May 12th

Hi,

Why Sloan and I thought it would be a great idea not to go to sleep last night is beyond me. I am definitely feeling the stupidity of it now. We left the apt @ 5AM to catch a 7AM train from King's Cross to Amsterdam by way of Brussels.

Naturally at King's Cross we stopped and took a photo by Platform 9 3/4, because we're that awesome!!

We had a connecting train in Brussels with an hour layover, so we got some food and waited. We boarded the train with our EuroRail passes and right before we left the conductor come by to check and said we had to get them verified before we could leave the station. So we had to get off that train and get verified and wait for the next train. Which wasn't bad because it was only another hour wait, but running on ZERO sleep was zero fun!

We got on the next train with no problem and off we were to Amsterdam. By the time we got there I was exhausted and we still had a whole city to see. Our original plan was to get back on the train a few hours later ad head to Berlin, but the next train wasn't until 8AM the next morning, so we had to find a place to stay. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. We dropped our bags in a locker at the train station and set out to see Anne Frank's house. 

We walked around the city a bit and heard this commotion and followed it to  a football rally. There were a few guys standing on a second story balcony shouting through megaphones and a crowd of people watching them and chanting after them. The crowd was holding up signs like FUTBOL TERRORIST! which kind of freaked me out, I thought a riot was going to start, but it didn't and we continued to Anne's house.  We walked over some canals and though tiny streets and passed LOTS of bikes and even a place called Jennifer!

Anne's house was amazing to see. The stairs are so narrow and steep and the bookcase is still there that hid the doorway to the upstairs. It was so intense to see especially when we got into Anne's room because some pictures that she hung up where still up on her wall.

After we went to eat at some strange bar and had burgers, that did NOT taste like burgers and check into a sketchy hostel in the red light district. haha.

We went to get our backpacks and walked over to the library so Jeff and Sloan could use the internet. I was so tired I fell asleep by the computers and a librarian came over to me and started yelling at me in Dutch for sleeping, so I woke up and listened to music. Shortly after we left and went back to the hostel and finally just passed out!!

 
-JEN

May 11th

Bueno!

We decided to get up early (Erin, Brittany, Sloan, Jeff, and I) and do touristy things, and I am so glad we did. We started off walking from our apt. to Abbey Road Studios, and of course we walked across the street like the Beatles did on the album cover. YES! Check! There was this lady there that kept crossing the street and everytime she got back to the side she started on, she changed shoes and walked back across. I don't know why.

There was no traffic signal or stop sign at this "intersection" so drivers got angry a lot of the time. haha OH WELL!

We kept walking and ran into our first phone booth!!! YESSSS!!!! the English version of Bill & Ted can begin!.

We kept walking (which is a LOT of walking) and got tired at Kensington Garden. (Fun fact, Queen Victoria lived in the Palace there before Buckingham Palace was built, then moved). We ate Pret a Manger in the park and decided it was a great idea (obviously) to rent bikes and cycle around the park. We got to see the whole park in like half the time. Bikes are sooo awesome.





We got to see the Peter Pan statue, Princess Diana Memorial, Kensington Palace (?) Castle(?) I don't remember what it was called, and then finally got off the bikes and went to see Buckingham Palace. This is when we met up with George and Dean, the locals who didn't want to go sightseeing, lol! So us Americans navigated our way around London up until now.

After many a pictures were taken we hit up Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and Big Ben. Where in the mist of walking from one to another George, and Dean both got held up by a silver statue. They were not to impressed. haha




So here we are standing on some bridge (which later in the journey, you will realize how randomly often we meet people on bridges, lol) and one REBECCA WARNER PERRY pops up behind us!! Ahhh, reunited and it feeels soo good!!! We walked and talked our way down the river and got so caught up in everything that Sloan, Becky and I lost everyone else. We decided to hit Starbucks, and then the infamous Nando's!


 

We walked around town some more and went to Covent Garden, this outdoor type of shopping centre and returned to the apt absolutely tuckered out from all the walking. It wasn't until later that everyone else returned and I threw out the dice and taught Erin and Sloan how to play 10,000. Awesome day!


THE END!

- JEN

to remember:

"Why are there helmets so big?" -Me
"Because they're...full of secrets!" Sloan

May 10th

YOLO!

Today we slept in, and woke up around noon, got ready and left Basingstoke around 3pm. What was suppose to be an 1 1/2 drive turned into 3 hours....yikes! We made it though, journal, we survived . Once in London we got into our "flat" / sick apt and Sloan and I just napped out all afternoon (jet lag caught up with us....whhhhat?) The boys went to park the car and pick up Erin and Brittany.

4 hours later and after I woke up and watched The Great Debaters, the boys returned and Sloan woke up and we all went to get some food, and drinks. By that time, nearly everywhere was closed so we came back and played some glorious Ring of Fire. I know what your thinking journal, you guys really sleep and play Ring of Fire a lot...well SHUT UP!

I passed out half way through the game, cuz...drinking is soooooo boring!



Although, we we're slightly productive and did some laundry...


G Nite!

-JEN

Remember how we didn't drink Magner's.LOLZ

May 9th

(now that the IL power outage is over, let's continue)

Hi J,

Not many hours have passed from laying down to sleep, to waking up again. I probably went to sleep around 3/4AM and woke up at 7AM. I was freezing! No sleep til ICELAND!

The boys woke up 4 hours later and Sloan and I had already showered, gotten ready, and packed up. What can we say, we're productive when we're hung over.

LET THE DAY BEGIN!! We started by getting food...naturally. We ate at some fancy pants looking restaurant at 10 AM and everyone in the place was already drinking beer.....including Jeff. I ate a brunch burger, which is basically a burger with an egg on it, and had some water. George's breakfast was absolutely vial, it made me want to throw up.

After a fit BKFST, our sightseeing tour began with a trip to some Beatles places, like the club they started playing at, which looked like the opening scene from the movie Across the Universe, and some gift shops and stuff like that.  Tim is such a awesome tour guide. He took us through Liverpool One, which is some sort of outdoor mall place, and we played Adventure Golf. George set off some lightening and thunder golf hole sound effect thing that made a lot of noise like a storm. haha.

After golf, we walked to Albert Dock, so cool! I went into the Piermaster's house that was set up to look like it was a war time house, which was interesting. Then we continued to a Beatles museum that was to expensive to go into, typical. So we walked around some more and went to a Liverpool Musuem, that had everything from dinosaurs to Eygptian mummies, to Spaceships. Every floor was something different.

When you walked in there was a huge box of blue rubber ducks. It was explained to us that each duck had a number on the bottom of it, and people put in money to get a number for the duck, and later in the year they were going to release the ducks down the river and the person who had number of the duck who crossed the finish line first won all the money! I wish I bought one!

Sadly the day died down and we had to leave Tim :( The boys still wanted to go shopping and we still have more TECers to visit.

Liverpool was so amazing, and it was so fun to finally reunite with Tim, Nile, and Nicola. We piled into George's car and skipped over to Manchester to visit Andy.



We met Andy at the Trafford Centre and killed 3 birds with 1 stone:
- the boys got to go shopping (since Trafford Centre is a giant mall)
- we got dinner
- and we got to see Andy :)

 



Due to exams we were only able to hang out with Andy and reminisce for a few hours, but it was totally worth it!!

Once more we got into George's car and headed back to Basingstoke where we will reside until tomorrow when we depart for London!

May 8th

Sup!

Today we woke up and promptly began our road trip from Basingstoke to LIVERPOOL!! We ended up leaving George's around noon, swooped up Dean and then headed out to Tim's!!! Slept some of the way, and watched Dean car dance to English rap songs the rest of the way...(I'd say Dean's dancing was the highlight of the drive, for sure!!) On the way we decided to call Nile to see if he was back in Liverpool. He answered :), and a plan was set, and lets not forget Nicola, Nile called her and everyone was on board for a night on the town!!!

We got to TIM'S!!!!! house in Preston (a suburb of Liverpool) around 5/6PM, just in time to eat some amazing chilli that Tim's mom made for us. So awesome! He's family is so sweet and nice, I wish we stayed a longer to hang out, but to Liverpool we go.

Now journal,  this is the first actual time Sloan and I had to carry our backpacks for a long period of time, up until now they were either shoved into a trunk or a plane or sprawled out on a floor somewhere. The walk to the train from Tim's house was a struggle. A 40 lb. pack is no picnic to carry around for a while. (Retrospectively speaking, this wasn't the longest we had to carry our backpacks around, and looking back on it now,  it was a walk in the park!)



Half an hour later we arrived in Liverpool, oh man, so awesome! On the walk to Tim's apartment guess who we run into, the one, the only, NILE HARWOOD-JENKINS... with hair!!!!! We dropped our rucksacks at Tim's and headed to a pub for a football match. Liverpool vs. Chelsea. There we drank Carlsburg beer and meet up with Nicola and her friend Stacy. If you lost count journal, our group is now 9 people.

After the game we headed back to Tim's and got ready for the night. I was pretty tired and not really up for going out but I cleaned myself up, took a caffeine pill and SUITED UP (please don't mind the How I Met Your Mother references)

Apparently it's proper procedure to Liverpuddlians and all English folk to drink heavily before they go out. So the boys drank Fosters and Sloan and I drank our weight in vodka. LOL. but seriously.

After we were feeling good, we went out and craziness ensued. I'd tell you the details journal, but I'm a bit fuzzy. Eventually the night came to a close when Nile was kicked out of the club. haha, his reaction was priceless "My dad owns this club, it's okay, they'll all be fired tomorrow" HAHA

Got back to Tim's and feel asleep with George's shirt as my blanket and my jacket as a pillow.

