Hallo!

This weekend was spend in the very lovely Holland!
Thursday my parents and I spend our last day together in London. We visited the Horse Guards Museum and the changing of the guards and ate Lunch at the Albert. Then we said tearful cyalaters as they went off to their new hotel and I finished packing and getting ready. It helped that I was busy getting ready to leave so I didn't have too much time to miss them already again.

Nick, Billy and I left for the airport around 2:30 or so. All went well through security, except for Billy leaving a butter knife in his bag...Our plane was delayed but the flight was only about 50 minutes so it wasn't that big of a deal. We actually met some other people from Iowa on our flight, even more crazy is that one of them was from Pella and went to Pella high for a year in 2006 and graduated that year. Crazy!

Once we landed in Amsterdam, I talked to Luis who we'd be staying with to get direction for the train to Gouda, which yes is famous for the cheese, however it's pronounced more like 'gowda'. It's about an hour away from Amsterdam. The trains were quite easy to figure out and we didn't have any problem with Language as most know English.

Luis and Bridget, who we stayed with were fabulous. Luis is my uncle Konrad's twin brother. They had food for us and were just so great. It was a lot nicer to actually stay in a house rather than a hostel or hotel for a change too. It was much more relaxing. They were really great.

Friday the 3 of us ventured out to Amsterdam to spend the day there. It was a lot of fun. We ate poffertjes! Which were delicious! I wish we would have eaten more! After that we went to the Heineken brewary. It was in the place where the first Heineken factory was. We walked around a lot and saw a lot of canals and bikes were everywhere. There were tons!
We saw the basic things that most tourist see when they go to Amsterdam like a "coffeeshop" and the red light district, we didn't spend much time in either.

Saturday we spent the day in Gouda. Luis took us to the Market where we all bought a wheel of cheese. He also took us to a chocolate shop, which smelled amazing! The chocolate was wonderful too! We also went in a rock shop because Luis collects rocks and really likes them. They were cool though because there were some from all over the world and some where shaped like different things. One was like a parrot.

We walked around some more and found a windmill that we could climb up in. The miller was around and I think he lets anyone climb up in it. So we did, all the way to the top. It was really cool. I haven't even been in the one in Pella yet but I think this would be cooler because it's like a real windmill that's used daily for stuff. We stood on the like 'deck' as the miller changed the direction of the sails. It was really neat to see all of the insides too.

We then continued on our bike ride. All over Gouda. There are like 7 lakes that surround Gouda so we rode around a couple of them. This was really awesome. Although my bum did hurt after a while. The houses that we saw were pretty much surrounded by water with draw bridges. Every thing in Gouda has to be built on stilts because it is below sea level. You can dock your boat in your back yard and park your car by your draw bridge. How cool would that be!

There were a ton of geese and swans and a few cranes. They were everywhere! It was really fun to ride around and see the country side.

Saturday night Tobias (Luis's son) took us out to a club and we stayed a little too late but it was our last night there. We had to get up super early to get to the airport on time and fly back to London.

That was my weekend! I'd love to go on about this week because today was great. But now you have a cliff hanger and have to read my next one! :) and this is getting long! I'm ready for the rest of this week! I'll try to update again soon so the next one won't be super duper long again!
Miss you all!

Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God.

John 14:1

I was in France Saturday.

As I said in my short email I sent out, my parents are here enjoying London. They have already been here a week and seen most of the famous London sights. They were able to figure out the tube system a little bit the first couple days but Dad would rather take the buses because you can see everything. So Dad has been taking Mom on a few adventures on the buses, One day they ended up at the end of a route in what they think was the Ghetto, even though London doesn't have Ghettos...Now that I've taught him how to read the bus map and what bus goes to Victoria (the close stop to where they were staying) I think they've figured it out. It's pretty simple really, but I guess I've been here for a little bit longer...

The beginning of the week since I had my internship they just discovered London and all the great things about it. They did quite a lot of walking and saw a lot as well.

