A Golfer's Dream

Ok so I realized that I'm not going to be able to catch up on this completely, it's just not going to happen. Spring Break was just too massive for me - I don't have the time to write it all but rest assured, if you ask me about it, I'll tell you all the stories you want to hear! So now I'm going to fill everyone in on what I did this past weekend - probably the most impulsive thing I've done in my life - went golfing on the Old Course at St. Andrews.

So it's thursday afternoon and we're sitting in the London Center eating lunch when my buddy John starts talking about how awesome it would be to go golfing at St. Andrews and that he looked into it and really wanted to go. Here's how it works. There are like 7 courses in St. Andrews but the one everyone wants to play is the Old Course - the first golf course ever and Tiger Wood's favorite course. So if you want to schedule a tee time you have to do so by September of the year before. However, they have half of the tee times per day open that you can book via a lottery system. You enter your name in before 2 PM and they post the tee sheet at 4 PM with the lottery winners for tee times the next day. So we're like what the hey, we'll put our name in - surely the odds are against us - i mean, everyone in the world who loves golf wants to play this course. So, we enter our names into the lottery on friday afternoon and come 4 o clock - BAM! We have the 10:30 AM tee time on the old course for Saturday Morning!!! Now we had kind of looked at trains before hand but nothing definite because we didn't know when our tee time would be if we even had one. So we are scrambling trying to find a train to take us up to scotland that evening. We find out that we can make a 5:30 train if we hurry so we book it up to Kings Cross station and hop on the train for the 6.5 hour ride up to St. Andrews. 

While sitting in the train on the way up we are like, hmm where are we going to sleep tonight? That's a good question. So, I brought up a list of B&Bs in the area and we started dialing numbers hoping for a vacancy. Luckily we found one with the right price and booked it over the phone. With that out of the way we felt like we were home free but when John called to confirm our tee time we found out how wrong we were.

We were told we needed to have our official, verified handicap information with us to tee off because the Old Course has a handicap limit so hackers don't destroy the course and slow down play. None of us had this info with us and I had never even kept a handicap before. So we are all scrambling, calling back to the states to try to get something worked out. I emailed my dad asking him to call me as soon as possible (its free for me to receive calls but costs a lot to call the states) I ask him to call up Sawmill Creek in the hopes that my old boss at the golf course could pull some strings for me and fax a letter to St. Andrews with a "official" handicap. He was nice enough to do it for me and though a few more hoops had to be jumped through, the fax ended up getting to St. Andrews and they deemed it acceptable. :)

So we all had success in doing this and we could finally relax on the rest of the train ride. When we arrived a little after midnight we hopped in a cab over to our Bed and Breakfast. It was just this Lady's house that she rents out two bed rooms in the middle of nowhere in Scotland. Her name was Avril and she was really nice - she had tea and biscuits waiting for us when we got in at 12:30 am and then asked what time we wanted breakfast. We told her that we planned on leaving really early and that it would be too early for breakfast. She said what time would you be up? We said 6 o clock. She responded that she would get up and make us breakfast at 6 o clock, which she did. She was up and had everything pretty much ready by 6. It was very nice of her as most places would say if you don't come for breakfast between 8 and 10, you don't get breakfast. So we had a nice breakfast of eggs, cereal, fruit, and toast and had a cab pick us up to take us to the old course at 6:45. It was nice to have some real food as my dinner the night before consisted of chocolate digestives and some peanuts that I had thrown in my bag before booking it to the train station (this was also my lunch and dinner on saturday) 

So we get into the town and walk around a bit (its like 7:15). The town is right on the sea so the views were great although it was windy and cold in the morning. We walked down to the club house and made sure we were all set with the handicaps and everything and it all had worked out. Then I took my first trip to the golf shop during which I bought a weather jacket and divot tool for myself and a boxed gift set for my old boss that helped me out with the handicap thing. Then we walked around a bit more, and came back to pick up our rental clubs. Forget any conceptions you have about rental clubs - this was the nicest set of clubs I will ever play with. It was all brand new Callaway clubs - X20 Tour Irons, FT5 Driver, 3 wood and hybrid and then an Odessey 2 ball putter. I also rented shoes (Callaway as well) which came with free socks! So after we got all suited up we made our way to the driving range and warmed up a bit. I was fading pretty much everything - I had some difficulty getting used to the clubs. This was especially the case with the driver. It had a regular shaft and I have been hitting a stiff shafted driver for about 5 years. But I managed to get used to it and proceeded to the chipping green before we caught a quick shuttle back to the old course 1st tee. We checked in and practiced putting for quite a while before 10:30 rolled around and it was our time to shine.

