Last weekend Andrea and I got tickets to go see The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain! Yes, it was as awesome as it sounds. The idea of this entire thing is a group of ukulele officiants perform songs based on certain themes each concert. Since it was around Remembrance Day, the theme was music from the era of the World Wars.

Ukulele's bring joy to pretty much anything, even such a somber theme, and most of the songs they picked were cheerful or satirical rather than depressing. They also made a lovely effort to include music from those countries who's contributions are often forgotten or ignored. They played tunes from East Africa, China, and New Zealand to honor the men who fought and died in the wars from those lands.

What I really found amazing about this entire thing was that Andrea and I were the only ones I could see who were bouncing around in our seats or swaying to the music. Everyone else was watching, stoic faced, and not moving. HELLO PEOPLE! THESE ARE UKULELES! HOW CAN YOU JUST SIT THERE? Did not get it at all.

The venue was also stunning as well. It took place at Town Hall, located in the heart of Birmingham City Center. I had never been before and I must say it was all very fancy and grandiose.


Overall it was a really fun concert and I am super glad we went! I mean...how could you pass it up really? Ukuleles........

WOW I am behind! So a last week Andrea and I went to London for the first time! Well, technically it was just my first time, she went there when she was a teenager. ANYWAYS, getting there was a nightmare. We got as far as Northampton without any problems but when we went to transfer there we descended into commuter hell. A train further along the route had broken down, blocking other trains from getting by. THEN they managed to clear the tracks enough to get trains by, but there were no train crews available to man them. What was worse was, instead of telling us what was really going on, the people at the station insisted on lying to everyone who was stranded, telling them that trains were coming. I listened in on their conversations to find out what was really happening. Eventually (AFTER TWO HOURS) Andrea and I teamed up and caught a taxi with 3 other women to go to a different train station to get into London. Once we finally arrived we managed to get into London we were only an hour and a half late to when we planned on getting there.

It was around noon and we were really hungry so we stopped at the first pub we found...which was a poor choice. It was not that the food was bad...it was just over priced and such a small portion that we left hungry. After that experience we headed off to THE BRITISH MUSEUM. I have been wanting to go to the British Museum my entire life. It is literally on my bucket list! (Yes I have a bucket list). Central London is really beautiful so the walk there was enjoyable. We were also lucky and got really nice weather!

So once we got to the museum we headed straight for the Egyptian section. There, right when you walk in the door, is The Rosetta Stone. I wanted to cry. The Rosetta Stone is one of the most important archaeological finds in all of history, and definitely one in the world of Egyptology, and it was right in front of me!

The rest of the hall was filled with Egyptian statues, which were all stunning of course, and wall carvings. Andrea and I almost killed this one kid. He LEANED ON the head of a 2,000 year old Horus statue to take a picture. The rage I felt was intense.

Other than that incident there was also the disappointment of the severe lack of statues of Hatsheput. Who is that you ask? Well she was the most powerful female pharaoh to ever rule. The MET in New York City has an entire room dedicated to her, I was hoping for at least one image of her to appear in the museum. There never was.There was, however, plenty of my second favorite pharaoh, Ramses the Great, but none of his wife Nefertari :(. I am kind of an Ancient Egypt nerd....in case you could not tell.

We briefly went through the exhibit on ancient Europe and then went to the rest of the Egyptian rooms before heading out. We decided to walk down to see Big Ben, a roughly 40 minute walk. Along the way I saw a store that was selling 12 postcards for a pound! Score! (I am collecting post cards). Once we got to the Thames it was dark out. We came upon The Eye of London first, which was stunningly lit up in blue with a full moon rising behind it.


Then we walked down and saw Big Ben (yes I am aware Big Ben is the bell, not the tower itself), and parliament. The way they were lit showed the detail on the buildings and it was truly stunning. Unfortunately my fancy camera died and my phone takes crappy night photos, so I could not get a good picture.

After that we walked over to Westminster Abbey (above), which was enormous, and walked around it. I really wanted to inside, but obviously it was closed. We then decided to head back to the train station. On the way back we passed Trafalgar Square. I find it interesting that in all the photos of this place the giant statue of a rooster is somehow excluded. Yes, there is a enormous chicken statue in the middle of London.

Once we got back to the station we had some time to kill before our train, and some severely aching feet, so we ducked into an "American" diner where I had a Nutella milk shake. This thing was so delicious it was almost a religious experience. I fully intend to get another one during my next visit.

We got home almost at midnight, exhausted but extremely happy with our trip! I really cannot wait to go back, there is still so much I have yet to see!

 So this was my first Bonfire Night....Guy Faulks Day.....whatever you want to call it, in England! One thing that is really different from in the US is that people are allowed to fire off fireworks without a permit as long as it is on their own property! It was also the Hindu festival of light, Diwali. This means that for the last two weeks people all around my neighborhood have been firing them off from about 6pm to 11pm every night.  Bonfire Night was high intensity on the fireworks and the church around the corner was ringing their bells for around 3 hours straight! I did not actually do anything Bonfire Night, but the next night my university was hosting a fireworks display and fun fair, so Andrea and I went to that!