Thursday we went to get tickets to go to the Lion King. We also visited the London Transport Museum. This museum had different types of transportation and the evolution of it.

The rest of the day went by quickly and we were soon waiting for the doors of the Theatre to open so that we could see the Lion King. I was super excited for this and it was wonderful! Truly awesome. The costumes were amazing, it didn't take long before I started to see the actors as the animal they played rather than people. The music was great, their voices were fantastic. I can't think of enough adjectives to describe it! Probably my favorite, although Hairspray is still up there...The Lion King is my favorite Disney movie I think and to be able to see it on stage was great!

On Friday we took a trip to Windsor. We went in the castle which is where the Queen stays normally on Fridays through Mondays. I'd love to report that we saw her and had some tea and a nice little chat... However, since her horses had a race that day she was gone, so we weren't able to meet her. :( The castle was magnificent. It was also really cool to be able to walk some of the same places that royalty does and to see all of the rooms they use. There were so many swords and guns and the furniture was just as you'd imagine in a castle. I really enjoyed our visit.

Saturday we got up early to catch a train to go to Dover. Here we would take a ferry across to France. This was really cool as well. (I really need some new adjectives!) I had never been on a boat before, other than the little ferry/water taxi we took to Greenwich so it was a brand new experience for me. There wasn't really any security to go out onto the ferry. Our passports were looked at, Dad almost didn't make it through because his wouldn't scan or something...But they didn't x-ray our bags or look at them or anything. So it was super easy. The ship was huge! I was impressed by the size and to have a restaurant and bar and shop all on board. wow! The ferry ride only took a little over an hour. Once we arrived in France we had a little bit of a culture shock and language barrier as none of us know any French. This put a little damper on our trip but in the area we were at most knew enough English for us to get by. There wasn't a lot in Calais but we did find a WW2 museum that was in a German Bunker. It was really musty inside and I surprisingly found it a little interesting. I never knew that they could actually fire bombs and whatnot from France and hit England. But I guess it is only around 36 miles away. Calais was lovely though, right on the channel, and our hotel over looked it too. It was a lot of fun and a good experience for all of us. An experience is defiantly the best way to describe it. Coming back our bags were x-rayed, and our passports checked and we were asked basic customs questions-What's your reason for traveling to the UK? How long will you be there? Where are you studying? etc. We all made it through easy peasy. We were very happy when the announcements on the boat were in English first not French!

Almost as soon as we were on the ferry we could see the White Cliffs of Dover. And because France is an hour ahead of England we made it back in literally no time :)

We then took a coach bus to a different train station because the Dover station was closed, and then took a train back to London.

Needless to say it was a long day. Sunday night I kept telling my self "I was in France this morning." I couldn't believe that it was that easy to go to France and it only took a few hours. It's so awesome that I have these kind of opportunities.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on Sunday here so when we got back we had to walk back to Vandon because all of the streets around Trafalgar's square were closed and a TON of people were out because it was really a lovely day. One of the best we've had. Spring has defiantly sprung, as well as daffodil's everywhere in St. James's Park.

I really should update this more often so that they are shorter and I don't bore you so much in one post! Maybe this week I'll get another out, but I doubt it as I'll be with my parents most of the week and I fly out Thursday to go to the Netherlands! Me and 2 friends are flying in to Amsterdam and then taking a train to Gouda to stay with Luis, my uncle's twin brother. It should be a really great trip and I am definantly looking forward to it!

So that is all for now!

Hopefully you are enjoying warming weather as we are here!

I'm a nerd. :)

So this week class and my internship were quite boring. I didn't do anything exciting but hopefully next week will change.

Thursday, however, I'm pretty sure I was in heaven. Since I don't have class and our internet was down I decided to go to the Science museum. I had wanted to but hadn't got a chance yet so Thursday was a perfect day to go...pretty much all of Thursday I was there, about 6 hours to be exact. It was wonderful. I'm glad no one else went with me or they would have been bored out of their mind probably.

