tickets for everything we wanted to see and went to the Bath Abbey.

The Abbey is absolutely gorgeous…

but it is literally made out of graves. Every foot of space in the floor and every inch of space in the wall is chock-full of dead bodies. It wasn’t even creepy though. It was more cool than creepy because the markers included lots of personal details about the person buried behind or underneath. Here’s what a typical wall looked like in Bath Abbey:

See? It’s too pretty to be creepy! Plus the space is filled with natural light flowing through gorgeous stained glass windows. This one has like 52 scenes from Jesus’s life. It was at the end of the Abbey by the altar.

After the Abbey, we went to the Roman Baths. The town was named after these, but the Romans’ ruins weren’t discovered and excavated until about 300 years ago. They were really cool but the museum took a little too long for my taste. Also, a lot of the museum was underground and was stuffy. Also, there were more Asians in the joint than there probably are in all of Chinatown in NYC. The downside: not being able to say “excuse me” because of the language barrier. The upside: watching them pose for pictures. Hilarious.

So the Roman Baths were basically made up of a naturally occuring hot spring that the Romans diverted into several pools. The biggest one is still full and is on display:

They show you where the smaller ones were, but they’re empty now.

All around the main pool are statues of Roman emperors and governors during the period the UK was under Roman rule. These statues were added in the 1800s but they’re very cool.

After looking around up top of the baths, you go into a museum area that is housed underground. There were a lot of cool things like the pediment from the temple that was next to the baths.

Everything else was pretty cool, but I was getting really claustrophobic being stuck in that underground museum with all those people. They give you these things that kind of look like a cell phone and you push in a number keyed to an exhibit to listen to info about that exhibit. About halfway through, I just quit listening to my cell-phone explainer thingy and looked at what I wanted, read what I wanted, and high-tailed it out of there. I was never so happy to be back in open air…and not surrounded by a million Asians listening to cell phones.

After the baths, we walked up to the Fashion Museum. Bath is really walkable even though it is hilly so the walk was enjoyable. Also, the architecture of Bath is very beautiful. Everything is really consistent so the whole town looks cohesive. When something like a fast-food chain goes in, it doesn’t get to make like a typical Burger King looking building; it goes into a spot where something else already was and it has a facade like everything else. I wish we did that in America.

But I digress.

On our walk, we saw The Circus (a large roundabout at the top of town with very pricey, very old townhouses), not what you think of when you hear the word “circus.” Here is The Circus:

And here are Barbara and Elizabeth in the center of the roundabout The Circus:

And we saw our first British phone booth! There was even a man in there chatting while we went by.

When we got to the Fashion Museum, we were greeted by a very pretty razorback!

Look at that pretty piggy!

At the Fashion Museum, they were having a wedding dress exhibit. They had bridal gowns from the Royal Weddings from many, many years ago (I wanna say like the last 100 years). It was really cool to see how they had evolved and what styles had come around again.

They also had some really cool shoes! They were weirdly narrow though. Barbara pointed out that they looked like bananas:

They also had an exhibit with different “Dress of the Year” dresses. I was surprised that many of them weren’t that famous (the one from my birth year wasn’t even a dress…or for a woman…it was a man’s suit!). They did, however have one very famous dress in the “Dress of the Year” collection…the Jennifer Lopez Versace dress! What they didn’t show at the time is that the dress has bejewelled matching panties! So glamorous weird!

The Fashion Museum was really cool but surprisingly small. We thought there would be more too it.

After Fashion, we went to the Jane Austen Centre. We were pretty worn out from the past couple of days so we started to take it easy. We went up to the Tea Room first and had a snack of cake and Victorian lemonade. I had lemon cake and lemonade.

If I had been listening to Gucci Mane “Lemonade,” I very well may have lemonned myself out.

Then we went downstairs and checked out Jane’s stuff. The first thing there is a presentation by someone in a period costume telling about Jane Austen and the rest of the Austen clan. That part of the museum was good. The rest of the museum was a little iffy. It just looked really homespun and not very authentic. At all. I really think my mom would have made much better costumes for the exhibits and that I could have made better props.

This was BY FAR the best scene in the museum.

We took it all in but weren’t that impressed. It also should be noted that the Jane Austen Centre is in a house like the one Jane lived in. The one she actually lived in is now a dentist’s office up the street. Here’s the door to her real house:

After Jane Austen’s, we walked back up the hill to The Royal Crescent. The Royal Crescent is a semi-circular row of houses that have been around for about 200 years. They’re very historical, very posh. There is a road that follows close to the buildings and then there is a big grassy park.

We stayed in that park for probably 2 hours just enjoying the weather and the people watching. That day it was cool in the morning (upper 50s) but perfect by late afternoon when we hungout in the park (mid 70s). It was so enjoyable just to sit still for a while and to enjoy the weather!

After the lovely time in the park, we ate dinner at a place called The Gasconery. I had a lighter dinner of wild-mushroom risotto balls with a balsamic reduction…

and a side salad.

It was the perfect size and a great end to a great day. After dinner, we went back home and got a good night’s rest.

