just keeping it going

nothing to say. just keeping this blog allive incase it goes away when idol.

PICTURES for YOU

Enjoy these last lovely pictures from the last days in London.

house numbers going down

people are moving out of the house this week and its pretty sad. first krista, then on sunday i took courtney to the airport, and today michelle left. tonight patrick and lindsey leave. so its going to be just me max and andrew for the next couple of days.

so, not much interesting going on other than alot of wandering around the city, just taking it in. not even bringing my camera because i dont want to be bothered by the pressure i put on myself to take pictures. just me + london, and it feels good.

family's getting here in 2 days, and i'm starting to plan out some stuff that i want to see with them! i'm so excited! the weather's been great, and i hope it stays that way while they're here.

so i've got another day to kill tomorrow, but i've got alot planned. tonight i think we're going to eat dinner in the backyard patio thing, and then relax and enjoy everyone's company for the last few moments... kind of depressing, but its definitely been a dandy of a semester.

ok, thats all for now - cheers!

the best of times, the worst of times

here's the short story: yesterday was fabulous, until i woke up this morning with food poisoning courtesy of the thai place

the long story:
yesterday was really fun. me courtney and michelle went shopping in notting hill at the retro/vintage stores in the morning. got some great buys and it was a gorgeous day! much less hot than thursday, it was comfortable.

so from there, me and courtney had pre-bought tickets for the london eye aka the millenium wheel, so we got over to westminster by 3 for that. the experience was really cool, its just a big ferris wheel, basically, so you can see the whole city. again, we lucked out because it was a sweet day out, and the views were great. so its this giant wheel, and it never stops moving like a regular ferris wheel, it works because i goes so slow - takes a half an hour to go all the way around, so you have to get on while its slowly moving by. and its airconditioned, and they put about 15 people in one little pod, and there's probably like 30 pods, i'd say. so we got some great views of the city and everything - it was brilliant.


from there we walked all the way up to the national portrait gallery in trafalger square, where i had only peeked in before. so we checked it out real quick - turns out theres some cool stuff in there. theres some andy warhol, but theres also just some cool looking art, thats not by any body famous, it just looks good.

then we continued to walk up to picadilly circus for dinner. everybody and there mother had been talking about this thai place called busabu ethai or something like that, and courtney had already eaten there before, so we went there for dinner. the experince was really awesome - it was a hardcoure thai place, so it was like a whole new country. we both had chicken butternut squash, and believe it or not, we shared callamari as an appetizer. the squid was awesome, i didnt know i would have liked it, but im glad i tried it. so no problems there, the dinner was great, the place was awesome (they had great bathrooms), and we were satisfied with the evening. here's the culprit:


from there we were metting up with patrick, lindsey, and michelle at shakespeare's globe theatre for a play. what i didnt realize was that it was the first day of the season, so it was opening night! tickets were pretty cheap to see coriolanus, only 6 pounds. however, the 6 pounds was for the bottom middle area, where you have to stand for the whole performance. yea, 3 hours. by the end, my legs were very stiff, and it felt like the soles of my shoes were 1 mm thick. my feet hurt. but anyways - the play was great, they really get involved with the audience, and the play doesnt just take place on stage, it goes all through the audience area. best thing about the play was recognizing one of the actors! unbelievable - one of the main characters was UNCLE JEFFREY from fresh pricnce of belair! it was hilarious! it was funny because in the book for the show, it said 'previos appearences in: fresh prince of belair.' which seems so random, but it was pretty funny. we had a great time, even having to stand all night.
on the way, it was so beautiful crossing the thames on the millenium bridge.. we were happy (st pauls in the background)after that, the five of us minus lindsey went back to the ciao cafe, which is now our "spot." patrick and michelle hadn't been, so they really enjoyed. i brought my camera this time, and took some pics of my ice cream. keep in mind its ice cream. i got the spaghetti. its vanilla gellato, with strawberry sauce, and white chocolate flakes. made me really happy.

so after that we came home and went to bed, all happy and golucky. what me and courtney BOTH had in our immediate future was so intense that we were disabled all day today, until now, when we're packing courtney up to go. she leaves tomorrow, krista left early this morning, and andrew left last night, but only to go to prague, he'll be back this week. he's staying in london for an extra month with an internship actually, but he still has to move out of our place by the 13th. anyways, back to the poison, i woke up last night with the most intense stomach ache i've ever had, and slept horribly after that, and i wont get into any details about specific symptoms, but some internet research pointed out that it might be selmanela. so when i see courtney in the morning she says that the same thing happened to her last night too. and we both had a horrible morning, but we're pretty much better now. packin her up to go. but it was crazy that we both got it, which makes me think it was the thai, because we both ordered the same thing. LAST time i order callimari, tho. thats fo' sho'

so thats it for now, cheers mates!