There were 2 floors dedicated to medical history. One had things beginning with mummification all the way to just after WW2 if I remember right. There was so much stuff jammed into this floor I spent at least a couple hours there. It was really cool to see how similar a lot of the things ancient health care people used to what we use and that there were a lot of very good models they used for teaching.
While on this floor I discovered that I don't think I want to be a dentist. The idea had been floating in my head a little last semester but after looking at a few of the dentist exhibits I realised I find the Doctor stuff way more interesting. I mean there's so much more doctors do, and so many more tools they use. Not just things for scraping teeth or fake teeth. It just didn't excite me like the stethoscopes and microscopes and sphygnomometers and x-ray machines did. It was really interesting.

The next floor was full of models of doctor "offices" again from the past up until fairly recent. One room was set up as an operating room or theatre as it's called here. It was neat how accurate all of the stuff looked and how the things modernized.

Then there were like 4 more floors of things. I glanced throught the planes and ships and space sections as well as the energy and math parts. Although the math part was a little more interesting to me again :). There was also an agricultural section that was set up with models of things, (I figured Dad wouldn't like it if I didn't at least say I looked through this part). I guess I can nerdily say it was a little interesting. It was more cool to look at the models I guess.
There was a larger section about materials and waste I just kinda walked through because I was getting a little tired by this point. The final floor I walked around was household things. This was also neat to see some of the types things i've seen in shows in real life.
Then I hit up the shop and bought a coffee/tea mug with a skeleton on it and headed home.
Needless to say there are plenty of pictures of my adventure at the Science museum, and I may even go back and get some more! :) [I can tell you more if you wanna know or I can go back and learn something for you too! not that I need an excuse to go back!]

Friday we made a trip to Cantebury. There wasn't much there but we did take a tour of the Cathedral. This was really neat. It was goregous inside. Our tour guide said that it would take weeks to show everything in it and someone joked that I would probably spend a week in it. I don't know about that but it was cool inside. After our tour we went to a pub for food and then a few of us just found a little park. It was very pretty and I'm sure it would be better in the spring when the flowers were blooming. There was a little river/stream that ran through it as well. It was a nice afternoon.

There were some of our friend that are studying in Spain this semester that came for the weekend. It was good to see a couple of my friends again. Saturday while everyone else was shopping I went with a friend to Battersea park. This park is wonderful. There is so much green and trees and nice paths. and a huge pond/lake in it. We found a rock to sit on and journal while enjoying the day and the outdoors.

Today I worked on homework most of the day after church and multitasked :). It was rainy this afternoon but nothing like Iowa weather lately. It is supposed to be nice this week, which I am happy about because my parents come Tuesday. (So prayers of safe travels would be appreciated!)
Hope you all have a wondeful week, I know I will. It will be great to see my parents and show them around even though they have been here once before but only for a little while and my mom was pregnant with me so she doesn't really remember much.

Anyways. Have a great day!
Oh and right now we are only 5 hours different because we don't change for daylight savings time until the end of March.

This will be a long one...

Sorry for no updates for a little while. It has been a little crazy the past few days but I'll get to that later!

So first off. I've found a store that reminds me more of home, mostly because it's run by wal-mart so it has the same kind of feel. It is called ASDA, it's pretty much just a super wal-mart food store. It only has a few clothing stuff and a few of the other non-food things a wal-mart would have. It is much cheaper than our local grocery store and it's only about a 5 minute train ride away.

