status report - two months!

today is march 14th. the whole ‘pi day’ thing doesnt really work here, because the date is written 14.3.. but oh well. i have officially been out of the united states for 2 months.. and there are many feelings floating around inside of me.. i feel;

excited. wide-eyed. living in europe is exhilirating. i love the history and beauty that is so apparent everywhere you look.. the buildings (the old ones, obviously, but even the new architecture is beautiful), the landscape that is so different to what i know in the states, but becoming so familiar – even the people have an air of history and meaning about them.

the most exciting part about my time here is the potential travel. i could spend hours and hours and hours planning different weekend getaways, week long trips, or even my two month summer excursion. actually, i HAVE spent hours and hours and hours doing that. the fact that i love (read: LOVE) to plan just makes all these options that much more exciting.. travel-planning is quickly becoming one of my favourite pastimes!

empowered. strong. i am learning that i can indeed live on my own. it’s been tough – and there are certainly times when i falter – but as a whole (and this should come as no surprise), living on my own has made me more responsible and self-sufficient. i have a monthly budget, broken down into weeks, that covers food, travel, and fun. i do my own grocery shopping, and since there is basically no cafeteria, i cook for myself. i have learned to cook! and it is amazing. i know this sounds so basic and lame, but i have never had to cook for myself on a daily basis. i have always loved to cook, but it was a dinner here and there. now i’m accumulating the recipes and the know-how that will be a part of how i feed myself and my future family for the rest of my life. that knowledge is so empowering!

on a completely different (and probably more relevant to my semester abroad) note, my ability to effectively communicate in a language that is not my own every day makes me feel fantastic. until two months ago, the vast majority of my experience with the french language was in a classroom. 8 years of it gave me a great foundation, but there is nothing that can compare to living in france when it comes to learning french. my foreign language brain is constantly alert, picking up new vocabulary or phrases that i would have never learned otherwise. what a blessing to have this opportunity!!

transformed. already! just two months of living abroad has given me an opportunity to come into my own, as a student, friend, girlfriend, family member, linguist, traveler, believer.. my whole self has been stretched and tested, and i can feel myself changing almost every day. it is true that, in order to love others, we must first love ourselves. and we cannot truly know ourselves as individuals if we have never spent time alone. i do not pretend that i am “all alone” here in france.. i have great friends. but being separated from my family and friends and way of life back home has given me more insight into my heart that i could have dreamed.

one specific example comes to mind; amazingly, despite being so far away from my church and in a country famed for its agnosticism, my faith has grown here. i can’t even explain it, really, but i feel so much closer to God, myself, the universe.. everything. it’s like the whole theory of absence making the heart grow fonder is applying itself to my spirituality, except nothing is absent. it’s just distance from normalcy that has given me the motivation and desire to seek God more ardently than before. if nothing else comes from this trip – if i never met any o f my friends, or set foot in a different region or country other than this one, or learned a single word of french – this trip has been more than amazing, just for that reason. even before i left, i knew that i would return as a different person.. changed. transformed.

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so, that’s my 2-month report. feelin’ good, feelin’ great! this week has started off well – i only have 5 more weeks of classes (lol) and then i’ll be off on a whirlwind, 3 month excursion of europe before flying home in 4 months. time is passing so quickly.. and there is so much to do! this weekend, i am taking a trip to the western-most point of france – a little town called brest, at the end of a peninsula that sticks out into the atlantic. i’ll tour around the city for a day and then hopefully attend a football match saturday night! super excited.

that’s all for now!

xxx

jill

london; the end.

well, it wasn’t exactly the next day, but here is the final installment of london 2011.

