Finally the end

Ok, so I'm finally posting about my last two weeks in London. I've been home for a week now, but I need to write about stuff and finish off the report of my adventure. It's a good thing I keep a nightly journal, or I'd never be able to remember everything. I actually started a new journal just 10 days before I left London, so they majority of my adventure is in one, but not the end.

The week of the first was pretty normal, work etc. I finished the image research for a book about the many wonderful uses of bicarbonate of soda, which is the second of three books that I did all of the image research for. I had to say goodbye to my institute teacher on Thursday because I had the thing for school the last Thurs in London, and it was harder than I thought. Don't get me wrong, the people in my branch in IA are great, but I'm really going to miss the community of Saints in London, like the fact that there are actually people my own age. Institute was cool too, getting to learn from someone who is so smart and knows so much about the gospel. I'm going to miss that.

I had to give a presentation on Friday connecting something in my internship to my academic studies, which is a surprisingly stupid task for and English major in a nonfiction publishing internship. With Dad's help, I came up with a presentation that equated the precision and care of crafting fiction to the work I put into selecting images for the books I work on. I had a powerpoint of a few examples of images that I liked and corresponding ones that I didn't, of sink drains and toilets. I think people really liked it, which was good because I was really worried about it being stupid and unacademic. Friday night we went to our last London play, Twelfth Night at the same theatre where Molly and I saw Ivanov. The production was good (with Derek Jacobi as Malvolio) but it was a very safe and perhaps flat interpretation.

Saturday the sixth I went on a grand walk around London; I really just wanted to walk around and soak the city up. I started at our flat near Regent's Park and walked down to Oxford Street, from there to Charing Cross. Then I noodled around Covent Garden for a bit, shopping etc, and then took Whitehall to Westminster, where I crossed the river and followed it all the way back to the Globe. Then I recrossed to St Paul's and walked for a while until I got tired, and then tubed back to Oxford St, shopped there a bit, and walked home. I calculated later that I had walked around 6 miles, and it was an unusually gorgeous day.

Sunday was chill: I ignored my paper and started packing. I didn't have to say goodbye to church peeps because we decided to have a goodbye party on Tuesday. Before that was my birthday on Monday. I had to work for most of the day, but the night before we stayed up until midnight and took a picture of the clock, which in military time read 0:00. I think that is the coolest time. It's like New Year's every night. Anyway, after work we went out to dinner to a delicious risotto restaurant. Dad and Kathleen surprised me with a package sent from Harrods of cocoa mix and biscuits and I had a bunch of wall posts from friends and I got to talk to everyone in my family; it was a good birthday, I felt very loved. I can't believe I'm 21! So old.

Tuesday for the goodbye party we had planned to meet at Hard Rock Cafe, but I ended up being really late. I got there 45 minutes late, and I was still the first one, except for one of my friends who had come and gone already. So we ended up going to Katherine and Leslie's and just ordering pizza and hanging out. It was tough to say goodbye to people, but I was so lucky to have friends there.

Thankful for the Long Weekend

Last week was good. The first part was normal, just work etc., but I got Thanksgiving off and I had a great long weekend. Thursday morning I went grocery shopping and there was just this holiday feeling in the air even if they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here. It's probably just me, but it felt very fresh and bustly and Christmasy. For dinner, three of my flatmates and I went to Professor Vinter's house, which was just great. I had wanted to make sure that I didn't just spend Thanksgiving hanging out like a normal day, and going to Vinter's worked out just right. She provided the turkey and everyone brought a side dish or a dessert. I made dad's sweet potatoes and they turned out pretty well, considering I was doing it from memory sans recipe, except I got a brown sugar/sweet potato stain on one of my sweatshirts (who knew that was even possible? I didn't). There were about 30 students at dinner, we were all crouching in corners with our plates, but it was a really fun time.

I'm thankful for a lot of things this year. I'm in London, having the best time, I have a new healthy beautiful baby niece, my family's all doing well (despite the obvious crushing missing of me), I have great friends, and I'm going home soon at (I think) just the right time. A good year.

Friday morning I went shopping with Erin. We had the best time shopping and being silly, it was really fun. I had wanted to buy something cool for myself before I go back to the states, a coat was what I had in mind, so we shopped along Oxford St for a while. I must have driven Erin crazy because I'm not good at committing to buying things; I shop and look and pine, but don't buy. I ended up getting a pair of really cool chucks ("Chucks would put you at the next level of cool" -Ben), but no coat. Well, I went out the next morning and bought a coat we'd looked at, red wool, and a super cute hat. Saturday I also went to Portabello Rd. Market with Beth and got some general stuff for me and not for me. Both of these days I didn't get very much done on my paper that's due on Wed. grrr.

Sunday was good, second to last church! Study Abroad really is a weird thing, that we go somewhere completely new and establish a life there, but then bag it up and head home after only a few months. Very odd. Overall, though, I must admit that I do want to go home; I had a long conversation with Ben Saturday night and it reminded me how much I miss him. Of course I'm going to miss London, and I'd love more time here without school work keeping me from everything I want to do, but home will be really nice.

Miss you guys,

See you soon!