The weekend of the 19-22 a lot of the people who are studying in Wales this semester from Central came to London. So we spent a lot of time showing some of them around and hanging out. I was getting tired of doing all the touristy things over and over so Saturday I hung out with a friend. We went to the high courts of London because it was part of one of my assignments. We found a bunch of little Churches. We were supposed to go into the Temple church (it is in the DiVinci Code) but it wasn't open. We got a little lost but had a great time. It's always a good time when you get lost in London because you find so many other great places. We ended up finding St. Bride's church which was used as the model for wedding cakes.
We visited Sir John Soane's museum because it was required for my assignment. There was a ton of stuff crammed into a little tiny house. Stuff is really the best word to describe it.
We also found Drury lane and were quite disappointed that there was no muffin shop on it.

Sunday we went to Hillsong again. Just as awesome as before. Monday was class again. That night we went for a backstage tour of the National Theatre. This was really cool. I really enjoyed it. The national theatre has 3 theatres so we got to see all of them and backstage. We saw where they keep props and stuff and where they make things.
We went to a play called Every Good Boy Deserves Favor. I thought it was fantastic. There was a 40 piece orchestra on stage because the show is about 2 men who were in like a psych ward. One of them though he had an orchestra in his head--Hence the need for the orchestra. It was really cool. Part of the centre of the stage spun around to show time changes too. Over all I thought it was fantastic.

My internship was good. I was in ICU and I got to assist a nurse with her patient so it was nice to get some hands on work even if she was in a coma and all i did was help turn her. haha. I also got to watch a Dr. put a line in her vein to filter and figure out stuff in her blood. In the afternoon I saw all of the Out Patient clinics. Wednesday at my internship I got to see how the porters collect blood from the blood bank and move it around to the different wards. In the after noon I got to go to A&E (accident and emergency). This was fun. Nothing to exciting going on but I did get to help put on a plaster (cast) so that was fun.

[Tuesday was Pancake day. Just like fat Tuesday in the states. But the British put all their old things that are about to expire in pancakes. I also saw a piece of Pella today. As I was waiting to cross the street a Vermeer chipper went by! I had to do a double take to make sure I was seeing it right but I was. I wish I woulda got a picture but didn't have my camera...]

Wednesday when I got back I had another surprise...When I walked into my room, my roommate was taking a picture of me and I asked why and she told me to look behind me and there was Randy. I had absolutely no idea he was coming. What a surprise! I was in complete shock. There were only a select few people who knew and I was not one of them. My room mate here didn't even know until the Saturday before.
We had a really great weekend. We had all plans to go to Oxford for Friday. We happened to have a ticket Randy could use because one of our friends unfortunately had to go back home for a week. So we took a train to Oxford for the day. It was a fun day. We didn't really have a plan of what we wanted to see and I honestly didn't really know what to see. We found Blackwells which is like one of the largest bookstores. While everyone else was in the actual bookstore part Randy and I went into the Science and History museum. It was really cool. They had a bunch of really neat old stuff. As I realize most museums do. But this was cool science nerd stuff. haha They had a lot of hospitally/Doctor stuff as well so I really enjoyed it. (I am thinking that I really like museums...and I'm not too sure how I feel about that!)

(We saw this taxi when we first got there. Yes, that is the Periodic Table!)

After this we attempted to go to the library where Harry Potter was filmed but Gordon Brown was there so we couldn't go in and couldn't even get to the court yard for a little while. We did see him leave in a car though. After this we did a little shopping and then found the Oxford castle/prison that is now a hotel. Then we roamed to theEagle and Child Pub. It's the pub where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis met with their literary circle to write and talk. It's kind of crazy that I was in the same place where these two amazing writers once sat. We hung out here for a while before catching a bus back to London.

Saturday Randy and I attempted to find the Museum of London. We eventually did find it after about a 3 hour walk. It was a lot of fun though because as I've said before when you are lost in London you find a ton of new things you've never seen before. The Museum was quite small but it was interesting to see the past of London. I never would have though that lions and bison and even hippos! Once lived here. There was also a part about the Great Fire which I think we both found a little interesting. After about an hour there we began our journey home which was probably another 2 hour walk.

Needless to say I got my exercise this weekend!

