hever castle

hever castle is the childhood home of Anne boylen whom i love to study! so a bunch of us went down there, taking the train with four or more people is great! for when you have that number you get a discount on your train ticket so to hever it was only about 5 pounds each great price. so we get there feeling very Narnia children like especially when we got off at the station and it was practically a slab of cement and a building. later we saw a bus stop that looked even more like it it made me happy. then we had our mile long hike to the castle (the castle was more like a manor house but more on that later) after our very very long walk in Edinburgh and walking around london every day it really wasn't all that long or hard at all. it was rather calming to tell you the truth, after the rush and loudness of London( oh funny story that just happened tonight, we were walking back and this man was crossing the street, and a car came right up to him but he was still walking and right as he was passing the car honked at him and he just swung his bag out and smacked the car hard! he really didn't want to be honked at while he was walking, and this wasn't a young guy either this was an old man, it was rather strange actually) being in the country side with bushes on each side (they were used as fences) and just walking along at our own pace was fun. we even had a few other people who were going to the castle as well following us, for we had planned ahead and had a map of how to get there it was pretty simple its not like there was much else to go other than the way to the castle but still it was kinda fun having a decently large group walking together even though we didn't all talk with each other. when we got to the castle the base floor was apparently the more modern floor so i didn't have anything especially that i wanted to see there as i walked though it admiring the ceilings (they had very ornate ceilings, not that i have any pictures of it they wouldn't let us take pictures inside! so annoying!!) then we got up to the second floor (or first if your british) and came to Anne Boylens room! it was very tiny it was not much bigger than my room here.... well actually about the size of my original cave but she looked like she had a huge bed if the head board is any indication. there were many portraits of her and all the wives of henry VIII because hever castle was part of Anne Boylen's dowry and therefore when she was beheaded it became Henry's land and he gave to to jane seymore but she died then he gave it to Anne of Cleves in their divorce settlement, so it has passed through many hands. i made a discovery when in the room where they have the paintings of all of his wives and him. each wife has a different type of headdress, Catherin of Aragon the square headdress for it is more pious and english even though she is Spanish by the time she got married to henry she was english, Anne Boylen curved which was a french headdress for she had grown up in the french court and also she would not want to look anything like catherine of aragon for she had the hardest job of them all she started the divorcing process, jane seymore wore the square to be a foil to anne boylen who was considered bad at that time because she was seen as wilder so that's back to traditional roots, i don't count anne of cleves partially because she was foreign and partially because she was only married for like 6 months and because she doesn't fit into my pattern, i can't tell exactly what type of headdress she was wearing it was weird... then we get back with Catherine howard who has the circular headdress she is actually a relative of anne boylens through her mother i do not think that she is wearing the headdress as a rebellion or a foil against someone else for anne of cleves was apparently not very pretty and catherine howard supposedly was, in some ways too pretty for she got herself killed, then you have the only unscathed survivor catherine parr, again with the square headdress could be going against what catherine howard was because catherine parr was a more moderate woman who got all of the royal children back with their father. each of his wives was the opposite of what the last one was but if you look at it there were more moderate then radical women only two of them were "wild" and those were the two who got their heads chopped off. the more moderate woman just got divorced well catherine of aragon got slowly killed while being divorced. all this to say hever castle is pretty cool in its history in the winter, it has beautiful gardens i'd say but since its still winter i they were not very pretty right then. we had a lot of fun though. as i have finished this i will now get ready for a day of classes and a new british heritage and culture teacher where we shall be going to the national portrait gallery tomorrow which i might write on, so until later
from london with love

children

i'm exhausted!!! working with these kids takes all my patcience and i have none left for the adults in my life.most of today and its going to be like this every day i have my internship i believe i will not be hanging out with other people until dinner time and then only barley on other days sure i'll hang out most likely and be fine but on monday and wednsday that will not be happening.
today was insane! we had some good ignoring muscles (that is where a child chooses to ignore the other one who is giving them problems and trying to get them into truble) but that just all fell apart as the day progressed. it seemed that telling them they were doing a good job was a bad thing, for soon after they would start missbehaving. one of the boys and i are getting along very nicely i think, he is one that has put time and effort into making himself seem helpless and making others do things for him and he likes new people because they don't know yet what he does so they help him do his work. i now know these things but i'm still the newest person and he does like doing things with me so today we worked on a project together i had to be strict with him but he seemed not to mind much especially since as we were typing, rather he was poking out what we were transfering and i could see he was getting really tired of it and so was i, plus a lot of the other children had choosing time (where they choose what they do, kinda like center time) so i helped him by him reading to me and i typed it up so it went much faster. whenever he got distracted or started yelling at someone he had to be the one to type but that wasn't very much the yelling thing for the moment he started i would try and get his attention back and we would get back to what we were doing, he even got a bonus sticker for his good work with me.
(i was going to type more on this one but i forgot about it and now its saterday and so i don't remember what i was going to write on wednsday...)

internship of chaos

i'm not going to tell about the whole week cause that would just take to long, nor am i going to (at this point in time) tell you every day about everything that happens i don't have time for both that and school to get done. i will tell whenever anything happens or i have time.
ok so interning at the collingham school/hospital. i am working in the red group at the moment it is the youngest group there are about 4 boys in the class they have not all been there at the same time though so its normally been about three of them. they are a good group for the most part there are times when we have blowups and such but these kids are special needs so that is to be expected. i really don't know what to make of them yet it is just so different than what i'm used to. like the children get up and go sit somewhere else and the teacher doesn't say something to them imediatly, they seem to use a different format for getting them to do what is wanted of them by one of the adults asking a question that gets at what the child is supposed to do like, if i wanted blank what would i have to do to get it? or i'm confused now what am i supposed to do about blank? there is a ton more i just don't know what exactly to say about it as soon as i can wrap my head around it ill get back to you.
there is one thing i would like to change though, there are a lot of adults and the kids don't trust me yet so i'm not able to work with them they won't accept me like at all. plus when there are more helpers than students it leaves normally the newest person useless and that person is me. if this keeps up i might ask to go somewhere else even if i have to change out of the school system i'm in now, really i just want to be of some use and not just sit there and watch the child do their work. i need to be needed! we shall see how it keeps on going come monday so until then
from london with love

its a wet day in Edinburgh

well now tectonically last weekend was the edinburgh weekend, so you to the going over there post before last so i will describe what i know of edinburgh to the best of my retroflection.
as soon as we all got in and got our room assignments we were set free and didn't really see our teacher or house manager again till the end. the first day it was raining, i had brought my umbrella and rain coat.... you can't use umbrellas in edinburgh not if you like your umbrella. there were so many blown inside out umbrellas in the trash! mine was almost ruined but i turned it around in time to save it, so i had very very wet hair all day. so some wanted to just wonder around but i was cold and those streets were not very nice to walk on i was in my black boots which are not the best rain and cold shoes or walking over rough stuff in. so i wanted to find somewhere inside and one of the girls in our group wanted to go to the toy museum. it was pretty cool, there were a ton of old toys there and there were a few doll houses one of them was Queen Elizabeth II's house in wales electrical and everything! that didn't take that long to go through but we had gotten there a bit late in the day so we had to leave before we were completely finished because they were closing. so then we wondered around for a bit trying to find somewhere to eat. when we did find somewhere i got sausage and mash (potatoes) the others got stake pie, which looked and they let me have a bite tasted a lot like roast beef, we also tried hagus. hagus just has a really bad rep, it tastes a lot like sausage with a bit of a different after taste thats all we finished off the side dish of it that we got. i also had desert it was an apple crumble, but it didn't have brown sugar in it or cinnamon or any spices so it was good but could have been better.
i have figured two things that are essential for every hotel to have, 1 a comfortable bed most not let you feel the springs and 2 good smelling soap/ clean towels or at least make sure they are going to be dry if you live in a wet climate. this hotel had neither of those things... i might have been better sleeping on the floor, when you got on the bed you could hear the springs crunch under you and you could feel every single spring and when i got back the second day they had folded up my towels but they were still wet a wet towel is not very efficient in drying you off especially since it was like 24 hours later. the cool thing about that room was that they had heated towel racks (the sign next to it said caution might be hot do not touch, but since it was right next to the shower i thought that it might just get hot off the shower steam so i of course touched it to figure out what it was, not very hot but very cool! the second night it was much warmer and i needed that warmth!) and we had an amazing view outside our window! it looked out on the street and right across the street and a little to the side was sir walter scott's memorial it was a kinda creepy gothic ( he was a Gothic writer) and looked like a miniature cathedral steeple type thing. we could also see both old and new edinburgh which is gourgous! both me and my roommate were exhausted both nights so the moment we both finished getting ready for bed we turned out the lights and went to sleep at like 8 or 9 both nights.
on the second day we toured the castle then decided after eating lunch at the elephant cafe which is where j.k. rowling created harry potter that we would walk to the coast, we knew it was going to be a long walk but we thought we'd get to see a pretty sunset forgetting that we are in scotland where it is grey and overcast every day, and there would be a pretty beach type thing or at least some large rocks............ as we got close to the coast we started seeing docks and sketchy things like that.... someone then directed us to a not dock place where we might be able to see the sea and such but when we got there it was just the side of a road with a path running down beside it plus on the other side of us were more and more warehouses so we really didn't want to be there when the sun set plus you really couldn't even see the sun.... so we began our 9 mile trek back to our hotel, and at the first sign of a decent restaurant we collapsed and eat there. my feet and legs were killing me! so i did not go with the others to Aurthur seat which is a mountain climb which most of them fell  at least once, instead i headed out to the one place i had been wanting to go the whole time the weaving mill to get my yarn! at first when i walked in i was very confused for just about nothing in there seemed to do with weaving, there was this creepy Gothic punk section and some random trinkets and sword type stuff, but you move a bit farther back and then you start getting to the lambs wool and cashmere then as you so through the exhibit (well sorta exhibit the official exhibit was closed) there was more and more tartan stuff but not until you get to the bottom do you find the yarn! they had huge amounts of it for ten pounds i didn't matter how much there was on the spool it was all the same price, unfortuatly the huge ones tended to have fine thread and i can't really use that for what i want it for but i found some awesome yarn that is black and white and red so now i just have to get my needles and i'll be ready for a project.
i spent most of the rest of the day shopping around finding deals getting gifts stuff like that :)
then we road back on the train about halfway through i got tired of being cut off for everyone else so i just went and stood in the aisle and talked with people in our group true i did have to keep moving out of the way for others who were coming through, like seriously do british people not know how to stay still? or at least stay in there general area? oh and we had this drunk lady who tried to take my seat but thankfully she got up without me having to tell her anything.the last adventure on our trip was a bright flash off to the side, i thought it might have been lighting so i tried to ignore it but it was not, it was something electrical with the train because not long after that flash the train stopped and we found out that the driver was going to have to walk to the back of the train and fix the problem they said it would only be a few min. they were wrong. it had to be close to an hour before we heard that the driver had fixed the problem and was not walking back to the front of the train, which apparently would take 10 min. we all then thought that our driver had to be old or infim or something cause how long could this train be? like really? but that was the last bit of excitement on the trip and we all got back safe and extreamily tired.
from lodon with love :)

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!!!!!!!

 ok so i'm writing a little out of order but i so have to write about this now! we just got back from seeing phantom of the opera and it was so freaken amazing!!!!!!!!!! its the same one as the broadway version a little different staging of course but it was a lot cheaper, and guess what? i got to sit in the 3rd row!!!!!!!!!!! it was so close but far enough away to keep some of the illusion in all actuality one to two rows back would have been better for everything but the chandelier, the chandelier rose and dropped right over my head!!!! i had forgotten that it fell down right before intermission, so i heard a scream from above me and looked up and it was falling right on my head! seriously i think for a moment my heart stopped beating; then it kick started at twice the rate, my friend next to me said he almost started screaming himself, he had never seen phantom before and was not very used to theaters. i think this was even better than broadways version, at least as far as memory serves and my vision when i was at the broadway show, which was not very good as high up as i was. this was amazing! you could see everything and all the expressions on the actors faces!!! i was very happy. then to top it all off as we were riding back to the daniel house we saw the guy who plays RAUEL!!!!!!!!!!!!! some of us first saw him when he was walking quickly by us down the escalator and then when we were on the tube a few of the girls got to sit near him!!! of course we tried to be cool and not giggle all over the place or ask him for his autograph for he seemed to want to be like every one else, and truly we would have thought that had we not just seen the play, but it was so exciting!!! to get to ride like anyone else with a theater star! who has an amazing voice!!!!!! i was so hyper afterwards talking about everything that the others kept telling me to breath, now i have to re-calm myself down so i can go to bed will get back on track with the days in order when i get back tomorrow. until then
from london with love

