:''''''''''(

Had a fun and happy but oh-so-sad night in Brighton last night. Jenny and I went out to the pub and met with Ally, Ant, Alex, and Tom for one last bit of fun. Then the four of us (- Ant and Alex) headed over to a different pub up the street to meet Rob and some friends. But on the way there the best thing in the world happened, we decided to stop in a few different news agents and buy a ton of candy that I haven't tried yet. YUM WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA! Such fun, I'm really going to miss Brighton and everyone in it! I'm not ready to say goodbyeeeeeeeeeeee boohoo.

Today finished up at Topman and said super depressing goodbyes to Ramzy and Jenny, both of whom I MISS ALREADY! (I can't wait to go home and pig out on cheeseburgers in your honor, guys!). And when I got home Frankie was waiting to take me to her favorite special pub. We walked passed Kate Moss' house and there were 4 paparazzi outside, crazy! Anyway, we met Ihab there later and this pub was amazing, it was the poshest pub I've ever been in and I had the most amazing meal and it was just so nice of Frankie!

I'M NOT READY TO SAY GOODBYE!
I DON'T WANT MY ENGLAND ADVENTURE TO END TOMORROW/TODAY TECHNICALLY I GUESS!
But I guess that just means it's the beginning of my SUMMER '09 AMERICA TIME adventure, right?!?! YEAH!

Stratford Upon Avon

I have realized that when I do things I need to blog about them right away because when I put it off I totally loose the motivation and interest in writing about them.

But anyway on Wednesday, very very bright and early Jenny and I set off on a nice long train ride to Stratford Upon Avon, which is not only Shakespeare's birthplace, but Jenny lived there for a year when she was 7 so that was her main motivation for going back and I figured "why not come along on the journey? It'll be fun!" and it was!!!

Our first day there we not only saw Julius Caesar in the Royal Shakespeare Company theater but we knocked on the door and met the lovely family who leased Jenny's family their house when she lived there. So kind of them to let us in and talk to us and show us around the house, it was adorable! Later that night after we saw the play we met up with Andy, the son of the people who own the house and he took us out for drinks at a nearby pub called the Dirty Duck. It was a blast! I love how friendly people are in England!

The next day we ate a scrumptious b&b breakfast and then spent the day sightseeing more around Stratford and wandering around and having more delicious tea. We even got to go out to the country a little bit and sat in the sun and had a grande old time. Later we wandered Stratford more and sat by the river and had fun watching the hilarious combinations of people row past in their boats. Then we met back up with Andy again before saying goodbye and catching the train back to Brighton late Thursday night. The trip was soooo much fun! I'm definitely not properly expressing how fun it was in this post. The whole weekend we just kept bursting into giggle fits. We still talk about it and burst into giggle fits, haha!

Read about it on Jenny's blog here. And see more of my photos here.

Good Craic!

This is going to be long.... you are warned!

Friday night Jenny and I went to Ireland to visit our MCAD friends studying abroad in Ballyvaughan, Ireland. A small town of just over 200 people on the west coast of Ireland. I HAD SUCH A GREAT TIME! It was a really needed change of pace to be in such a small town just filled with open fields, fresh air, roaming animals, and familiar friendly faces!

We got in to Shannon airport pretty late, about 11:30 at night and Zach and Sean (an incredibly nice grad student at the Burren College of Art) came to pick us up and drive us about an hour to Ballyvaughan. When we got there we went to Orchard house, the house where 11 of the 20-something undergrad students stay. Suchhhh a nice big house! We sat around and caught up with everyone and then Jenny Ben and I went outside in the DARKEST DARK night I have ever experienced! Not only is it pitch black so that you can't see a foot infront of your face, it is completely silent at night except for the occasional cow's moo. It's pretty incredible.

Saturday was a busy fun day, not to mention Jenny's BIRTHDAY! YAY! In the morning Jenny, Ben, and I walked into town and explored a little. We went to the pier and looked at some old boats, petted some horses, and then headed back into town to eat a delicious breakfast at the Tea Junction. After breakfast we headed in the opposite direction to go visit a "Fairy Fort". As we walked, we saw a field of sheep and noticed some adorable baby sheep, so we decided to jump the fence and travel into the field to visit the sheep. Not only did we see some super cute baby sheep, we saw one literally 10 minutes old take his first steps! Eventually we made it to the fairy fort which was pretty magical! It is so green and pretty and just such an unusual hunk of land that it's really mystifying in a great way.


