A mini break filled with adventure!

Her Majesty's Theatre

Maple Leaf Canadian Pub

 Well I promised you another post and here it is! This post will be all about the beginning of my first week off of work and all the stuff I planned to keep me entertained. I must of packed to much stuff into the week though and worn myself out already because I now have a cold. But with some medicine and sleep am feeling much better now.

          Monday started off with weather warnings of the hurricane that hit England on the weekend. They were calling for lots of rain and wind and to expect delays with the trains and traffic because of the severe weather. I am glad to say that all we got in my area was rain and a little bit of wind! Me being silly however still didn't bring an umbrella and proper windy weather clothing with me on Monday so I got rained on and was cold most of the day (most likely how I got sick so yes it is my own fault.) However I made the best of my day, I went to collect my ticket for "Phantom of the Opera" (which I saw that night) and then headed to The National Gallery. I didn't spend to much time in there however because I don't know that much about Art and the Artist in there and really just wanted to see the Van Gogh pieces (so this means I do need to go back once I am more educated on the other Artists in the building.)

         After that I walked to Covent Garden to check out there daily flea market, they already have the place dressed up for Christmas! And I thought I was gun hoe on Christmas but never this early, it's not even Halloween yet! For lunch I went somewhere that was the closes to Canada I'll get in awhile, The Maple Leaf (an all Canadian pub). It felt nice to have a little bit of home far away from home. After a long day of rain and wind it was time to see Phantom and it was amazing! My seat was pretty decent, even with the restricted view it said it had (there was a pillar slightly to my right but it did not effect the view of the stage.) The cast was amazing and the guys who played Raoul and The Phantom were quite attractive as well so even better.

Map of the Tower of London

          On Tuesday I went back into London to go to the Tower of London. For my birthday my sister got me a membership for the palaces and courts of England. It includes the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Banqueting House, Kensington Palace, and Kew Palace. I get free admission to each place, free admission to most of the events going on at each place and a discount on the cafes and shops and so much more! I've always been a fan of History, yes even with my memory, so it was really interesting to be apart of it all and learn about the History that happened only forty minutes away from where I live. I toured around the whole tower and learned all about the Kings that ruled there, how the coin mint of England was moved to the tower, who was executed at the tower and about the two Princes that *disappeared* from the tower. Since it's school holidays at the moment the place was packed with families and tourists, which meant lots of queues! Have I mentioned how I hate queues? More specifically queues made because people are walking so slowly! Thats how it was for a bit while I did the walk around the upper ledge of the Tower, waited five minutes to get into one of the towers to realize it was being people were walking so slowly or stopping in the middle of the way and other people not moving around them.

         The only thing I did not see while I was there was the crown jewels. There was an hour and a half queue line by time I arrived in the morning and it wasn't gaining any time what so ever by time I left, but good thing I have the membership, I can visit however many times as I want within the year of my membership. Another thing to add onto the to-do list.  Today I took things easy, getting over my cold still but the rest of the week is filled with many more places to go! I hope to do another posting on Sunday about the rest of my week off :)

Here is a link to the Tower of London for more information: http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/

Ravens are an omen of good luck at the Tower
and each King that ruled made sure that Ravens
were always present at the Tower.

Funny kids t-shirt I found in one of the shops.

First Weekend Tour = Great Success

Hello everybody! Another weekend past us, another little trip for me. Well not little, the total opposite…it was HUGE! This past weekend I took a tour to Oxford, Burford, Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourden-on-the-water, Bilbury, Bath, Lacock, and Stonehenge! Man that’s a mouth full and a half!

Saturday morning started early again for me, had to be up for 5:30am to be in London on time and ready to go for 8:15am. Thought I’d sleep on the way the Oxford but the driver, and our tour guide as well, kept telling us all these fun facts that I didn’t want to sleep.

In Oxford we mostly just walked around one of the main parts of Oxford University. I think the coolest thing I learned about Oxford was how their school system works. There are 36 colleges in Oxford and Oxford University. The colleges are very different than the colleges I’m use too, basically the colleges are used for a living space, library, dinning hall and rec room. Every student, no matter which college they go to/stay in when they graduate from their program they will graduate from the University of Oxford! Wicked! 
After Oxford we visited some of the Cotswolds towns, they are apart of the Cotswolds because of the sheep that are raised there, these towns included (Burford, Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourden-on-the-water, and Bilbury). Each town had there own unique way of looking, very country feeling and a nice feeling after being in the city for so long.

Stonehenge

After a good rest at the hotel on Sunday we went to two other Cotswolds towns (Bath and Lacock) and then ended our tour at Stonehenge. In Bath we went into the Roman Baths and got to listen to an audio tour as we walked around. After Bath we went to Lacock, which is one of the only towns in England that hasn’t been touched by modern development. They do have electricity and drive obviously but there are no electrical wires hanging in the streets or TV dishes on the houses which means a lot of movies and TV shows that are set in the period times can be filmed here (like Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth). 