friday, 4 march, 2011

since thursday was a stay-at-home day, friday had to pick up some slack. instead of going back to nottingham in the morning for a full day there, we opted to go see the last few museums/sights in london that we’d missed. we woke up around 8am to say goodbye to our hosts before they left for work – it was actually quite sad. they were so amazing to us..i’ll miss them very much! we ate a small breakfast and packed up all our stuff/cleaned the room a bit. around 10am, we left the flat for the last time (sad!) and headed to the tube stop with our bags in tow. we were joined my friend caleb (from earlier in the week) because he wanted to do the same touristy things we were doing! perfect. we met him in front of the national gallery and headed in to drop our bags at the coatcheck. we spent nearly two hours inside the national gallery, my personal favourite museum in london. there are works from the 13^th through the early 20^th century – a HUGE array of artistic style and era. i even saw a painting that we had studied in art history class two weeks before the trip! that was cool. my favourite rooms were the impressionist rooms (surprise) – they had about 15 monets! and many other greats – cezanne, van gogh, morisot.. the list goes on. i absolutely loved it. and took lots of illegal pictures. there were so many school groups visiting the museum on friday – it was adorable. they were all so smartly dressed in their little uniforms.. precious. and they were super intelligent, too, knowing all the answers to these obscure mythology references and questions. crazy.

after the national gallery, we headed over to primark so that rachel could exchange the pants she had purchased on monday. the hanger had said they were a size 6-8, but in reality, they were a 16-18. oops. we were in line with the new pair when i had her check the new tag too, just so the same thing didn’t happen. they were 16-18 too. we just returned the originals and left. haha. on the way back to the tube, we stopped in a souvenir store and i got a few trinkets for a couple friends back home. we also split a 12 postcards for 1 pound deal. we had intended to go to abbey road before lunch, but time was running out and we passed. i was seriously in need of some food, and a sit-down. so we headed back closer to the train stations via our last tube ride. good ol’ tube. or chube, as the brits say. we stood in line return our oyster cards at the train station and get our 5 pound deposit back, and then i went in search of platform 9 3/4. unfortunately, it is beyond the ‘you must have a ticket’ line, so i counldn’t go. :( but next time i’m in london, i’ll be sure to take a train out of king’s cross so i can see it. :) we grabbed a quick lunch at a café in the station and then ran across the street to see the british library before we left. IT WAS AWESOME. it’s a good thing (for rachel) that i didn’t make us come to the library before we only had 30 minutes until our train. because i could have spent SO much more time there. haha! they have an amazing collection of old books – the king’s library – displayed in a huge, 360 degree visibility glass case. sooo cool. the best part, though, was the “treasures of the library” exhibit, where they had shakespeare manuscripts, a handwritten copy of jane eyre, a manuscript of the canterbury tales, biblical scripts from the 3^rd century ad.. so much. it was HEAVENLY. since our train was leaving at 3:30, we left at 3:20 and scurried back across the street. we said goodbye to caleb, snapped a shot of the huge olympic rings in the station, and hopped right onto our train. perfect.

the train ride was PACKED. we ended up sitting in the little antechamber at the front of the train. but at least we had seats! some people had to stand the whole way. brutal. we arrived at the nottingham station at 5:30, with directions on how to get to our hosts’ flat. unfortunately, it was a really confusing journey, as there are no streetsigns anywhere, and we didn’t quite make it alone. we ended up calling mike (sara’s husband) and he came to meet us. so no harm, but i felt silly for not being able to navigate our way there! once we got to the (beautiful) flat, right in the city centre, we met sara. who is LOVELY. she had dinner pretty much prepared for us – a homemade, authentic italian lasagna, bruscetta, and salad. awesomeee. two of their other friends, a couple from california and fellow couchsurfers, came to eat as well. we had a great meal and rachel and i really enjoyed getting to talk to such awesome people! after dinner, we chilled out for a little bit before heading across the town to see the robin hood statue and nottingham castle. it was pretty sweet. :) we went to a pub called ‘ye olde trip to jerusalem’, which claims to be the oldest pub in england. considering it was established in 1189, i’ll buy it. the pub was actually carved into the bedrock underneath the castle, with all these little cave rooms. it was SO NEAT! plus, i had my favourite kopparberg mixed fruits cidre. yummy. :) a bunch of sara and mike’s friends from school and church came to join us – they were all between 19 and 24 years old. three of them were doctors. whaaaat! they were all great fun, though, and we had a wonderful time. around midnight, we headed back to the flat and talked for a little while before collapsing into bed. what a day!

