Shortly after arriving in England, I was told by basically everyone I talked to that I should go back to the States for Christmas because Birmingham would be empty. I took them up on that and a few weeks after arriving, Andrea and I purchased plane tickets to fly home for Christmas.

Our flight was at 9am, so in order to get to the airport 3 hours before that, which is what is recommended for international flights, we had to get up at 4am. That is hell for me. Of course I had trouble falling asleep the night before so I only ended up with maybe 3 hours of sleep. Andrea experienced the same thing. Despite how tired we were we got the airport without any delays or setbacks. We got a little lost in the airport but eventually figured out where we were supposed to be. We got through security fine and we were on our way. Birmingham airport is weird in that as soon as you get through security you are shuffled into what is essentially a mall. There is no open path with stores lining the side like most airports, you walk straight into what looks like the show room of a Macy's. We even got perfume squirted at us, which is annoying normally, but at 6am it is insufferable.

We made it out to our gate which was thankfully shop free and began our long wait. We were extremely tired and things got a little silly. Andrea did not have a fancy neck pillow so she tried to invent one out of her hoodie and a scarf....


We were so tired we couldn't stop laughing for ten minutes. That picture still makes me chuckle.

Flights across the Atlantic suck. I hate long flights. Hate them. I watched a fairly decent movie called The Hundred Foot Journey, but that only took up two hours of the 8 hour trip. On top of all this, just with my flight to England, I had a cold. It had not really been too bad up until this flight, but the air pressure made everything a nightmare. Mucus was literally pouring out of my nose. Thank goodness for Andrea's supply of travel tissues.


Skipping the rest of the travel, being home has been awesome. It has been so wonderful not having to cook for myself...so wonderful. Also being able to cuddle my cat whenever I want to has been pretty rad. When you have lived with pets your entire life and are suddenly cut off from them, it can be rough.

My mother kept getting scared the first couple days I was home because she was not used to someone shuffling around in the background and thought I was a burglar or something. Still, I think she relished the opportunity to take care of me ;)

I have gotten spoiled being home. My giant queen size bed with lovely soft sheets in my big room is so wonderful, and the bathroom that has the toilet and sink in the same space, and the shower that has good water pressure! Ugh. Also TV. Not having to wait for things to be uploaded online the next day is awesome.

Christmas Eve we went to a family party to see the relatives. Some even told me they read my blog. Woo victory! It was at this party that I realized I am really bad at talking about England face to face. People would say "Oh what is it like!" and I would just say "Fine" or "It has been good!". What is that? Goodness that is lame.

Christmas was a bit odd because it was just me and my parents, but it was nice. I got eleven pairs of socks! They are all so fabulous. I also finally got a camera strap for my nice camera, which will make taking pictures infinitely easier. (I also found the charger for this camera that my mother insisted was not there, so now I can actually start using my nice camera again).

The day after Christmas, today, I got my hair cut by the same woman who has been cutting my hair since high school. I love going to see her and her family so I was really glad I got to go. Plus they gave me cookies ;D And my haircut looks really good. I have decided when my hair gets really long it ages me in a not-nice way.

Now I am eating leftovers from yesterday, and am trying to convince myself to work on one of my essays and watching the last Lord of the Rings movie.

These last few days, anxiety over going back has been creeping up. I am not looking forward to the flight home and these essays are stressing me out. I wish I could fast forward to the new term, but I have to get through a few nasty things to get there!

See everyone in the new year! Well, if you live in the US I won't bee seeing you...oh well!

One thing you have to understand about Andrea is that she is a huge fan of the band One Direction. Therefore, when she found out that they would be performing at the first ever BBC Music Awards in London, she was determined to go. It took some persuading by Andrea, I rarely ever go to see live music and if I do it is usually for as little money as I can spare, but eventually I gave in.

Before we went to the award show, which started at 8pm, we went to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. We took the London tube for the first time to get there. I am not exactly a stranger to subway systems, having used the NYC one many times and the one in Washington D.C. After using the London one I can say that it is the most comprehensive and straight forward system I have used. It is so much simpler to navigate that NYC, even if it is more expensive.

Hyde Park is nestled in a VERY wealthy part of London; the type of neighborhood that makes you feel like you would do anything to be that rich. It was gorgeous. We passed a McLaren show room filled with 650S models. I made me flashback to my days working at the race track this year when I got to ride around in one of those cars.

Anyway Hyde part was really lovely. Walking to the Christmas market we walked past a pond that had a million birds in it. So many birds.... including overly friendly swans that made me super nervous.

The Winter Wonderland was decent. There were a lot of nifty shops but everything was too expensive to buy anything. There was also a lot of amusement park rides, but again I couldn't justify paying to go on them.


Once we had seen everything there was to see and it was starting to get super cold we headed out and got back on the tube to go to Earl's Court where the awards show was. We headed to a cafe/bar around the corner for dinner and waited out there till around 6pm then headed back. Then we had the lovely experience of waiting outside in line to get in for almost an hour. Once we finally got, and after we went to the bathroom, we went into the made arena space. It was huge. The standing room could fit 8000, and then the seating was way up in the air. Andrea and I moved as close as we could to the stage and waited. When we had gotten into the building people had handed us these weird bracelets to put on both of our wrists. I had theorized that they were planning to kill us all with them, but as it turns out they actually lit up with colorful lights.

A few minutes before the show started the hosts came out, Chris Evans (not the actor) and Fearne Cotton. I suppose they are something of big shots in the UK, but I had no idea who they were. This was actually a common theme of the night as the show featured all British acts. Many I figured out who they were when they sang and I recognized the song, but many I still had no clue.

The show was broadcast live, but we were such small faces in the crowd I doubt we made it on tv. There were only four awards for the entire night, which was kind of odd. The stage setup was beautiful and spectacular, but I expected nothing less. The artists, despite me having no idea who most of them were, were excellent, and I had a lot of fun.

The lights on our wrists were my second favorite part of the night. When they lit them up the entire room sparkled!

Unfortunately One Direction was on the opposite side of the stage from where we were, so poor Andrea didn't get as good of a view as she was hoping for. Ed Sheran was on our side of the stage though, and let me tell you he was AMAZING. He deserved the award he got. I was kind of peeved that two of the four awards went to Pharrell Williams, who was not even there. I am not a fan of the man or his music, so that was a let down.

My absolute favorite moment of the night was when Idris Elba, the fabulous actor, came out to present an award. When they announced his name I screamed so loudly everyone around me turned and looked at me funny. Sorry you music lovers, I am a movie gal.

About halfway through the show I started to get a throbbing pain in my head. I was able to ignore it at the show, but once we left the show is when it really started to go downhill. The headache became overpowering and I also started to get nauseated. The tube ride back to the station was a nightmare. Once we got there we had to wait for almost an hour for our train back to Birmingham, and it was one of great suffering. Andrea had some Tylenol and I took that, but it took forever to kick in. When we got on the train I thought for sure I was going to throw up and we sat near a toilet for that reason. After we left the station in about 15 minutes I fell asleep....and stayed asleep for an hour and a half. This was incredible because I, usually, am not capable of sleeping sitting up. After I woke up I felt 100% better. The sick feeling and my headache was gone. I still have no idea what had been wrong with me.

We did not get home until 2am, and were completely exhausted. Luckily for me I did not have class the next morning. Andrea, however, did. HAHAHAHA. :)

 Andrea was reviewing a play recently and I was her plus one to go see it. The play was "The Big Friendly Giant" that was being put on (or maybe it is still running, I am not sure) at The Repertory Theatre. It is a play that is based off a children's book, so I was expecting it to be odd, but goodness I was not prepared.

We got there kind of late...like 15 minutes late. That was unfortunate and we missed the introduction to the play, so we when we sat down we had no idea what was going on. After a while the premise became clear that a friendly giant had kidnapped a little girl from an orphanage because she had seen him and did not want her to tell other people about him. This premise in and of itself was not weird or creepy, but the way they presented it came off kind of creepy at points. I conferred with Andrea and she had picked up on that as well.