Chaos

with the chaos of the past few days with school internships and getting ready for scotland this is the fist time i've had time to write, and this is not even on my blog at least the original, i'm writing this on the train, since the people around me are either sleeping or reading... there are people behind me talking and carrying on but i can't exactly join in too many seats between plus would get sick facing back that far nor could hear, well except those i think british football players in the back. i think i left off tusday afternoon so i need to tell you what happened Wednesday. no one has class on Wednesday many of us have our internships interviews mine was not till thursady so i got to hang out with those that do not have internships. we decided to go to the natural history museum for it is with in walking distance and free! i really wish trains were pressurized! my ears keep hurting when we pass another train or go through a tunnel. the natural history museum is built for children so i was loud and fun and had many hands on exhibits. since it is free we didn't feel pressured to see the whole thing at that time. i plan on going back if not in this half of the semester than next when i have fewer classes. the ticket lady just came by and said "tickets please" very train like :) when you walk into the natural history museum the first thing that greats you is a long neck dinosaur! man that thing is huge! its spinal column from neck to tail takes up like the whole foyer area and its not a small area, think size of gym added to a college size gym with stands and the beauty of a cathedral. for when we were going to church on sunday we thought the museum was the church. i do believe that the british national history museum has more dino bones than i've ever seen in my life! they had the bones on structures scale models a lot; and amazing ways of displaying them for the big ones there was an elevated walkway that  let you be almost eye to eye with them! since the british did so much hunting and exploring and there fore they have many stuffed and slightly faded creatures. they have and old panda so faded its black sections are now more brown than black. for the most part all the creatures are well preserved. they have all sorts of creatures from decently common creatures like lions and armadillos to the more exotic and creatures that nowadays can't be hunted like vampire bats and snow leopards. they also have a blue whale, i kinda doubt that it is a skin but i could be wrong. they have so much stuff that we saw in our few hours there that i could spend pages and hours writing about it. i'm not going to do that. in the afternoon we went to oxford st. where the normal people shop. one of the girls wanted to get an across purse and i wanted a more professional not quite so touristy looking one if i could find one in my price range which was cheep. both of us found what we wanted in our range which was great! it took us a really long time to find them . most of the stores were ridiculously expensive or the bags were huge and not across bags. so i had my bag to look good for my interview and she got her every day bag everyone happy!
that leads to thursday which defiantly was a day of chaos! get up have breakfast hurry upstaris start packing for Edinburgh, run downstairs for class, go to the science museum only see the part on medicine on this trip because need to get back for a quickish lunch, then iron shirt have to leave iron there to cool off, run upstairs have to stop running half way up stair cause tired (live on 4th floor coming from basement) finish walking upstairs put in contacts, put on makeup figure out whither to war socks with borrowed flats or not, finish getting ready fix hair (pointless the wind in the tube station ruins any style), then run down stairs thank friend heartily for helping me out by putting the iron up for me and leave, oh yeah and some where in there started a 2 pages reflection paper due friday. then with barley a breath get to the tube and hope dearly nothing happens even though planned in time for a shot stop other than normal, the circle line has been having issues lately, but didn't on this trip. get to paddington only have slight trouble locating sign for my exit, couldn't completely read the sign contacts went screwy, then had no trouble finding the hospital, so i was there waay early, almost 30 min. early wait more than that. so i kinda wondered around the elevators, they have small elevators so i let others go first then in a close to empty one i finally went up and found where the school room was supposed to be, here i encountered a slight problem, i couldn't open the doors! it wasn't a lack of strength so i had no idea what to do, my instructions just said follow signs that say schoolroom and i didn't see any signs except the pull that told me how to get in so i look around for help and apparently i looked very confused for a doctor or someone who works at the hospital told me so, sh showed me a button i could have pressed that would have paged the receptionist who would have let me through but his card worked so he let me through, it properly would have been good for him to have checked some id or something but i guess the confusion on my face and my slight stuttering when i told him what i was doing let me be trustworthy. since i was massively early they were not ready for me. while i was waiting they offered me tea or coffee, at home i would have said i'm fine but we have been encouraged to accept it and take tea breaks with them so i said sure. they made coffee...... i really don't like coffee, don't like the smell from home, but i wasn't going to be rude so i accepted a cup and put a lot of milk and sugar in it; i don't think there is enough of anything to make that stuff taste good. i only was able to force down 2 sips. in my interview she had already placed me, so we just talked about what the schools were and what i could expect in my internship. since my stuff came in later than many others she didn't have many places for me to go, nor do i have any experience in the type of children they deal with so she just put me where they had a spot, so coming Monday i will be at least i think so i will be at the psychiatric branch. she said the bunch they have right now are a calmer bunch so a good group to coming in on. without a moments rest when that was over i scurried home to go to the theater! we watched As You Like It which is an awesome play when seen in person. some of us read it before just so we had an idea of what we were getting into. seeing it performed by a Shakespeare company with british and irish accents makes it that much better! i really don't think there can be any comparison to Shakespeare performed by the british!
oh and i finished my paper that night so i didn't have to bring my computer with me. somehow i succeed in being completely ready ( i think) and finished my homework and i even got up in time ( o dark 30) for the tube to the train, and now i've even caught you up to me. as my pen somehow someway bleeds on my fingers i feel like and author of old a scribbler if you will with that
from london with love