The three of us were joined by another american and John threw a tee into the air, saying that whoever it pointed at when it hit the ground would tee off first. Of course, it pointed at me. So, with a couple butterflies in my stomach I tee up the ball and try not to notice the people behind me watching me tee off from in front of the members clubhouse. I hit a little bit of a fade but I got good contact and a pretty ball flight. I was happy. I was lucky though because my ball only stopped about 10 yards from the creek that cuts across the fairway. One thing that surprised me about the course was that you really couldn't get into too much trouble off the tee. There was hardly any water, and out of bounds was only ever on the right. Because the back nine ran right next to the front nine, but in the opposite direction, you always had another fairway to your left. The course wasn't that long and it played short because of all the roll you got on the fairway. The greens, however, were crazy. They were hard and fast and very very hard to hold. Also, 7 of the greens were shared between two holes which made for some massive greens and impossible putts. They rolled so true and so fast though that it was a pleasure putting on them. The other difficulty were the sand traps. They were very strategically placed and some were ridiculously deep. They also have names. I made the mistake of hitting into the bunker known as "Hell". It took me four shots to get out - the lip was 3 feet above my head and I was only about two feet away from it... impossible. 

Anyway I played reasonably well on the front except for #4, which i took an 8 on because of a pesky bunker. I ended up with a 45 on the front and was very pleased with it, although I was a little bitter about missing a 35 - 40 foot birdie put by half a millimeter on #9. I thought it was in... I was walking up behind it, getting my Tiger fist pump ready, but it was not to be. The back nine proved to be much harder on me as I blew up on a couple holes - namely the one with the "Hell" bunker, on which I took a lovely 10. My putting also turned for the worst. The back did, however, contain my high point of the round. I was teeing off on #11, a 160 yard par three. I hit my shot about 6 feet from the pin and the St. Andrews official that was on the tee congratulated me and told me it was the best tee shot he had seen the whole day. That made me feel good. Unfortunately I missed that birdie putt as well. My round ended on a high note by draining a 25 footer on 18 in front of a decent number of people. It was soooo cool to walk over the old stone bridge on 18 because I remember watching Tiger walk over the same bridge during the 2005 British Open. 

After we finished up, we returned our rentals and made another stop in the golf shop before catching a bus to the train station and getting the 4:15 train back to London.  It was only a short trip but one of the highlights of my semester and an experience that I won't soon forget. I will show you all the pictures when I get back in a few weeks!

Also, I will be very excited to watch the 2010 British Open at St. Andrews and watch the pros play the course that I just played. How cool will that be?!

I've got some catching up to do

So I know it's been forever since I last posted. I'm sorry, but I really have been extemely busy, but mostly in a good way. Here's a little something to keep you going until I can finish the epic spring break post!

I have been so busy and done so much since the last time I wrote. To give a brief overview for those who don't have the time to read this monster, I went to Winchester on a day trip, a retreat to Walsingham, Spring break trip to Pisa, Rome, Garmisch, Munich and Prague, and all kinds of little stuff sprinkled in between. So buckle up, get your cup of coffee and prepare for grand tales of epic proportions!

Part One : Winchester

Ok so this picture is just of London, but it was such a beautiful day that I had to snap a quick picture as we crossed the Thames on the way to Waterloo Station (which gave me a flashback to the Bourne Ultimatum - very cool). So we - Dan, Pat, Will and I - hopped on the train to Winchester for a Saturday trip. We arrived and were pleasantly surprised by the town. It was the weekend when all the schools were on break so we expected little kids running around everywhere (like in London at the time) but were pleased to find it uncrowded and relaxing. First we found what we came here for - the great hall of King Arthur! There was a museum with a history of the city of Winchester which at one point was where the Royal family lived. There was a huge castle here - so big and so well built that parts of it were impossible to destroy. However, that jerk Olliver Cromwell did his best and there's hardly anything left of what was told to be one of the most impressive fortresses ever built. But anyway, at the end of the museum you walk through the Great Hall, complete with King Arthur's round table! It's actually the thing hanging on the wall in the picture below. They thought the table to be so impressive that it should be hung on the wall so that the painting on it could be seen easily. They've done studies on it and the painting has never been altered, only restored from time to time, so it looks the same as it would have to the knights of the round table! I found that to be pretty cool. It's also kind of hard to tell from this distance, but it is actually pretty big too. 

