London

Wow. I don't even know where to start. There's been so much going on the past week or so. For one, I'm now twenty!! That's incredibly bizarre to say. I feel very old and very young all at once. Thank you so much to everyone who was awesome and emailed me/facebook messaged me/mailed me/called me with birthday wishes. :) It made me smile. I also got a call from Rachel and Melissa about 2:30 in the morning on my birthday, which made them officially the first people from home to wish me happy birthday, lol. It was good to talk to them. And my parents called me, and it was good to talk to them as well. Twenty! It's still weird to say.

My birthday went well, although I was kind of sickish, which sucked a little bit, I slept for a lot of it, lol. I got back extremely late from London weekend, and felt kind of sick in the morning, but just took some medicine and went back to sleep and felt mostly okay after that. When I woke up again I had two cards from my flatmates under my door, which was really nice. Later they all made me dinner and brought in a cake! :) It was extremely awesome and nice of them. It definitely made me smile. I'm lucky to have such awesome flatmates.

London. Was. Amazing. I absolutely loved it. I will write a more complete description of it sometime soon but it was just such a cool experience. I couldn't get over the fact that I was in LONDON. I saw the clock tower that houses Big Ben (which, by the way, is the bell and not the tower), the houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace (no I didn't see the changing of the guards, that only happens every other day and not the day I was there, but I fully plan on going back to London at some point so I'll see it eventually), some amazing cathedrals, the national portrait gallery, the Thames, the Tower of London, the place where the Mayflower was built...it was just amazing. It was the coolest experience to see all these places I've only heard about and thought that was all I'd ever do, places that I've always just sort of waved off as "oh that's cool but that's in Europe somewhere..." I also went to Greenwich, which is really cool, stood on the Prime Meridian, and explored the National Martime Museum and the British Museum, which were both really cool...almost all of the museums are free in London which is definitely a plus. We even saw a play in a theatre, although that was a little strange as the play was an American play (Once in a Lifetime) that was set in America, which meant that the actors were British actors all pretending to be American, so we were all Americans sitting in a theatre in Britain listening to British actors take on American accents, lol. They actually did really well, I felt like I was in America most of the time, although that was the weird part - I went to London to see a play that made me feel like I was in America? They did slip occasionally, at least a few of them did, which was interesting. It was kind of funny, although, while the scenery and costuming in the play was amazing, the plotline left a little to be desired. We even had tea at Kensington Palace! That was such a cool experience; we sat at tables in this palace with cups of tea, and got cucumber sandwiches cut into little rectangles, and cake, and it felt so surreal, like I was seven again and having a "tea party" except it was actually REAL.

End verdict: London is an awesome, awesome city, and if you ever get the chance to go you should. The tube system was excellent, too. It was so easy to get around. I had a strange moment on the tube when we were all going somewere on Sunday, as I looked at the tube map, figured out where we needed to go and where we needed to change trains, and got us there, and it was just such an amazing feeling to feel completely comfortable and at ease finding my way around a city in another country. That was my turning point, I think, when I realized I really won't be completely the same person when I come back. I don't know if I'll seem any different but I am changing a little, slowly, and it's strange to realize that I am while I'm in the process of doing so.