The Last Supper HAHAHA I'M ONLY JOKING

No it really was my last Sunday in England and Jenny and I spent it out and about having an amazing time in London going from markets to galleries and all over the place. At the end of the day we headed back to Frankie's where we along with Frankie and Ihab had a picnic outside her flat with amazing food and just a fun time as usual.

Ihab told me today that he thought I was going to write about how he snuck chilis in the salad (he said he didn't want the chili to be lonely in the fridge.), so there you go, I thought they were tomatoes and just about died when I ate them.

The Most Adverb Adjective Few Days Ever!

Last week Mary Ellen and Alex came to England for a visit! It was so much fun and a wonderful reunion although we missed all our other friends from home :(

Friday Meo and I wandered around London doing some hard core shopping and sight seeing. We also saw the Ukrainian national football team walking along Oxford street, COOL!


Saturday Alex arrived and the three of us spent time wandering around London and eating delicious cakes and foods before heading over to Wembley Stadium to see the friendly match between England and Slovakia. IT WAS A BLAST! The atmosphere was incredible! The singing and chanting pretty much never stopped. Anddd there were something like 85,200 people there. Alex and I had spectacular seats, I wish Mary Ellen were near us though! Oh and England 4 - Slovakia 0. Scores by Heskey, Rooney (x2), and Lampard. NICE! After the game we headed back to Frankie's for some cakes and insanely delicious food, Thanks Frankie and Ihab!



The next day we spent also in London doing more shopping and eating and exploring. And after that we headed back to Brighton for a day of fun! We did more shopping, had cakes with Ally and Alex at Choccy Woccy, ate traditional pub food, and relaxed along the beach. Brighton pier was really fun and the day was gorgeous so we had a great time sitting on the rocky beach and inventing "games" of therowing rocks into the water and then throwing rocks into other rocks to make them bounce in to the water. Being in Europe is making me realize how fun throwing rocks is, seriously.

After an exhaustingly fun day we all ate more delicious foods and walked along Brighton and up the hills to look at the pretty houses before packing. Meo went back to Belgium and Alex and I jetted off to Barcelona. More on that soon!

THANKS ALEX AND MARY ELLEN FOR VISITING ME I HAD THE BEST TIME EVER!

Train Time Giggle Fest!

These last few days involved Jenny and I welcoming our good old mcad buddies Ben and Zach to England as they decided to stop on by for a visit since they are studying in Ireland at the moment.

Tons of fun ensued, including:
- Going out for Millie's lovely birthday and having a good time before with Rob and Joe at some new bar place.
- The 6 of us going to Digital to meet Millie & friends and having the fun flashing-lights-fog-machine-stay-out-till-3-club experience.
- Day tripping up to London
- SHOPPING. Hello, topman! Hello, Primark. Hello, cheap deals and bargains!
- The best chocolate covered Belgian waffles in the WORLD.
- Big Ben, House of Parliament, London Eye, fancy bridge thing at night
- Sherlock Holmes pub time
- 12:30 am train back to Brighton complete with pokemon and sims talk/giggle fest/laugh-so-hard-I-cried time
- Doughnut factory
- Trip to Brighton Pier
- British tv/Jumangi/ping pong time in the common room
- Delicious Sunday Roast with Rob's welcoming and lovely family
- Sunshine
- Thai food
- Snooper's Paradise
- More time at the Great Eastern with friends talking and having fun

SUCH A GOOD LAST FEW DAYS. Can't wait to go visit Ben & Zach & the rest of the Ireland crew in a few weeks!

You'll Never Walk Alone

Another fun weeknd in Brighton!

Friday was a busy day, critique in the morning, then Jenny and I went out to lunch with Ally to celebrate her handing in her dissertation. Funny cause it ended up being the same restaurant we ate at in Lewes, but I never knew it was the same, I would walk past it and always say how I wanted to go in! Deliciousss. Then Jenny and I had to go finish up out letterpress so we got that out of the way. After that I met back up with Ally and 3 of her wonderful friends and we sat around in the pub and talked for a while which was nice. After that I got a delicious gooey warm chocolate cookie and then killed some time before going out for the night.