The next morning, we stored our luggage at Bath University’s accomodation center and headed back downtown to the city centre. We had brunch in the Pump Room. It is a very historic (included in Jane Austen novels) and beautiful room that is above the Roman Baths.

For brunch, I had eggs benedict. The eggs benedict came with a poached egg, half an english muffin, hollandaise sauce and either ham or sauteed spinach. The large portion had two eggs, muffin halves, etc. so I requested ham on one and spinach on the other. Both were delicious!

There was also some sort of sweet, whole-grain mustard sauce that was on the plate that made everything super tastey. Oh, it was so good!

After brunch, we found some tubes for posters and bought some stuff we had intended to buy the day before. Then we did a little bit of regular shopping, and maybe we overdid it a little, because we missed our train to Oxford.

The next one wasn’t coming for an hour but that time passed pretty quickly. Fortunately, when you miss your train, your ticket is good for the next one. Unfortunately, you no longer have a seat reservation. We stood for the hour train ride. The standing part really wasn’t that big of a deal.

What was a big deal was the getting on and off different trains, especially with our big rolly suitcases. The suitcases had become such a burden that we gave them all different names: mine was “Herbie: Fully Loaded,” Barbara’s is “Big Carla” – a play on Jules from CougarTown’s giant wine glass Big Carl – because Barbara’s suitcase is twice as big as her, and Elizabeth’s is “Mangus Manguson” because it is a giant pain in the ass. While we were in Dublin, the extendable handle got stuck in the extended position so she had to check it for that dumb Ryan Air flight with the handle out. Of course the handle broke off during the flight. So this means that all that time we were wandering Bath University, Elizabeth was pulling that thing with the little handle. Then, when we were trying to make the train we ultimately missed, one of Mangus’s wheels came off. Mangus is going into retirement before the trip home.

After all of that train-hopping, suitcase-wrangling, we got in a cab and arrived at Brasenose College at Oxford University!

We finally get to stay put. Well, for a few days.

Dublin!

After the delay in the airport, we got on the plane and promptly conked out. I slept through the one a.m. “dinner” and woke up early for some in-flight breakfast. Everything went smoothly on the flight (except for Elizabeth burning her finger pretty badly on the personal airplane light), and we got through customs smoothly too. We took a bus from the airport and then wheeled our rolly bags for about a 1/2 mile through downtown Dublin. Not great. We checked into our hostel (Abigail’s – I would definitely recommend it), and went to lunch at a pub near our hostel called Oliver St. John Gogarty’s.

The inside of this joint was really Irish-y despite all of the American flags lining the walls. (They had had a Fourth of July celebration a couple of days before and hadn’t taken down the decorations)

see how cute it is? see all the American flags?

I had a reeaally yummy smoked salmon sandwich:

I don’t know why but I have been on a real salmon kick since I’ve been here. I’ve had to restrain myself from ordering it every meal!

After lunch, we walked over to the Sisters of Mercy Centre. It was established by one of the nuns who started Mount St. Mary’s in Little Rock so it had some special meaning for Barbara. Since it didn’t have special meaning for me, I didn’t take any pics. I did, however, really enjoy the park we walked through on the way to the Sisters of Mercy building. It was called Merrion Park and had the CUTEST little kids playing there! They were wearing Madeline uniforms!!! Check out these cute kiddos:

They were wearing little braids and hats and everything. Barbara saw them and literally cried out, “Be still my heart!!!” because they were so cute.

After the park and the Sisters of Mercy, we saw a building? church? called The Peppermill. It was called that because the cupola on top looks like a pepper mill.

After The Peppermill, we walked over to the river and saw the Famine Statues. They were really cool, but very sad. Even the texture on them makes them look sad. Here are a few photos of those:

After that, we had ended up pretty close to our hostel so we went back, freshened up, and went to dinner at Fallon & Byrne. I had a yummy steak with bernaise sauce, a salad, and french fries.

Then I had a great dessert of creme brulee, rhubarb sorbet, and ginger biscuits (ginger cookies). I had never had anything rhubarb before but it was SO good. Very tart, but it complemented the creme brulee so well! And the ginger cookies were perfect with it – a little spicy bite with the rich cream and tart ice cream. So delicious and balanced. The very best kind of desert. I love anything where you can make a perfectly balanced bite.

After dinner, Elizabeth was exhausted so she went home. Barbara and I stopped back in Oliver St. John Gogarty’s for a drink. We met some new friends named Alex, Joey, and Biology Balaji. They were American high school friends who had recently graduated from college and were taking one great vacation before starting real life/med school. After that we went back home. I slept soundly but Elizabeth and Barbara were awoken by some soccer houligans having a street fight. Apparently they think it’s okay to have fights in the middle of the street at 2:30 a.m. where you break bottles over other people’s heads. The police had to come. I didn’t even stir in my bed.

The next day, we got a good and early start. We went to the Dublin tourism office and got a “Dublin Pass” for one day. This pass got us into about 30 different places. We started out in the Dublin Castle. It was a mix of a beautiful fancy palace and a medieval fortress. First they showed us the beautiful state rooms and reception halls:

 

Then we got to see some of the ruins. Two corners of the medieval castle are still in use, but two corners are in ruins. One of the corners is available for visitation. This corner is called the Powder Tower even though gunpowder didn’t exist at the time of it’s naming.

