(Continued…)
Tea has
been running through my veins. Tea for breakfast, tea after class, tea breaks
between class, just because tea, at midnight tea, and so on. Since being here,
I have gone to a few different tea shops but one that I recently I have gone to
is the, “Tea Cozey”. Why is it called the ‘Tea Cozey’? Well, when they bring
your pot of tea to your table, it has a knitted cozey around it and it’s super
cute. There was one that was knitted in the pattern of a watermelon, some polkadots,
and even stripes. The teashop was decorated with the Royal Family memorabilia.
It was “organized hording” as I would call it. The walls, shelves and ceilings
were covered with things about the Royal Family including news articles/papers,
magazines, photos, souvenirs, anything you can think of! It was crazy to see
the dedication they put into their decorations. Besides admiring the décor, I
got their breakfast tea with a chocolate chip scone. SOOO GOOD! It was great
being able to sit down and drink tea with Katelyn, Hannah, Katie, Tiana, Jenn
and her friend (who was visting from Scotland).
The next day was a fun one, the
day before Halloween to be exact! A bunch of us got together in the lovely flat
of 30C and had a pumpkin carving party. It was really neat to see some
individuals carve pumpkins for the first time! Everyone got their thinking caps
on and got down to carving. I didn’t carve a pumpkin (due to forgetting to get
one) but, I did enjoy watching everyone carve their own. Some went with the
basic pumpkin face and some got really really really creative. I was fairly
impressed. On Halloween, I spent sleeping in to catch up on sleep. Later that
evening, I went into town to go on a hunt for a costume and I was joined by the
beautiful ladies, Hannah, Tiana, and Micah.
Before the hunting got serious, we grabbed a bite at Ed’s where I
ordered a delicious chicken burger with a side of chips. It had truly hit the
spot. After a yummy meal, we walked over to St. James street to take a look at
the charity shops (aka thrift shops). It was getting really annoying because 1)
I didn’t know what to be and 2) nothing was sparking my interest on being
anything. A few hours later, I came across a cheap Hawaiian tshirt and I
decided to go basic and be a tourist. SCARY right?
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| Chris, Diede, Daniel, and Evan. |
I paired my shirt with a
swimsuit top, skirt, borrowed some tall white socks, sneakers, sunglasses, and
a lei. Super simple but got the job done. As the sun went down, the costumes came
on and it was finally hallows eve. A group of friends and I got a wristband for
about £8 which gave us free access to a several
clubs and pubs.
You would think it would be a good deal but it wasn’t (sadly).
All of the queues were miles long and places closed down for others because it
was way too full. Angry and about to give up, we come across a club promoter
who gave us discount access into their club for £2
and let me tell yeah, it was super lame.
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| Makin up for the boring club with fun selfies. |
We danced a bit and
decided to give it another chance but Diede saved the night when he spotted a
door! He opened it and it lead to a long hallway and before I knew it, I was
following him and Daniel down the hallway which to our surprise led us to
Colosseum, which happened to be another club which was poppin! To give you some
background, this club was about £10 to get into. We decided to stay put and the rest of
the group joined us later on in the evening. I had such an amazing time dancing away the
night. It was a lot of fun and definitely a night to remember. It would not
have been the same without Daniel, Diede, Laura, Chris, Phillipp, Evan, Micah,
and Isil. SO thanks to you lovelies.
From the last few days being so hectic, the following day was
a “lazy day” for me. This included drinking some tea and hanging out with my
buddies Katie and Tiana. Bored from being so lazy, we wanted to get outside. We
decided to go explore our “backyard”,we found it to be a pretty neat area! We
wandered the area a bit finding some trails made by other people and we eventually
came across a gate and decided to see what was beyond it. We met two lovely
ladies owning a beautiful collie. Us three sat on the hill, took some selfies
and just chatted as we watched the sun set just behind the hills.
Although it
was very simple, it was a day that I will cherish. It was nice seeing what was
just a few yards behind where we sleep at night. The following day was planned
to have a “Robin Hood” day in Nottingham, but due to expensive tickets we
decided against it. Since a group of us were already up early and at the train
station we decided not going home and wanted to go adventure somewhere else! We
decided on London. Grabbing a few booklets for 2 for 1 deals, we were off.
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| Morning chai at the station. SO good. |
After the train, we all were starving and decided to get lunch. All of us
wanted different things so we all split off. I got teriyaki with Hannah and it
was a nice time just us two getting to know each other a little bit more.
Afterwards, we met up with the rest of the group. All of us wanting to do
different activities, we decided to split off again. A group of us headed to
Madame Tussauds and the other group headed to a Library.