tennis heaven!

well, first day off from class, me and courtney took the ol district line to wimbledon for a GORGEOUS afternoon! first of all - the weather today was unbelievable. 75 degrees, sunny, out in the suburbs by the all england lawn tennis and croquet club... beautiful, beautiful. on the ube however, it was HOT! sweated abotu 15 pounds off between th heat and the millions of people on the tube on the way back!

there was a scary moment, tho, when we got to the AELTC (wimbledon), because the tour was sold out! the tour is the best part! so we walked away dejectedly, with our heads down, almost crying, and the nice woman working there snuck us in on the list! so nice of her! and the tour was a amazing! can't post too many pictures in the interest of time, but we went to court 1, centre court, the dressing rooms, henman hill, the media areas, and we saw all the courts, and learned alot about the event and everything! and then there's a brand new tennis museum on the grounds too, which was awesome to see. wimbledon isnt too expensive either, its just really hard to get tickets. they are mostly reserved and stuff for everyone except for 500 go on sale on the day of the match, so people line up the street to get these tickets. and there are cheap tickets, to just get you into the grounds, and there are expensive ones for centre court, court 1 and court 2. the grass is rye grass 100%, its cut to 8mm for play, but 15 mm all other times. no one plays on centre court or court 1 except for during the tournament. so the last people to play on centre court were federer and roddick in last yrs final. the grass was lookin really good today, its extremely green. so nobody plays on any of the courts until after the tournament, then the members of the club can play. there's an electric fence surrounding the court now, which is to keep foxes off the grass. apparently they have a fox problem or something. you cant just pay money to get into the club either, you have to know about 6 people to give you recommendations to get in, too. the tour guide spoke alot about how to get tickets and stuff, i think he was kind of trying to sell the place. here's a few pictures of the place.. cant post alot because it takes forever. but basically, it was an excellent excellent afternoon! here's me on court 1, a picture of the trophies, which are at the end of the museum, and then a picture of what the grounds look like.
tomorrow: london eye finally, shakespeare's globe, and thai food in picadilly circus. oh did i mention i went to bigguns ribs last weekend? as a sort of break from work. took courtney. great ribs. tasted great to have american food again! anyways, just thought i'd throw that in!

cheers!

been a while

i have been doing work non-stop since the last time i've updated. tonight, tuesday night, i have finished all of my work. all thats left is a final tomorrow morning, and a class tomorrow afternoon, and then i'll be done with school work! i don't even want to talk about the work, but lets just say that it was alot. but now its getting kind of sad because time here is slowly drifting away.... krista leaves saturday, courtney leaves sunday, i dont know after that. family is coming a week from tomorrow, which is crazy to think about. there's kind of alot that i still want to do while im here, so as soon as im done with classes, i'm going to start checking fun things off the list. wimbledon is coming up this week, along with the london eye. im excited to do all these things. tomorrow is my last night to cook - its going to be bangers and chipped potatos, my specialty. one last time, for the people. gotta give them what they want.

anyways, its late, but im riding this high because im done with work, so im not quite ready for bed. my roomate max was diagnosed with tonselitis the other day, too, so he's really sick, and he snores really loudly so its hard to sleep anyways. i was clapping last night to try and get him to wake up, but he still didn't even wake up. tough night.

the weather's been getting nicer here, i've put away my coats and now i just walk around with a sweater and pants on... which kind of fits in. i saw that it might get up to near 80 in the next couple of days, but im not sure if its still going to happen.

governmentally speaking - i dont know if its hitting the states, but theres huge scandals going on int he political party right now. apparently there were a bunch of prisoners that were just.. let free a couple of yrs ago, and now they are roaming the streets of london. and this guy named prescott who is the secratary of something is involved in a clinton-esque affair that the tabloids are loving. and it came out that tony blair's wife spent about 7ooo pounds during election week or something like that... its gettting a bit crazy around here, people are calling for tony blair's head.

well anyway -just want to let it be known that i am still allive. im feeling good. work is finally pretty much done! yesss. bedtime. cheers - jamie

mid week shenanigans on the last day of classes

nothing too important to report on this week so far, besides being extremely busy.
today was officially the last day of classes for me, so all i have to do now is finish some projects and essays.
and im a bit under the weather this week. something up with my stomach area, resulting in a little bit of discomfort. bad thing is, it happened yesterday so i missed out on class, but i also missed out on free cone day at ben and jerrys! what a day to get sick right? just have to show up to the place and get a free ice cream cone... yuck.
but, tons of work to do this weekend, i dont know if i'll be doing anything too fun the next few days. but when next weds comes around, i'll be doing lots of stuff, because it will kind of start my last week here. craaaaaaazzzzzy.
ok, headin to bed, goin to work early tomorrow!
cheerio,
jamie