Then, the guide showed us a grassy area that stays very wet and that used to be a pond that filled with black peat from the river. It was this pond that earned the city the name Dublin because it was called “Dubh linn” meaning “black pool.” The building behind the grassy area was built so the Queen Victoria did not have to see the poorer parts of Dublin while staying at the Dublin Castle.

After the Dublin Castle, we went to eat a traditional Irish breakfast. This included a poached egg, black pudding, white pudding, half of a roma tomato, a sauteed mushroom, a sausage, a piece of flat bread, a tomato chutney, “bacon” country ham, and two pieces of toast. This came with a tiny glass of orange juice and a small pot of tea. It sounds like a ton of food, and I didn’t actually eat it all, but it really was a managable amount. The flat bread and the poached egg were my favs.

After brunch, we stopped by the famous Dublin statue of Molly Malone. She was a fishmonger/prostitute and people stop by the statue and rub her boobies for luck (or so I’m told).

After visiting Molly Mallone, we went to Christ Church Cathedral. Here is the exterior:

Here is an interior shot:

The church had the most gorgeous tile floors:

After Christ Church, we went to the Dublinia Museum. This was the museum that discussed Dublin’s viking roots and how they were discovered. I didn’t take many pictures there. The only one I really took was of an exhibit showing that vikings used moss for toilet paper. I really wish you could tell it from this picture, but the fake man would make all of these grunting and tooting noises. Maybe we were just delirious, or maybe we’re just fourteen-year-old boys, but we could not stop laughing at this fake, grunting man!

After seeing the rest of the Dublinia museum (there really were other things there besides a tooting mannequin!), we walked around and people watched for a while. I wish I had taken some pics because girls’ attire in Dublin is a little different than what we wear in the states. If you are a cool girl in Dublin, you are probably wearing jean shorts, black tights, and lace up boots. You’re allowed to wear whatever shirt you want but the jean shorts and black tights are mandatory. Oh, and a scene skunky-looking haircut. That’s also mandatory. It was so gross.

After an adequate amount of people watching, we walked back to our hotel where I started this blog posting two days ago. Then we took a delayed Ryan Air flight to Bristol (ps: if you ever take Ryan Air, be prepared for about 50 sales pitches on everything from magazine subscriptions to lottery tickets. It’s like being forced to listen to every fundraiser sales pitch from boy scouts, girl scouts, elementary schools and little league teams at one time. Terrible.). When we got off the plane at Bristol, we were too delirious to notice that half the people from our flight, you know, the ones that we were NOT following, were headed to baggage claim. We realized we had walked right past baggage claim about 3 seconds past the point of no turning back, aka the point just past the reaches of security. We had to wait for security to bring us our bags. Because of this plus the initial delay from Ryan Air, we missed the train we needed to take us to Bath. We finally got in a taxi headed to Bath with a driver who was British but knew more about the United States than we did. Oh, he also was very proud of the fact that David Copperfield had made him disappear a number of years ago in Las Vegas. He told us aaalllll about this, and the fact that David Copperfield himself had explained the trick to him, and the fact that he would not tell us how it was done. He did say that we could look it up on youtube though and that there was a very-close-to-accurate description of the trick on the internet. I spent most of the car ride ignoring this information and doing my darnedest not to throw up while he came within two inches centimenters of missing the roundabout and launching us headlong into the woods. Now that I’m thinking about it, I guess I will look up the magic trick. Or read family law. One or the other.

Toodles! I’ll try to post about Bath tomorrow.

ps: It’s pronounced Baaaaahth not Bath like a bathtub. Get it right or pay the price!

Travel Day.

After much preparation, we are finally on our way.

Wait, I should back up. My friends Barbara, Elizabeth and I will be studying abroad for the rest of the summer at Oxford University’s Brasenose College. We are all taking 2 classes, Family Law and Evidence. It’s pretty cool, but not nearly as cool as what we will do every weekend… TRAVEL!

Which brings me back to my first point: we are finally on our way!

We are currently in the Philadelphia airport with an unexpected 3 hour delay. We show up to the gate and are informed that our airplane is currently in…Orlando. Oops. And this was after we hurried through some abysmal Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. Oh well. Kind of nice to have some relaxation time! Other than this delay, the day has gone very smoothly!

We’ll arrive in Dublin at about noon, Dublin-time. I don’t know what we’re going to do tomorrow, butI think we’re going to get a day-pass thingy for Friday where you can go to a whole bunch of stuff at a lot of places for a discounted rate. Should be cool!

Welp, my battery’s dying! ttyl!

What…a blog.

Welp, I’ve decided to write a blog. It seems like a pretty good way to do a mass update on my life while I’m abroad. So HERE IT IS! Hopefully I’ll be able to make it fun and interesting along the way for whatever jackwagons want to read it. Oh, and expect a lot of pictures of food. Kthanksseeyabye!