Putting that aside there was also some not friendly giants who enjoyed eating people and a vegetable that had a face and danced as you ate it. There was also a scene about farting, which as you could imagine went down great with the kids. There was so pretty cool dream sequences where the background cast showcased their various talents such as fan dancing (forgive my ignorance about the actual name of the style), contemporary dance, acrobatics, latin dance, rapping, opera singing, and a bunch of other things I can't remember right now.

During intermission Andrea and I tried to complete the games in the program the play provided. They were supposed to be for children but these games were HARD. We gave up on them after a while. (Last night I caught Andrea trying to finish them, this is a solid week after we had seen the play).

The second half was even weirder. There was a woman dressed up as the Queen of England's corgi who was wearing spandex and had her butt up in the air the entire time, the Queen was played by a man, there were these weird army guys running around, more fart jokes.....I don't know it was all really bizarre.

At the end though they put bubbles out into the crowd and Andrea and I were the only adults swatting at them. Like, how can you have thousands of bubbles descending on your head and not try to pop them? I don't want to be an adult if that is how you have to live.

Anyways after the play we went outside to where a giant Ferris wheel has been set up for the Christmas Market! Andrea and I decided (aka she talked me into it), to go on it that moment despite how cold it was. Lordy, IT WAS COLD. But it was also a lot of fun. I also realized, while up on that Ferris wheel, that the older I get the more scared of heights I am becoming x.x


Till next time my friends!

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend The BBC Good Food Show! It was held at The NEC, which I had just been to for comic con! This, however, was much bigger than comic con was, and took up far more rooms in the massive building.

It was so overwhelming that it became chaotic in my mind. There was just so much to see and smell (and taste) that I was just running around like a chicken without a head! After the frantic rushing around I eventually realized two things: there was a lot of cheese, and there was a lot of liquor. I had to have had at least five or six little shots of different whiskey, vodka and who knows what else! Pictured below was a marshmallow flavored vodka that was fairly delicious. The chocolate wine that was being sampled at the same booth, however, was pretty disgusting.

I am not much of a fan of cheese, so I eventually got tired of trying all of that. Outside of that there were a few stands there that were just so delightful!

Garlic world, for example. An entire stand packed with garlic and garlic products. I tasted some garlic jam from here that cleared up my sinuses instantly, let me tell you! It was also pretty delicious.  I put garlic on just about everything I cook, so I really loved just standing there breathing it in.
There were some stranger things as well, such as an entire rack of smoking fish. I am not a fish lover, so I found this fairly disgusting, especially the smell, but if you like that sort of thing I imagine that would be wonderful.

Another thing that seemed to be very popular and had many vendors for was rapeseed oil. It has a seriously sketchy name, and I had never heard of it before, but it was everywhere. I have since looked it up and it is apparently a substitute for saturated fats and the main ingredient of many vegetable oils!
So there were a few companies in particular that I really took a liking to, and since I was there on a press pass I think it would be a good idea to give those companies a little bit of recognition!

Chocolate Tree

This chocolate company sells organic artisan chocolate with a wide variety of unique flavors! I tasted the rose white chocolate flavor, which I was dubious about but it was actually quite delicious! The company, which is based in Edinburgh, produces their chocolate straight from the bean. I love chocolate so their free samples made me really happy. If you have some extra money floating around and you want to indulge yourself, their chocolate might be the way to go!


So before moving to England I had never had chutney before, and have not had much of it since I got here, so I don't really have a basis or comparison. However I know what my tongue tells me, and this stuff was delicious! I tried the mango and the papaya chutney flavors. They were so delicious and spicy, but not in a way that burned your mouth! This chutney was really the only thing of the day I was tempted to buy. If chutney is your thing, and you like spicy, then I would definitely say give this a go!


