Fall Break<3

I am on the second to last day of what has been an awesome fall break. I flew from Marseille to London Gatwick airport on Friday Nov 27 and got picked up by my mom's cousins, Margret and Chris, who I hadn't seen in a few years. We had wine and dinner and it was great. Then the next morning my cousins drove me to London Heathrow to pick up Mark who was visiting me for the first half of the week! I was soooooooo excited to see him, I was super antsy standing at the gate looking for him to come out. He came out and I gave the biggest hug ever. I would have all-out tackled him but didn't want to draw attention to airport security ;) So we went back to my cousins house and got Mark settled, and then we hit London for the first day. Our cousins told us to take the big red bus tour so that we could get an orientation of where everything was and decide what we want to go back to, so thats what we did (plus come on, you have to take the big double-decker bus when u go to London). The tour took up most of the day and we got to see some of the cool sights in London and made a mental note of what we wanted to go visit later on in the week. when the tour was done we had about an hour left and we found a little park with lots of different kinds of birds on the river, and i took a lot of cool pictures. i was having a blast watching this fearles little kid feed the birds. me and kids. We took the train back from London and our cousins picked us up. We then had some wine and "starters" (appetizers) and then had a pretty big delicious dinner. Mark and I were drunk before dinner started, so that was interesting. but mark spent the whole time talking politics with my cousin Chris, and i'm pretty sure they're in love with each other.

we slept nice and late the next morning cuz Mark was jet-lagged and, lets face it, i always sleep late. we got up, had breakfast, and our cousins dropped us off by Windsor castle, which was gorgeous. we bought tickets just to tour the grounds outside, and i took some great pictures (of course) including one of Mark eating the castle. you'll see it when i put it up haha. i took some pictures of the famous guards who like don't move at all too. we had fun just walking around enjoying the scenery. we also went out to lunch at a Thai restaurant, which I've never been to and Mark insisted I try, and it was really good. since i forgot to set my clock back, we THOUGHT we were running out of time, so i called chris to come pick us up and take us to mass. when we got home we realized we had an hour and everyone made fun of me lol. whatever. we went to 5:30 mass since it was sunday, then had another great dinner. my cousins wanted to watch one of their TV shows and they suggested that we "retire to the study" with our wine. i love the way they talk lol. so we chilled in the living room with our wine for a while and then went to bed. i discovered i dont like port wine at all, its WAY too sweet. but all other wines, bring it on! i love wine. ask mark.

monday my cousins were at work and we could do our own thing, so we slept a little late again and then took the bus to the train station into london. you can buy these travel cards for £12 that are good for trains buses and the metro, which was SO useful cuz we took all 3 everywhere. we went to westminster abbey (where i made an obscene amount of friends references), buckingham palace, big ben, trafalgar square (where you are no longer allowed to feed pigeons, much to my dismay) and walked along the river thames a little bit. it's very pretty and i took some really cool pictures of all the swans that were there. that night we had plans to see Les Miserables which we were SO excited about. we found the theatre and picked up our tickets and then walked around to find a restaurant close by. we found a cute little italian place and had a very classy dinner complete with wine, of course. only problem was after one bottle i was feeling fine, but mark insisted on getting another one, cuz we wanted to sit there for a while but figured we should get something else if we were gonna take up the table for another half hour. again, i love wine, so we got a bottle of rose. i MAY or may not have gotten really drunk. i was having problems concentrating on the show. the show was great though, i really enjoyed it. the music was fantastic and i liked the storyline a lot. brian called me right before the show was about to start, and he was drunk too, so 2 drunk people on the phone is never a good combination. then my phone died. i left it off thinking i would have enough battery to call chris and ask him to come get us at the train station, but it was totally dead. we had an adventure (yes, another one) trying to get their number and use the british pay phones, cuz i didnt know which numbers or codes i needed and it was really confusing. we eventually figured it out thank God and we werent stranded in London. if u ever need to sober me up, make me think i might get lost somewhere, cuz that'll def do it.

tuesday mark was leaving :( so we headed into london again and he checked his bags into a locker-type thing for the day. we went on the london eye, the giant ferris wheel type thing where u can overlook all of london from the top. it was really cool. we also saw kensington palace and walked around kensington gardens for a little bit, and i tried to find the place where my sister had gotten lost when i came here as a kid. then it was time to head back and take mark to the airport so we took a train out to heathrow and got mark on his flight, and i said goodbye to my baby for another 6 weeks :( . we had SO much fun together this week.

the rest of the week was pretty slow, i'm just relaxing cuz hey i'm on vacation :) i'm actually doing all this course registration stuff here while i have internet. yesterday i went into london by myself and walked around the national art gallery. it was pretty cool to look at paintings now that i'm taking an art class, cuz i can appreciate the technique waaay more. dont get me wrong tho, i suck. anyway, today my cousin rachael comes home from college for her fall break, so i'm looking forward to seeing her. and tomorrow i go back to aix! on a painfully expensive flight cuz i waited too long to book it. oops. i am going to be SO BROKE when i get back. it'll be like freshman year all over again, with $1.09 in my bank account lol. o well, it's so worth it.