Bomb Scares!

Yeah, it's scary. I can walk to all of those places from where I live. I was at Picadilly Circus, Trafaulger Square, Leicester Square, etc... just yesterday. Today I was off as well, but I stayed home to clean and do laundry because central London is a mess. I'm trying not to let the whole bomb mess screw up my plans, but it's not really worth it to try to go out today. Right now most of central London is closed anyway - none of the theatres are even proforming tonight. I'm sure things will be sorted out soon and London will be back to normal though.

Anyway, in other recent news... Last week I went on some amazing day trips. I can officially say that I spent a semester in England and went to Oxford University!

Kailey and I on the bus (yaaay mega bus!) :


Oxford is certainly set up for tourists!


Painful cobblestone streets:


Christ Church Cathedral:


Big Round Pretty Building:


Cadbury McFlurries before we headed home :) Christa, Me, Kailey & Genia:


Yesterday I went alllll around London taking pictures with the original Monopoly places. We're going to make our own board game. We didn't get them all, but almost! here are a few of my favorite pictures from our adventure - you'll see Kailey, Christa, Andie, Genia and myself:

Pentonville Road!


Old Kent Road after we finally found it :):


Euston (one of tube and one of the road):



Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Station:


Angel Islington:


Trafaulger Square:


Picadilly Circus (after I jumped in a whole bunch of puddles!):


On our way home. I have perfected the art of sleeping on the tube. Yaay for being short! This is surprisingly comfortable. Notice how wet my pants are from puddle jumping :) Bubbles came out of my socks when I walked!:

Excuses, excuses...

For whatever reason blogger quit working with the silly security settings here at Pax for a while. ALAS it works again!

Everything around here is picking up for the summer. Our first London Experience session starts tomorrow and from then on out we are pretty much fully booked 24/7 until I leave. Yikes! It guarantees a lot of work, but tons of fun along the way too.

I haven't had the best of weeks. I was down sick on Wednesday and Thursday which wasn't fun at ALL. Friday I woke up and decided that if I took a shower I would feel enough un-dead to clobber downstairs for work. Just after I got in the shower I heard this ringing noise. The phone in the corridor? Someone else will answer it. Hmmmm, but it didn't stop. I turned off the shower so I could hear better... It was the fire alarm! So there I was wet, half shampoo-y and 100% naked. I got to try to put clothes on over my wet self and find my way out to the flag pole where there would no doubt be a whole house full of guests staring at me. All of this just because someone didn't know that our toaster has a lever and doesn't pop up by itself. What a brilliant start to the day! Oh, dear...

Last month we got two new program assistants - Mia from South Korea and Johanna from Germany. Last week we got a new resident volunteer named Patricia from Odessa, TX and a new volunteer coordinator named Erin from somewhere in IL (she was a resident volunteer here in 2005). We have a Russian resident volunteer (Veronica?) coming on Wednesday and after that an Armenian (Lilit?) and a Brazilian (Anna?). It's exciting but a little bit weird to think that I almost have seniority around here. It is less than two months until I come home!

Two? weeks ago I went to Germany for the weekend and had a fabulous time. Joce and I flew to Bremen which is where the fairy tale "The Musicians of Bremen" comes from. The famous statue of the donkey, dog, cat, & rooster from the fairy tale is still in Brem (as the locals would say). On our second day in Germany we took the train to Hamburg and did the tourist thing. I don't really have the space to type about it all, but it was a good time for sure!

I'm off today, tomorrow, and Tuesday but I don't really have any plans yet. I still have a sore throat so I'm planning lots of rest. I also need to play catch up on laundry and room cleaning since I spent two days wallowing in sickness in my bed.

Some fun pictures:

On May 2nd Anna and I took Christa to Thorpe Park for her birthday because she hadn't ever been on a rollar coaster before - how crazy is that?

Christa before (she was shaking she was so nervious!):



Christa after we ran her ragged at Thorpe (before we went to the theatre):


That would be Anna and I in the third and fourth seats from the left. Christa would ride rollar coasters, but not these scary rides so she just took pictures :)!


In this one you'll find Anna and I in the middle two seats at the very top. This thing was called the slammer and it was like a giant spatula that went upside down and practically pummeled you into the earth. Good times.


This is from Anna's 19th birthday on May 4th. I took her to Epping Forest for the day. We played in the mud and made debris huts!


My beautifully amazing friend Anna on her birthday. I love this picture: