Roller Disco, I rule

Hey Family,

I'm going to start making a point to making this blog more faithful to my whole European experience, so that means I should start including my nights in London and not just the ones out of town.

On a recent note, I went to a roller disco last night. It was wild. Like kind of weird. But I had a killer time. Rollering is not really my forte but I tried to hang with the big dogs. A bunch of us went, and i would say that about 85% of the people there are there just to have a way fun time and boogie oogie oogie on skates to some sweet sounds of funk. But the other 15% of people are definitely there every night. If it was an olympic sport to Roller Disco, this place would have definitely been the London venue in 2012, based solely on the caliber of the skaters there. I might try and come back and bring the craze to America. But that would mean I would have to learn how to skate without falling down... a lot. I am a little bit sore right now. But that bike ride in Wales definitely put a buffer layer around my whole body, so I was well prepared.

Oh and as you'll see in the pictures, I tried to dress with the retro theme. Hence the mustache, don't worry it's not a serious thing.

After we went rollering, we went to an Irish pub called O'Neill's where they had live music. No it wasn't the Three Toms, but it was fun.

Every night here is a new experience and there's so much going on, that you'll have to wait till I get back to hear the whole thing, but I hope you guys are feeling somewhat updated on my life out here!

Short post, but more to come.

Rollering

Uh, no explanation needed

Pictures From Wales

Along the River Taff just outside of Downtown Cardiff

Fixing a Flat Time atop a mountain where Castle Coch Is

Lost in the Rain and Mountains of Wales

Before the Flat Tire outside of Castle Coch

Right Before our journey began, we look so happy and optimistic

New News

Hey So it's been a while since I've updated this blog. Sorry, just so busy doing things and being a big deal. But I'll try and recap the high lights since I've last posted.

The furthest thing back was my trip to Dover. It was so cool. I went up for a day with my two roommates Steve and Jesse. We took the train to Dover which was beautiful because it comes out of a tunnel beside the sea and on the other side are the breathtaking White Cliffs. But the main highlight (which I didn't even know was a part of Dover) was the castle. The castle is a blend between the Medieval History and the WWII history. There's the beautiful and ancient castle above grounds, but during WWII, Dover was a main post and there was a whole system of underground hospitals, dorms, and tunnels for the Army. The tour of the underground tunnels was pretty intense. They try and recreate the setting, so everything is preserved. The lights go in and out, there are holograms of British Soldiers, and there is the sound of bombs in the distance. Pretty intense. From the castle, you get a real nice view of the White Cliffs. And they constantly have this song playing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdGX_FcvVoE. Vera Lynn is like a goddess to them. Needless to say the whole day was gorgeous and we topped it off with a nice meal of fish and chips.

This Last weekend I went to Wonderful Wales.

It was kind of a last minute trip. My roommate Steve and my Friend Kurt were going and they told me their plans and on Thursday I just jumped on board.

Here was the original Plan:

Friday: Arrive in Cardiff by bus and stay the night... maybe go to a couple of pubs and get the local night life

Saturday: Wake up, visit the castle, then bike 50 miles to Brecon Beacon National Park, camp there for the night.

Sunday: Bike 50 miles back and take the bus back to London.

'

It seemed reasonable to us. We checked out the map and the weather and we figured we could do the ride in 6 hours there and 6 back. Perfect.

Nothing went as planned, and everything was awesome still.

We didn't know that Brecon Beacon was a national park basically at the top of a mountian. So the whole 50 miles there is a gradual uphill slope. Then it was also raining. Needless to say, we didn't make it all the way there. We had to stop at a town called Merthyr which is 30 miles along the trail. The only lodging was a Travel Lodge, but we were more than happy to have a roof over our head no matter what it was. We were so pooped that we fell asleep immediately. The next morning we woke up with my boman sorer than you can imagine. It was an awesome morning though: Sunny with some clouds, 65 degrees, and a gradual DOWNHILL slope through the forest back. All the toil and torture we went through was a thousand times worth the ride home. It was beautiful. The landscape was reminiscent of the Appalachian region, minus the crazies.... well there are some crazies we met in Wales. The weekend was awesome though. Everyone in Wales was so nice to us, and they treated us like we were the biggest thing to come through there since Princess Diana. But who can blame them.

Flat Dinners

Dearest friends,

I know you are very concerned about how I am getting my food and all that good stuff, but don't worry because I've been eating healthy (in amount and nutrition). I'm cool.

But one of the ways we make dinners more affordable are having flat dinners, although they usually end up being with a lot more people than my flat.

