UGHHH I HATE THIS!! dont wanna blog... feel like i should blog.. kinda want to blog... embarrassed to want to blog... eeeek. so torn. i make fun of people with blogs!!!!even though i like some of them.. but i guess i yam who i yam. but i hope i dont get an eye or brain disease from looking at the computer screen for too long! and im not going to capitaliza my i's or use a lot of these '''''. this is mostly for people like i dont even know who because i am so bad at keeping in touch/adequately describing to people what i am up to. so here goes. no one even knows im "resurrecting" this!!! that's the way kelly pitts put it, shout out if youre reading this. enough of the blabbing. here's me trying to be concise about the past few days' events... WEDNESDAY 16 MAY 2012. (european people put the day before the month so im trying to fit in) - woke up really early and freaked out because I don't know anything about plants so I did some research for the garden tour I'm giving. it's highgrove house and I'm so excited! one of the homes of prince charles and camilla. also worked on public parks research assignment. turns out the guy who designed central park got all his ideas from england! duh. more details to come. NOT BEING CONCISE ENOUGH ERRRR - sweet dottie took off work to help me pack!! BLESS her what would anyone do without her???? a SAINT she is. and got to spend time with Nora! gonna miss her too. and those dawgs she spoils mmhmm - fly from memphis to ATL. saying goodbye to dottie was sad. she watched me go through security alone, and it really made me miss Jane! seems like just yesterday we were making fun of our parents watching us through security before españa. now i just laughed all by myself! - new international terminal in the ATL airport. first day it was open! terminal F they call it. since they already have ABCD and E. i felt like i stepped into the future. it was neat! except i had to ride over to some other terminals/concourses because they honestly are more hoppin. F is more for the business elite just FYI. international flight- took some sleepy meds. sat next to travis, he is on the trip with auburn too. we all had our own TV monitor headsets in front of us!!!! never have i ever been so excited. i immediately regretted taking the pills because i just wanted to play in-flight trivia all night and watch every movie. instead i passed out like a champ with my head on the tray table. woke up and watched the shawshank redemption and next thing i knew we had arrived! customs line was a little backed up and the travis that i sat next to on the plane almost didnt make it through!!! apparently the lady questioning him at customs thought he was being dishonest ! who knows. he was this close to being on the next flight back to the US! those Brits aren't kidding around. OH Wait now its thursday! THURSDAY 17 MAY 2012 - go to hotel. near the tower of London. we got cleaned up and then walked around for a bit! saw the tower and the tower bridge! right on the river thames. apparently that's pronounced "tims". i dont understand. and apparently "ces" means "s". like gloucester sounds like gloster. but worcester sounds like wooster. almost like rooster and that doesn't seem to line up. and i dont know why we decided to use "z"'s in america where they use "s"'s. like vandalize is vandalise. who is correct here>? these things bother me whilst on the subway. then we saw trafalgar square and had a great dinner at some place. i quickly remembered how NOT in a hurry they are over here, and if you're dining in a restaurant, you're going to be there a while! i love that! it's different when these aren[t people I know very well ha but it makes it interesting! fun getting to know the people in the group. after dinner we hit up the good stuff, big ben, buckingham palace, st. james park (quite lovely this time of year!!) oh and seth from our group was hiding the fact that it was his 21st birthday! haha once we found out we got a man who was playing the keytar in the subway to play him "happy birthday"! it was funny!

buckingham palace - a lot of construction going on around it building for the queen's diamond jubilee! celebrating her 60th anniversary of reign! WOW that's a long time! FRIDAY - today we went to the Kew Gardens, the Royal botanic gardens, that is! I was BLOWN away!!! it's part of our curriculum for one of our classes to go on different tours, and this is one of the most famous garden's in the world! MASSIVE and there's no way to see it all, but here were some highlights. two really big glasshouses were the Palm house and the temperate house. felt like i was in the jungle!! take the scene from dunstin checks in, when pee wee herman is chasing him in the greenhouse and magnify it by like 50!!! so cool. another thing, the treetop walkway! we climbed up these stairs to be on a walkway level with the treetops, great views and interesting facts about trees and arboriculture. we walked to the waterlily house, which might be my favorite. it was small but so cool. on the way there two other girls, Mollie and Jayne, gave me some lessons on how to classify and ID certain species of plants, mostly trees. learning a lot already! then we saw the most beautiful azaleas in the azalea garden! too bad the roses aren't in bloom yet! oh ya and ther was some bambu in the mix!