So after that we walked down into the town center and went through another museum, and grabbed some lunch. It was such a nice day that we ate on the lawn of the Cathedral and just enjoyed the sunshine. Winchester Cathedral was so cool. It was huge (at least I thought so until I got to Rome) and very cool to see. We checked it out for two to two and a half hours, just admiring the architecture and presence it had. It was originally built in the Roman style with large round arches and all, with a wooden roof. In one of the most spectacular architectural feats of its time, the nave was rebulit in the gothic style. Sometime in the 14th century, the arches were completely reformed while silmultaneously replacing the wooden roof with stone. It has to be seen to be fully appreciated, as I don't really have a great understanding or appreciation for architecture and I was baffled by how they did it. Anyway, we were extremely lucky in that we just happened to be there during one of the two 2-hour showings of the Winchester Bible that occur per week. The Winchester Bible was made in the 12th Century (sounds right, I don't really remember) but it was the most ornate and greatest work of its time period. It is in three huge volumes full of gold leaf, some blue coloring from the middle east that is even more valuable than gold and beautiful penmanship and drawings. There was a historian there to tell you all about it and answer questions - very cool. Sorry no pictures of it though, they weren't allowed.

From there we walked back through the town and stopped at what could possibly be the greatest thing of all time - a shop that makes milkshakes... in 150 different flavors! It's called shakeaway and they have every possible flavor you could imagine, and then some you wouldn't. I was a little wary of the cucumber flavored one. Anyway they just have containers lining the walls full of every kind of candy, cookie, brownie, flavoring sauce, etc. I got a hobb nobbs milkshake - which are cookies very similar to digestives (very popular over here) just a little sweeter. It's just a lightly sweetened cookie biscuit with the bottom dipped in chocolate. It was so good - one of the best milkshakes I've ever had if not the best. But Dan got a very special Milkshake named George. The George was so full of chocolate and peanut butter that it was nearly intoxicating just to smell. I had a small taste it about knocked me out... imagine eating about a jar of peanut butter and about 4 chocolate bars in the form of a milkshake and you get the idea. Dan got a large. Here's a visual of the place.

So after that, very wisely, we decide to climb the big hill to get a view of the town. By the time we get to the top we are all holding our stomachs and feeling queezy. Massive amounts of diary, sugar and climbing up a steep incline do not mix well. We did, however, get some nice views of the city. The big thing in the middle is the Cathedral.

After this we walk back down the hill and all the way across town to the train station to make our way back to London. It was a great time and the perfect day trip.

Part Two: Walsingham

So the next weekend I went on a retreat to the tiny little town of Walsingham on the east coast of England. It is home to both a Catholic and Anglican shrine which was the destination of many pilgrims dating back to Medieval times. It is known as "England's Nazareth". Evidently, a nun experienced a vision from Mary and was told to build a house in the form of the home of Mary. So she built a house and according to historians is likely very similar to the actual thing. Anyway, the orginal building from 1200 or something no longer survives, but a replica (of the replica house) was built and then surrounded by an Anglican Cathedral. The town itself is tiny, absolutely miniscule. Seriously, there's like three streets in the town, it can be walked in 5 minues. It was so nice to be in a quiet area and be able to relax and reflect on what I've done the past two months and how blessed I am while also looking ahead to how I can improve myself and my relationships with others, especially God. This is hard to do in London, where there is a constant stream of noise and distraction. Even in the middle of the night the sounds of cars, motorcycles, sirens etc goes through our thin windows. It was an extremely worthwhile retreat and I got to know some people very well and made some good friends. But let's start from the beginning.

There was only a small group of people going as most people in the program didn't want to give up a weekend of travel to go on a retreat to some tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. But actually, this meant that the people that we did have on the retreat were great and really wanted to be there. There were only 8 students along with Fr. John (our Scottish Chaplain), Vito (Fr. John's Italian friend who is studying in London), and the guy from ND campus ministry who ran the retreat. All 8 of us knew eachother which made the retreat a lot of fun. So we met on friday at King's Cross station, and I have a picture for the Harry Potter fans out there. King's Cross is where all the little wizards hop on the Hogwarts Express at platform 9 and 3/4. So they put up a little plaque between platforms 9 and 10 with a trolly halfway through the wall (the wizards have to walk through the wall to get to the platform).