saturday, 5 march 2011

for the sake of time, i’m not going to get too into saturday. we basically just traveled back from england to angers. BUT, sara did make us delicious pancakes in the morning before we left! she is such a doll. and she had real syrup. yummm! we packed up, hopped on the shuttle to the airport, flew back to nantes, and got on the train back home. we arrived at our dorms around 6:30pm. i ate dinner early because i was huuuungry, showered, and got caught up on computer things for a while before crawling into bed.

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so! there’s our trip. it was a fantastic whirlwind of culture and travel experience. i loved london (and england!) and can’t wait to go back one day.

the past week has been pretty uneventful. sunday, i spent the whole day in my room, catching up on homework and skyping. i had two tests this week – art history on monday and translation on thursday. i feel pretty good about both of them! tuesday night, natalie organized a ‘pancake party’ for mardi gras. she ended up making pancakes for nearly 30 people! it was a great night, and i’m so impressed by and proud of her. :) i’ve learned this week that i am a professional omelette maker, and that i love goat cheese. my french transformation is coming along.. :)

until next time!

xxx

adventures in london; part 2.

ok guys, you’ve had a few days to digest the first post. here’s london, part 2!

tuesday, 1 march 2011

first off, i can’t believe it’s march. where has this year gone?! anyway..

we woke up around 10am on tuesday and i got on the computer for a while to do some research on the day’s tourist goals. we got ready, and took the tube to the british museum. it.. is.. HUGE. i walked in the building and was immediately blown away by the size of the place – it promised to house a massively extensive array of history and art. and sure enough, it lived up to my expectations. we had a map, so we tried to find the ‘100 steps of world history’ items, marked by yellow dots. these items included the rosetta stone, the hinton st mary mosaic (first known mosaic of christ), the sutton hoo helmet,a sculpture of shiva and parvati,hokusai’s the great wave... so much! i loved it, because i saw several pieces that i’d studied in school.. it’s always awesome when i can make real-life connections to my studies. we finally left, and found a little italian café for a snack. we then walked all the way down tottenham court road, finally hopping on the tube out to buckingham palace. it was cool to see, but honestly, it was a little underwhelming. it’s no versailles, that’s for sure! rachel and i got a kick out of the cars parked in the sidelot though.. apparently, the royal family drives range rovers and ford fiestas. lol. after the palace, we walked a bit more and then found another tube stop.

since i wasn’t able to actually attend a match, i kind of dragged rachel all the way out to west brom so that i could go to the chelsea football club’s home stadium, stamford bridge. it was about 20 minutes on the train.. not too bad, but definitely out of the way. for me, though, it was SO worth it. the bridge is awesome, and they have these fantastic murals with all the players life-size. rachel took one photo of me sitting against the wall, and it looks like i’m cuddling with didier drogba (star forward) next to the championship trophy. there’s another picture where i’m high-fiving drogba and holding up the cup with frank lampard (another star). i love those pictures. we walked around the outside of the bridge, and even went inside the megastore giftshop.. awesome. after i got my fill, we headed back into london and made a stop at harrod’s for tea and some window shopping. that place is EXPENSIVE, i tell you what. it’s amazing. we had a fun time guessing prices of various designer’s pieces, and i realized that i will never in my life be able to afford  designer clothing. oh well. at 6:30, we went to meet rachel’s best friend michelle, who is doing her semester in london! they’d been planning on meeting up, and were excited to finally see each other. we found a little italian place for dinner, and my friend caleb (also doing a semester in london from belmont) came to eat with us. the food was good, but the waiter was pretty snotty. after dinner, i really wanted to find a pub to watch the chelsea/manchester united match that was happening at stamford bridge (where i, unfortantely, was not). we squeezed into a pub around the corner for the last few minutes of the first half, and then left to find another pub nearer to home during the halftime. except there was seriously not one place playing it! we walked around for 40 minutes looking and looking. finally, i just gave up because rachel, michelle, and caleb were being so sweet trying to help me find one but i felt bad for making them walk all over creation. eventually, we headed down a street to go walk to brick lane (an area nearby), and lo and behold, there was a pub with the match playing! i ran across the street, and ended up catching the last 10 minutes of what had been a pretty fantastic game. and then afterwards, we ordered drinks and i watched the highlights. i would have LOVED to go to that game.. but oh well. next time. :)

