Manchester United Soccer game!

Kelcie and I went with our friends Sam, Alex, and my roommate Katie to a Manchester United game last last Monday (18th of February). It was so much fun! It was the fifth round of the FA cup against Reading. Both teams are in the premiere league, but if you know anything about soccer then you know that Manchester United is #1 :) and of course....Manchester won 2-1.

This is the outside of the stadium :)

our seats were pretty high, but we could still see the field just fine!

A man beside me, who was quite drunk I might add, informed me that the Streford End of the field is the favored end. At half time the score was 0-0 but he was just convinced that Manchester would score now that they had the Stretford End.....he may have been drunk, but he was right! 

Sam, Kelcie, Katie, me, and Alex

After the game we had a long journey.....it ended at 10 at night, and we didn't have to catch our train until 1 in the morning. As you can see, we were trying to pass the time.....

After we got off of our first train, which was at 2 in the morning, we then had to wait three hours until the train at 5am. So this time we decided to go to a nearby mcdonalds in the city of Leeds. This mcdonalds was PACKED! these crazy kids were partying on a monday night! we were so astonished....our friend Sam ended up asking a group sitting next to us why they were out so late and they were surprised and just said "eh, it's monday night, we're just hanging out." .......at 3 am.....on a monday night....maybe im just not accustomed to the party life haha. anyways, so kelcie and i got Cadbury egg mcflurry's!!! We all know I"m a chocolate lover....and I have found my new favorite chocolate over here! i'm in love with cadbury!!! I know we have some in the states, but it's made by Hershey for some odd reason and it doesnt taste the same. Plus, they have so many more varieties over here!!! I'm going to the Cadbury Factory at the end of march :) But apart from being dead tired, it was actually quite amusing. We even met a Harry Potter extra! (and we all know how much I LOVE harry potter!!!) she was in the very last battle scene....so i guess i know what im doing when i get home! putting that scene in slow mo hahaha. 

After we got on our last train we FINALLY made it home at 6:30.....but was it worth it??? absolutely! :)

Edinburgh, Scotland

So once again, this is a very late post, but I've been so busy lately that it's hard to take the time to sit down and write!
Kelcie and I went to Edinburgh all by ourselves!!! we were so proud :)
We stayed in a hostel which we were really impressed with. It was nice and it had a restaurant/bar attached that had live music at night.

We saw Edinburgh Castle which is the inspiration for the Harry Potter castle.

For the rest of the first day that we got there we just walked around Edinburgh and looked at the city, it's so pretty!

The next day we woke up and climbed Arthurs Seat! It's a mountain....and let me tell ya...it's quite the hike. Kelcie and I had to force ourselves to keep climbing so that two little kids behind us wouldn't pass us up! But once we got to the top it was totally worth it. You could see the entire city!!!

this is the top, absolutely gorgeous! and we had a WONDERFUL day to climb. It's usually freezing in England so we thought Scotland would be worse since it's north of us....but it was actually warmer! and sunny! I got some sun!!!

Afterwards we went to a cute little Cafe called the Elephant House. This is the place where J.K. Rowling wrote the first two Harry Potter books. 

This is the table J.K. Rowling would sit at when she wrote her books. It's the perfect view for the Castle that inspired Hogwarts!

The bathroom is COVERED in notes to J.K. Rowling. We found this funny the "entrance to the chamber of secrets" haha. You would only get this if you have watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets....

This is another one. "This way to the ministry". Again, you would only get it if you've seen harry potter, sorry!

After lunch we went on an underground tour. The new city of Edinburgh is built on top of the old city and you can actually walk some of the streets underneath, it's pretty neat! 

This picture kind of shows you where we were. Underneath this bridge in what they call the "vaults". The merchants used to use them for their work. Like, shoe makers would hire people and rent out one of the vaults and the workers would be in there all day everyday making shoes. This went on for a long time until they closed them due to the terrible working conditions.

Edinburgh is a very cool place!!! apparently it's #10 on the top ten places to visit, whoo hoo!

Madrid, Spain!

Hola!

Last weekend Kelcie, Alex, and I went to Madrid, it was so beautiful! it was so sunny that kelcie and I had to break out our sun glasses....we were excited :) i even got a sunburn!!!!! which isnt saying much for me....but hey, I can't get them in England.