We've set up a system in Flat 10 with my 5 roommates that Monday nights, one of us picks a meal and cooks it, while the rest of the nights we kind of buddy up with whoever is around and split dinner. But Monday's are the days when everyone's around so we cook together. The first Monday was a delicious stew (didn't start out planned that way, but it ended up like that). That was Mike Burke's dinner, although that dinner was the inspiration for the Monday night tradition, so his didn't live up to Mike's full creative and cooking potential. Steve put dib's on the next Monday and made his "Breakfast For Dinner" meal. It included Starberry-Banana Pancakes, Ham and Cheese Eggs, Potatoes, and bacon. That was sweet. Good times all around.

Aside from Monday nights, we try and buddy up with other girls rooms as frequent as possible because dinner just ends up tasting better that way.

Here are some pictures from some of the photo worthy dinners we've had:

Strawberry Banana Pancakes

Jesse and Steve Chillin

Scott Flipping cakes

Mike frying

My roommates

Canyoning in Interlaken Switzerland

Hey People,

I feel like a real 21st Century

traveler now that I've got myself a high tech bl

og. So I may be

kind of starting in

media res with this blog, but I'll get to my introductory weeks in London later. First off: My Weekend Adventure in Switzerland. Adventure is

the perfect word for this trip because it sounds like

everything about Switzerland is an adventure.

My plane left London, Luton airport on 7 AM, Friday September 11 (Didn't take note of the date until after we were already checked in). That was the roughest part of the whole trip. Luton is about 45 min outside of the city, and we were told there were trains running from King's Cross, St Pancras station (10 min walk from flats) all night. Well looking back on it now, I think we

messed up because we walked to King's Cross station at 3 AM (I'll sleep when I'm dead), only to find it closed. This was because we walked in on The Tube side, and that closes at Midnight. A

taxi driver approaches us and says he'll take us to Luton, and we agreed. He seemed like a legit guy, but apparently not to the girls. I found that out later though. Needless to say, we got there and it was actually cheaper to go with this guy to Luton.

We arrived in Zurich at around 9 in the morning and got right on the train to Interlaken, Adventure Capital of Europe. It was GORGEOUS. I felt like I was in secret Yosemite. The train on the way there cruised right along these radiant blue lakes surrounded by giant cliff faces. Unbelievable. My group (Cath, Phoebe, Mimi, and I) got in and we checked in the hostel then decided to go for a hike. The rest of the kids were getting in around 9 o'clock.

That's the boring part. After a long day of travel we were all asleep by 10:00 and couldn't wait for the next day. Saturday morning we were ready to go Canyoning! Canyoning is like extreme hiking. The most we knew about it what you start at the top of a canyon with a river, then hike down and jump off waterfalls and go down rock slides. That was the least of it. We checked in with the company, Alpin Raft, and they drove us up to the base of a canyon in the Alps, where we suited up in wetsuits, helmets, and life vests. Then we drove up further on this little mountain road. Suddenly, the van stops in the middle of the road, and we were told to get out. On our left was a sheer cliff, and on our right was a sheer drop. We didn't know what we were getting out for. Next thing we know, we are hooked up in harnesses and being told we had to rappel down a 160 foot rock face. AWESOME!

Once we climbed down, we were all already ona huge adrenaline rush. Our guides, Sue and Darren, went over the safety information which basically was something like this:

"Don't jump with straight legs, because you'll break them. Land on your Butt so you don't break your legs. When you jump, jump exactly where we tell you, or you'll land in rocks and break your legs"

Not unsettling at all.

The rest was just one 2 hour hike full of jumps and slides and zip lines. No big deal.

The last part of the tour was a zip line that opened up over a lagoon and we had to let go of the roap anddrop in the water ourselves, they weren't controlling it this time. They told us that if we did a back flip, we got a free beer. So naturally I did the best back flip. There's a photo sequence of it.

We pooled ourmoney andbought the CD with all the pictures that they took of us going down. Worth more than gold.

We checked into the Alpin Raft center at 9 Am, and got back at 3. It was a full day adventure. That nigth we were walking around our hostel and randomly stumbled upon a bar that was showing the Notre Dame game in Interlaken Switzerland! I'm not going to say anything more abotu that though, we lost.

The next day, we took the train into Zurich and spent the day there. It was beautiful. A river runs through th ecity, then opens up to a lake that the city surrounds. Gorgeous. We ate brats by the lake, surrounded by swans. It was so cool. Everything was way expensive there. I think it's number 4 or 5 most expensive cities in the world, so we got our free kicks from just sitting on a bench and people watching by the lake. Enough entertainment for a whole day.

Overall the trip to Switzerland was a great kick off to seeing the rest of Europe, and we all felt we set the bar pretty high for our other European travels.

That's all for now, I'll have more on London and more travels soon!

More Pictures From Switzerland

People Watching in Zurich

Hooters in Interlaken (The First in Europe)

Mimi, Scott, Emily, and I in Zurich

Before Canyoning

Post Canyoning Beer in Interlaken

Cath and Mimi walking in Interlaken

This is the hostel we stayed at

The first big jump in Canyoning

The view from where we started canyoning