Later that night Jenny and I met up with 5 of our wonderful fun friends and classmates at a new pub, the Fishbowl. It was fun fun fun and then around 11 we went to this club called Audio on the sea front where there was this drawing battle thing. Soooo yeah it was cool there were two sets of two large canvasses, one side for two Brighton based artists and the other for two London based artists. So they had 90 minutes to draw on the canvases with big black paint markers before being judged by the audience and two judges. And first of all, 90 minutes is way too long. It's just too long in general, but how awesome would it be if it were like a speed drawing challenge? C'mon, so cool! Sadly I thought the Brighton team kinda paled in comparison to the London team. At the end, the London team ended up winning even though Brighton obviously got the crowd's vote :D Ooh and then a beat boxer came on stage and did some stuff that was really fun and cool!!! We left around 2:30 am, it was so fun!!! It's nice to be doing things that I probably wouldn't typically be doing back home in Minneapolis or Chicago.


Saturday was a fun day too, I did some shopping and got some GREAT DEALS as usual. And then due to lots of phone confusion I missed some fun times but HEY I cleaned my room instead which feels pretty great. Too bad it never lasts...

This morning was quite the adventure! Jenny heard about this thing called "Seedy Sunday" (seedy as in planting seeds, not as in "ew that area of town is so seedy and gross" haha) through her "Edible Campus" extension study class. Seedy sunday is basically a giant gathering of local Farmers from the Brighton and Hove and Lewes area, maybe anywhere in Sussex county, I'm not sure. But everyone gets together to trade seeds, sell seeds and plants, have little gardening demonstrations and talks and lectures and all kinds of things. It's like a forum for learning about all kinds of organic growing and wildlife and fun stuff like that. So it is in Hove and we decided to walk there, according to Jenny's google maps route it should have been about a half hour to an hour walk or something. So we are walking along the sea which is sooo nice and cute although it is snowing and COLD. And we have been walking a longgggg time but we just haven't seen a street that looks like the main street we're supposed to turn on. After like.... a long time we decide to ask some man on the street and he told us we basically walked WAY TOO FAR because we accidentally passed it hahahaha. So we doubled back and basically ended up walking 3 times longer than we needed to. But it was fun and an adventure so I didn't mind one bit!

Once we arrived at the Hove City Council or wherever it was, we had so much fun at Seedy Sunday! I've been looking into "Walking holidays" or basically nice long hikes that I could do in some spare time around the English countryside down here in Brighton or Lewes or Sussex anywhere basically. So we talked to a few people who had good suggestions on places to go to do those, which was great. We also talked to this lady who ha grown this really beautiful place kind of like a large igloo made of willow boughs in this forest preserve area and they hold meditation nights there and all kinds of stuff, it looks BEAUTIFUL so I can't wait for the warm weather so we can go explore over there. We also just had a good time exploring and looking at all kinds of information about healthy eating and local produce and stuff, and then at 2 we went to a panel discussion/question and answer session for the gardeners. I had no idea what anyone was talking about but it was interesting so I had a good time!

After that we walked back to Brighton (much quicker this time, haha!) and I went straight to the pub to watch the Liverpool v. Chelsea game which I have to say was probably the BEST GAME EVER I've seen since the Euros! And better than some of the games in the Euros even. GOOD GOD IT WAS SO GREAT OH MY GOSH. It was probably one of the highlights of my trip so far, I'm not going to lie. The pub was PACKED, luckily mainly with Liverpool fans, and everyone was SO INTO IT! But seriously, the game was AMAZING and I'm not just saying that because I love Liverpool FC and Fernando Torres. It was so filled with drama!!!! Lampard getting the red card and being sent off made hte pub crowd go insane, singing "Cheerioooo, cheeriooooo". I couldn't help but smile even though I have a soft spot for Lampsy (and all of Chelsea really, thanks to my dear friend Marin). Someone I couldn't tell who doing the backwards kick. Liverpool making a billion shots on target. Torres giving someone (Malouda maybe?) a little pat on the cheek and thumbs up all cheekily. JT and Torres fight. Benayoun in the corner and Bonsingwa basically kicking him down BLATANTLY. So many yellow cards! SO MUCH FUN. And then of course all the drama in the last 10 minutes! 0-0 until Torres scored an AMAZING Goal in the like.... 88th minute or something and preceded to do the funniest goal celebration EVER (as pictured in the gif above). THEN, in the 5 minutes of extra time, HE DID IT AGAINNNNNNNNNNNNN AND SCORED a GREAT header and man oh man did the place ERUPT again. People were singing and chanting and screaming and it was SO. MUCH. FUN. Now Liverpool is back up into 2nd in the league and all they have to do it beat Man United and WIN THE LEAGUE, PLEASE.