So we hop on the train which was about 2 hours. We then had to wait for a bus to take us the rest of the way so a couple of us walked to a department store nearby where I was very excited to find some slippers for 3 pounds! I had been wishing I had some slippers but didn't want to spend a lot of money to get some. So as soon as I got out of London I saw some cheap slippers and snatched them up. In hindsight I can confirm that it was definitely a good purchase. So our bus finally arrives, its a mini bus so we cram all 11 of us into this van thingy for an hour long ride through the country side. Here's a nice countryside visual for you.

In Walsingham we stayed at a little guesthouse run by the shrine people. It was nice and perfect for the retreat - it was so quiet, there's no way anyone else was staying there at the time. So we did a lot of talking and reflection - you know, retreat stuff - and got to see the town a little bit (it didn't take long). It was on this retreat where I was introduced to the game Mafia - if you don't know it, ask me and I will teach you, it is a lot of fun to play with a group of people. On saturday we checked out the Anglican Shrine and then walked out to the Catholic Shrine and the outskirts of town. Traditionally, pilgrims would go to the Catholic Shrine first, then walk the last mile to the Anglican Shrine barefoot. So we kind of did it in reverse, but most of us did the walk barefoot, which got you into the right frame of mind, I think - especially during Lent. We had mass at the shrine and then we all piled back into the mini bus to go out to the beach nearby for a little fun. Oh... My... Goodness... I have never seen a beach so big! The pictures I have don't even capture the vastness of it. We really enjoyed ourselves though - we found a little ball to throw around and it was a nice day to run around a bit. Here are a few shots - if you can believe it, the sea is out there in the distance in those pictures, they were all shot facing the sea except for the one with the trees in it.

After that we went to the train station and back to London. And don't worry mom - I've gotten my hair cut since then.

Five days, Five Pounds

No, that's not five pounds sterling - although I wish it were that cheap - that's how much weight I gained on my recent trip to visit family in Italy. I had lost about 5 pounds since I got to London just from having to walk all over the place and prepare my own meals (which means I eat less). I had no problem getting the weight back after eating at Zia Idin's for the long weekend. I got up at about 4:30 am after going to sleep at 1:30 am and headed out to catch the tube to the bus stop to stansted airport. I flew Ryan Air so of course it was delayed and I ended up arriving in Pisa a little after 1 pm Italy time. My Aunt Margy and her co-worker Mary met me at the gate and we hopped in the car for the drive to Mercallo - a small town north west of Milan - where we have family. My zia Idin and zio Luigi live there with their daughter Grazia. Zia Idin is my great-grandmother's sister. I visited them once before during christmas my freshman year of college and I am so happy I had the opportunity to go back. We ran into a lot of traffic going through Milan but finally made it to zio and zia's house. 

We were greeted by a dinner of Rissotto and Ossobuchi. It was amazingly delicious. My zia Idin is a fantastic cook and always yells at you to keep eating! So I ate, and ate and ate... We talked for a long time - although only Grazia speaks english and she has to translate for zia and zio. My aunt Margy also speaks Italian so she was able to help translate too. The next day Grazia, Margy, Mary and I went to the nearby town of Arona. They told me it was one of my great-grandmother's favorite places to go. I was lucky enough to know my great grandmother and it was very cool walking around her favorite town. We stopped at a little cafe and had pastries and coffee and stocked up on sweets for the weekend (they made some great Canoli). We walked around a while then headed over to the Esselunga, a big grocery store, to get some food. We got three types of cheese from the alps which were very very good and I was able to bring some back with me to London! We ate lunch at the cafe in the store - i know what you're thinking, hmm eating in a grocery store, that sounds questionable at best. But no, it was amazing. I had one of the best ham sandwiches ever! We then went back to the house for a little bit then went over to the convent to visit with Sister Raphaella (the picture above). I met her the last time I visited and I was really nice to see her again, she is such a sweet lady and has a great sense of humor. We stopped back at the house for a little while and zia had made fritelle, a carnival dessert that was absolutely amazing:

 

Then we came back and went to mass at the church in Mercallo, it was all in Italian but it was cool to be there with my family. It's such a small town, that everyone in the church realized we were there and a lot of them came over to say hi and about half of them ended up being part of the extended family! After mass we came back and had dinner of cheese filled crepes, veal steaks, french fries, roasted carrots and cheese. It was all so good, I kept eating even though I was full. It's hard to stop with zia yelling at you to keep eating after she had served you a ridiculously big portion of everything. She also won't let you out of the house with your hair wet and will smack you on the arm if you walk downstairs in shorts and a t-shirt (my pajamas) because she thinks you will be too cold, as I found out. 