after that, caleb headed back to his dorm, and michelle walked with me and rachel back to our flat, which wasn’t too far. we took a stroll down brick lane and headed towards home. we had intended to get on the tube, but we took a wrong turn and ended up walking all the way back! oh well, good exercise. :) once we got back, i did some contemplating and decided to forget about the daytrip to oxford. i’d been trying to work that into our week, but it was just not worth spending four hours on a bus when there was so much to do in london. again, next time. we were exhausted from all that walking, so we went to bed earlyish.

wednesday, 2 march 2011

with oxford out of the picture, wednesday ended up being a great day. we ate breakfast and then went into the city with several goals. since the tower of london is so expensive to actually tour, we decided to just go see it and take pictures. so we did that, and saw the tower bridge at the same time! that’s the one that most people call the london bridge. but in reality, the london bridge is the next one down the river, and isn’t nearly as impressive. after we got our fill of the scenery, we walked down the river and across the millenium bridge to see shakespeare’s globe theatre. it was SO COOL. we really (really) wanted to see the show, which was macbeth!, but it was only for school groups. stupid school children, i bet they don’t even appreciate what they got to do that day. haha. we stayed and tried to peek in the doors until the ushers finally closed them. sigh. put that one on my “next time” list.

we walked literally 100 yards down the riverbank to the tate museum of modern art, also known as the tate modern. it was pretty fun – we had a great time guessing the meaning of various pieces. my favourite was a large white octagon pasted to the wall. the top floor of the tate modern has a café and restaurant, and an amazing view of london. st paul’s cathedral is directly across the river from the museum, and the huge dome towers over the surrounding buildings. it’s a fabulous cityscape. we headed back across the bridge and found a (cheaper) café with some great treats for teatime. best cupcake of my life, hands down. rachel got a loaf of bread to go and we headed to st. paul’s for an evensong service (which is like a mass, but sung). i got to check yet another item off of my bucket list by sitting and “feeding the birds on the steps of st. paul’s”.. just like the little old bird woman in mary poppins. it was awesome. there are pictures. the evensong service was cool, but really hard to hear (we sat at the pack for easy leaving), and SUPER LONG. we only stayed for 30 minutes, but the whole thing was about an hour and a half. the inside of st. paul’s is gorgeous, and seriously impressive. it’s the masterpiece of the architect christopher wren, who actually designed over 50 churches and chapels in london.

around 5:30, we headed back to the flat because we decided to have a fajita night! tristan came with us to sainsbury’s and we loaded up on all the necessities. a few more friends came over, and we had a great time cooking and eating and laughing.. yet another great couchsurfing meal. i even found an alcoholic beverage that i can tolerate! it’s called kopparberg mixed fruits cider. yummy. unfortunately, rachel must have gotten the one bad piece of chicken in the whole batch, and her body absolutely rejected the meal. and everything else she tried to eat or drink for the next 10 hours. she was sick all night. :(