Stonehenge was the last stop before heading home. Other than being very windy and cold it was exciting to see these famous stones in person. Our tour guide told us lots of information about everywhere we went to this weekend but me being me and not being the best at memory will have to refresh my memory via the Internet. I apologize for this and because I am a horrible person for not giving more fun facts I’m going to be doing another post Wednesday which will be about my first part of my week off and then another on Sunday to follow up with the rest of my week.

Roman Baths

Off to Hogwarts I Go

Getting up at 5:30am on a Saturday to go to the Warner Brothers Studio Tour of Harry Potter...well worth it. I went to the studio with two other au pair friends of mine and instead of all trying to figure out the difference transfers to get to the studio we decided to take the "Harry Potter" bus, meaning I had to be in London by 8:45am at the latest so that I wouldn't miss it.

Of course this weekend the Uxbridge tube station has to be shut down so they can do repairs on the station so I had to get up extra early to get ready and take a bus to a different tube station that would take me into town. It was an early start but I'm glad I made it safely into London and with more than enough time to meet the bus.

          We made it to the studios at 10am (our entrance time for the studio was between 11:00-11:30am). We had a quick look around the entrance part of the studio and then joined the queue (line). We were then taken into a cinema and watched a quick video of the tour with introductions by Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint.  Finally at 11am we entered the studio tour and our first stop was The Great Hall. It was amazing to see in person! It actually felt like being in the real Hogwarts (not that I know what it's like, I'm just a muggle) but the feeling that I got when I walked through those doors was a great and amazing feeling. Throughout the tour we got to see the actual sets used during the movies and props/wigs/costumes that were created for each character. One of the coolest things I learned was how they made Robbie Coltrane into Hagrid, height wise. If you do want to know hightlight the text below between the quotation marks and copy and paste it into a word document and make the font bigger :) I know some people might not want to know the magic behind it or discover it for themselves so I will respect that.

          "   For distance shots they used a body double as well as stilts and even a robot head that looked exactly like Coltrane to fit the double that was controlled off screen to move. For closer up shots Coltrane used stilts to appear taller.    "

          I did get to have some butterbeer while I was there and for those who haven't tried making their own I suggest doing so, you can find recipes on pinterest, it is very sweet but also very delicious :) For any Harry Potter fan I highly suggest going here at some point, to see all the detail and hard work that was put into making these books come to life through movie is just breath taking! So many people worked very hard to make it all come true and it's great to see that they are getting the respect they deserve. 

This weekend coming up I will be going on a tour to Oxford, Cotswolds, Bath, Lacock and Stonehenge. It's a full weekend tour so it will be keeping me very busy. As well next week the family is going on a mini holiday because the girls have their half term which means I have the whole next week off :) I have something, or many things, planned everyday. There may even be a couple of posts just for next weeks events so stay tuned. 

Don't forget to make a comment if you want to know more about something or have questions or comments about anything :)

The Big 2-2!

Okay, okay I know turning twenty-two isn't that old or anything but it's another year added onto mine so I believe it's a big deal, and for people who know me my birthday is my second favourite holiday (Christmas will always be number one!) For this being my first birthday being far away from home and I defiantly felt it. Not that I was sad about being away from home but it was different not being around my family and having Thanksgiving. I had an amazing day however and would not have changed it if I could :)

The day started with a lovely breakfast made by my host family, pancakes, bacon, sausages the whole shebang! I then went into London and met with a friend for lunch. After that it was off to see "Les Miserables". The musical was amazing! Our seats were at the very top in the back row, only a tiny bit was cut off at the top of the stage for maybe two minutes at most but they were amazing seats for only costing £28.
The actors and actresses wonderfully portrayed the characters (having only seen the movie that is what I had to go off of). I believe this is the longest play that I have ever seen, both Act One and Two were an hour and a half each! It did not feel like an hour and a half each time, only that our seats were kind of cramped so my legs got stiff after a bit.


After "Les Mis" we went to Leicester Square to walk around for a bit before we had to meet with some more au pairs at the Metropolitan Bar. Apparently there was a Zombie Walk going on at the same time. There were hundreds of people dressed up in full zombie uniform and there was also a zombie band playing music. The British International Film Festival is also on until October 20th, and while we were waiting there was a premiere going on and celebrities on the red carpet. I saw Julia-Louis Dreyfus, tried to get a decent picture of her but she was being interviewed by time I got there and not looking the right way.

We then made our way to the Metropolitan Bar to meet up with some of the other au pairs I have met since arriving. I was quite surprised to see that two of the girls had gotten me a cake, I got to blow out the candles twice because we forgot to take pictures the first time. It was a very exciting birthday and I am so happy and blessed for everyone I have met so far to make it wonderful for me.



I am hoping to try and update the blog every week either on the Monday or Friday of that week. I am going to the Harry Potter Studio Tour on Saturday (19th) so I will post my next entry on the Monday of next week, so look forward to that :)