Sunday we went on a fabulous ride about 450 feet above London, on the Eye of course! This was really really cool. I absolutely love heights and it was wonderful to be able to see all of London. It is really indescribable how cool it is. I think almost anyone who has been on it would agree with me.

We then started making our way to Hillsong for church but got distracted by the Horse Guard and learned they were about to do the change. So we stayed to watch that, it wasn't really that interesting or cool to watch but I guess you have to see it at least once while you are here. We found our way to church then and it was just and wonderful as I've mentioned several times. Afterwards we took another walk and just took in more of London as it would be Randy's last night here. [I really appreciate everyone who helped him out while he was planning. You guys are great. ]

Well I believe this is plenty long for one blog! Hope all is well with you. There were supposed forecasts of snow here but today the sun is shining!

Blogger is dumb.

I posted a new blog that isn't a week up date or anything. It's actually called Moving hogs. But it is down below the last blog I wrote because blogger isn't working very well so I couldn't get it changed to be after it. But it's just a few observations of London. :)

I'll blog again later but we are headed out for the night so you will just have to wait until i have more time! (Probably tomorrow haha)

Enjoy!

Sunday through Wednesday

I'm really sad I can't think of witty titles to put on these but this way you know exactly what to expect!

As many of you know one of my favorite things in the entire world to do is worship. Ever since we got here I have been wanted to find a church that could be my temporary home here. Last week Sunday and this week I went with some people to Hillsong London Church. Some of you may know about Hillsong music as they do a lot of worship songs. Well they sing the newest Hillsong songs because Hillsong is originated in Australia and then the one in London. So the songs I am singing now will be the ones we are singing at home when we get back. Even though all of the songs they sang (except for one) were new they are really easy to catch on to and I really enjoyed it. The first half hour of the service was like a Christian rock concert. Awesome. And even though the service was long it went by quickly.

You can't tell very well but this is a picture from google of what it looks like.

They have 2 services in the morning and one at 5:00 pm. The service takes place in the theatre that is used for the musical “We will rock you” (the queen one) during the week. So it’s huge. And almost every seat is filled. So it’s a little bigger than I am used to for sure and I’ll probably check out another one this week maybe. It’s really just great to be back worshiping and am glad I’ve found somewhere that will feed my craving if I can’t find somewhere else :)

I also was surprised with a dozen roses on Sunday morning :) Since we were gone all day Saturday the receptionist found me Sunday morning and gave them to me. They are gorgeous. :)

This week in class we talked about the UK constitution and the US constitution and some comparisons of them. We talked about which is more democratic and I am left indifferent (as I normally am on issues like this) Each have good things that I think the other should maybe look at and take into consideration. Anyways….

Monday night 3 other girls and I went to the premiere of “Confessions of a Shopaholic”. [Going to the premiere isn’t going to the actual movie; it’s just being there as everyone is walking into the movie] Armed with our cameras and ready to see some famous people we found a great place in like the second row behind the barricade. Although there weren’t too many famous people that we knew we did see Isla Fisher and Hugh whateverhislastnameis, (the main actors), and this ‘Duncan’ guy that the English girls in front of us were really excited about. It was a lot of fun to go to even though we were getting squished by the people behind us.

Tuesday my internship was kind of boring. I sat at main reception for the afternoon and am actually kind of able to tell people where to go. Today at it I sat in on the NVQ class again (this is the Health Care Assistant course). I got to practice taking blood again too! I also got a form for a uniform :) I am even a little excited about that just so on the wards I will fit in a little more and maybe be able to get some more hands on stuff.

Well there is the run down of this week. :) This weekend I have no idea what I am up to. My friends have some friends coming from Wales so they will be showing them all around but another friend and I were talking about maybe doing a couple day trips to anywhere…we currently have no plans though. I’d like to go to Windsor to see where the Queen actually stays now…who knows. I guess we’ll go wherever the wind takes us! :)