thursday, 3 march 2011

poor baby rachel was still sick at 7am on thursday. which was 10 hours after she first got sick.. and that’s about as long as anyone can go with no fluids. she was SUPER dehydrated, and still couldn’t hold down even water. i figured enough was enough, so tristan walked us over to the ER, conveniently located a short way down the street. we walked into the empty waiting room, and the receptionist asked rachel her name, birthdate, and ethnicity. after those three questions, we walked through the double doors and they set her up in a little curtained-off room. the nurse took some blood, and put rachel on an IV to get some fluids back in her body. after about 2 hours, the doctor came back and said everything was fine – just drink lots of water and rest. and then she said we were free to go. like, walk out. without signing even a single paper! socialized healthcare is amazing. rachel literally never picked up a pen, or gave them a cent. word. we came back to the flat and she ended up sleeping from about 11am to 7pm, because she hadn’t slept one bit during the night. i woke her up around 2:30 to eat a piece of bread and take a tylenol. while she slept, i took a nap, worked on the computer, and cleaned up from the previous night’s fajita-fest. i did a massive clean in the kitchen, which was therapeutic. we had a light dinner that night, and then watched two movies! :) chicago (awesome, still) and 10 things i hate about you. both classics. michelle came over for a while to say goodbye, and we cleaned up/organized before hitting the hay.

ok, enough for now. final post tomorrow!

xxx

jill

ps- happy mardi gras (and international women’s day!)

london calling!

heyyyy everyone.

first off, sorry for the ridiculous delay. i had a complete blast in london, with little time to stop and blog! but, i'm back home to franceland now. so.. buckle up. here's part 1 of my week in london town. :)

the few days before departure were normal. i did laundry, pre-packed, did homework, hung out with people.. the usual. a bunch of us went to a student party on campus thursday night -- the best part was when the dj put on 'cotton eyed joe', which made jessie and me FREAK out. hilarious. we stayed out too late though. friday, the night before we left, i had shane check out my backpack to make sure it would clear the luggage restrictions on ryanair. clear for takeoff!

saturday, 26 february.

i woke up and did some final preparations before meeting rachel at the bus stop. we headed to the train station around 10am, and arrived at 10:30 for our 11:30 train. she got a snack, and we waited for our train to nantes. once we got on the train, it was a quick jaunt southward, and we arrived at the station before we even realized it. we got off the train to a beautiful, sunny day. it made for a pleasant start to the trip! the shuttle to the airport was just outside, so we only had to wait for a few minutes. the ride was quick, and soon we were at the nantes airport. it wasn't anything special, but still pretty big! we found our gate and checked in. no problems! we got lunch at the cafe past the check in counter, because we had a bunch of time to kill before our 3:30 flight. at 2:30, we headed to security. i got through without a problem, but rachel got patted down AND her bag was searched! weird. we got through eventually, and headed to customs. i got my passport stamped (yay!) and talked to the guy in french for a bit. we only had to sit at the gate for a few minutes before they started boarding procedures. the weird thing was that everyone lined up and had boarding passes/passports checked just to go sit on the skybridge and wait for the plane to arrive. whatevs. it finally got there, and we walked out to the little jet. as we boarded, there was classical music playing! neat. i was expecting a total crap airline, because everyone has always told me "you get what you pay for" with ryanair (the tickets are pretty cheap). but it was actually quite nice! and the flight was crazy short. by the time the flight attendants finished going up and down the aisle selling their various wares (food, drinks, smokeless cigarettes ((what??)), phone cards, magazines...), we were beginning our descent to east midlands airport in nottingham. yeesh! the east midlands airport was nice.. the customs man stamped my passport and gave us lots of good transportation advice in his think accent. rachel couldn't understand him.. haha. we made our way to the taxi stand and got a cab to the train station. the cabbie was very nice! i love cabs. anyway, we got to the train station just a fewwww minutes too late to catch the early train, so we waited for about 45 minutes and hopped on the train to LONDONNN. rachel napped while i pored over our big map for the 1.5 hour trip. we arrived around 7pm local time at st. pancras station, in central london. wow. i had directions to our hosts' flat, so we got on the tube and made our way to bethnal green in east london. it's always nice to be able to navigate a completely new place. we arrived at the flat and met our incredibly wonderful and lovely hosts.