So in Madrid we did A LOT of walking around and exploring the city. The first couple days we went around to all of the different parks which were very pretty.
One park had the crystal palace which was neat

Another park was FULL of peacocks! it seriously looked like Alice and Wonderland.

And then there were parks for old people! they had stationary bicycles and stretching stations, it was great! it was mostly older men that were there....but you could totally tell that it was a social outing haha.

This is Kelcie and Alex testing out the stationary bikes!

We also, of course, tested out all of the local food! Here's some Paella.....SO GOOD.

we also ate gelato, churros, and sangria. but paella is definitely my favorite :)

Another place we went was the "Templos de debod". They are Egyptian ruins that were going to be destroyed so they brought them over to spain! they were very pretty in the sunset :)

We happened to go to Madrid during one of their annual carnivals! It was called Carnaval de Madrid. there were so many people there.....like more than Disney World. there were thousands. it was crazy.

In this picture you can kind of tell that there are a lot of people, but there were so many more! every restaurant we went to was cram packed full......it was an adventure trying to find food :( but we saw a parade which was really neat! and then afterwards there were fireworks. loved it!

                     This guy came up to me and kissed my hand and held it up to his chest.....it was so                     embarrassing, but i couldnt say anything because he spoke spanish!

Madrid is definitely one of my favorite cities! I would go back in a heartbeat!!! The only thing is that they're very umm.....free spirited and.....outspoken haha

New Life Church Retreat!

Alright so I'm figuring things out and hopefully you guys can read this better in purple writing! 

So this past weekend (February 1-3) I went to a youth retreat for college students. There's a church in the next town over called New Life. It is just a branch off of the main church (which has about 500 people) in the town of Lincoln which is where I went the weekend before. The pastor came to the college a few weeks ago and asked if any of us wanted to go and as soon as he told us about it I wanted to go so bad!!! I couldn't decide if I could though because Kelcie and I were planning on going to Scotland and I didn't want to miss out on a travel opportunity. BUT long story short, we pushed back our trip and I got to go and I"m so glad I did!!!!!!!!

There were about 150 students that went but only 8 were from Harlaxton  that went and besides the fact that we were going to have a college retreat with a bunch of college students....we really had no idea what we were doing. We were told that we would be staying in Lincoln (which is about 40 minutes away from the university), but once we got there the church actually took us to Norfolk which is about 2 1/2 hours away from Lincoln! Needless to say that if we died no one would have even know where we were......but I'm not trying to scare my mother so I'm gonna move on. 

Anyways, so EVERY single person there was extremely loving and welcoming to us as soon as we arrived (which had nothing to do with the fact that we were American, I"m sure haha) but you could just feel Gods presence as soon as we got off the bus (sorry...coach) and it was just an amazing feeling! We immediately were placed into a worship service and didn't even get to eat until 10 at night! we were starving!!! it didn't help that once we actually got to eat they gave us a normal sized hot dog bun with a half sized hot dog to put in it..... all of the british students were worried about us because we're americans and we eat all of the time and have huge servings....I didn't even argue haha. I was actually asked why I was so skinny, if I ate the normal American sized portions, and why I didn't take up two bus seats instead of one....yeah guys...we've got a great reputation going for us! haha! I also had a million questions about gun control. Good thing I had a politics class before I came or I probably wouldn't have even known it was an issue.....and that's not sarcasm. They truly are upset about it though, even the students which impressed me. They're all so afraid that if they come to america they will get shot. I told them it was only the psycho people of course.....at least, that's what I tell myself. The students kept me up as long as humanly possible each night, which was fine with me, when I was there I never felt tired, I just wanted to keep going! but I think I only got six hours of sleep the entire weekend...and when I wanted to nap on the bus ride home they wouldn't let me because they were STILL talking to me.....and my parents think I talk to much.....

The rest of the weekend was filled with worship time, bible studies, playing games and just having a good time together! We taught them so many American games and how to Wobble.....and I'm sure about 3/4 of the people reading this don't even know what that is...and that's okay haha all you need to know is that it's an american dance to an american song.

