She asked me, "Georgia, what were you thinking?" I replied..."I will be the last to know."

Hello! Short post today...I was in Paris last weekend and was able to see my mom's friend from college, Joshua, who has lived in Paris for 25 years. We went to a French flea market and the Louvre and saw the Church where designer Yves St. Laurent was buried just a few weeks ago! I went to the Eiffel Tower every day I was in Paris and climbed to the top on Saturday night. It glittered blue and sparkled at every hour and we saw it at midnight, which was really neat! Lots of pictures, which I will post soon! I bought a dress on the Champs Elysees and saw Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomphe. There are also so many gypsies in Paris who try to swindle people, so we had to be really careful with our bags and everything!
We also went to the European premiere of The Dark Knight on Monday and saw Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, director Chris Nolan, and some other famous people so that was really fun!!
Tomorrow I leave for Edinburgh for the weekend and on Monday we are going to Dublin for a few days. My last class was today, but I still have a paper and an exam. I can't believe that time has gone so fast!! I've attached a few photos - miss you all!!

PS. Georgia Nicolson movie comes out on

Greetings from across the pond! I hope things are going well for everyone in the states...
London is still fabulous and fun! I have been going to lots of museums and have been to see some of the palaces so I have some things to tell you about...
Megan and I went first to the Science Museum (the South Kensington tube stop) but found that it really wasn't anything to write home about (although that is exactly what I am doing right now.) Anyway, it had some neat artifacts of medicine and the only display about the history of veterinary medicine I have ever encountered. Besides that however, I did not feel impressed.
Then, my friend Angela from home came to visit so we went to the British Museum and the Imperial War Museum. Both were incredible. The British Museum has a facade that I think is an exact replica of the Parthenon in both appearance and size. Really a fantastic spectacle! Inside we only had time to visit the Ancient Egypt displays and saw the Rosetta Stone (which is really an enormous stone with hieroglyphs on it!) as well as many mummies and sarcophagi, which were truly fascinating.
The Imperial War Museum (IWM) was my favorite museum so far and by far. We first went to an exhibition called Crimes Against Humanity which was an eye opening look at genocide from WWII to today. They said that prior to WWII, 90% of war fatalities were soldiers. Today, that figure is reversed. 90% of war casualties/fatalities are citizens/genocide victimes - aka, WWII, Rwanda, Darfur, Serbia...For evil to triumph, it takes but good men to do nothing. Very true and poignant, I think!!
Yesterday we visited Windsor Castle and Hampton Court Palace. Windsor was stunning. It is the largest continuously inhabited castle in the world. It was first used in the 1000's for William the Conqueror after the Norman invasion of England. The Saxons were apparently hard to control so he built moat and bailey castles everywhere. Today, Elizabeth II lives there on the weekends and she likes it more than she likes Buckingham Palace (which was not initially built to house monarchs!). We didn't get to see the Queen Mary's Dolls House because the line was 1.5 hours long, but I hear it is amazing! Has anyone seen it?
We saw Henry VIII's grave in St. George's Chapel buried next to his third wife Jane Seymour - the only wife (of his 6) to bear him a son (Edward VII) who died at 17. We also walked on the tomb of George III (the tyrant king during the Revolutionary War!) and felt like patriotic Americans for doing so!!
Hampton Palace was very nice too, though not as well maintained as Windsor of course. Hampton is about 500 years old and was built over 3 centuries, originally by Henry VIII's Cardinal Wolsey. Wolsey was arrested and Henry VIII took it over with his 5th wife, Catherine Howard, who was later beheaded for having an affair with Tomas Culpeper.
Anyway...I'm still having a great time! Paris is next weekend and I could not be more excited. I will put up some pictures of the palaces/museums from the last few days!!

Missing all of you!!

Katharine

More Pictures!!

Photos of Stonehenge and Bath and the campus where my school is!

Some of the pictures didn't come out so well, so I'm reposting them here!! Enjoy!!

Happy Early 4th of July!!

Hello again, mates!!
London is still great and amazing, of course. Yesterday was exciting because some of the "locals" who are our program directors told me that my accent, of all the Americans-pretending-to-be-British, was the best. I did not mention that I have been waiting for that moment for about 50 years, but I was thrilled to say the least. My friend Samantha told me that when she first met me, I was apparently practicing my accent and she thought I was British for about an hour.
As I was telling Libby yesterday, there are two things that I must complain about so far
1) Windows
2) Food
Londoners do not appear to believe in screened windows, thus there are constantly bugs in my room, which is driving me nuts!
Food-wise, I would imagine England is not ranked very highly on the international good food ratings. Especially college food. Each meal I basically have only 1 choice, and its usually shadily identified as "meat" if its lunch/dinner (supper) and at breakfast it is "bagel" with some sort of fruity spread. Thus, I have bought myself some chocolate (double chocolate) muffins and some peanut butter and have subsisting on that. So far I have not wasted away, so that is good news.
After my weekend of touring around London, we have only been back to central London once, for someone's birthday, which was really fun. We went to a bar/club called the ZOO bar and hung out and danced. I am going to try to upload some photos so you can see some of the neat things I'm doing and some of my friends here (Alexis, Megan, Sam, Erika, Kayla, Jessica).
Tomorrow night is the 4th of July! Some kids are planning to go to a bar called the Texas Embassy because we figure there may be other Americans there. The stereotype of obnoxious Americans is definitely believed here. Especially on the tube (pronounced "chube").

God save the Queen!!
Katharine

Finally Settling In!

Hey all! Finally settled in London. The internet was hard to configure but finally it works so I can post pictures soon and let you all see what I'm doing!
On Saturday we went as a group to London to take a bus tour. We saw all the big sites, including the Tower of London, the Bank of England, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, London Bridge Lambeth Bridge, The Monument for the Fire of London (in 1666). We got out to take pictures of the Tower of London which is actually lots of towers and enclosed spaces. Definitely going to go back and take the tour so I can see the Crown Jewels! After our group went to dinner and to some pubs - 3, in fact. We went to the Sherlock Holmes, the Princess of Wales, and the Coal Hole Pubs which were exciting because we met some locals etc. On Sunday we went on a walking tour of Hampstead Heath. We saw Dame Judi Dench's House (which apparently has caught on fire several times) as well as the homes of Boy George, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Stopes, John Galsworthy, and Lord Admiral Nelson's lover, and the homes of a few painters I can't remember. Impressionists, I think!
We also saw the house where they filmed Mary Poppins, where the dad shoots cannons off of the top. The man who lived there actually did build a quarter deck and installed two cannons because he thought Britain might get attacked and he frequently practiced shooting them, much to the dismay of his neighbors I'm sure.
Camden was quite different...very eclectic selection of stores, mostly Goth I think. There was a fire a few months ago (arson) so some stores weren't open and there was a really junky area. We were there for 5 hours so we did get a little tired and didn't actually do much shopping. We sat at an organic cafe next to the Regent's Canal and drank coffee and chatted which was fun.
Last night we went to the tavern near the school because there was a big football (soccer) game called the Euro Cup which only happens every few years. Germany was playing Spain, and Spain won, 1-nil. The Brits were rooting for Spain because they hate Germany apparently, so we all rooted for Spain too!
Class starts tomorrow (Politics of Europe) 3 hours a day, 3 days a week. This weekend there are fireworks on the 4th incidentally and we are going to Stonehenge and Bath on Sunday. Hope all is well with all of you!!
Cheers!
Katharine