The next morning we took the train into Milan. We hopped on the underground and went to see the Last Supper. It was amazing to see the actual painting and was much bigger than I expected. After that we went to the Piazza Duomo to see the church which was huge and beautiful and then walked around the Galleria and the Rinascente - two big shopping centers right on the square. Everything was ridiculously overpriced but it was fun to walk around and look. We ate lunch on the top floor of the Rinascente, looking straight across at the Duomo, which was pretty cool. We got some Gelato, which was amazing - I got creme caramel and amaretto. Then we tried to catch a train at Milano Centrale and missed it by mere seconds - we watched it pull away from the opposite platform. So we took the tube to a different train station and caught a train back to Mercallo. 

When we got back, Aunt Margy and I helped zio set the time on a pen that had a built in clock. It was fun trying to communicate with him and eventually he was able to do it. Zia and Grazia went to mass and we were supposed to turn on the oven and get things ready for dinner. We were distracted by the pen and forgot to do it and we all got slapped by zia when she got back and it wasn't ready. We eventually had dinner of lasagne, veal roast, roasted cauliflower, stewed peppers, cheese and canoli.

On monday I woke up, had breakfast and visited with everyone for a while. I was really excited to be able to understand a few sentences of Italian and communicate directly with zia and zio. I really loved being there and it was hard for me to leave. It did help that zia made pizza for us to take back. They packed up the car with an insane amount of food and we headed back to Pisa.

We got back to Aunt Margy's house in Pisa in the early afternoon. It's a really nice place, not as big as the house in Germany, but still nice. We went down to the leaning tower and walked around a bit. It's really striking to see it in person. I mean, you know it leans but when you actually see it you're like wow, it really is leaning a lot. It's also a little weird to be there after seeing the place on tv and in history books, it's kind of surreal. The weather was really nice the whole time I was there. I am already missing the sunshine and warmth. Later on, we went down to the coast and the sunset was amazing. 

When we got back to the house, Aunt Margy made banana nut pancakes and we watched Gladiator - one of my favorite movies of all time. We also had some amaretto cookies which were unbelievable. We got them from an Italian bakery and they were seriously some of the best cookies I've ever had. On tuesday, I slept in a bit and then my aunt picked me up and took me to the military base. It was a lot smaller than the base in Germany - the commissary was like 4 aisles wide - but the office was a lot nicer than her old one. I got a genuine american hamburger - which was delicious - and we headed off the base to the airport. The rest of the trip was pretty much uneventful. 

It was so nice to relax with family and I miss them all already. As for now, I will think of the trip every time I sit down to eat, wishing that my meal of frosted flakes was zia Idin's lasagne and veal steaks.

Venice!

I got back on Sunday from a spectacular trip to Venice. I went with three good buddies and we had a blast. Things got off to a rocky start as our flight was delayed two hours and we couldn't find our hotel when we did actually get into the city. Venice is a maze - we got lost about everytime we tried to go anywhere, but that was part of the fun and when you don't really have a schedule for the day except finding fun things to do, getting lost can actually be great. We ended up getting to our hotel about 3 am saturday morning. We got up early the next day, ate our amazing free breakfast at the hotel and then headed downstairs to leave the hotel. We had been wondering what the awful smell in the hotel was that morning and we found out when we got to the bottom of the stairs and the ground floor of the hotel was flooded with about a foot of water. Luckily, the hotel gave us boots to wear around the city so we could still get around. Evidently, about two weeks out of the year in the winter, the high tide will flood the streets of Venice. So we were just that lucky to be there at that point in time. So we waded through the streets until we got to St. Mark's Square, the main point in Venice, but also the lowest point in Venice. The water came up past my knees and started filling my boots and it was really cold! So we found our way to the other end of the square where they had some elevated sidewalks to keep you out of the water. We ended up taking a tour of the Doge's Palace which was really cool. I learned a lot about the government of Venice. By the time we finished there, the high tide was over and the water was almost completely gone. We walked next door to St. Mark's Basilica and toured that (the picture above is from the roof of the Basilica on the side facing the sea). By the time that was done, the flooding was completely gone and we were able to enjoy the city completely. 