After the fairy fort we were planning on going to an abandoned church but as we were walking there we went through this field of clovers and decided we needed to take a quick break from our walk to search for four-leaf clovers. And what started as a "quick break" turned into about an hour and a half of serious clover searching! We became addicted and were peering over the ground like crazies. TOTALLY WORTH IT THOUGH, cause I found two four leaf clovers, one five leaf, and one six leaf clover! Pretty lucky, eh? Well Jenny found about 8 four leafs and Ben found 20! Definitely a lucky field!

We ended up skipping the church for that day because we didn't have much time. We went back to town, bought some meat, and headed over to Sean and some of the other lovely MFA students' house for a barbecue! By then the sun was out and the weather was beautiful and it was really nice to relax and hang out with everyone from MCAD and Burren! Right next door was an abandoned house with everything left in it so after the bbq we decided to explore that place a little which was pretty interesting.

After that a few of us headed back into town to buy some things form the local grocery store and as we left we met a friendly dog who we eventually named Walter Gropius, founder of the Bow-wow Haus. He was the friendliest dog ever and followed us all the way to the other house called Marie's House where Zach and the other half of the students live. We visited with everyone there and played with Walter for a nice long time which was lovely. Then everyone headed over to O'Loclainn's pub where we celebrated Jenny's 21st and played a lot of Boggle. Fun! After the festivities, Ben, Jenny and I walked back to Orchid house in the super dark which was20% terrifying, 80% awesome. The stars were incredible and so when we got to the house we all sat out in the backyard eating cookies and looking at the stars. I saw 3 shooting stars :D The starry sky was absolutely without a doubt one of the most incredibly beautiful things I have ever seen in my life and probably will ever see.




The next day Zach, Ben, Jenny, and I decided to climb the mountain that is pretty much in their extended back yard, haha. As we walked there we met another friendly dog we named One Love after Bob Marley because she had accidental dreads. One Love followed us the entire way to, up, down, and back from the mountain, it was pretty impressive. Climbing the mountain was quite a feat but it was so much fun and I had such a blast doing it! It was really nice to be adventurous and have fun jumping on rocks and stuff. As we climbed we found goat and ram skulls, as well as some animal's pelvic bones. The we got to the top, sat and admired the view, and then threw rocks around which is surprisingly entertaining. The trek down the mountain was just as fun and as we got to the bottom we found 3 donkeys that we tried to befriend, sadly we failed. After that a few of us went to town to eat some delicious milkshakes and crepes, then we went back to Orchid house and watched some movies and took it easy. Then we made a DELICIOUS pizza together and hung out a while more before calling it a night.

Monday morning everyone went to school and Jenny and I met them there a while later. Their school literally has a castle on the campus, about 50 feet from the building. It was open so me Jenny and Ben went in and climbed up all the winding steps and had fun finding all the "murder holes" which are secret little holes in the castle used to fire arrows at intruders on the floors below. We next headed over to the abandoned church which was really beautiful and eerie. It still had the holy water container thing and was kind of crumbling and had vines all over it. After looking around there for a while we went to the fairy fort out back behind it and had fun jumping on tree branches and petting soft moss-covered trees.

We walked back to the school where we had a nice lunch in their cafe place and then we laminated our four leaf clover findings. Oh and it was pretty funny because all the MCAD students and the teacher that came with them, Aaron, decided to take a class picture together and me and Jenny were included in it! First we took a normal one, then one of everyone holding up Aaron, and then everyone in a giant 10-person pyramid with me right on top, ahaha! It collapsed before I could properly get on top but I was pretty darn close, it was hilarious! Later we went back to the house and hung out and packed before heading to the airport and eventually making it back to Brighton around 10 pm.


All in all, a fantastic weekend, I can't wait to go back to Ireland some day and explore more!
A BIG thank you to Ben, Zach, Allegra, Emily, Matt, Kelsey, Kay, Katherine, Aaron Van Dyke, Sean, and every other wonderful person we met in Ireland!

