Wimbledon

So I started my off right two weeks ago by buying tickets to Wimbledon!! This is something I have always wanted to do, so at first I was going to go early and line up for the queue. Every morning at 10 am they sell 500 tickets for centre court and courts 1 & 2 as well as a couple thousand ground tickets. People actually camp overnight many time in order to get tickets. However, they also sell tickets for the next days play on court 3 on ticket master at 9 am the morning before. So Tuesday morning, I got and hit refresh on my computer like a mad women and ended up with two tickets to Wimbledon! My friend from school, Maria, came with me on Wednesday. We got there around 10:30 and wandered around a bit before heading to Court 3 to see our first game, Jeremy Chardy vs. Juan Monaco. One of the coolest things about our seats, at the Northwest end of court 3, was we had a direct to the players entrance to Wimbledon. We did a ton of creeping. Anywho, Juan Monaco won, so we went and got lunch (pizza) and watched a game from the hill (For those of you unfamiliar with Wimbledon, there is a big screen TV set up and people sit on a hill at the north end of the park to watch the games occurring on centre court).

The View of Wimbledon from the hill, with Centre
 Court straight ahead

However, in typical England fashion, it started drizzling and play was suspended. I seriously wonder how they are ever able to finish all the Wimbledon games on time because it is ALWAYS raining here.

Radwanska Serving

During out break, we explored a bit more and ended up at the ball resale stand. At Wimbledon, they change the balls every 6 sets, so needless to say they go through a LOT of balls. So they resell all the used balls to the public for £3 per can. I like to think the balls I bought were used by someone like Federer or Novak Djokovic.


Anyways, eventually the rain delay was called off (after 2.5 hours) and play resumed on Court 3 with Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Elena Vesnina. As many of you may or may not know, Radwanska went to the Wimbledon final! Pretty cool I got to see her play in round 2. By this time, it was 7 pm and Maria and I were tired, so we went to get dinner when I noticed the large amount of people leaving centre court during the Novak Djokovic vs. Ryan Harrison (USA) game. Needless to say I was DYING to see that game and to be on centre court. Ends up that after 5 pm, Wimbledon sells back the tickets of people who left centre court. So we hopped on over to the booth, paid £10 and got to see the majority of the game!! It was sooo exciting and definitely one of the highlights of my time in England! We ended up staying until 10 pm- a whole 12 hours at Wimbledon! Pretty cool!

Djokovic vs Harrison

March-June

HELLO! It has been a LONG time. And I have been very busy. But I will attempt to update you on my whereabouts.... starting with this weekend and working backwards.


  This Past Week (June 17-25th)

Last week was pretty eventful, It started with me receiving my first Olympic tickets (!!) in the mail to the Women's Soccer Gold Medal Match! Here is hoping that the the USA is in the finals! Although it will be very exciting either way! My aunt is in town, so we were about to go out to dinner and watch Billy Elliot during the week. Friday was by far one of the best nights I have had in London thus far. As class rep, I helped organize our departmental party. It was beach themed and complete with 6 ft blow-up palm tree coolers (amazon it... so great). Afterwards we (my classmates and I) headed out to a nightclub, Cargo, which was a pleasantly surprisingly amazing time! It was definitely one of the most fun I have had in a nightclub in London, and number of times I have seen the sunrise in London has reached an alarming rate (see May section later on).
 There is no sleep for the weary, however, and the next day I went to Trafalgar square where West End Live was on. West End Live (pictured) is where all the West Endm 3-4 numbers for free in Trafalgar. It was pretty great! Afterwards, my roommates and I went and got Mexican (like real mexican ... in London! it is sooo hard to find a good Mexican place here) and then went to go see Phantom of the Opera. All and it all it was a very musical day.