What was exciting (and
a little silly) was that Madame Tussauds was on my To-Do list in the UK so I
was super stoked to go. Joining me was Micah, Hannah, and Katie. For starters, it
was not what was I expecting; it was a lot better! Standing in queue for about
an hour was definitely worth the wait. I got to “meet” so many people! I could
go on and on and on who I saw but I saw Emma Watson, David Beckham, Leonardo
DiCaprio, Ryan Gosling, Madonna, Beyonce, Ghandi, Mandela, President Kennedy
and President Obama, and of course One Direction. What was pretty neat was that
it was organized by Sports, Music, Movies, etc so it was really cool to see who
and what they were famous for. The one I was pretty clueless was the sports
section because a lot of their sports players I didn’t recognized, besides
their bronze medallist diver of the summer Olympics, Tom Daley. When we came
into another room, it was full of the Royals. I even got to “meet” the queen.
It was awesome.
The photo we got with the royal family gets me every time. It
is just SOOO awkward, none of us knew where to put or hands or what do because
we did not want to offend anyone but hey, we got a picture we can look and
laugh at. I also got to meet my favourite Prince Harry, too bad it wasn’t for
real. Another cool thing about the museum is it had a section of the history of
torture and wax figures of famous murders. It was actually really interesting
to see what they look like up close. There was also a haunted house but I
decided to pass it up because haunted houses just give me way to much anxiety,
but, the rest of the girls did decide to go through it though and they said
that it was frightening.
After the haunted house, the building continued on (it
was HUGE)! They even had a ride to go through the history of London and such,
it was rad. Towards the end of the museum, they had a section on the history of
Madame Tussauds and how it all started and such. If you ever have the time, I recommend looking in to it!
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| I mean, how could you not? |
Moving on, the 5th of November (Guy Fawkes and
Bonfire Night) rolled around! Let me tell yeah, it was soooo cool to experience
something that we don’t celebrate back in the states, “Remember, Remember the 5th
of November”. Walking the streets of Lewes and seeing a parade of a “Mob” who
carried torches and played instruments, making canons go off; It was so NEAT! I was entertained the whole night.
Later that evening, we went to a bonfire and saw
fireworks. At the moment, it sucked because all of us were freezing and we were so close to leaving because they
were over an hour late to start (being cold makes you do things you don't want to do), BUT I
am so glad we didn’t because the firework show was phenomenal!!!! I was so
blown away by the show they put on that it had left me speechless (definitely
on the top of my list for fireworks). I am so glad to have been joined by
lovely people to experience such a night.
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| One of many shots that I took of the night on my DSLR. |
I end this post with a Thank You!
Thank you to my family for their constant support on my love to travel and for
supporting me on this journey. I also thank you to the lovely group of people
who I am surrounded by 24/7, this experience would not be the same without ANY
of you. Whether we are close or not, you make this experience just as great. THANK
YOU THANK YOU! Also, thank you for reading my rambling and awful grammar, it
really means a lot. I couldn’t have done this without any of you.
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| The only group shot we got from the night! |
Cheers! Until
next time. x
Amanda
Now Playing:
Once in a Lifetime – One Direction (From their new Album - Four. I recommend
go giving it a listen. It is really good what I have heard so far, very different sound).
Not even 24 hours passed and I knew that this trip was going to be
great. After the boat tour, we all split up into different groups to find food;
Joel, Josh, Katie and I wandered to find a place that could fit all of our food
needs and we found a cheap kebab place where we got some chicken kebabs and
pizza (I also got a strawberry soda and it was terrific, I am craving it right
now to be honest). 
Micah, Katelyn, Hannah,
Josh, Evan, Angela, Katie and I decided to be champs and take the stairs all
the way to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. I honestly didn’t think it was
going to be very hard, man was I wrong. Many many steps later, we finally made
it to the first floor. The first floor had a glass bottom section where you can
stand and looked down. To be honest, I couldn’t stand over it very long without
feeling like I was about to faint. Than 500+ steps later, we make it the second
floor and my legs were straight up noodles. 
After we got our free time to go up the tower, we all
joined back together on the bus to head over to Notre Dame. On the drive there
we got to drive by a few places like the Opera house where Phantom of the Opera
was written, I kinda nerded out because my sister and I have watched that a few
times so it was neat to see where it was written. We went to the town where
Moulin Rouge stood upon, but to my opinion it wasn’t that great (as it was
talked about). When Mary stopped the bus to show us, I looked around to see
what she was talking about it and I looked right passed it. We got to have some
free time to wander around the area and grab some lunch. I did some souvenir
shopping and grabbed a bite to eat at Subway with Katie, Kate, Chelsea, Tiana,
and Angela. Afterwards, we came across a chocolate shop where they also sold
biscuits and they gave us free samples. SOOO GOOD. It was also the only free
thing I have gotten on this entire abroad experience (besides free pens).