Now, I have been in my fair share of crowds. I have been in New York City during the Christmas season! Nothing was compared to this though. Thousands of students were funneling into a tiny space through tiny walkways at a glacial pace. It took so much longer than it should have just to walk there!
Look at all those people! It was shoulder to shoulder the entire time and you could not move without have to shove someone out of the way!

The funfair was decent. There were four rides that you had to pay 2.50 to get onto. I think there might have been games and refreshments too, but we never made it that far. There was one ride called "Miami Fever", which we got a kick out of.


 Andrea and I decided we only wanted to go on one ride....this glorious creature! It swung back and forth while spinning you around. When I was younger I used to go to a theme park in upstate New York every summer, and I always went for the biggest and the baddest rides in the park! This happened to be the best one at this fair.

I also ran into some friends I had made on the hike from a few weekends ago while we waited online. It was really nice to see them again! Now right as we were about to get on the ride after waiting for 20 min or so....the fireworks started. Then...it started to rain! This led to one of the coolest experiences I have ever had on a theme park ride in my life! Every time we sung into the sky we could see the fireworks in front of us, the rain was pelting us in the face, and we we screaming our heads off! I also may have been maniacally laughing, but that is just something I do when I am really nervous.

After we got off the ride we watched the rest of the fireworks. They were pretty good! We were standing right underneath where they were being shot off, so occasionally we would get hit by the debris! After that we tried to get home. I say tried quite literally. We walked over to the bridge we had crossed to get in, and somehow managed to get stuck on it for fifteen minutes! There was a huge crowd of people crammed don it and for some reason we were not moving. I still don't know what was blocking us! Eventually we got frustrated and left to find another way out. We did, and when we got to the other side of the stream we still did not see what was blocking the people on the bridge! Even once we got out of the fun fair we still had to walk back through campus in a huge crowd of people. It was a relief to get out of there an into the open!

Despite the crowd issues, it was a lot of fun! That one ride was one of the most unique experiences of my life and I doubt I will ever have another one like it!

Cows love to stare at people, and these were very curious as to why all these people were walking by their pen
Sheep not so much, they run away from you if you get anywhere near them.
The grass was literally this green.
This one is probably my favorite picture I took the entire weekend!
Do not be deceived, that blue sky was never over our heads

Note the puddles of water at the bottom of the picture.

When it was raining it came down in sheets, and the wind was constantly blowing the water across the lake.
However when it wasn't raining it was quite stunning!
Still wasn't warm enough to not wear my hat though!
In Birmingham everything is still pretty green, here it actually looked like autumn!
The water was stunningly blue! I wish we had had enough time to walk around the entire lake.

Sorry it took so long to update this! I have been super busy!

So last weekend Andrea and I took a day trip to Wales to see a couple castles. It was organized by the International Students Association so we did not have to arrange travel or anything stressful like that.

What WAS stressful was that the day before I came down with probably one of the worst colds of my life. I was super sick but I refused not to go, so I packed an entire box of tissues into my bag and soldiered on. We had to leave really early to go. So early, in fact, an friend back in America (you know who you are) was still awake! The bus ride to Wales was probably close to what hell is like. I was trapped in a small, hot and humid space with about 50 other people with a snuffed up nose that was so intense it was painful and I could barely think straight......FOR TWO HOURS. Needless to say when we got to the first castle I jumped off the bus as soon as I could.



The first castle we went to was Chirk Castle, which was originally built in the 1200s I believe. It was not a tremendously large castle, and it has been occupied right up to today, which means most of it has been updated from its original state. In fact, the family who owns the castle still comes to stay there every once and a while!

The castle grounds were sprawling gardens with actual shaped hedges all around! We spent a lot of time wondering around in them. When we actually went into the castle it was split up into several parts. The main family quarters was not open yet when we arrived, so we explored the "Medieval" part of the castle, aka the rooms that never got updated as time went on and now were just empty. We did get to go into the dungeon though, which was really cool/creepy. It was down one of those famous medieval castle winding stone staircases of doom which are slippery and steep and almost impossible to walk down. The dungeon itself was literally just a pit with no light in it. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be imprisoned there.
I can't imagine how much upkeep these hedges! And there were so many! We even saw a few shaped like animals. It was all very Alice in Wonderland.
I really loved the colors of the vines against the pale stone. They were actually one of the few plants changing colors even though we are well into autum!
Andrea loves to frolic.....
The rest of the castle was pretty cool, but it was updated to show it in Victorian times, which is not my favorite era. It was also a bit of a blur because I was somewhat dying of my cold from hell.
The above photo is part of the wall carvings in one of the "medieval" rooms.
And of course what palace is complete without a library??

A 50 minutes hell bus ride later and we were at Powis castle, which is supossedly world famous for its gardens! This was also an updated castle as it is also occasionally still used. Prince Charles is the most recent monarch to have stayed there, but many more such as Queen Victoria have in the past. It was kind of cool seeing the actual bed all these famous names from history have slept in! Really this castle was filled to the brim of the gaudy exuberance that characterized the Victorian era. Everything was overdone, shiny, and the rooms were stuffed to the brim with kick knacks.


The gardens were fairly spectacular though, and there was this awesome dragon gate that I fell in love with. There was also this family of super friendly peacocks that would come up to you looking for food!

The fabulous dragon gate :)
Over friendly peacocks

Overall it was a good day, but the following day I did not leave my bed I was so sick. It was totally worth it though.