Ok I have most definitely gone on WAY too long. Sorrrr-ry. Busy week ahead, should be tons of fun!

London Day Trip January 25, 2009

I LOVE LONDON!

What an eventful day Jenny, Ally and I had today! I woke up at 7:15 ish and got to the train station by 9, when we discovered that the direct train to London from Brighton was being worked on so we would have to take a bus to the Three Bridges station that would essentially add about an hour and a half to our trip. Oh and it was all rainyyyyyy and dark which kinda made the day start off on a shaky feeling because of the train and the rain and whatnot. So we eventually make it to London only to discover that the line we need to take on the tube is also down!!!! So we were kind of hoping this wasn't some sort of horrible omen, hah. Luckily it wasn't! :D

Anyway, so we started our day at the V&A museum which is ENORMOUS and amazing and we barely got to spend any time there for how big it is, so I can not wait to go back and spend the entire day there sometime soon. While there though, I did get to see some of my absolute favorite things ever like creepy doughy-faced, rosy-cheeked gold leafed religious babies in paintings, lush Islamic pattern and art, and Eastern European "peasant" textiles. LOVE IT!

After getting a nice taste of a lot of what the V&A had to offer, we went to meet Ally's wonderful brother Nathan at this absolutely scrumptious dim sum restaurant called Ping Pong. Let me tell you I was never really sure about dim sum or what it was really or if it would be good but it was GREAT! We ordered so much food and all of it was just mouthwatering! And I had blackberry lemonade, how much better does it get? Not much. But it was nice to get off our feet and talk and get to know Ally's brother who's got a really interesting life!

After the dim sum we were going to walk to the ginormous Topshop but as we were walking we went passed the store Liberty's where Ally's brother works and so we said we needed to go in and he needed to give us a quick tour. So we did and he did! IT IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Apparently it is the building that is the biggest fire hazard in London because it's made out of all wood. Anddddd, that wood came from two old battle ships or something, one of which was called the Liberty. Not only is it gorgeous from the outside but it's honestly like nothing I've ever seen before on the inside. It almost felt museum-esque because it feels really open and old and beautiful and things are displayed so nicely and in little cabinets and it is just incredible! Not to mention the clothes are just amazing, full of big designer stuff, I was drooooooling over all the See by Chloe stuff, it was great!

So then we finally made it to the huge 3 story Topshop and spent some more time drooling over great but expensive clothes. Way cheaper than Liberty's but still once you convert the pound to the dollar everything I wanted was just a little too pricey. I will definitely have to go back and just spend a whole day doing some serious shopping, it will be great!!!!

After Topshop Nathan was nice enough to give the three of us a ride over to the Tate Modern as we were running low on time. The Tate was huge, and honestly felt a little cold and kind of... intimidating at least on the first floor. It wasn't what I was expecting! But it was really lovely and huge and full of nice art! I saw some interesting things but it is another place I just got a taste of and I will have to come back to really see everything!