Waterlily House

Mollie teaching me about evenly and oddly pennate trees

view from treetop walkway

awkward self pic in front of azaleas

- another 2 hr meal! nice to let the feet rest, we got lunch at some pizza chain but it was tasty for sure. then headed back to london. we tried to figure out a broadway show to see. i wish they would haggle those prices :// but it was out of control over there crowded and no one had a plan. i realized going with the flow wouldn't work this trip because there wasn;t really a flow! you see, the professor that was going to bring us over here ended up having to have surgery last week and couldn't travel anymore, so we have 2 phd students leading us. imagine just finding out that you have to take a bunch of hooligans to england! i don't blame them for not having set plans! so we kind of had to hop around from burger king to burger king to get free wifi to look up what we should do. brian, our teacher guy, is just like my dad, getting SO excited about wifi anywhere we go! haha. finally we ended up getting a map. we made it over to the National Gallery! there, we saw work by Van Gogh, Renoir, Velazquez (!!!!!!), and other important artists probably. next, we went to the British Museum! we were going in search of the Dead Sea scrolls and the gutenburg bible, but they moved them to the British Library!! sneaky sneaky. but GUESS WHAT we got to see the olympic gold medals for London 2012!!! someone will wear them!! who's it going to be? my money's on some 14 year old asain gymnasts who's with me? another thing i was so pumped about seeing here was prints by picasso and goya! wanted to call my spanish teacher. upon my grandmother's suggestion, i went to see the mummy room in the british museum! how in the WORLD did they know how to preserve bodies so well in the year 1000?? ew its so gross but so interesting!

SATURDAY - went on a tour of the Tower of London. saw the torture stuff and the crown jewels! so cool. and met a man that was what they call a yeomen warder. there are only 37 of them. he works in the tower and actually lives there, they all do! he insisted it was haunted. hmm... - went to olympic park! PEOPLE this place is crazy!! so to get there, you take the subway to this place that apparently used to be some old industrial park, but when they found out London would host the 2012 olympics in 2005, they started getting ready. they built a HUGE mall that you MUST enter and walk through right when you exit the subway in order to get to the viewing platform for the olympic sites. i have never felt like such a victim of consumerism!! it was crazy. and it was more crowded than disney world. crying babies, touchy couples, loud food courts, the whole enchilada. but its neat to see where the games will take place! didnt get close to anything, but saw the aquatics facility, the stadium where the track and field are, and the water polo place. apparently the gymnastics place is off site elsewhere.

Olympic Countdown Clock !

- Mollie, Ashlyn, and I went to Notting Hill!!!! thats one of my fav movies of all time, in case you didn't know. we walked through portabello market. i could just hear "ain't no sunshine when she's gone" and watch the seasons change with hugh grant hanging his coat over his shoulder walking to work. I didn;t see the travel bookstore! but its ok. that's got to be the coolest neighborhood. such a pretty area. with neat little shops and beautifully decorated exteriors of homes. they were teaching me about small shrubs and herbaceous plants! next we went to kensington gardens! we saw the duck pond and then had to head over towards west end! Mollie and I were convinced by a british girl to see billy elliot while in London. so we did! and it was, as promised, hilarious, uplifting, and inspiring! hahha! im sure we missed about 50% of the british humor, but that's alright. really enjoyed the play! dying to see jersey boys or singin in the rain in america one day! musicals are so fun. SO FUN! then we went to Gordon's wine bar, its one of the oldest in London. almost seems like you[re in a cave inside! on the way back to the hotel, we stopped and talked with a man selling poetry on the street! he was so passionate about it! he just recited one for me on the spot when i asked what it was about. and he didn't hold back at all! it was so cool. i feel like he could make some serious $$$ reading harry potter on tape or something. i definitely walked away with a variety of poems by joseph. as did mollie. pictures later. gotta wake up early to travel to Pershore where we will live and take classes!

I'm a blogger.. wait no I'm not.. I'm a blogger.. Noooooooo.. yessss aAHHH

OK people. Looks like I'm back. But I haven't told anyone that I'm blogging so really this is just for me, because I do write in my journal, but I honestly can't read my handwriting most of the time, so this is a good way to be able to look back at things and reflect, eh?

I usually dog on people with blogs, but then I caught myself reading people's blogs and realized I actually like them. So here goes nothing.