-JEN

Things to remember:

-  Stacy and her chilli tequila, and desperados!
-  Dry Shampoo
- "take out, take out, take out, pub, pub, take out." -Tim

May 7th -->EUROPE!!

Today is the day Journal! We officially leave for Europe. I thought I'd be more excited, like I'm about to faint I'm so excited, but I guess I was just trying not to freak out that it turned into paralyzing tension and I stopped being able to comprehend the greatness that was about to happen. So, naturally I spent most of the flight passed out...because I was so excited.

Clara, sweet Clara drove us to Newark at 5:30AM after a whopping 2 hour nap. We get to the airport to find out that we can't sit together (Thanks Virgin Atlantic!) and not only that but after all the hours on the phone I spent with the airline this past week, they didn't change the name on my ticket. (Ticket said Jen Larson, Passport says Jennifer Larson. ) After all that hassle, and pretending I was really upset at the ticket person, it still printed out as Jen Larson. So at this point who knows if I can actually get on the plane!

Luckily, TSA is stupid and/or didn't care that my name wasn't correct and they let me onboard. I was even checked 3 different times, by 3 different people, but whatevs....LET'S GO TO EUROPE!!!

Let me preface this by saying I hate flying. Obviously, I'll fly places, but I'm no fan so naturally a 7 hour flight will be a piece of cake, right?

Nightmare. I sat next to this guy who was obsessed with buying things from the plane, he was constantly reaching over my seat. He bought his significant other a $150 necklace, among other things.....what??? Also, I sat in the aisle seat, next to the bathroom, so I was constantly bumped into, making it extremely easy to sleep.

I tried watching 2 movies but only ended up watching half of the Descendants, and half of the Change Up. Both sub-par. I was not in the mood to watch anything, I just wanted to get there.

Finally, after an eternity we arrived in LONDON!!!!

We went through customs and got our first stamp on our passport. The lady that stamped them probably thought we were weird, because we jumped up and down in excitement for a silly stamp, but hey, dgaf.

We walked through the maze of Heathrow, grabbed our backpacks and set out to find a familiar face. GEORGE MAIN!

We hadn't contacted him before we left so we hoped he was at the airport. We also had already turned our phones off and we didn't have any English money, so, we crossed our fingers.

Alas, waiting on the other side baggage claim....GEORGE!!!!! Finally, all is right in the world! It had been way to long since I'd seen his face! Along for the ride was Dean, and Jeff, and I was equally excited to see them too.

The 5 of us set out for Basingstoke, the boys introduced us to what they had been living off of for the last day. Crisps called Space Invaders.

(Now I know what you're thinking, that picture says they're called Space Raiders, I call them Invaders, deal with it!)

Space Invaders are an acquired taste...that I can't describe. They are horrible at the beginning, but grow on you as you continue to eat them....I never got acquired enough to eat a full bag.

We finally got to George's house and it is so awesome! His family is super precious, and OMG Harry!!! George, Sloan, Jeff, and I thought it was a great idea to spend the night playing Ring of Fire in the kitchen. (We got to Basingstoke around 9PM English time, which would make that 3pm Chicago time, so we considered it day drinking!)

Feels like we've lived her all our lives!!

Time for sleep,

JEN

May 6th

Yo!

Today I woke up at Rachel's and her parents took us to brunch at a totally amazing diner called Pop Diner. It was decorated like it was from the 60's. So of course, I loved it. On the way back, we were all in the car and Nate Ruess' voice came on the radio. Oh boy, that man can sing the phone book and I'd be impressed.

Shortly after, Rachel and I decided to go see the Avengers, and being a Sunday afternoon in NY of course it was sold out. So we saw The Raven instead.

   It's no Say Anything, but I guess it was alright (no it wasn't, I'm trying to be nice). On a scale of 1 to Shawshank, I'd rank it a 1.5. Haha.

At last, once the movie was over it was time to pick up SLOAN! We snatched her up at Penn Station, then we headed over to NYU to meet up with one Clara Parker Hill.

Clara was in the process of moving out of her dorm room, so we got the chance, nay, the privilege to meet her fantastic stalker-esque roommate. Lovely girl.

All packed up and ready to go, we set out for the Hill House, upon arrive we ate some good Chinese Food and chatted it up with the family. Clara had some homework to finish, so Sloan and I prepared ourselves for Europe by watching Eurotrip (in retrospect, GREATEST IDEA EVER!) So funny, Scotty doesn't even know!

We had to be up at 5:30AM and decided it was probably a good idea to go to sleep. Which of course meant that we stayed up talking and helping Clara with her homework until about 3AM.

T minus not a lot of hours until I'm on a plane to Europe!!!

Until tomorrow,

JEN