sorry

i'm dead tired on my feet barley from reading 60 pages on my computer for tomorrows class... and i have my internship interview tomorrow and other stuff so i might be able to write tomorrow but that is doubtful. i have to pack as well since we are leaving o'dark 30 in the morning for Edinburgh Scotland and i will not be bringing my computer with me so if i get a chance i will post about today and tomorrow, tomorrow. if not i will write a very long post on monday or sunday night. goodnight yall!
from london with love

classes and internship

today we had our first Gothic lit class and the first British heritage and culture. in the gothic lit course it is very very obvious that we are samford students, there is but one boy in our class. we began to go over frankenstine and will finish it on Thursday. after that class we had lunch which was going to be pleasurably long until it was one when we found out that our teacher was here an hour early! so we snarfed down our food and headed to class. at the beginning everyone was falling asleep not because he was exactally boring nor was he exciting but still we were all so tired, taking notes was the only way i could stay awake. the class ended up being good but it was just a slow start, while being good the class has been so far about the religion of the britians. the funny thing is that we americans and learning about british heritage from a scottish man. since he is scottish/british in the middle of class we had a tea break. immediately following class me and the other girl who is going to be working in a school and we took the tube waay out there and then a bus and then walked but we found it! then we came back and started again to my internship site. mine was not very hard to get to at least by the tube, getting out of the tube station was. paddingtion station was absolute chaos! it is also a train station and man are those confusing! it took me a very long while to find where i was supposed to go to get to the street. when i did finally get to the street i wanted was very sketchy... it was like a alley way it might not in the light but when i got there it was after 5 and the sun sets here about 4. so i walk through the sketchy part of it and come to the hospital which is called queen elizabeth the queen mothers hospital... there can't be a queen elizabeth queen mother.... cause there have only been two queen elizabeths and one was the virgin queen and the other is still reigning.... unless they mean elizabeth of york who was so long ago uniting the houses of york and lancester before the tudors, or if their has been a married into queen elizabeth i guess that wouldn't count in the count of queens for their names. well i wouldn't find out anything about it until thrusday afternoon when i have my interview.
seeing as how i've been very distractable while writing this message i have successfully washed my clothes  note i did not say washed and dried, for the dryer here is not very good.... even when i took out all of my shirts it still did not completely dry my socks and underwear, they are now completing their drying layed out on my desk, and all my shirts are downstairs on a drying rack seeing as how my room is very narrow and tiny, my cave at the old lake house is bigger, last semesters dorm room was way bigger, my freshman dorm room was even bigger and that was a single, so there is no room in here for both them and me. now if i was going to be leaving my room for the whole day then i might have been able to leave them in here if i could find a rack to put them on.... maybe i could have borrowed my next door neighbors top bunk as well as using my bunk and ladder... that could work. maybe.
that has pretty much been the escapades of the day except for two things
1) the british do not use .com they use .co.uk so i'm wondering did the internet start in america? or what? i've never had to use it anywhere else other than america till now so i don't know what other countries use, although i do know that many things you want to use from america can't be used here and that makes me sad at times
2) i tried to make an omelet with spinach in it that kinda failed.... i made it, it just turned into scrambled omelette's and the eggs here taste a good bit better, although that might have been the fact that it was almost 8 and i was starving.
off to read the newspaper and go to bed
from london with love