  The Rest of June
So I will start from the beginning here. The first weekend of June was the Queen's Jubilee! I am sure you guys in the States heard all about, but basically it was a four day weekend (#winning) to celebrate the Queen's 60th year on the throne! Sunday, we (my classmates and I) went out to the Thames and watched the "Queens Jubilee Flotilla". Unfortunately it was raining the entire time (typical London) so we just watched the beginning of the parade and the Queen and the left for a pub (typical London). Monday we went to Hyde Park to watch the Queen's Jubilee concert on the big screen. To have watched the concert from the Mall (the street leading up to Buckingham Palace) we would have had to basically camp overnight- so crazy! The atmosphere in Hyde Park was great, though, and its very close to Buckingham Palace so we were able to watch the fireworks at night! Finally, Tuesday the Queen took a carriage to the Palace. I was not planning on going to this event, however I happened to be out shopping and look who whizzed by! 

 So that was an exciting start to June! Unfortunately after that I started my thesis, which made the month of June decidedly less exciting. My topic is basically comparing the US and European Structural Codes on their provisions on accidental loads (aka terrorist attacks). It is pretty cool because I am doing a lot of research into the twin towers and how they collapsed and what can be done in the future to prevent such collapses. 


 The only other exciting this that has happened this month is Eurocup! With Soccer games on everyday, how can you be bored? I spent the better part of the last two weeks in a pub from 7:45-10:00 pm watching them. Its even better when they are on when I am working because I have something to do! Unfortunately England lost last night, so I have to find another team to support... I am thinking Spain or Germany! Oh last exciting thing, I went with my aunt to a DELICIOUS restaurant in Primrose Hill if anyone is visiting London soon- It is called Lemonia and it is a Greek Restaurant! 


May 
The beginning of May was spent intensely studying for finals. I did one, and only one fun thing. I went to the Olympic Park to watch the test even for Water Polo! It was soooo exciting to go and see what everyone has been talking about! After the Tournament (Australia won) we went and walked around the park- I cannot wait to go back in a few weeks! The architecture is really exquisite and unique (well everything except the temporary Water Polo arena... which looks really temporary). 


So I will breeze over the 3 weeks of finals (The only thing of any consequence that happened is I had lunch with my cousin and his girlfriend at "Lobster and Burger" a sought after restaurant in Mayfair where they serve, you guessed it, just Lobster and Burgers. I don't really eat Burgers, so I had the Lobster roll and it was delicious!!) and end up on a Monday in the middle of May after my last final! To celebrate, we went out to O'Neil's in Leister Square (which is definitely our normal hangout lately), which had live music until 3 am on a Monday! So great! Made even better by the arrival of my mom and sister the next day at 6 am!(I was glad to see them but 2 more hours of sleep would have probably been best). I showed them around the London that day, and the next day we headed off to Edinburgh for a night!




We boarded the first train out (7 am) and it took about 5 hours to get up to Scotland. I was sooo happy to be back for a third time! (See previous blog for a more detailed decription of Edinburgh). We took the free tour of Edinburgh and low-and-behold our tour guide was from Palatine and went to the same High School I did! Things like that just make you realize what a small world it is. After the tour, we went to a great dinner at a small French restaurant called Maison Bleue. It had some of the most delicious Calamari and Fondue I have ever had! We had a quiet night in (see picture for the view from our hotel room!), then spent the next day at the Edinburgh Castle, before grabbing lunch on the royal mile. It was a short trip, but I am so glad my mom and sister got to see one of my Favorite cities!

My dad and brother flew in the day after we got back, and we spent the weekend doing classic tourist things. I got to see Stonehenge and Bath for the first time (both of which were pretty incredible! Of course everybody knows about stonehenge... or rather no one really knows why the stones are like that... But not many people know about the Roman Bath's in Bath. Occupied in 60-70 AD, the romans settled around the area because of the hot springs ... there is a ton of history here!).  Unfortunately the day after this, I started my two-week intensive design course and didn't really see my family much after that. Just a smattering of times including to see the musical "Matlida" (So great! definitely recommend it to anyone who will be around London). My parents and brother and sister also got to come out for my friend, Maureen's, going away party at the Founder Arm on the Thames. My parents were very excited to meet my friends (although I am pretty sure they could not understand the accents). My brother and sister got to stay all night and hang out, which was a ton of fun! It was great to see my family here!