So yea, those are the products I really enjoyed! The entire food show was a great experience and I had a fantastic time! I also managed to procure a oven mit for my house! This is a big deal because we have not had one since we moved in 2 months ago, and Andrea and I use the oven A LOT. All in all a successful day!

Last weekend was MCM Birmingham Comic Con!!! Andrea and I got press passes (woo!) so go. This is only the second comic con I have ever been to, the other being New York Comic Con. Obviously the two were going to be pretty different. Getting there was super easy as the arena, The NEC, is right next to the airport so all we had to do was hop on a train to get there. The train was PACKED, and and you could tell who was going to comic con from what they were wearing.

Once we finally got there and picked up our passes we headed into the hall it was being held in. As expected there were a lot of vendors and it was pretty crowded. I think next year it would probably be a good idea to open up the space a little bit.

Anyways, there was not as many people in cosplay as I expected, but then again my frame of reference is NYCC. There was still some pretty awesome costumes going around though! Especially in the Star Wars department. We only got pictures of this fantastic Han Solo/ Chewie from Star Wars though.
There was also a lovely pair of Disney ladies that caught our eye...
And my personal favorite, sexy Sauron!!!


Andrea and I spent the first few hours going through all the different shops and generally spending quite a lot of money. I did buy a few gifts for people back home, so it wasn't all for me! There was this one vendor selling movie and tv scripts which was really cool. I bought one for The Two Towers. It is gorgeous. There were quite a few vendors selling these nifty little framed pictures from movies with pieces of actual movie real stuck in next to it! Andrea bought one for The Princess Bride and got Cary Elwes to sign it later!


Speaking of Cary Elwes, yes he was there. He was doing autographing, photos, AND two panels. The panel room was...odd. It came to be known as "the marshmallow". It was basically a giant white inflatable room that could fit around 300 people. Unlike with NYCC, which had a line going into its panels that sometimes reached 5,000 people, at this little temporary room you could literally just stand at one of the entrances and watch the panels if you did not manage to get a seat. There was also NO STAFF controlling the situation or telling people what they could or could not do. This worked out fine for the most part...except when Tom Felton did his panel, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Andrea and I waited outside the room for a half hour to make sure we got into Cary Elwes, and we managed to get seats in the second row! Not bad. Cary was funny and engaging. I really enjoyed his panel. It was a running joke throughout the hour long session about how hot it was in the room, especially for poor Cary who had all the spotlights on him. You could see him sweating. Apart from that he talked about stories from the set of Princess Bride, his favorite memories from his career, and other fan questions. There was also some touching moments involving children in the audience as well.

So immediately after Cary was the big guest of the weekend, Tom Felton. Andrea and I had planned for this. Due to my experience at NYCC I knew that if you wanted to get a seat at the biggest panel of the weekend you needed to be there early, and if they were not making you clear the room after every panel you needed to hang on to your seat for dear life. So needless to say we did not move an inch in between panels and retained our amazing seats for Tom Felton.

Now a bit of background information. Tom has been traveling around the US and the UK filming a documentary about fandom for the BBC. So his panel was unique in that he was asking the audience the questions for his documentary. He came prepared with a bunch of questions about what it was like being a fan and everything was filmed.

GUESS WHO GOT TO ANSWER A QUESTION? THIS GAL! I was holding my hand up for a really long time and Tom told the man with the microphone to give it to me. *swoon*. He was looking right at me while I was talking which made me so nervous my hands and my voice were shaking. A few minutes after I answered the question he came back to me and talked directly to me about my answer for like three minutes. It was heaven. *ahem*. I am okay. It was really a lot of fun, but also kind of painful because I literally wanted to answer every question. At least I got my chance and now I could potentially be in the documentary! wooo!

After the panel finished we cleared out pretty quickly because it was around 500 degrees in the room and we were dying. We headed over to where Cary Elwes was signing autographs and waited around for that. Now, at this point it was around 4pm and neither of us had drank of eaten anything since like 7am. We were started to crash...hard. This led to a somewhat awkward interacting between me and Cary when I went up to get his signature, I was so out of it I completely walked in front of the girl who was supposed to be before me and started talking to him. He was very polite but pointed out it was not my turn and I felt like a colossal fool. Sigh.

