It’s only appropriate that my last post was called “An American Girl in Paris Part Une” (stolen straight from Sex and the City in case you didn’t realize) because I am luckily going back to Paris! Let’s backtrack a little bit though.
My last class is April 3. That means I only have two weeks left of classes. I am here until May 24th though. All of my travel plans got messed up though (which is another story for another time) and I’ve been scrambling to try and get all the places I wanted to see.
The original plan was Geneva, Vienna, Prague, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, come back to London to switch out clothes etc. and do Florence, Rome, Venice, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon and Ibiza. Unfortunately out of all those I don’t have set plans to go to any of them. Finding someone to travel with is a lot harder than it seems.
So April 3, my last class, I am taking a train out to Birmingham to meet my uncles! They are veterinarians and are attending the British Small Animal Conference. We’ll be staying in Birmingham until the 7th and then going to Oxford and staying at Christ Church for two nights. That’s the place they filmed the great hall scenes for Harry Potter. Then we come back to London and I say bye to my fam for now. BUT this is where the Paris part comes in! They have a wedding in France in the beginning of May and are renting a flat in Paris for two weeks. I have one exam May 6th so as soon as I take that I’ll be on the next train to Paris and I’ll be staying with them the 6-11 in France! I loved Paris so I’m excited to go back and get a good night’s sleep and travel there in 2 hours…not 12. I am free as of right now the 10-25 of April. This is very bad.
I haven’t written since Paris because I have done nothing. I finished 4 seasons of the Good Wife, two seasons of Prison Break, watched movies on movies on movies and just laid in bed. I don’t want to dwell on the topic but it’s hard to lose your best friend and the guy you’ve been seeing for two months in the same couple of weeks. It creates a lot of free time. Which is bad. I have toyed with dying my hair red, cutting it off, bleaching it platinum blonde. I have continuously cleaned my entire room for lack of better things to do. I sit on facebook, tumblr, and netflix like there is no tomorrow. I absolutely do not regret studying abroad, I just wish I came with more people I knew or made more friends here. Not that I haven’t made friends!
The prospective plan for April 10-25 is to go to Italy with my friend Kelle (and I really hope we go because it’s the place I wanted to see most). Even if we go for 4 or 5 days I just want to explore. It’s such a shame I have all this time to travel and no one to go with. Even this week I didn’t go to my Monday or Wednesday class because there are no finals and the coursework is done. I didn’t go to Thursday’s class because we were watching a video. I potentially could have been traveling this entire time. But I digress. There also is potential trip to Spain coming up somewhere around the 18th of April but I feel like I’m really anal and just want to book things and set dates early and most people don’t so we’ll see if I actually make it there.
I definitely am going to Ireland the 25-27 to stay with my friend from Quinnipiac Lizzie in Cork! I am really excited for that. I feel really disconnected from home and I really don’t like it. I try to stay in touch with people but it’s hard I guess for everyone. My phone is slowly dying. I spent the day at apple. I regret switching my 5 with Jake’s 4s right before I left more and more. Basically the battery has consumed itself (I don’t even know what that means) and it will say it has 100% but then will drop to 71% it’s insane. It also barely charges. You have to put it in exactly the right spot and not move it for the next couple of hours.
My bedroom in my dorm is driving me insane. It’s right next to the bathroom and the pipes in the wall make noises all day and all night. It literally sounds like a bomb it’s just tick tick tick tick it’s going to drive me over the cliff. Hopefully when I return from Paris on the 11th, I’ll be going straight to Ibiza and then Greece for 3 days each (that’s the plan right now..we have yet to book it though). I’m digressing again but I haven’t slept a full night here in weeks. Also annoying when the aforementioned boy lives in a really quiet part of London in a giant white fluffy bed. My sheets are ripping (they were like 7 quid) and are scratchy and dull and fading. Not to mention I live off of a very main road. If I close the window I suffocate, if I leave it open I lay awake. AND NOT TO MENTION THE TAPPING OH MY GOD. I’m really excited to get away for a little bit on my upcoming trips. I feel like I officially live here. I go places and get annoyed with the tourists just like at home.
Today on the tube, there was a large school group (probably 17/18) from Spain (I think? Maybe Portugal?) and they were literally kicking around a hackesack made of plastic. HELLO I’M SITTING HERE. I actually got up because they hit me with it so many times. I hate people touching me when they walk by. I hate them rubbing against me and touching my bag. Ugh good lord. I wish I could’ve gone somewhere last weekend or this weekend or next weekend just to get away.
I love London but I hate the tourists. I rather be a tourist than live somewhere with a thousand tourists. Which is why I am officially renouncing my New York City life aspirations. You can find me in California.
It’s 7pm on a Friday night. I have no plans tonight. I have none tomorrow. I have none Sunday. I have none until I see Michael and Karl on April 3rd. I might have a date Tuesday but I haven’t heard from him. And last Wednesday I was going on a sympathy date with this random guy, I just said yes for shits and gigs and he stood me up! I have never been stood up in my entire life. Like yeah people cancel last minute, but I have never had solid plans to meet someone at a bar or restaurant and they just didn’t show up. Thankfully the Lithuanian bartender gave me a free drink. He was nice totally not my type though. He dropped out of Uni and loves to rave. I’m like give me a quiet Friday evening at home with the person I like and a bottle of wine and that’s fine with me. I’m actually forty five and getting more middle aged.
Anyways, the guy who stood me up was Harry the guy I might go out with Tuesday is Harry (different but still) we’ll see what happens. This week is going to be a quiet one. I’ve filled my last two weeks with the theatre. Which my friend Chris makes fun of me for going alone but I really didn’t mind it. You can get amazing seats for decently cheap when it’s just one seat! I saw 12 Angry Men. It was alright. I didn’t love it. I fell asleep watching the movie twice and I thought I would enjoy it more than I did. But I made friends. I sat next to a man who was about 25 and his mum. They were from Glasgow and he had just moved here and she was visiting him. They were really nice. The next show I saw was Les Miserables. Which was obviously my favorite. I’ve only seen the movie 500000 times. It was amazing live, and of course the guy who played Eddie Redmayne…I mean Marius Pontmercy was cute. Must be a requirement or something. I also made friends with the couple next to me. They were from somewhere in South England and had kinda strange accents (not cockney or anything, but definitely not London). Next I saw Urinetown, which was also AMAZING. I don’t remember Highlands (my high school) making it so morbid but spoiler alert everyone dies. It was funny, dark humor but very morbid. I made friends with the person who takes your tickets though and the guy who sells ice cream at interval (intermission). I’ve now seen 5 or 6 shows here at different theatres and every one of them is gorgeous and beautiful and you can’t take pictures…but you can eat ice cream inside. It’s a strange concept. They also don’t check your purse you can bring snacks and drinks. I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Wednesday. It was absolutely breathtaking. I’ve never seen such complicated scenery. It was really really cool. The best part? I sat absolute front row. Granted I was on the end and it was “restricted leg room” aka I couldn’t put both feet down at the same time but it was still amazing.
This coming week, Sujata, my Mock Trial advisor and a professor at Quinnipiac is staying in England. She will be in London next Friday and we are meeting up! I am so excited to see someone from home. I really didn’t appreciate America until I left. So if you read this whole thing congratulations
xx
j
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