So my two-week design course was, well, intensive. I had a great group of guys who I have known all year so we managed to pull it out in the end. There were a few late nights, but it all worked out okay! We designed two bridges (a deck-stiffened arch bridge and a through arch bridge) and I think they were pretty great - hopefully our teacher agrees.

The only other exciting thing that happened this month was my friend, Maureen, with one week left at her apartment, got a text at 10 pm from her landlord saying she had two hours to move out (which is illegal). So she went home and the landlord had stolen her passport from her underwear drawer as collateral until she got out- It was absolutely horrible and illegal and ended with her moving into my apartment at 3 am. Luckily some of our friends were around to help out! So that was the first of my aforementioned sunrises. The rest after were mostly due to fun events!


April
I was back in the the US the month of April! I will not bore you with the details, but basically I ate a lot of food, went on a LOT of walks with Meghan and Chloe, and maybe studied a tiny bit. Nothing too crazy but it was certainly nice to be at home for a bit (It had been 7 months!) and have people dote on me. If only everyone was that excited everytime I came home!

  March
And back to where we left off! Again nothing too crazy occur in this month, mostly just coursework. I ended up watching a ton of rugby with the guys with my class, and now I feel like I know the game enough to at least understand it. St. Patrick's Day was probably the highlight of the month- I went out with one of my Irish classmate and his friends. We were at an Australian Pub (Walkabout for those who are familiar) but it certainly felt Irish on that day!


So that is all for now! I promise (I swear to it this time) that I will update more. And I will try to add things I forgot in this post. Now that it is summer I don't really have more time, but I do have more exciting things to talk about! Hope everyone at home is doing well!

-Anastasia

A Week in Review

Hi everyone!!

It is Friday night 9:30 pm and I am sitting on my couch watching a movie. Don't feel bad for me, though, I had a hopping week.

It all started Sunday when I BOUGHT TICKETS TO THE OLYMPIC GAMES!!! It seems so unreal that I actually got tickets!! I got very lucky and got reasonably priced ones through the company that commissions all the tickets set aside for US citizens. I am going to two preliminary women's water polo games and the round of 16 beach volleyball games. This happened to coincide with a lecture at school given on the Olympic Games structures and now I am triply excited!!! The water polo games will be in the area of the olympic complex (in Stratford) and the beach volleyball games are in the horse guard parade (opposite Buckingham Palace). This is definitely a once in a lifetime thing and I CANNOT wait.

Woo after that everything does not sam as exciting. Monday was another water polo games, in which we crushed our opponent 8 to 3 to something like that. Afterwards was a unexpected night out in Russell Square where I got to know more of the team and had an amazing time! I didn't even realize it was 2 am and that I should probably get home as I had to wake up at 8 am for classes on Tuesday........


...... and I slept through the first hour of my class. No worries though! Spent all day at school, then went directly from school to the Olympics lecture, then went directly to the London Bridge's bar crawl! Probably one of the most beautiful bar crawls I have ever done. We criss-crossed central London via the bridged from bar to bar. London along the Thames at night is just so beautiful. There were definitely a few bars I cannot wait to go back to because of the view!

Wednesday was all about rest and homework.

Thursday was class all day, work until 1 am.

And now it is Friday. (and its warm! 50+ I am definitely not complaining!)


In other miscellaneous news:

- My flower is still alive!! It officially lasted through winter (aka 5 months). I just got another flower, so here is the real test (my life is so exciting those days...)

- 5 weeks until I visit Chicago!!!!

January in Londontown

Hi! London did not move while I was gone!

The first three weeks of January were exclusively set aside for studying, and nothing else. The only thing of excitement ( though not the good kind of excitement) to happen was my laptop completely dying. After two years of riding the tide, it finally drowned. Unfortunately, the timing was right smack dab in the middle of finals, so I had to run out and buy a new computer.

My Birthday came right after finals, and it was a very chill day of shopping, watching tv, a sushi dinner, and cocktails with the girls! Definitely what I needed after a hard few weeks.

