The Countdown Is On

Hi Everyone!

Since Paris, I've been to London again, hung out with hundreds of seals at Donna Nook, had a bad spell of homesickness, ate a Thanksgiving meal in a huge manor house in England, had my last day of class for the semester, and had a Christmas dinner with my British family in a room covered in gold.

The past few weeks have been incredible, but now it is the crazy time of packing and saying goodbye to friends now.  We have two and half days left at Harlaxton, and that, to me, is bittersweet.  On Thursday, at one in the morning, it's off to Italy.

I've started doing vlogmas, where I will vlog all 31 days of December.  You can follow that adventure, as well as watch previous vlogs on my YouTube here.

The first order of business is recapping the London weekend for you.  The weekend after Paris, we had a British studies field to London.  On the field trip, we visited St. Paul's Cathedral (where Princess Diana was married in that incredible dress). We also went to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.  Friday night, we went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park for the ultimate christmassy fun!

Saturday, we saw Buckingham Palace, and I finally got to go to Abbey Road and take that cliche but very awesome picture walking across the crosswalk.

Our bed and breakfast was in Hampstead, my personal favorite part of London, so we ate at a pub in Hampstead on Saturday.  Sunday, it was time to get on the train to go back to Harlaxton.  It was a short weekend, but it was great to see places that we didn't get to see the first time.  You can watch the highlights of my second weekend to London here.

The next few weeks brought homesickness along with the holiday season.

My British family, from the Meet-A-Family Experience, took us to the sea to see the hundreds of seals that come there to give birth and find a new mate. It was so amazing to see animals like that in their natural settings just doing their thing.  The pups were so cute too!  I showed footage of this in day one of vlogmas here.

Thanksgiving was when the homesickness started to set in.  I really appreciate the Harlaxton staff for working so hard to provide us with a good American Thanksgiving meal.  They even made us pumpkin pie, a thing that doesn't really exist over here.

What I'm thankful (in the yellow)

However, it was no home cooked Thanksgiving.  I really missed home that day, especially when I called home and saw all of my family making Christmas crafts and eating all of that good food.

Thanksgiving came and went, and soon, it was time to start listening to Christmas music nonstop.  It was time to start doing vlogmas.

This past Thursday night, we had our Valedictory Dinner.  The principal, professors, and staff talked to us about the semester and presented us with certificates and pins that represent that we are part of the Harlaxton Society.  They fixed a wonderful dinner, and afterwards, we watch the Fall 2014 semester recap video, which you can check out here.  Sadly, I never saw the signups for this video, so I am not in it, and I'm very bummed about that.  However, I am very glad that I have been keeping up with my blog and vlogs bacause now I will have my personal memories and experiences captured in words and on video to look back on for the rest of my life.

On Saturday, we had our Harlaxton Family Christmas Dinner. Our meet-a-family came to have dinner with us.  Before we ate, the musicians at Harlaxton played some instrumental Christmas music.  It was really great considering that they were sat in front of Christmas tree, and the fireplace was roaring in the Great Hall.  The choir then sang Christmas songs and encouraged all of us to sing along.  Dinner was buffet-style, and really good.

There were Christmas crackers that contain gifts that you pull to open.  I had never done one before, so that was very fun.  After dinner, we took pictures with our British family and said our goodbyes to them (I'll get to see them in two weeks, so I'm excited to see them again!).

Then, we had a little fun and took pictures with the British Studies professors.  Afterall, our semester wouldn't have been the same without them.

You can see all of that in this video.

So, that's what we've done up until this moment.  My adventure isn't over though! I mentioned earlier that leaving Harlaxton is bittersweet.  It's bittersweet because this semester has been incredible on a personal level.  I've had experiences and traveled to places that I only dreamed of going just a few years ago.  But, I want to see my family again.  I want the familiarity of home. I want to see my puppy, and have home coked food every night.

I will miss Harlaxton and these experiences tremendously just like I miss home tremendously, but I am planning on visiting again someday.  I can't wait to tell stories from over here to friends and family for years to come.  I've also learned a lot over here, which I will elaborate on in a farewell post to Harlaxton coming up in the next couple weeks.

Thank you to all of my family for being supportive and helping me reach this dream.  I can never repay you for what you've done for me.  Thank you to Harlaxton for this unforgettable semester.  You learn a lot about yourself, relationships, and especially people.  I am ready to completely start anew in the new year.  I can't for new experiences, friendships, and memories.