It also got a lot warmer and the sun came out, so we figured it was the perfect time for our Gondola ride! It was really expensive (20 Euro each for a 30 minute ride) but it was probably the highlight of the trip and definitely worth it. Our Gondolier was named Roberto and he was cool because he made his dislike of the French known, which resonated well with all of us. We went through a few small canals, then out into the grand canal up to the ponto rialto then backtracked to the start. It was really cool.

From there we wandered from pastry shop to gelato shop to pizza place to another gelato shop and just enjoying the uniqueness of the city. Here's a picture from the ponto rialto (a bridge) looking down the Grand Canal.

After walking around most of the day, we found a little place to sit an get a glass of wine and relax for a little bit. After that we went in search of a good place for dinner. We decided that we should find a nice place where we could get a meal that we would remember. We picked a place off the beaten path and we very happy with our choice. It was pricey (40 euro for my dinner) but tasted great and was a lot of fun. We split a decent bottle of white wine to go with our seafood. After a very light swordfish appetizer, bread, and some strange orange drink they gave us, I ordered the grilled Scampi. Although it looked a little intimidating, it was so good and I am so glad that I ordered it. Here's a visual for you:

After our meal we sat for about an hour and finished our wine. They even gave us some free dessert, some type of donut things they make for Carnival. However, we noticed that the streets were starting to flood - it was high tide again - so we headed out. We had gone back to the hotel to swap our boots out for our shoes earlier in the day, so we wandered the dry streets we could find and even managed to find a place making crepes on our way back. (I seriously ate so much this weekend). We went back to our hotel after that as the city pretty much shuts down at 11 and we were all tired.

On sunday we donned our boots again and went to 8 am mass at St. Mark's Basilica. Strangely, there were only about 15 people there in this pretty big church. I figure that there aren't that many tourists right now, the locals probably go to their own churches near their homes, and the flooding kept some people away. But after that we came back to the hotel, ate our breakfast and then I took a nap before we checked out. Unfortunately, we couldn't take the boots with us, and the water was still high so we went barefoot and rolled up our jeans. We waded through a foot or more of ice cold water in the lobby and out onto the streets. We were headed to the other end of the island to catch our bus to the airport and by the time we got to the rialto bridge to cross the grand canal, we put our shoes back on and found enough dry streets to get to the bus stop. After that it was an uneventful trip back.

I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed Venice, hopefully the rest of my trips will be as successful as this one!

Snow Day!

So what if I didn't have class today to begin with, it's still a snow day! London got about 6 inches of snow and the whole city shut down, no buses, limited underground use and Heathrow airport has also shut down. I was actually out in the worst of it last night, not fun - blinding snow and winds whipping through the streets - it felt a little too much like South Bend. But I need to write a paper today so it's not really much of a break for me, it actually just ruined my plans for going to the class building so I could concentrate better. There is no way I'm walking half an hour in this mess - it's still snowing by the way and the sidewalks are full of nasty slush. So I'll just sit here alongside my bedbugs and write an incredibly boring paper on Accountancy in the UK.

AHHH!!!!!

I may never sleep again. It has come to my attention that my bed - that I sleep in every night - has bedbugs. I am terrified, nervous, scared, angry, shocked, bewildered, and indignant all at once. I don't really know what to do about it, but I am washing all my bedding in hot water and then drying it on the hottest temperature. I hope that takes care of it. But I don't know what to do about my pillows and mattress. I get all weirded out whenever I think of little bugs sucking my blood all night - I have bites up and down my arms, on my neck, and some on my legs. They are red dots and blotches that are itchy and annoying. So I don't think I am going to sleep tonight, and if I do, I think it will be on the couch. Hooray for new international experiences!

Something struck me today

No, it wasn't a bus. I just realized something and it was one of those things that make you go... woah. Here it goes: I am getting used to living in London. However anti-climatic that may seem, it hit me like a ton of bricks and made me realize what an amazing opportunity I have and how lucky I am to have it. It's just a strange realization for a kid who grew up in a township thats half corn fields. I took this picture today, its from the steps of the National Gallery overlooking Trafalgar Square with Big Ben in the background down White Hall. I walk by this at least twice a day and it never gets old. When the sun is setting its the best view I've seen in London. This weekend I'm going to Stonehenge and Bath so I'm sure I'll have an update after that. Cheers!