Camden Market

Right now at the Study Centre there are very few people around. Not only has the summer session not started yet, but England has a lot of bank holidays. They get the Good Friday and Easter Monday off. The Royal Wedding is counting as another bank holiday on Friday and then the following Monday is another Bank Holiday. That's two 4 day wknds in a row which means a lot of people are taking advantage and traveling. Including Luke and one of the students, Nick. They are in Croatia for the week which  leaves Lindsey, Natalie, me, and 2 First Year Abroad Students.We took a day this week to head to Camden Market. This was my first time there and I have to say it was pretty interesting.....

 There are statues and sculptures everywhere!

 This is Claire one of the first year abroad students who will also be here through the summer!

 This is the one of the weirdest/coolest places I've ever been. It's a clothing store that is all futuristic. It's like Tron meets Star Trek meets a Rave.

This is Wes, another of the first year abroad (FYA) students. Although he's leaving us this week to head to Valencia for the summer! He's clearly leading the horses through the market.

Bubbles and Mustaches

Oh the randomness of college students! It's part of what makes college so much fun. All the students left last Friday morning, but we had some fun the night before. We received free tickets to Legally Blonde (oh my god, oh my god. you guuuuys it's so good), went for some drinks which has it's own interesting story.... and then decided to have a mustache party! One of the girls had found them at poundland (like the dollar store, but everything is actually a pound) and conjured up this idea. Well it had been awhile and no mustache party had happened so why not their last night? The bubbles came later in the night while everyone was hanging out in our flat. Someone pulled them out of their purse and said their mom had sent them! 

Rebecca and Morgan (scarily Morgan's looks kinda real)

Luke put the full face on and was really good at keeping a straight face which made it even scarier! (Emily is on the ground laughing)

I joined in on the fun too! Although I'm pretty sure both of mine might be upside-down :)

 Who doesn't like bubbles?

Tea Time!

Our farewell event to the students was touring Kensington Palace and having afternoon tea and champagne at the Orangery. My job is pretty awesome! I get free theatre tickets, nice afternoon teas, and day trips all over London. Although, don't let me fool you, I do a lot of work! It was another beautiful day in London and hot! I know not as hot as Texas, but seriously what is going on here? I've missed all the cold weather. Good news was we all got to show off our summer dresses :)

Kensington Palace Gates

Kensington Gardens

The throne of power!

The Orangery

A real English Tea... Champagne, Tea, Cucumber Sandwhiches, Scones with clotted cream and jam! Delicious! We also had sweets served right after this.

Of course they have mini orange trees on the tables at the Orangery

Another view of the Kensington Gardens

Leeds Castle

Our next stop after Canterbury was Leeds Castle. It was a great day to visit the castle. The last person who lived there took a lot of time to renovate it and bring in exotic animals. Again, just like Canterbury the day was beautiful and we had a great time. I was least looking forward to this trip, but it turned out to be really fun and relaxing. Which after my wknd in Valencia and my 2 day sickness it was much needed!

 

The gardens here were beautiful as well. And all the flowers were in bloom.

There is also a golf course across the moat from the Castle.

The castle with the golf course in the background

The original fire place

Look at this gorgeous day!

The human maze! I made it out!

Our Pilgrimmage to Canterbury

Our last day trip with the students was last week. This wasn't my first trip to Canterbury, but definitely one of the prettiest days I've experienced in London. The light was great for picture taking. We visited Canterbury Cathedral and hung out in the city before heading to our next destination. Stay tuned for the next blog to find out where.....

One of my favorite pictures so far :)

Yep, this is for real

Valencia (finale)

So in Spain they don't go out until around 1AM.... while I usually don't go to bed early, I'm still usually IN bed around this time. It was quite a change. They are also not on time for anything, which Luke and I thoroughly enjoyed on our vacation (which was exhausting).

Anyways, on our last night our hostess was DJing at a club. She did a great job and it was our last time to hang out with the students. We started around 1AM and ended the night around 6AM. That's Spain for ya. This time frame did not bode well for our trip home the next week. I had a huge case of motion sickness and dehydration (because it was the first time I'd seen the sun in awhile). But the trip was totally worth it! the sickness for 2 days was not. I'm def looking forward to my future trips :)

Catalina- our hostess

Some of the students we hung out with during the wknd

This crazy girl outside who realize we were Americans and was like "I love America." And kept calling us her new friends. So naturally we had to take a picture.....

Valencia (part 3)

On our way to the beach we took a walk down "the river." It's actually a river bed that runs through the city. Parts of it were beautiful! It was about a 30-40 min walk, but well worth it. At the end we ended up at the Arts and Sciences Center. I couldn't believe what they had done with it! Valencia is a very pretty city. The only thing that was lacking was my Spanish speaking skills.

There were a lot of fountains and orange trees along our way. The city planted them so that the city would smell nice during bloom. You can't actually eat the oranges because they're too sour, but they make everything smell lovely :)

 Only the coolest playground EVER! That's Gulliver from Gulliver's travels. It was a really large play area with a ton of slides, cargo nets, stairs, and fun things to crawl on. Luke and I were a little jealous we never had this growing up.

The Opera House

 The Arts and Sciences area. This water went all the way down with building sitting in the middle of it. The colors, shapes, and grandeur was a sight to see. You can even see a dinosaur in the background promoting their dinosaur exhibit.

When we got to the beach there was a small market going on and there was a REAL camel! I kinda wanted to ride it, but we just took pictures. Sorry no beach pictures here. I took them on my phone.