We started classes the Monday after finals (I know... soooooooo horrible!). The past three weeks have been a bit more active than the first couple of the year. I got a job in a pub as a bartender! I work between 6-10 hours a week and it is so much fun! It definitely is adding to my English experience. I also had my first water polo tournament in North London vs. Cambridge, Oxford, and Birmingham. I ended up playing the entirety of all three games, which was definitely a test of my endurance (which, for the record, I failed. By the end of the tournament I couldn't even swim a length of the pool). I had forgotten how much I loved to play water polo.... it definitely made for an amazing weekend. I even got 4 goals! Whoo! And last, but definitely not least, this week our boilder broke... aka. not heat or hot water. It was a bit of struggle, but we survived!


To end this post I thought I would highlight some things I recently found in London:

- Even though I walk past it everyday, I never noticed the V&A is full of bomb hole from WWII. It is crazy to think about, and it made me realize how lucky we were that bombs didn't destroy more of London! There is so much history!


-The English consider 30 F a deep freeze.... they obviously would be shocked if they ever visited Chicago

-As soon as an ounce of snow fall, the entire city freaks out! People can't walk, they forget how to drive, its very interesting seeing as it snow here EVERY year.

-There is a ridiculous amount of palm trees growing in my neighborhood

xx Ana

Australlllia!!

Hi Everyone!

Okay so my New Years Resolution (That is starting in February) is to update my blog more often!

As mentioned beforehand, I spent my winter vacation in Australia. I will try to give a quick summary:

Malaysia
The stopping point of my 24 hours of flying was Malaysia. I wish I had the time to explore outside the airport, but I did learn a bit about the country from the airport. First off, they had a jungle in the center of the airport, which was certainly unique. I had forgotten what humidity felt like. The next adventure was to the bathroom, which had mostly standing up toilets. I suppose it is all about what you are use to! In true american fashion, though, I spent most my layover at the Starbucks. In my defense, It was the only place where I was guaranteed from wi-fi and I needed to study!

Cairns


I spent the first 4 days of my trip traveling by myself around northwestern Australia. My tour included White Water Rafting, a day on the reef, a tour of the tablelands and waterfall circuit, and a day in the Daintree Rainforest (where I got to feed Kangaroos!) . It was really a unique experience, I had never been in a Rainforest before and I was so cool to see all the animals and plants

Newcastle

I flew back down to Sydney on Thursday and met up with Evan at the airport and hopped on a train up to Newcastle. Mitch and Luke picked us up at the train station, VB's in hand. It was so exciting to see everyone again and spend the week of Christmas chilly in Newcastle. Activities included waterskiing (In salt water! A different experience for me), a day at the races, and a day on a Yacht. My friend's families were so inviting and we ended up having 3 full Christmas Meals

Sydney


The last stop on the trip was Sydney! We met up with Emma and Chris and toured the city. We spent our time exploring the city, sailing in Sydney harbor, going to the beach, and the Blue Mountains! The highlight was definitely New Years Eve. Emma pulled out all the stops and we got to be in a private enclosure directly across from the Harbour Bridge (see picture).

I already miss the sun and the beach!! Australia was amazing and I cannot wait to go back! The flight home was a bit depressing as it was back to reality and finals!

Christmas Time

It's Christmas time in London!
Before I get ahead of myself though...
First off is thanksgiving! My friend from U of I came out and we made a homemade thanksgiving meal at my apartment with 2 friends from school (an American and a french girl). It was the first turkey I have Made and it turned out pretty good!
Besides thanksgiving I have not been up to much- thus the lack of blog posts. Beyond homework, I really only sleep, eat, and occasionally shop.


My roomates and I decorated our apartment: complete with a tree! All the Christmas as decorations throughout London are gorgeous... I just wish I had more time to enjoy them! I did go ice skating at sommerset house, which was beautiful (abet raining)

Tonight I head off to Australia!! Hopefully I will be able to upload some pictures while I'm there :)

Blue Skys, Warm Weather

Hello there!