Lots more pictures can be found HERE.

Oh Stevie G, If I could Return the Favor I Would...

Liverpool 4 - 1 Man United
DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE, KIDS!
CLOSING THE GAP.... ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE TITLE!
I had a spectacular time at the pub where I sat with two nice middle aged men who bought me a pint of pop and talked Liverpool FC, Chicago, and Brighton with me. England is so friendly... Liverpool is so great!!!!!

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!

Spain - England Friendly

I went to watch the Spain v. England friendly last night at the pub I always go to to watch games. It was especially great since it's next to a college for people learning english so there were tons of Spainiards and other foreign people there for a really good competitive atmosphere.

Nothing like my love of the Spanish NT to make my like of the England NT fade away. Villa's goal was great, Llorente's made me swoon, and Marchena's save pretty much made my heart explode.

Tourist Time!

This has been a great weekend full of fun! Friday involved going to the cutest, oldest, Leaky-Cauldron-but-tinier-est pub with Jenny and Ramzy and then over to Millie's where we had a great time and lots of delicious food with wonderful people!

Saturday was also super fun and we went to go see Ally's friends band, Smokey Bastard play in the pub literally 20 steps away from our dorm. They were great and reminded me of the music my friends from home like a lot, folk-punk-Irish stuff.

Today Jenny and I went on a day trip to Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge, and Bath! It was a good long day of exploring!


Salisbury Cathedral was reaaaaaaally big and gorgeous. Our funny man tour guide Gerry told us really interesting info about it. It's the tallest spire in England at 440 feet, and also they had to move the cathedral and usually it takes 500 years (!!!!!) to build one but since they were moving it it only took 38 years (still !!!!!).



Stonehenge was COOL DUDE! Actually I'm not going to lie, I was reallllllly scared kinda because on the way there Gerry told us all that the area of Salisbury where Stonehenge is is INCREDIBLY FULL OF PARANORMAL STUFF! And if you know me at all you know my number one fears are Aliens, ghosts, and angels. SCARY STUFF! He said it's the area with the most U.F.O. sightings in all of the UK, and that there are crop circles there all the time! So what can I say, I was freaked out! But it was absolutely fascinating and I am really glad I got to see it for my self!



Bath. Is. GORGEOUS. The Roman bath houses are incredibly beautiful and old and the colors just look so pretty and nice together. It was really cool because the water is so hot that it steams! You aren't supposed to touch the water buttttttttt Jenny and I couldn't help ourselves and we stuck our fingers in and it was so nice and warm, especially on our cold rainy day! We took the funniest picture ever, and walked around and explored the awesomeness of Bath and the bath houses.

Shaping up to be another good week, but now I have a hugeeeeeee project to work on but I AM PUMPED! It's gonna be great!

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!

Europa and Pub Quiz

Today for our Professional and Personal development class we had two of the very nice and talented people from Europa come to lecture. Their work was really great and I loved their lecture. But the best part came after! For their "workshop" they decided to do a "Pub Quiz", so they invited anyone who wanted to to join them at a pub at 2:00 where we would take part in this crazy pub quiz thing!

We went to the King and Queen pub (which I love and think is so cozy) as it is right across from school and it's huge! So there were about 18 or so of us there and we split into groups of 4-ish and began the quiz. We were handed a sheet of paper with 20 lines on it, a sheet with 12 logos, and a few blank sheets. The two guys from Europa then read questions for us all to answer, and they were all graphic design based, hahahaa. Nerd time! Ooooh, the best part was that the winning team would get these great posters they made as well as the possibility of a work placement. So there was a HUGE incentive to win!

Anyway, the questions were TOUGH! We had to identify all the logos (my team got 9 our of the 12 i think? Maybe more?) And then we had to do things like draw a perfect circle, draw the most recent penguin book logo, draw the batman symbol, identify arial versus helvetica, put 5 typefaces in order from oldest to most recently created, name who designed the london underground map system, and all kinds of tough stuff! It was a good challenge and my team came in 3rd out of 5 with 24.5 points, although the winners were only ahead by one single point! SO CLOSE YET SO FAR AWAY! Anyway, it was another great day in Brighton!

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!