Saturday, July 9, 2011

The Gentry's Do London...


On the London Eye

Finally the big day arrived! My parents arrived Saturday July 2nd. I was so happy to finally have them in London with me. I knew exactly where I wanted to take them for their first day, and that was an area called Covent Gardens. I have blogged about this area before, but it is the French Quarter of London. Such a cool area, with shops, street performers, and restaurants & they really enjoyed it. Their second day in London consisted of what I was looking forward to the most, The London Eye. It is a huge Farris Wheel that over looks all of London. It is about a 30 minute ride around & you can see anything from Big Ben, to West Minister Abbey from up above.

Princess Di's Memorial

Well the plans of going to Paris kinda changed, so we ended up staying in London the entire time which was COMPLETELY fine with me! I enjoyed getting to be my parents little personal tour guide around the city. On Monday I took them to Buckingham Palace, where the Queen lives during the week & resides out at Windsor Castle on the weekends…rough life. Everyday at 11:30 in front of The Palace, they have a daily event called “Changing of The Guards.” This is a daily ritual that consists of a marching band, police on horses, guards in red suits, it’s a much bigger ordeal than just two other guards coming out to take the place of the old ones. It is about an hour event or longer and they do it every single day! The day followed by walking through Hyde Park, a very well known park with bikes, horses, a lake with paddle-boats, all sorts of fun things! This is where Princess Diana’s Memorial is located. It was such a cool area and thing to experience.  

Roman Bath's
Wednesday was a wonderful day spent in Bath England, Salisbury, and Stonehenge. All 3 are absolutely amazing areas. Bath England is where the Romans used to live & take their daily baths. The stones of the walls, and baths still exist to this day. The baths are no longer in use but there is still water in them, which is unreal. We got to sit by the water and sit exactly where the Romans used to sit! Salisbury is an area not too far from bath that has one of the most beautiful churches in the center of the city. It was built thousands of years ago, it took around 30 years to build, and current a renovation is being done on it and it has taken over 50 years due to the lack of knowledge on how to renovate such an old building. Our last stop was Stonehenge, my personal favorite. It is in the middle of nowhere and you literally look around and all you see are farms and rolling hills, Thousands and thousands of years ago these stones were randomly placed in the middle of what used to be a forest of just trees. How the stones were put there or who placed them there…we will never know. But these stones are HUGE, and SO heavy, how in the world they were able to stack them on top of each other back that long ago without the machinery we have today, is unreal. Something that may never get solved…
Harry Potter Premiere- Red carpet event

Thursday was just a laid back day of exploring London. I took my parents to an area called Oxford Circus, it is the prime location for shopping! We walked around their for a bit, but were anxious to make it to Trafalgar Square where The Harry Potter red carpet event was going to happen later on that day! Thousands of people showed up for this, it was unbelievable. Due to the fact it’s the last Harry movie, I understand why. We got some great pictures and got to see a good amount of the characters! People had been camping out for nearly a week just to get a good spot on the red carpet. I like Harry Potter but not enough to camp out for 6 or 7 days! That is a true fan right there.

White Chapel-
The area where all of Jack The Ripper's
killings took place...
My last and final day in London was probably one of the best! We went to a market called Portobello Market, which is a road full of venders and antiques. My parents really enjoyed this area, we continued walking up towards Notting Hill. Which was an absolutely amazing area with beautiful homes, the area where the movie Notting Hill was filmed! The night followed by one of the greatest tours I have ever been on. The Jack The Ripper Tour. A serial killer back in the 1800’s who brutally murdered 5 homeless prostitutes within a few months span. For what reason we will never know, but he had some kind of motive. The tour took us around all of the spots where the murders occurred…spooky! Back then there was not enough technology to track him with dna or any sort…so he got away. One day the murders just ended, to this day no one has a clue who it was, or what the story behind “Jack The Ripper” truly was.

My final week with my parents was absolutely amazing, and a great way to end my Summer in London. I had the greatest time the past 9 or so weeks over in England. It was one of the best experiences I have ever had, I learned so much and after this trip I would love to continue traveling to other areas of the world. There is so much to see its unbelievable and so much history behind each place. Having the opportunity to experience London England, Whales England, Geneva Switzerland, Paris France, Bath, & Salisbury England it was all unreal. I will never forget the experiences and memories made at each of these places.

Until next time…HELLO AMERICA! Boy have I missed you! 

London Eye
Buckingham Palace

Princess Diana's Memorial
At Stonehenge...Superman
Salisbury Cathedral
Stonehenge 

Thursday, June 30, 2011

As my Internship comes to an end...

A few of my co-workers
Today is my last day here at Three's A Crowd. It is absolutely insane how fast the time has passed since I have been interning here. I have truly enjoyed it, it was an experience I will never forget. I know I will take away so much from working here in London, & lessons that will remain with me for the rest of my life. Working in a foreign country is one of the most difficult things I think a person can do. You have to learn to work with a group of people whom are completely different from you, and a culture that you have never experienced. The language barrier, the way of life, the London business world, transportation from living quarters to work, dealing with the rush of work people each and everyday...it is all so different from the States. I am so thankful for the opportunity that I was given and the memories that I made. After spending the time I have here in London I have realized, event planning may or may not be what I plan to do in my future, I have gained a lot of knowledge that has led me away from wanting to pursue event planning and I have gained knowledge that still intrigues me and it may possibly be in my future. I spoke with my mom yesterday & we laughed about the one thing that I did learn about myself while being here, is that I am NOT a city girl. I do not like public transportation, I do not like big crowds of germy people, & especially do not like living in the city smog. I look forward to coming back to the States where I can jump in my car whenever I would like and not walk 15 minutes to get on a train, & I especially look forward to breathing fresh Sarasota air!
Co-workers & their attempts at
 making The Tri-Delta Sign!

This trip has been the trip of a lifetime, with experiences made in Switzerland, Paris, Wales, & even just learning the culture of London has been unreal. Memories that will remain with me for the rest of my life. BUT this trip has not come to a halt just yet! Saturday my parents finally arrive in London to experience it for themselves! With also a trip back to Paris on the agenda, second go-round with my favorite people...The French. Hmmm I'm hoping this time I get to experience the nicer of the French! But regardless it is going to be so wonderful to have my parents here & to show them the greatness of what London has to offer. And finally get to put names to places of the areas I can not stop ranting about! 

Au Revoir! 

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Wimbledon

Yesterday myself & 5 others left for Wimbledon around 6:00 am! My day started about 4:30 am when I woke up to get ready for the exciting day ahead. We got to the train station where we rode the train for about an hour to the Wimbledon stop. Thinking that we were on the ball and arriving early, we were slightly wrong. We got in line around 7:30 where I received my line ticket number which was 6,571! People had camped out over night to make sure they had a spot in line for the next day, that is a true Wimbledon fan. So we waited...and waited...a total of nearly 6 hours! The waiting was actually not that bad we made the best of it but were shocked at how long we had been waiting for. By the time we finally entered and received our tickets it was around 1:30 or so!


We finally got inside to find what literally seemed as if it was a tennis city of some sort. Every where you looked you saw different courts with different matches going on. I had never seen anything like it! We spent the day watching match after match, ranging from mens singles, to doubles, to women's juniors, it was so fun to watch. The major matches with the big names were all played on what was known as the Center Court but those tickets were a bit more expensive so we stuck with the cheaper tickets and just explored "the grounds" of Wimbledon. The day turned out to be amazing and the weather was great, we were so lucky! It was an incredible experience and so much fun to finally get a first hand experience of Wimbledon.