So I know it has been quite a while since I have posted, but I have been very busy! Mostly with school. At least 4 days a week I leave for school at 9 am and get home sometime between 9 pm and 11pm. But keeping on top of my school work allows me to have somewhat of a social life....

Oxford


Saturday (1 month ago...) we (My roomates, their classmates at RVC and I) spent the day in Oxford! We really had nothing in mind, so we wandered around the campus (SO pretty and, well, English), had a nice lunch at an English pub, and than walked through Christ Church College (AKA where parts of Harry Potter where filmed like the entrance to the Great Hall etc.). We then when punting on the canal before heading for a burrito dinner (It is hard to find Mexican food in England, so when we see Mexican us Americans get a bit too excited) and then home!

Bear Down, Chicago Bears


Alas, there is no rest for the weary as the next day we had tickets to see the Chicago Bears vs. Tampa Bay Bucaneers at Wembley stadium! It was quite a breezy day, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the "American" tailgate party where they only served Bud Light (yes. you heard me right. But lets be real, what is American Football without Bud Light?). We got to meet up with my cousin and some of his friend there as well! The game was amazing! Although I think all the English people sitting around us were really confused when my friend and I stood up to cheer and when we yelled at the refs. It was an AMAZING day.... although 6 hours of school the next day was a bit tough.

Halloween



So Halloween in the UK is a bit different than America. I was pretty excited at first because the Brits seemed so excited for the day! But Halloween came and all the British dressed exactly the same: as a bloody zombie. I guess they didn't get the Halloween creativity memo. Nevertheless, my roommates and I had a blast preparing for Halloween. Anna made pumpkin pie while we carved pumpkins and roasted pumpkin seeds. We spent Halloween night at an RVC event. I was Belle from Beauty and Beast! I hope everyone back in the states had a fun Halloween too!


Pedi-Bike and Borough Market



Last Saturday Emily and I met up with some friends to go pedi-biking. Now if you look at the photo, you will see a contraption of sorts with 8 seats with pedals and a counter around the inside. Basically how it works is:
- you find 8 friends
- you sit on the seats facing each other
- You pedal through the London streets while consuming beer and wine (The owner of the company is the sober driver)
It was such fun! We were pedaling through the streets of London next to the big red buses in the middle of the street. While I am sure this is probably incredibly dangerous, none of of got hurt so no harm no foul! We did get a TON of strangers taking pictures of us though.

After "biking" we went around the corner to the Borough Market, which is one of the most amazing places I have ever been. It is a HUGE market that has everything you would ever want (microbrews, mulled wine, CHEESE, homemade sweets, Halloumi veggie burgers (well not everyone wants that... but I assure you it was delicious). I fell in love and Emily and I are DEFINITELY going back this weekend to explore further!


Everyday Life/ Misc

On the whole, everything is going great! I hang out with a great group of people at school (Mostly French people, who would have guessed-> Lets just say I now drink a lot of red wine and eat a lot of cheese). My class goes out to dinner every other Friday night at a different nationality restaurant, this week it is Greek food!.

My roommates and I explore a little bit every weekend. A couple Saturdays ago we spent the day at Harrods looking around and eating. That took us about 4 hours we only hit up 2 of the 6 floors. We also explored Convent Garden this weekend and ate at this delicious (and affordable!) Tapas place.

I guess I should also explain the title of this post. The weather has been AMAZING (well, for England at least) It really hasn't fallen below 55-60 degrees F (we have not even turned our heat on in our apartment and its the end of November!) It only rains when I am in my apartment or class which has been VERY convenient thus far.

The next few weeks are also very exciting! Wednesday, my friend Katy from U of I is coming to visit for a week! I can't wait to show her around and do all the touristy stuff. We are having Thanksgiving dinner at my cousins Thursday as well! I am a bit sad I will not be at home, but I am happy to at least still spend Thanksgiving with family and friends! Then the weekend after next, Amber comes for the weekend! THEN just 2 weeks until I leave for Australia!! December is going to be an exciting month :)