i REALLY need to update this blog. Its been way too long. I'll try to write as far back as I remember. I guess I have to write 4 pages to make up for the past two weeks.

Friday night of the second weekend we went to Ministry of Sound. We walked there from Holborn and it was beautiful crossing the Waterloo bridge at night with the Eye, Big Ben, and Parliament in view. The night was crazy. The next day we went to the British Museum. We saw lots of MUMMIES which were so cool, besides that the museum was not that exciting. Saturday night we went out to a hookah lounge in Edgeware.

Sunday, Michelle, Katelyn, and I went to the Tower of London. Its one of my favorite places that I've visited so far cause I'm such a history nerd. We saw where Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Catherine, and several other people whose names I'm forgetting, were executed way back in the day. We also saw where prisoners were kept and they would carve their names and messages into the wall, it was so cool to see. We saw the "Fit for a King" exhibition which had all of the knights armor and such. Lastly, we saw the crown jewels in the jewel house which were so beautiful!

The last week of Marketing class was pretty much hell. We had our final paper due, our presentation, and our final all in three days. I was pretty much stressed the whole week. The group project ended up going better than I expected, and 27 pages later we finally finished our paper Tuesday night. Our presentation on Thursday went pretty good too. No matter what country we were from, all of us hated giving presentations but we managed to get through it. Besides that, the nights were spent usually with Michelle in the common room "studying" but usually procrastinating by too much talking or watching youtube videos.

Wednesday night, Katelyn, Michelle, Danielle and I FINALLY went to the London Eye. It is in South Bank, which is now one of my favorite parts of London. Its kind of like a long boardwalk along the Thames river, and there are restaurants, bars, a skatepark, street performers, and of course the London Eye. The area reminded me a little bit like Venice Beach because of the type of people that hung out there and because of its relaxed atmosphere. There are some pretty entertaining street acts too. We got tickets to go on the Eye, and then went to a bar to get a drink before boarding. I had a delicious glass of white wine, Katelyn and Danielle had a pimms, and Michelle got a candanian margarita cause shes crazy. The drink definitely calmed my nerves of claustrophobia/heights once we got on the Eye. My camera died RIGHT before we went on and I was so upset, but the others had their cameras so we have plenty of pictures. The ride was about a half hour long, and since we went on right when the sun was setting, the view was amazing. We towered over Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, and could pretty much see all of London at night. I really enjoyed the whole night.

On Friday, my marketing final was at 8 am. It was one case study and one essay question, kind of different than all of my Northeastern classes. We were given two hours to complete it. Thankfully, both questions were on exactly what I had studied. The "average" answer was said to be about 3 pages writing each, but I wrote 5 pages for the case study and 6 pages for the essay question. I felt really confident about it afterwards so FINGERS CROSSED I get a good grade.

Afterwards, it was all celebrations. Katelyn and I started on her bottles of Sainsbury wine at 3 pm. Michelle joined us around 4:30 after she finished her final. LSE had a "going away" party from 6 to 8 which free drinks and free food, aka Im obsessed with this school. The food kind of sucked, but the party was packed because everyone loves free alcohol. We stayed there until like 7, then came back to Holborn and hung out at the bar. Then we had to shower and pack because we were going to SCOTLAND that night.

Before we left, we had to say goodbye to Michelle because she was flying back to D.C. on Saturday since she wasnt staying for the last session. I would have cried if I didnt know I was going to see her again in a month, thank GOD she goes to school in Boston or I'd be a wreck. Miss you Michelle <3

Friday night, we caught a bus to Scotland that left at 11 pm. It was an overnight bus (obviously) and we got to Edinburgh around 7:30 am, stopping at a rest stop around 3 am. It was an absolutely awful ride because I cannot sleep on buses, so by the morning I was exhausted but we had a whole day ahead of us. We got breakfast and went to check into our hostel. We stayed at the Calendonian hostel which was awesome: crazy colorful walls, free computer room, a bar and game room, and nice rooms. There was 7 of us girls in an 8 person room.

We went on a free 3 hour walking tour by the company Sandeman's. I highly recommend this company for anyone who is traveling to Europe, they have tours in almost every country and they're awesome.They're free, but definitely tip the tour guides because they do an awesome job andthey're not getting paid otherwise.Our tour guide was Matt, he was from England but lived in Edinburgh for the past 17 years.He was awesome and so smart, he could pretty much answer every little question we could ask him about the city and its history.We walked all around the city, passing the Edinburgh castle and stopping all along the Royal Mile.My favorite parts of the tour were the Harry Potter related parts! We saw the café where J.K. Rowling sat in while she wrote the first two harry potter novels.Its called the Elephant House.We also saw the school where she got the inspiration for what she wanted to Hogwarts to look like.We also saw the grave of a William McGonagall, which served as inspiration for Professor McGonagall's name.Matt told us a bunch of other awesome stories during our 3 hour trip: about "body-snatchers", Greyfriars' Bobby, and the stone of destiny.We definitely learned a lot and got to see the whole city.

After going back to the hostel for showers and naps, we went out to a little Scottish pub so everyone could try "haggis", the most popular Scottish food.I don't want to say what it is, so google it.I personally did not enjoy it whatsoever, so yuck. Jen and Jess loved it though.

Then we went on a pub crawl, which was also organized and led by Sandeman's tours.We went to 5 pubs, getting a drink or a shot at each one, and then VIP entrance to the club Episonage at the end of the night, all for 11 pounds.It was definitely a lot of fun, we met other Americans who were also on the pub crawl and were attending school in London.We also were a part of Scotland's longest jagerbomb chain which was probably the coolest thing ever.And, we got to have a shot of famous Scottish whiskey, which I still do not enjoy.We retired at an early time, around 1 or 2I can't remember. On Jess, Danielle, and I's walk home, I was convinced I saw 2 ghosts after hearing all the stories about how haunted Edinburgh is, but Jess and Danielle saw them as well and they were actually just living humans. Oh well.

Sunday, we got free breakfast downstairs in our hostel. Then we set off for Edinburgh Castle.A cute old Scottish man in plaid pants gave us a short tour explaining the different buildings and history of the castle.There were absolutely breathtaking views from the castle of the entire city.We explored the castle and saw the Scottish jewels, the stone of destiny, the war memorials, and the underground prisons.It was okay, but I don't think it was worth the entrance fee of 14 pounds.

From there, we walked around Edinburgh, eventually ending up at the Baked Potato Shop, being referred there by Katelyn's friend.All they serve is baked potatoes with crazy varieties of vegetarian toppings, including vegetarian haggis which confuses me but actually wasn't bad.We ate in the park and relaxed, then walked around Edinburgh shopping and killing time because our bus wasn't until 10:30 pm. We went back to the hostel and played several games of Spoons for about an hour, and thenwe finally said goodbye to Scotland and headed back to London on another long 9 hour bus ride.We played 20 questions on the bus for like an hour, but for the rest of the time everyone was sleeping while I sat there wishing I could sleep.

We got back to London at 8 this morning, so I'm pretty freaking exhausted still.Class started again today and I love it, but I'm sick of writing so I will update again tomorrow to talk about my new class and such.Later gators.