Well now I'm really kind of nervous, like what should I record in my first blog of 2012?? It's been so long! I'm getting all nostalgic for Spain since the last time I blogged I was there. Let's start with that. How I really want to go back to Spain. I'm not impartial to Spain though, I think I just have this fire under my toosh to go anywhere! I'm not sure why. I'm working through the psychology behind that now... am I trying to escape something or run away from real life? which not only bores me but also seems to continually force me to know myself better/expose messy parts of myself that I can't cover up when I'm not always looking forward to the next big thing? Or is my desire to go far away and my fascination with people of different cultures from the Lord? Perhaps a little of both. But one thing's for sure as of now, as I'm constantly dwelling on the uncertainty of my future and purpose, I am exactly where the Lord wants me to be. As Christian's, we are called to seek the Lord in every chapter of life, and bring glory to Him all the while searching for what the world see's as our "purpose". Recently I listened to a sermon talking about time, and how we, on Earth perceive everything based on this time capsule. I so often forget that the Lord doesn't work that way!! There is no end in the big picture! I hope if anyone out there is reading this and concerned about their vocation, they would remember that our life isn't really ours. If we seek Him daily, He will see His sovereign plan through, and our life won't be about what we can get out of it, what WE can accomplish (even if it is for Him)..No, we have to let Him put us where we belong, for His glory and His kingdom. That is really where we will be most fulfilled, anyways! It's funny how we think we can figure it all out on our own.. Enough of that future talk!!

I think that's pretty good for a first entry back to the blogging world. I can only take so much in one day. But I believe this is a good hobby, so I really want to try and start doing this more! K. over and out.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter yall! wish I was home to eat a big reese's egg and go to church with the fam! but its ok i bought some medioker chocolate in a chino (really gonna miss those) and hung with some friends. whats new..

- family
My brother Will came to Madrid last week! It was so great to see him! We walked around a ton, went to Retiro Park, ate good tapas at this awesome place called El Tigre, did all the touristy stuff yada yada and he came to Alcalá and got to meet Abuela and Mercedes! I was sad that my little bro, Alexis was at school. I really wanted Will to see his rattail. But it's okay because Mercedes brought down the pictures of him dressed like a bullfighter with a guitar. Abuela insisted that Will looks like a man from Germany. Thanks for visiting wilber!!

our feet in the center of spain! 0 km

wilber and me and Retiro!


- travels
The weekend after Barcelona, Jane's sisters and mom came to visit. I went with them to Granada and Sevilla. In Granada, we saw the Alhambra, where the Moorish kings lived until the Catholic Kings took over in 1492. Its a pretty big deal, really cool! Then we went to Seville, another city in the south. It was hot and i loved it. We went to a flamenco show! I'll add pictures of everything one of these days. When we got back to Madrid, we went to a bull fight. I'm not sure how I feel about them. It was cool to go but at the same time I feel bad for the bulls! They kill 6 at every bullfight! crazy tradition. but anyways.

gardens of the Alhambra

Seville's Cathedral

Flamenco Show!

Bullfight!

Last night we got back from Italy, where we spent our spring break. It was SO much fun. FIrst we went to the south, Naples/Sorrento/Pompeii. The coast is beautiful like a postcard! We went to a cooking class with a real Italian man chef that had hands as big as a gorilla, perfect for kneading dough for pizza and italian food. It was a little intimidating but definitely a great experience! Came with an apron and a cookbook with all types of italian recipes.

First pizza in the birthplace of pizza! about the only good thing in Naples...

Jane and me at Mami Camilla cooking class!

Our new Australian friend making pasta dough

The pasta we made!

The scary chef!

From there we headed to Florence where we met up with our friends Nikki and Amy. We saw Michaelangelo's David, it really is like SO big! and lucked out because a lot of museums were free for culture week. We also saw the Duomo, different from anything I've ever seen! The bridges in Florence were really pretty too, oh and the gelato, loved that. It's probably a good thing I'm studying abroad in Spain, where the food isn't that special. We went up to Piazza Michaelangelo and got a really great view of Florence before heading to Vicchio, a little town in Tuscany where we went to the greatest bed and breakfaast ever. Heidi, the owner, picked us up from the train station and brought us to their house in the middle of the rolling hills! She and her husband, Lorenzo (who doesn't speak a lick of English), carted us around and let us hang out with them while we were there, taking us to markets or nearby towns and making us the tastiest meals/picnics. Heidi is like Julie Andrews. She knows everything and has the coolest accent. Lorenzo knows how to pick his wine, cheese, and honey. all important things for an Italian to know. We were sad to leave, but they sent us off with a box of chocolates, how sweet.

Florence's Duomo!

Michelangelo's David! not supposed to take pictures muahaha

Gelato.

Heidi in her kitchen!

The outside of the house!

the hills are aliiiiive

me and nikki!

I will return one day..

gotta love Lorenzo

Then we were ready for ROme! In Rome, we saw the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Colosseum, Vatican/Sistine Chapel, Spanish steps (of course) and all that stuff. I loved Rome, definitely want to go back one day when it isn't right before Easter/extreeeeemely crowded with other tourists.

us at the Spanish steps!

Meet Treva, our Vatican tour guide

Pantheon, obvi

oops, got a picture of the Last Judgement

Coliseum