let me explain what i'm talking about for a second. last december, i joined the couchsurfing community. i spent hours looking through profiles of people all over the world, getting more and more excited to start my travels. this past month, i sent out several couch requests to potential hosts in london. a week before we left, i finally got a 'yes'! we are staying with 3 people - one guy and two girls. tristan, the guy, is the couchsurfer who confirmed our stay. alex is also a surfer (who i had actually requested before tristan!), and then there's susie. they are some of the nicest human beings on the planet. tristan immediately calmed my nerves about staying with next-to-strangers when he sent the following at the end of a CS message: 

"Ok, don't worry about anything short of finding my flat. We can take care of every thing else once you're here. We do open our house fully to surfers - you're a part of the family while you're staying... don't forget that. Treating my fellow man with respect, kindness and dignity is very important to me. We evolved as social creatures and over the past 100,000 years have learnt to thrive in communities... While we've kinda lost our way in recent Millennia, I still believe in human nature."

yeah, couchsurfing is awesome. the place is amazing, too! the flat is huge, with 3 bedrooms downstairs, and a big living room upstairs. rachel and i shared the living room with two other surfers from poland for the first two nights - adam and ola. they were awesome. once they left, we had the whole room to ourselves! i've been sleeping on a double mattress with two big duvets, and rachel has this big, wide couch with duvets as well. we received a set of keys upon our arrival, and we've shared several great meals with our new friends. there is a computer in the room, and they even have a CS sim card for cell phones! i've never felt so at home while traveling.. it's the best. :)

anyway - we arrived at the flat around 8pm with no problem. they immediately welcomed us inside and sat us down with some tea and chicken sandwiches. as the hours passed, more friends came to join the party. by 10, there was a group of about 9 or 10 people.. and such an array of nationalities, personalities, etc! we had american, polish, british, swiss, canadian, new zealander, welsh.. it was amazing. again, i love couchsurfing! we had a blast and didn't get to bed until 3 or 4 in the morning. 

sunday, 27 february.

 

thanks to a late night, we slept in a bit. tristan made us tea for breakfast, and we headed out to start our day around noon. i have a friend who is studying in york this semester, in northern england. he was down in london for the weekend, so we met up on sunday to hang out! it was great to see him and hear about his study-abroad experience. we met up around 1pm at picadilly circus, which is like an older, smaller times square. lots of traffic and theatres and big flashing billboards. there was this awesome street performer doing soccer ball juggling tricks near the fountain.. so entertaining. cameron showed up just as it stared raining, so we hurried down the street to leicester square to find a place for lunch. we decided on a beautiful pub called the brewmaster. rachel and i split a burger, which was DELICIOUS. after lunch, we headed to an indoors attraction, as it was still raining a bit. we took a small detour to find diagon alley (yep!) and then made our way to the national portrait gallery. it's a big museum filled with portraits of loads of famous people from british history. we walked around and saw portraits of the bronte sisters, loads of british politicians and cardinals, and some more recent celebs (princess di). there was even a warhol print of the queen! awesome. photography wasn't allowed, but i snuck a few good shots. ;) once we'd toured all of the galleries, we headed back outside for a bit of a walking tour. the rain had gone, leaving a tentative sun peeking out from the clouds. it was really quite pleasant. we walked from the national gallery through trafalger square, down whitehall ave (the main drag, where the calvary museum and the prime minister's house are), and down to the houses of parliament / westminster abbey. it was such a british moment! we took pictures in the red phonebooths, with big ben in the background -- win! our plan had been to go to the free organ concert at westminster abbey at 5:45. otherwise, the admission fees are crazy! due to a small clock-reading confusion (my phone was still on france time), we found ourselves with an extra hour. so we walked across the westminster and hungerford bridges, took lots more pictures, and stopped for tea/cake in a little brasserie. yum. :) we made it back to westminster with plenty of time, and walked straight in. the abbey was founded in 960 AD, over 1,000 years ago. snap. the inside of the abbey is AMAZING.. and indescribable. i snuck some more illegal pictures. :) i'm so glad we got to go. the organ concert was epic, too. the first number was a high, trilly number.. but the second one loud and filled the whole nave with the deep, resounding tones of the organ. a great experience, to say the least. we left the abbey and took some fun night-time pictures of big ben before hopping on the tube back home. we said bye to cameron at his stop, and continued back to ours. our hosts had ordered pizza, so we ate that. i had the brilliant idea to get ice cream, so we walked down the street to the store to get some. yum. we spent the rest of the night talking, and i did some more research on tourist-y things. after a long day, we fell into bed.