Next we went to go meet Ally's friend Corine in Camden for dinner before Ally's friend Tim's band was going to play in a pub in Camden. So we took the tube (after taking a slight detour to see the Globe theater and I saw the same pizza express restaurant I ate at with my family 3 years ago, AWWWW! hahah) and arrived in Camden and met Ally's friend who is super nice and fun just like everyone else here so far! We decided to go eat at Wagamamas which is so so tasty! I was really proud of myself because I was able to finish the entire huge plate of food whereas last time I ate there I could barely make a dent! God I love food. Anyway after Wagamama's we said goodbye to Corine and went across the street to Ally's favorite cocktail bar place to meet her friend before his gig. And of course while there I got oddly stared at and then subsequently hit on I guess in such a weird and creepy and uncomfortable way by another drunk creeper to add to the list of many. Anyway so we talked there for a while and then headed over to the pub where the gig was at and spent a little while longer there before realizing that we were all exhausted and if we wanted to make it back to Brighton tonight we'd have to leave at 9:30 ish so we stayed for a while and then headed out. We finally made it back to Brighton at about 11:45 and it was just such a fun day in London, I LOVE THAT CITY, seriously something about it just feels so good to me and I can't wait to be back!

Lewes Day Trip 01-21-09

Yesterday Jenny and I decided to take a day trip to Lewes, a cute little town in East Sussex about 20 minutes by bus from Brighton. It was GREAT!

We took the bus and as soon as we arrived we were on the "High Street" which I think is what they call all main streets/fancy shopping streets here. And as soon as we got out first of all you see the beautiful hilly green grass in the distance which is just beaaaaaaaaautiful! Once we started walking an incredible window display of gorgeous old books caught my eyes and we decided to go into this small 3 room bookstore called the Bow Window Book Shop. We ended up spending almost 2 hours in the tiny little shop, it was FILLED WITH TREASURES! There was a book about noses, all about noses, all about 'em! And a book about abdominal pains. And books abuot chess, and wild english birds, fighter pilots, and everything you could imagine. But they were all old and beautiful which makes them all automatically better. I ended up getting a small book about astronomy filled with beautiful images and star charts as well as an amazing vintage tourist's map of England and Wales from somewhere between 1889-1911. When I was checking out the lady was so sweet, she said that she loved seeing young people and to encourage us to keep up our interest in the books she took two pounds off my total bill! So sweet of her!

Once we left the book shop we started walking around towards the castle. Sadly the castle itself was closed becuase it is being rennovated, but it was still nice to see from the outside. As we walked around there we saw these people on this lawn playing some weird game and there was an older man also watching them so we asked him what they were doing. He started explaining that they were playing lawn bowling and then he started talking to us and telling us all about the history of Lewes and what we needed to see while we were here. He was sooo sweet and then his son joined us and we started walking around a little with them as they told us all about these crazy stories and things in Lewes. Then he called the lawn bowlers over and was like "These girls here are from America, tell them abuot this game!" ahaha so they came over and were super nice to us as well and explained lawn bowling to us. Then after talking a bit more to the nice old man and his son, they took our picture for us and then we went our seperate ways.

So Jenny and I continued walking around exploring and then we found ourselves kind of standing near this building wonderig if we should go in and who should appear in the doorway but the cute old man! So we waved to him and he gave us a thumbs up and motioned for us to come in, so we did. Inside we met his adorableeeeeeeeeeee cute old wife also named Jenny, and they invited us to have tea and coffee with them and their son! So we all had tea together and talked about America and politics and Brighton and Lewes and had a great time! It was so lovely! And they paid for our tea and hot cocoa which was really really nice of them. I love English people!

After that Jenny and I walked around some more, found the river, walked into a few interesting looking stores, and just wandered around exploring. As it got darker we decided to go have some dinner and we ate at the cutest little produce store and restaurant. And of course everyone there was just as nice as ever and one of the guys who worked there struck up a nice conversation with us and we learned that he is a student of economics at Oxford, and when we told him we were graphic designers he wanted to get our contact info because he is "a bit of an entrepreneur" himself, hahaha oh networking! He was nice!

Then we took the bus back to Brighton and walked straight to the nice old movie theater to go see The Wrestler with film club which was a good but depressing and mildly embarrassing movie. And after that we went to the Bath Arm's pub with Ally and her friends and had a great night! FUN TIMES IN ENGLAND!