So all in all it was just an amazing time and I met so many new friends and more importantly....got myself a pretty darn good english accent! ;) 

As much as I love harlaxton, I really didn't want to come back after experiencing such a great atmosphere! I'm just so glad I had seven other students from my school go through it with me. I would fly back next year just to go....but that's kind of an expensive youth retreat.....

oh well, here's some pictures!

We were kept so extremely busy that I was barely given time to take them!

This is an odd game they play, but apparently it's a tradition to do every year. all of the students stand around the railing of the spiral stairs while one student lays at the bottom. The student at the top throws the ball at the person on the bottom and they try to catch it. It might sounds lame....but these guys were so energetic and funny that it was absolutely hilarious!

uno! finally a game I knew how to play!

here's the wobble

These girls were my roommates. They were SO awesome and they took me in as soon as I stepped in the room! I barely even had time to spend with my american friends because the british students want to spend as much time with you as they can. They invited us all down for Easter so hopefully we can go!!!

Liverpool/Lincoln weekend

I know this is a really late post, but I might as well do it!
Last weekend I went to Lincoln on Friday and Liverpool on Saturday.

Lincoln:
Okay, so the school took all of the students to Lincoln on Friday for a field trip. It's a cool little city, but it was so cold I can't even remember everything we looked at! whoever told me that England stays around 55 degrees and never snows is in trouble......
So the professors started off by taking us on a "Roman Walk Tour" where we walked (in the freezing cold) around to all of the Roman ruins that have been left. The Romans took over England for a while but don't ask me the dates because I was to busy thinking about how I was going to defrost myself at the time. It was actually pretty neat, they showed us how low the city was when the Romans took over and how high they have the ground because they built over it. There was also a sewage system and then an arch which is the only one in the world that is still working. and as in working I mean that it sits over the road and cars drive under it.....here's a picture because I'm not the best at explaining....

This arch was placed so that the Romans would know anyone that went in or out of the city. pretty neat! They had others of course but this is the last one standing.

There's the saying that all roads lead to Rome......well this one literally does. At least, that's what I was told.

Next they took us to the castle. They mostly talked about the prison of the castle actually.

The prisoners stayed in their cells with nothing but four concrete walls. They got three meals a day and only came out of their cells for one hour each day. thirty minutes to exercise, and thirty minutes for chapel. This is a picture of the chapel. They put those little doors between prisoners so that they couldn't interact with each other and cause trouble.

They also took us onto the castle walls where they had a lot of hangings. kinda creepy. But I got some really good pictures of the Lincoln Cathedral which is where we went next!

They gave us a tour of the cathedral which was cool, but the best part was the room where part of the DaVinci code was filmed! They briefly mentioned that they were embarrassed....but at least they're famous!

This is the room. I dont recognize it, but maybe you will???

Liverpool:

The school offered a trip to Liverpool and so of course Kelcie and I went on it! It's the fourth largest city in England and if you dont know already, it's the home of the Beatles!

We went on "The Beatles Story" tour and it was actually quite interesting....despite the fact that I know like nothing about the beatles or their songs. They did a little walk tour/story about how they got together and how they became famous and blah blah blah. I just like the Yellow Submarine :)

They also told us that this famous picture........wasn't even photographed on this actual road. It was in a studio.....what a bummer!

And I guess by the end of the tour I was kind of a Jon Lennon wanna be....

So next we went to the International Slavery museum which I didn't take any pictures of but it was super interesting. It told of all the countries that did the slave trade and showed little videos of which country went to which part of Africa. I was surprised to find that even Brazil went to Africa for slaves....

There was also a special Titanic exhibit that was very neat. I think they have one similar in Florida that my parents went to. You started by taking a name of someone on the titanic. You hold onto it until you get to the end and find out if your person survived or not. I was Millvina Dean. You guys may or may not have heard of her but she was a baby on the titanic and ended up being the longest living survivor. Anyways, so Liverpool apparently had a lot to do with the titanic and they don't really like to talk about it much. 

Here's a picture.....I think you'll be able to read it....hopefully at least. But there were a lot of people from Liverpool that worked on the titanic and died.

Last but not least we went to Alberts Dock which is just a cool little place for tourists to go and eat or shop or whatever.

And that was the end of my weekend! Cold...but fun!