Off to Italy!

Love always,

Alexandria

A Wonderful Weekend in Paris

Hi Everyone!

This past weekend, I traveled to Paris, the city of lights. It's so crazy to go to a place that you see on TV and dream about going to.  I was skeptical about it, but it was honestly so amazing, and it's definitely in my top three places that I've been so far in the semester.  I am also so fortunate because I get go again and share it with my family. Okay, I'm going to stop being sappy and tell you guys about this wonderful weekend. 

Wednesday, we left the manor around noon to drive to the Grantham train station to catch a train to London.  The ride to London was only an hour, and we arrived at King's Cross Station (yes the one in Harry Potter; and yes it looked very Harry Potter).  We walked across the street to St. Pancras to catch the Eurostar to Paris.  I believe the Eurostar goes up to 200 mph and crosses the English Channel via the chunnel. 

When we finally got to Paris, we checked into our hotel, and it was really nice.  The hotel was super clean and pretty nice, but the area of Paris it was a little sketchy.  We were also too scared because we all hardly knew any French.  We ended up knowing more than we thought; we were just too scared to actually use the first night.  So, instead having dinner at  a Parisian cafe, we went to a KFC down the street from our KFC. And, yes, French KFC is pretty good. 

The next morning, we were rested with the day of travel behind, and we were feeling more adventurous.  We got onto to the Metro, which is like the tube in London, but dirtier and more chaotic.  We ended up at Tuileries, a palace with really really pretty gardens.  We were walking along, and to the right, we got our first glimpse of the top of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. 

After Tuileries, we walked toward the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees, a shopping street.  We found a small cafe for lunch because we were all starving.  I tried escargot for the first time and really liked.  Snails are delicious!

We went to the Arc de Triomphe, which you go in a tunnel under the street to get to, and we climbed up hundreds of stairs to get to the top.  The climb was worth it for the view though.

Afterwards, we bought some macarons, and got on the Metro to go the Eiffel Tower.  We took the cheesy pictures by the Eiffel Tower, and sat in the grass for a while laughing, talking, and eating our macarons. 

I had French onion soup at the cafe that we went to a little ways from the Eiffel Tower.  When we walked out of the cafe, it was dark, and the Eiffel Tower was sparkling.  We looked at it a bit more at night, and then walked back to the Metro station to go back to the hotel.

Friday morning, it was raining, but Paris was even beautiful in the rain. 

We went to the Louvre, which is an art gallery that used to be a palace.  We saw the famous Mona Lisa.

Then we went across the street to get crepes at a cafe. I had a chocolate and banana one, and it was so good. 

We then took the metro and walked a little to get to Notre Dame.  It was a beautiful cathedral, and we made a wish at point zero, which is the point where they measure all the highways in France from.  We went to Shakespeare and Company, which is a bookstore that used to be a cafe where famous authors like Hemingway and Fitzgerald were regulars.  We went to another cafe for dinner and ordered escargot again because I swear it's so good!

Saturday morning, we went to see the Moulin Rouge, and we walked around in Montmartre, which is the neighborhood that it's in.  We came across all of this tombs, and the cemetery was huge and very unique. It was very interesting to see.

We went back to the cafe that we had had crepes at the previous day for lunch, and it was delicious just like every other meal that we had in France.  We went to the love lock bridge, which was awesome.  We got on the Metro to go back to the Eiffel Tower for our last afternoon there.  We kind of got lost walking around finding a place for dinner, and we ended up stumbling upon a cafe where the table we sat at outside was practically right beside the Eiffel Tower. 

We got really good crepes from a crepe stand by the tower and sat on a bench to eat them.  When we were leaving to go back to the Metro station, we stopped and just looked at the tower for a while because it was just so crazy to me that I was there right in front of it; I almost still can't believe that I went. 

Sunday was our travel back home.  Traveling back home is always a great time for me to journal and reflecct on all of the amazing things that I did that weekend.

Thank you so much for reading my incredibly long post this week.  Next weekend, I'm doing London take two, and I'm so excited! See you soon!

I'm going to close my blog post this week with a quote from one of Audrey Hepburn's characters that has become so true:

"Paris is always a good idea."

Love always,

Alexandria

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