Anyhow, back to the biscuits, Tiana bought some raspberry ones and they were
soooo good. Writing about them right now makes me want them so bad…like right now.
Mmmm. As we all pile back onto the bus once again, we head to our final
destination before our free time for the rest of the night.
After walking through the entire
building it is now time for free time. Evan, Katelyn, Hannah Katie and I
decided to go to the Catacombs of Paris during our free time. We had to take
the underground to get there and it was pretty fun with Hannah and I very
patchy in our French trying to navigate our way through Paris; when majority of
things were written in French. We were worried that the Catacombs would close early
because Katelyn’s tour guide booklet said it that it would, but we were hoping
that it had changed since than and to our surprise, it did. We stood in queue
for about an hour or so and we finally made it to the cash point to enter the
tunnels. OH SNAPS, I WAS ABOUT TO ENTER THE CATACOMBS. We entered the catacombs
by going down these tiny spiral stairs; which led us to this room with the
history of the tunnels, how it was created, and so on. We finally started our
way through a tunnel, which was very claustrophobic. I kinda had to duck down
in some parts too! It was long and very twisty turvy until finally we got to
the bone section. It was lit up with lamps and it was rows and rows of bones. 
It was quite a sight to see, especially since it was my first time seeing real
bones. I can’t really think about how long it took us to get through the entire
thing but I am just thankful they made it easy for us to get around, closing
off areas so we don’t get lost. It was crazy to think what we saw was a very
small portion of the entire catacombs! Once we made it through our whole tour,
it was the moment I was dreading… going back up steep, spiral stairs and in
case you were wondering, they were as awful as I thought they were going to be.
It also left us not on the same street we went in on, so we were kind of sort
of lost (sort of). 
We eventually found an underground and rode it right to our
hotel. Katie and I went to our room to look onto my laptop to try and find a
restaurant that can fit both of our needs (her being vegetarian and both of us
wanting some form of French food). We looked into the hotel restaurant but
their foods were too exotic for us like neither of us were feeling having
pigeon and chips for dinner. We decided to walk around a bit to find a place on
foot, but to our dismay the menus were all in French so it was quite
interesting and took a lot longer than we wanted. We came to this small café,
where they had menus available in English, HURRAY! She had ratatouille crepe
and I had a smoked salmon crepe with some sort of French sauce. 
IT WAS SOOO
GOOD. I even tried some of her ratatouille and it was delicious. We got desert
as well which was a banana split but instead of strawberry ice cream it was
raspberry, I was quite happy. We scarfed our food down so quick that our
stomachs wanted to explode from being so full. Later that night, we joined a
few friends down in the lobby to hang out and drink a little wine. Katie and I
were antsy for adventure so we decided on wanting to go and ride bikes to
explore the streets of Paris; we had the lovely Micah to join us. Sadly, we
discovered that to rent bikes, we had to give an 180 euro deposit and none of
us were really up for that. Instead we decided to walk the rest of the way to
the Eiffel tower and sit in the field of grass, where we luckily were
surrounded by drunk teenagers . We found a spot away from them and sat right
down.
We talked about life, boys, and random things and just admired the night
sky and tower right before us. We even got to experience the twinkling tower at
midnight and watch it twinkle until the entire tower’s lights shut off so we
made that our queue to head back to our hotel rooms.
It was a great last full
day in Paris before our journey back home. The next morning was another early
wake up but I was super stoked to have the hotel breakfast again. Filled up
with yummy croissants and crepes, we were on our way to fulfil our last day in Paris’
agenda; but this time, a little different and had our packed bags with us.
Today we had the agenda to head to the infamous Palace of Versailles and I was
so so so so excited. Just as we pull up I was surprised how big it was. 
It was really neat seeing all the paintings and
all the stuff inside though! I explored the garden some (which was WAAAY bigger
than the palace, it was crazy and pretty sweet)!
Sadly, our free time at Versailles came
to a close and we had to pile back on the bus to head back to the UK. I was so
exhausted that I fell asleep right away and I am pretty sure the entire bus was
out from being so tired. We than stopped at a rest stop to grab some lunch
which is where I settled for some French fruit juice, crisps and a tasty
baguette sandwich. Once I finished eating, I knocked back out and woke up when
we were about to enter the chunnel. I fell asleep for majority of the way back
to Brighton which I was okay with. Once we got home, I sat down and drank some
breakfast tea with Tiana and Katie because we missed some good British tea. I
end this blog with a picture of the Eiffel tower because, hey why not?