We left for the train after that and it was then things really started to get difficult. I was dizzy, exhausted, dehydrated, and could barely think straight. By the time we got into Birmingham I was a mess and Andrea had to guide me around the train station. Do not go without eating or drinking an entire day kids! It is not good at all!!! When we got home I took care of myself and all was well. I will not be making that mistake again, however.

It was really a fantastic day, despite my almost passing out, and it was an awesome first taste of comic con for Andrea. We are bound determined to go to London comic con in the near future. It is all part of the nerd life ;)

I am so behind...AGAIN. Alright, so my big news from last week is that my sister visited!! Because of this we did a lot of traveling and sight seeing...this means a lot of blog posts I need to catch up on. I also must apologize for photography quality. My good camera is out of commission at the moment so my phone has had to pick up the slack.

First off was Blenheim Palace. Only an hour and a half bus ride away, this magnificent palace was the birth place of Winston Churchill! *insert oos and ahs* Yes, I actually stood in the room he was born in. There was inexplicably a pair of handcuffs on the bed.

It was Christmas time at the palace, which meant there was Christmas decorations up everywhere! The palace was HUGE! Everything you would expect from a genuine palace. The statues, the pillars, the walls covered in paintings. It was magnificent.


We were only allowed to tour a small part of the palace...a  very small part. One section of the first floor in fact. The rest has either been converted into other things or is still in use by the family. We started off taking a tour, but abandoned it after a while because the tour guide we had was an old man who talked quietly and talked for a very long time about every detail in the room.

The palace was true extravagance. The walls were decorated with real gold, and portraits were everywhere! In one of the dining rooms there were all these golden statues of animal heads that we found out later represented the Chinese zodiac. Not sure why they were there but they were cool.



There was one woman, however, who was featured in no less than 5 portraits and who's story caught my attention. She was Consuelo Vanderbilt. Yes, she was one of THOSE Vanderbilts. She was forced to marry the English Duke of Marlborough by her mother. The Duke married her because he was going bankrupt. They were only married seven years because they had an unhappy marriage before they got a divorce and she ran off to London to become a sufragete. She also held several positions of public office there before marrying the love of her life, a French man, and moving to France with him. They they managed to escape World War 2 and make it back to the US. Despite the fact she was only a Duchess for 7 years, she was the Duchess by far the most featured in the Palace, and the tour guides could not stop talking about her! One of her many portraits is below.

The library was a really long, grand hall, type room. It had a giant Christmas tree in the center and a magnificent pipe organ at the end.

There was also a woman dressed like an angel and painted gold. She was standing still like a statue and every once and a while would poke someone and scare them. Again, not sure why she was there, but it was funny to watch. I can't imagine how miserable that job had to be though. I hope she got paid well.

Once we got outside to the palace gardens we stopped to eat lunch. I thought it was really cool that I was actually having lunch in palace gardens. I am very historically conscious and I was thinking about how distant an idea that must have been for the majority of my ancestors throughout history. They probably never thought that they would go near a palace, let alone dine in one (although to be fair my nutella sandwich can hardly count as "dining") and there I was doing just that.

Out on the grounds Andrea and I frolicked through the field while my sister laughed at us. We also visited the "Secret Gardens". I don't know if these gardens were at one time a secret, but I don't think they count anymore because there were literally sign posts showing you how to get there and it was also on the map. Putting that aside they were pretty wonderful gardens, even taking into considering the time of year.

There was also this magnificent tree. From a distance it looked like one large tree surrounded by smaller ones. When you stepped inside the circle, however, you realized that the smaller trees were all roots of the large center one. I say smaller trees, but these trees were each several hundred years old in their own right. It was truly amazing.

Walking around the grounds was inspiring, and also made me wish I was rich enough to live in a place like this and go horse back riding through the fields every day. Alas that is never going to happen, but it is nice to dream though, right?