Tourist and Tour Guide

Ok, I’m just going to fast forward through the apologies for not posting for another two weeks. I’m sorry. I honestly don’t know where time goes while I’m here. Regardless, a lot has happened in these past two weeks. I’m sad to say that this week officially marks the halfway point of my program. That’s right, folks, I’ve officially finished finals week, and I am now on spring break! We’ll get to that later, however, as I believe the last time I left you my dad was about to arrive for the weekend.

So, two weekends ago when my dad came to visit, I had a wonderful time! We spent the day wandering around South Kensington, and made our way through the Natural History Museum. I have to say, one of the best things about London is that a lot of the popular museums are free of charge! It makes the visit more leisurely, as you know that you don’t have to do the whole museum all in one day. After walking around for most of the day, we ate dinner at the hotel, and then headed back out as we got tickets for Wicked that night! It was my first time seeing Wicked, and it was hands-down one of the best shows I have ever seen! Seriously, if you ever have the opportunity to go, do it, you won’t regret it.

Sunday morning my Dad and I accidently slept a little later than planned, and by the time we got ready for the day, it was almost time for lunch. My Dad was gracious enough to take me and a few of my friends here out to China Town, and we had the most amazing meal. Here’s another suggestion, if you haven’t ever tried duck before, you should—especially if it’s in China Town! Unfortunately, after lunch it was time for my dad to head to the airport… and for me to do some homework. As per usual, nothing that exciting happened during the week…which brings me to the next weekend.

This is the weekend that my friends and I were tourists for a few days. Well, not that we aren’t tourists anyway, but once you spend 7+ weeks in a country, it definitely starts to feel like home. Anyway, so Friday my flat mates and I went to Abbey Road. Of course we mimicked the Beatles picture, but I’m not sure if we did it right!

After that we walked around and went to Primrose Hill. It’s basically a big park with, you guessed it, a big hill that overlooks the city. Luckily, that week we had absolutely gorgeous weather which means it was 50 degrees and sunny when we went (a rarity in London)! While on the hill, we got somebody to take a picture of us, and it was only right that we got one while holding up the W… however, the person taking the picture did have a laugh at us when we did this. I can only imagine what he was thinking.

So that was Saturday, and then Sunday a couple of friends and I went to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. I wish we would’ve gotten there earlier so that we could have seen more of the guard change, but it was still cool. Though, we do plan to go back and get there earlier. After watching that, we went to the Westminster/Big Ben area to get the classic phone booth picture. Thankfully I have that checked off my list, as that’s probably the epitome of tourism in London.

The week following these adventures was my finals week, as half my classes ended after the first half of the program. Although I didn’t have any tests, I did write over 20 pages of papers in one week, and if I never had to write another paper, it would be too soon. This, then, (finally) brings us to this past weekend.

When I was last with my cousins, they had invited me up to the family home for Hannah’s birthday. Obviously I accepted, and this past weekend I made it up towards where my dad was born… and also where Liam Payne from One Direction was born (I’ll let you decide which is more exciting). I really can’t explain how much fun I had this weekend. The food was delicious, the company wonderful, the air was breathable and not polluted, and I got to pet a dog for the first time in seven weeks! Most importantly, I got to meet the rest of the Remiarz family on this side of the pond. After resolving some beef with my cousin Adam for taking all the “aremiarz” usernames (seriously, as the youngest of the family and also another ‘A’ name, the closest I’ve gotten is aremiarz1234 or something like that), the rest of the time was indescribably perfect! It was so nice to be able to sit around with a table full of family and just talk. Aside from never before meeting some, the others I hadn’t seen since I was 8 years old… and let me tell you all, 11 years changes you a lot!!! Below is a picture of the whole group celebrating Hannah’s birthday. If any of you are reading this, thank you again for an amazing and memorable weekend, can’t wait to see y’all again soon!

After this past weekend I came back to London, and got to meet with even more (American) family! My Aunts have traveled to London to visit me, and it’s been a real good time getting to act as both tourist and tour guide. They’ve only been here for a few days, so I’ll try to post another blog once they leave so that I can recount all of our adventures! However, I think I’ll leave this blog here for now!

Cheers,

xxx Abby