4th of July and other travels around England

Hello everyone! Once again I've fallen behind in my blog posts so now I'm going to make an effort to catch everyone up on what I've been doing and the places I've been.

After I got back to London from Basingstoke, I realized that it was the beginning of July and the 4th of July was at our throats! When I went to my BUNAC orientation on Monday, they told everyone that there was a 4th of July cruise down the Thames River in London planned for that evening and it sounded like a ton of fun.

I went down there that evening and ended up meeting lots of great fellow Americans and even a few Canadians. Talk about a perfect evening for a river cruise though - it was SO nice! The weather was perfect and we all had a great time. They had drinks, music, and dancing throughout the entire cruise and my all time favorite moment was when we all started singing (really it was more screaming than anything) the Star Spangled Banner while cruising underneath London Bridge, obviously in "enemy territory." HA! It was hilarious!

They also played some GREAT tunes along the way. We got to rock out to classics like "Born in the U.S.A," "Sweet Home Alabama," "Livin' on a Prayer," "Sweet Child of Mine," ANNNNNNNNNND my all time fave dancin' song......."Pour Some Sugar on Me!" It was fantastic! All of us ended up having a blast and truly celebrated the 4th in style. :-)

A couple of nights later, two of the girls I met on the cruise (Lindsey and Laura) and I went to this cool club in the west end called "Walkabout." It's an Austrailian bar/club with great drink specials and music. I ended up getting there much later than expected, so didn't end up staying much longer than about an hour and a half but we still had a great time dancing and checking out all of the sights. What I enjoy the most is hearing songs in clubs in London that you wouldn't hear in a MILLION YEARS in the States! Will have to go back again when we can all arrive earlier!

My next exciting experience was the following Friday night when I went out with Jo and her roommate NiNi and all of their friends from work. We started out the evening all meeting up after work at a pub called "The Goose" for a couple of drinks and to get ourselves organized. Then after that we went back to Jo's for some dinner and to get ready for a big night out on the town. We had reservations at this really cool club in the west end called "Tiger Tiger" and it was awesome! It's basically just a really posh club (with a dresscode and fancy bars and stuff.

Jo and I had some downright strange experiences with a couple of "odd" individuals that night that made us DIE laughing, but what's a night out without stories to bring home? Let's see...Jo made a guy's eye "bleed", stepped on a guy's foot, and we were BOTH asked "where we learned to dance." It was HILARIOUS! A low point of the evening though was when I asked the WEIRD DJ if he could play Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and he laughed at me! I thought to myself, "Ok so it's cool to play Justin Timberlake, but not a classic like Def?" Give me a break...

After our fun night out on the town Jo, Ben, and I stopped off at a classic kebab place on the way home. I've heard for quite some time that it is "THE" thing to do after a night out on the town and I've been dying to go to one. Basically it's a place where you get a ridiculously fattening and greasy bit of meat that you wrap in a tortilla or eat off a stick at 3 o'clock in the morning with all of your buds. It's great! :-)

That next morning, Jo and I took the early train up to her hometown near Stamford (about 100 miles north of London) to hang out with her family. I toured the town (which was SO BEAUTIFUL!) while Jo got her hair done, and then we met up with her Mom (Julia) for lunch at the famous George Inn, an old coaching inn. It's over 1000 years old and is even mentioned in Pride and Prejudice - very cool!

The area around Jo's parents home is gorgeous though and I had a lovely time with her as well as her parents that wknd. So nice to be away from the "city" for a bit and see country life at its finest! :-)

Can't wait to go back and visit and see some more of the Stamford area!