a walk in the park, the henge, and the old bath

Sorry for that the pictures are lacking... I do have a lot, but blogger takes FOREVER to upload them! :(
Yesterday, my flatmate and I stayed up trying to get out of this island! England's really nice, but I so want to go to the continent- except any hope of that in the near future is looking dim. Plane tickets, train tickets, and ferries are so expensive on such short notice :( The end of the week was quite nice, since I don't have afternoon class on Thursday, I was feeling insane and took a walk all the way to Hyde Park! It's really nice to do reading right on the Serpentine (big lake in the middle). It's one of the few places in the city where you can actually breathe air that's smoke free and not bump into people all the time. I saw at a bench off the lake, and all these people came and sat next to me... reading and people watching at the same time! Hopefully, this week, I'll make it out to the Somerset House again or Hamstead. Unfortunately, on the way back, the mean bus lady kicked us off at Marble Arch. All of us on the top level were so confused! O_0 so it meant that I had to walk all the way down Oxford Street again...

In front of the Royal Albert Hall

Deck chairs that they put out on the lawn

On Friday, my flatmates and I made it down to the National Portrait Gallery. It's pretty self explanitory, and features a lot of photographs as well. The Beatles on the Balcony exihibit was SO COOL! I really want to go find Abbey Road and visit Liverpool now! Sadly, in the gift shop they decided to print out the weirdest photos! The famous picture of William Shakespeare (black and white one) is there too. I took a few illegal pictures before a mean British man yelled at me :X I swear they blacklisted me throughout the whole museum, people were staring at me where ever I went. I saw him on two different floors too- stalker!

Portaits of the fab four... I wanted this picture of them jumping on the bed in a hotel though

Saturday was Stonehenge and Bath day! We woe up at the crack of dawn (7:30... sad isn't it?) to catch the coach to Stonehenge. We got there in about an hour- and out of the city! Horray! It was really in the middle of NO WHERE! It was flat plains all around, and a LOT smaller in real life! No one told me this before! So to all of you who are going to make it out to Stonehenge someday, don't get tooo excited. It's really cool how it has all these astronomical qualities and legends. Apparently aliens, the Devil, or Merlin brought the stones there. Then we made it out to BATH! This city was gorgeous!!!! There was Georgian architecture and it was supposed to be modeled after a Roman city. We got to go into the Roman baths, which are over 2000 years old! The water was a bit murky, but it's been there even before the Romans were (it was a hot spring). There was also a temple there in the bath and across from it was Bath Abbey! The churches here are amazing... all the detail on the walls/ceilings and stained glass are so intricate We walked along the River Avon and tried to catch some of the rugby game. It's so cool how so many people gather for that event! (Football season is currently right now... Chelsea's playing a game on TV right now- what's funny is that they were praticing at UCLA over the summer, and I had no idea who they were- here they would have been mobbed). We passed by Jane Austen's house too! It's funny that Bath boasts about having Jane Austen live there, but she actually only lived there for a few years (and didn't really even like it). So many authors have lived in England, obviously, I've seen Charles Dickens' house and Mr. Caldecott's (he has children's book award named after him).
On Sunday, I finally met up with Enqin! She and Julie, who I met the day I arrived, and Loretta, met me at the tube station. While waiting for them, I popped into Starbucks. O_O A tall frap is
£2.70- about 6 dollars! I'm going to miss them, but I guess I'll have to wait until I get home to hit up Starbucks. :( Church was really good; the message was about obeying the government, which I found interesting, since the Brits are way more knowledgeable about politics than we are. Afterwards, they had tea and biscuits :) and met a lot of the church people. Most of them have British accents! We went to a Thai pub for lunch, which was pretty cool. Half of it was a pub, the other half was a Thai restaurant. The pad thai tastes the same across the pond. The boys wanted to play football, so we went to a football pitch (Wormwood?) to watch them play. I met Charis, Kristina, and Emily (local girls), a bunch of boys whose names I'm forgetting right now, and an American student from Texas named Rachel. She's at the London School of Fashion right now! It was really cool to hang out with people other than Americans!!

That brings us to Monday/Tuesday... yesterday's film was 28 Days Later- the horror zombie film! I must say after staring at Cillian Murphy for two hours, he is good looking, but still creepy looking. That movie wasn't as scary as I thought, usually I'm a chicken! It's mostly blood, killing, and even nudity. I must say after watching a few shows on TV and the films, the Europeans are quite risque in that sense. British Museum class was today, and we had a scavenger hunt through the museum. Seriously, this is great! Hopefully, it'll continue to be this fun, since I've never written an art history paper before.

I'm not too sure who reads this but:
Oh, to Henry/Mee Ko- I was watching this diet doctor show and "muffin tops" are what the Brits call love handles. You guys were close in naming fatty body parts though!

Gregg! They have a chain of sandwich shops here called GREGGS... I'm not sure if it's that good, but the rival store is Pret A Manger <- Kim's favorite French word :) Thanks again to the Sam and Jon who comment! If you're ever bored, please do, since I really love reading them :) It's great to hear from you all! Hope all is well in CA! It's been SO HOT here... I'm loving wearing my rainbows everywhere.