Europe Trip 2009: London

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As most of you (is there a most of you? I don't even think people read this XD) don't know, I was in Europe for the past 15 days! It was with Education First, EF, and I went with 4 other people from my school (Maja, Taylor M-M, Clover, Matthew) and 3 teachers (Mrs. Maus, Mrs. Charles, Mrs. Wolf.) We stayed in London, Paris, and 3 different cities in Spain: Madrid, Seville, and Costa del Sol.

LONDON:

Our first stop, was London. Here is as much of what I can remember from our few days there!

Tuesday June 9th/Wednesday June 10th: We arrived at the airport and got on our first flight which was to Philadelphia. After a 3 over layover there, we were on our 8 hour, overnight flight to Frankfurt, Germany. We missed our flight from Frankfurt to London, so we had to wait for the next one. Once we finally arrived in London (on the 10th), we went to our rooms and relaxed before dinner. We all met in the lobby (our tour was with a group from Texas and a group from Colorado) and then took the train into London before walking to dinner. We had some sort of sausage and potato dish with a bread pudding like thing for dessert. After dinner we had a walking tour of London before going back to our rooms to sleep. During the night, I started to feel very sick (soar throat, feverish headache, chills) so I ended up going to sleep in Mrs. Maus's room so Maja (who was my roommate) wouldn't get sick as well.

Thursday June 11th: I woke up and still felt sick, but ended up going with the group anyway. We took a bus tour of London (which I unfortunately slept through, so tired!) before stopping at Buckingham Palace to watch the second half of the changing of the guard. We then walked to Harrods, which was the most unfun I had on the whole trip (the walk, I mean) I was ready to pass out from exhaustion, dehydrated, and I still felt sick. The walk (which seemed like it took forever) finally ended when we arrived at Harrods and I made a beeline (or is it b-line... what even is a bee/b line?) towards the place where you could buy water. We then went out for lunch at a place called "Eat" where I had a croissant and some fruit. I felt better after eating and resting and we went to a Museum (forgot which one) where I forced the group to go to the Japan exhibit. We also went to a fashions through the ages exhibit and one on theater as well. After the museum, we went back to Harrods and had Ice Cream which was very good for my throat :) We went to dinner at an Indian restaurant where we had curry (I don't like curry, but this was actually pretty good!) and then the people from my school and I all went to Billy Elliot. I was so tired by this point that I unfortunately fell asleep for a bit of the first act, but what I saw of the show was amazing! These kids could dance! My favorite character was Michael, Billy's gay, cross-dressing friend (I believe the character was 11 years old?) After the show, all the children actors were outside the theater and we tried to get a picture with them but they got away. We went back to the hotel then and crashed, we were all very tired.

Friday June 12th: I felt much better this day, though my throat was still sore. We went to the tower of London which houses the crown jewels (they're very sparkly!) and then went to Covent Park for lunch. Me, Mrs. Wolf, and Taylor went shopping afterwards and ended up buying a bunch of mounted pictures (mine were from twilight, Taylor's were all of Johnny Depp) We tried going to the London Dungeon next but we didn't have enough time before dinner so we had to leave. We had shepherds pie for dinner and then went on the eye! After that, we went to the hotel to sleep our last day in London over.

Best quotes we said while in London:

"I'll show you a part of London you've never seen before!" Taylor, failing at being seductive.
"I don't want to dress him up like Jesus, I want him with his clothes off!" Taylor talking about Johnny Depp.
"I feel like we're the little ducks and she's the big duck" Taylor talking about me, her and Mrs. Wolf when we were both following Mrs. Wolf.

Fanime 2009

Click on post title for pictures!

For more pictures of the Rozen Maiden gathering go here: Click!

That's a link to the 22nd page, the RM gathering is on pages 22-25!

Ok, so this is about a month late, but better late than never, n'est-ce pas? So anyway, Fanime this year was AMAZING! I'll describe each of the days in detail.

Friday May 22nd: Immediately after getting out of school for Memorial Day weekend, my dad drives me and my mom to the airport so we can board our flight. While I was at the airport, waiting for my mom to catch up with me (I walk fast) this creepy older guy had the nerve to ask if he could buy me a drink. I, of course, denied but I now have a bit of a fear of creepy guys at airports (or anywhere for that matter.) Anyway, we boarded our plane (direct flight, yay!) and finally landed in San Jose, CA. After getting our luggage much faster than we had in 2008, we got a taxi to take us to the Marriot San Jose where we would be staying for the weekend. Once in the lobby, I met up with Morgan and Liz before running upstairs to my room so I could change into my Amu cosplay (Morgan and Liz were already in Shana and Shinku cosplays respectively) We went out to dinner and then changed into our PJs before piling into Morgan and Liz's room for bedtime (Morgan's nan was in the room with us while my mom was in the other room.)

Saturday May 23rd: We woke up and changed into our Rozen Maiden cosplays (Me: souseiseki, Morgan: suiseiseki, and Liz: Shinku) We went to Pizza my Heart for our friend Bento's birthday (yay, free lunch! con food is EXPENSIVE) and afterwards went to the Rozen Maiden gathering organized by Morgan. The gathering was fun, we had 1 souseiseki, 3 suiseisekis, 1 hinaichigo, 2 shinku's, and 4 suigintous (one of which was the "male version") After countless photos it was starting to get hot, so me and morgan decided to change (me into Amu, morgan into Toph). We hung around doing random this and that for the rest of the day before going back to Morgan's room to sleep.

Sunday May 24th: Once again we woke up and changed, this time it was me as Amu, Morgan as Toph and Liz as Shinku. In the lobby of the hotel, there was a NEWS gathering which I of course joined. Afterwords, we walked around until it was time for Morgan to go to the Avatar gathering she had organized. While she was there, me and liz met up with my friend bianca and two of her friends and we all decided to [s]stalk[/s] indiscreetly follow someone who was cosplayed as Ikuto from Shugo Chara. After a while, we all went up to our rooms to change for the Black and White Ball. After arriving at the Ball, we met a bunch of really cool people that we pretty much spent the whole night talking to (whenever we weren't being asked to dance, of course) After the ball, me and two of the girls went off to the bathroom and Morgan and Liz went to their room so I had no idea where they were (aka, I was ditched) It was a pretty tense night, needless to say. I slept in the room with my mom that night.

Monday May 25th: I woke up and went to the lobby to hang out with Morgan and Liz before I had to leave. Then it was off to the airport to fly back home after an amazing weekend at Fanime 2009 :)