I went places!

Greetings from Germany! :)

[great weather for some outdoor-writing, lol]

My vacation is in full swing! 20 more days with my sister and  20 more days left for me to learn German! Ja, das ist nicht gut! I'm usually good with languages but with this particular one I'm not in a good relationship. But since German is the only subject I almost failed in, I have no other choice but to learn it.

Anyways, as promised, in this post I'll tell about my trip.

Me and my sister hadn't been anywhere for quite a while. well... she lives in Germany so technically - I hadn't been anywhere. So we decided to go on a trip together. Since we didn't have enormous amount of money and time, we decided to go to London. And since I have the natural talent of being awesome, I had to plan the trip. It wasn't that hard, to be honest. We didn't have to worry about our accommodation, since I have friends who live close to London. We simply crashed at their place. But I wanted to see something outside London as well, so I had to do some research. And with a little help from my sister, the trip was fully planned! May 23rd - May 29th - London! (Probably wasn't the wisest decision to plan a trip for the last week of university (In Latvia schools end on May 31st and in June is the exam session)  Before I left I had to take 4 tests in one day and arrange everything so I wouldn't have any debts). 

May 23rd. Our plane lands in London at exactly 12:25pm and the excitement begins... Only it didn't last very long as we had to stand in a line at the "border" for one and a half hour!  And after the nice lady got to see that my face matches my passport picture (only I don't look beat up in real life as I do in it) we got our bags and finally met our friends who had been waiting on the other side for this whole time! Anyway, we decided not to do anything the first day. Since me and my sister were kinda tired from the flight and I hadn't seen my friends for a while, we just stayed home and had some delicious cherry whiskey and spent the whole day and night chatting and laughing.

May 24th, which was a Saturday, we spent in London. Went to see all the typical tourist places and objects, experienced the famous London weather. As in - chilling with our sunglasses on one minute, soaked wet in rain the next. But we were all in good spirits, excited and didn't mind the weather at all. We even got to see the Bupa Westminster mile (world's biggest one-mile running event - according to google) and got home at about 10pm. It was a day well spent. And my legs could approve that statement, as they were hurting like hell from walking all day long. Honestly - the only moments we sat down were in the underground and the train back home.

May 25th was probably my favorite. Since we wanted to see something outside London as well, I booked a one-day tour for me and my sister. It started at 8:30 am. The thing I really like about London and probably UK in general - it is really easy to find everything. And the underground is the easiest thing to use ever! So we got to the meeting place early, chatted with some nice police officers, according to whom I was in trouble since it was illegal to smile at that place. Oops!

[ Me and my sister before the tour ]

The tour consisted of 3 stops
*Windsor
*Bath
*Stonehenge

We didn't have much time to explore everything in all those places. But we did get to see the huge and beautiful Windsor Castle. I don't think a week would be enough to walk through and around it!

The next stop was Bath. It is so cute!!!

Right next to this park there is a small bookstore where - of course - you can buy Jane Austen's books. I swear I was more than tempted to buy Pride & Prejudice and go sit in the park and read about the charming Mr. Darcy while the orchestra plays in the background! I absolutely LOVE Bath. It's as idyllic as I imagined it would be

[This was delicious!]

The last stop was Stonehenge. And honestly - I was totally disappointed. Not as much about the fact that there's nothing really to see as about the entrance fee! This might be nothing for many of you, but for me... if I have to pay 25 £ to walk around a circle of stones... No thank you. That's half of my plane ticket. So we decided to simply walk from the parking lot up to Stonehenge (about 1.6 miles) and of course if you don't pay, you cannot go really close to it. But from what I saw, it was enough for me.

We got back to London at around 7pm. The tour was actually awesome. We both loved it. And our tour guide was a hilarious and wise man. After the tour we went straight to the train station to head home. At least we hoped for it... London, however, had other plans for us. All the trains got cancelled for some unknown reason so we spent 3 hours waiting for them to start working again. Funzies...Not really. We got home around midnight. Starving, tired and quite angry. But the day itself was quite amazing :) 

That's enough for this post.

Take care everybody!

-B- 

 

Why? Why me?! :D

Oh wow. I've been gone for quite a while. But do not worry my fellow bloggers. I was here the whole time - reading and enjoying your posts :)

As for me, life is good. I just finished my first year at the new university. May I say - it was a great one. So much laughter, adventures and also tears of the pre-exam panic. One simply cannot live without them, lol. But I ended this year with good grades, wonderful memories and no regrets. And to think how scared and doubtful I was in the beginning... Random road trips, game nights, parties and jokes. That's how I'll remember it.I got to go on a vacation too, but I'll write about that in my next post. In this one I actually wanted to write about something that happened to me TODAY!

My high school Latvian teacher died on May 28th. I actually saw her in my dream that night! And as I once wrote in a post - I'm the queen of weird dreams. And I almost never see the dead. So that was freaky. Anyways...She was a special teacher to me and my class so of course I decided to attend her funeral. I don't know the traditions for funerals in other countries, but in Latvia, here's how it goes - everyone goes to the chapel and puts flowers on the floor around the coffin, then stands around the room for a little ceremony...


Now, I've told this before, but I'll say it again - I am the queen of all things awkward. This is not a joke and I'm not overreacting... (and I say I'm the queen of a lot of things, yet, I don't see a crown... Someone should do something about that, lol.) but it's true. If there ever is a possibility of something weird or awkward happening - it's gonna happen to me! Til this day I actually thought it had limits. Apparently not. 

... So I walked into the chapel with my friend, she put her flowers down and then it was my turn... As I crouched to put my flowers down, I suddenly lost balance and totally fell sideways on the floor... The most awkward part was that I couldn't get up... Someone helped me and I just wanted to walk outside as quickly as possible. The worst part is that I couldn't laugh because it was a funeral. My friend Linda already had tears in her eyes but even she wanted to laugh and it was so hard to contain ourselves... but we did. Now, of course, as I'm typing this, I'm laughing in tears as to how clumsy I was! The whole time I was standing there, I was thinking - why ?! why me?! :D 

At first I thought it was a huge embarrassment. Obviously all these people saw me and it was probably the most embarrassing moment of my life...so far. But then I thought about it a little... and I figured how to calm myself down. My teacher was always happy and smiling and joyful. She loved life and lived it to the fullest. And I'll never forget her cheerful laughter. And that's how I want to live my life. So as I look at my clumsy moment - it was a sign from above that this is exactly how I should remember this day. With a smile on my face because I had the honor of knowing her. Or at least that's what I'll keep telling myself to justify my clumsiness. Either way - I'll probably avoid public places for quite a while now. *facepalm*

-B-