monday, 28 february.

our main goal on monday was go to see a ‘west end’ show – london’s equivalent of nyc’s broadway. after considering a few options, we settled on ‘chicago’.  we went into the center of town around 11 to find a half-price ticket booth. the first few places told us that tickets for monday night were between 30 and 40 pounds. pretty steep, considering the pound is almost two dollars. we kept looking, and finally found a place that had tickets for 19.50. definitely do-able! we purchased three – two for us, and one for alex (one of our hosts). then we walked down to covent garden market and looked at an incredible amount of flea market fare. it was pretty awesome. we took a (red, double decker) bus to oxford circus and found a pub for lunch. i had hearty vegetable soup, and it was AMAZING. it rained for a while after lunch, so we spent the afternoon running from store to store on oxford street.. h&m, zara, primark, etc. it was fun! primark is HUGE and very stressful, though. it’s like if walmart and forever21 had a giant baby. cheap clothes, TONS of people, long lines, crowded.. we ended up trying on skirts over our clothes in the shoe department, as the line for the fitting rooms was like 70 people long. it was good though, i got a skirt and some cute oxfords for like 18 pounds. yay! after primark, we took a bus back to covent garden area, because we were supposed to meet alex outside her tube stop around 5:30. rachel and i ended up sitting in a café and drinking tea for like an hour and a half. we had a great conversation about loads of different subjects, from family history to my wardrobe. it was lovely. :) around 5:15, we walked up to the holburn stop to meet alex. she showed up, and we hopped on the tube back to the flat to get ready for the show.

 we were only home for a short while – enough time to change clothes and clean up – before we had to leave again. we left the flat at 7:20.. and the show started at 8. it takes a while to get into london on the tube (it’s a busy place!), so we were a little pressed. once we got off the tube, we scurried down the street to the theatre, rushing in at about 7:58. the man at the door saw me holding all three of our tickets, and asked “are you three together? stop by the box office and they’ll give you an upgrade.” ..what? awesome. i handed the lady behind the counter our tickets and sure enough, she scratched out the “upper tier, row J” and wrote “o/s, row g”. we walked past the ticket taker, and he directed us down the aisle. when we got to our seats, i couldn’t believe it. we went from the back row of the upper tier to the 7^th row from the stage! talk about lucky!! i ended up chatting with the woman beside me (a fashion-industry buyer who had just arrived from singapore earlier in the evening), and she said they paid 80 pounds for their seats. soooo.. WIN. and on top of all that, the show was amazing!! we had a wonderful time. it was funny to hear british people doing american accents.. from the 20’s chicago accent to a southern girl. they were pretty good – there were just a few times where i heard a phrase and thought to myself, “where do they think they’re from again?” all in all, it was an incredible experience. we took a few pictures outside the theatre and then headed home. after such an exhausting day, we were in bed pretty quickly.

ok, this entry is long enough. stay tuned for parts 2 and 3! :)

xxx

jill