Miles and Smiles Away

*** I wrote this on the 8th, but I forgot to publish it --- Sorry, yall ***

I’ve been MIA for a while – sorry about that! Life has been pretty busy these past few weeks. Anytime I don’t have school work to do (which is rare), I’m out and about enjoying London. For example, a few weeks ago I signed up for a “London Street Art and Graffiti Tour”. It was awesome. We walked around Whitechapel and Shoreditch for two, almost three hours, just looking at people’s art. I borrowed my friend’s camera and snapped a hundred or so shots, so I’ll be posting a few of those below.

As we all known, on November 13^th, Paris was attacked, and one of those attacks happened outside of the football stadium. Well before the attack, about 50 students, including myself, purchased tickets to see France vs. England in London on the 17^th. Following the attack, many people had concerns about going. However, after receiving multiple statements claiming there will be an increase in security, I decided that I still want to go. Once we arrived to the stadium, there were so many people representing both teams. My friends and I decided to do the same, so we bought a few hats, scarves, and flags. The entire stadium was lite up in blue, white, and red. Then once you walk in and go through security, there are employees walking around with face paint, offering to draw the French flag on your face – of course, we did that too. We went to our seats and holy moly, this place is huuuuge. The opening ceremony was very, very cool. Even Prince William was there on the field showing support for France. One section of the crowd was given blue, white and red paper. So when it came time to sing the national anthems, not only did the entire stadium sing along to the French national anthem, but that side of the stadium held up their papers, making the French flag. After that, both teams formed a large circle in the center of the field and the entire stadium had a one minute moment of silence for those whose lives were taken too early. Following that, the game began. It was just a friendly game, so it’s wasn’t too intense, but nonetheless, it was an awesome experience. I definitely felt that one that night, we were one.

In the next few weeks, we had assignments, exams, and more assignments. There were a few times where I completely lost my shit and just wanted to jump on the next flight out, BUT my sweet friend, Pearl saved me. The MIBs were to complete a forecast but a certain day. Well I’ve always done well in math, so I wasn’t too worried. So two days before it was due, I opened the assignment and then immediately cried. It looked way worse than it actually was, but it took Pearl to calm me down to realize that. She sat with me for over four hours, helping me do the assignment. Have I mentioned she’s not even in MIB? She didn’t need to even be at school, but stuck it out until 11 pm with me. She’s an angel. Following that nightmare, we had accounting to do. I studied so hard for this. I spent my days and nights rereading the notes, doing the exercises, and completing the practice quizzes. During the exam, I kid you not, I smiled SO big because I balanced out. AKA I KNEW I GOT IT RIGHT!! I knew I wouldn’t get the entire score back for a few days, but the hardest part I had done correctly.

Right when I needed a little taste of home, Thanksgiving was here. Even though this is an American based university, we don’t have any days off for Thanksgiving. However, my friend put together a “friendsgiving”, where everyone was asked to bring a dish and then we’d all eat together. Well, everyone is writing what they’re bringing and after 10 or so people, I finally asked… “Is anyone going to make a turkey?” Everyone said they want turkey, but don’t know how to make it. Well, neither did I, but for some unknown reason, I volunteered to cook the turkey. I’m thankful for FaceTime, so my momma could walk me through it, because otherwise I don’t know if it would have turned out as well as it did. It took me a little while to prep it because I was SO incredibly grossed out when I had to pull out the insides. After whining about it a few minutes, and after my mom laughed at me, I finally got the nastiness out. Then came the seasoning. Again, S/O to my mom for telling me what to use. Four hours later it was ready and then it came time to cut it. At this point, everyone had arrived and was ready to chow down. But I still needed to cut the damn thing. My goodness, I am terrible at it. After 30 minutes, it was finally done. I don’t know if people were just being nice, but everyone loved the turkey! I was very happy!! Every dish I tried was so, so good. Of course, it wasn’t my mom’s cooking, but it got the job done. Following dinner, in true American fashion, we watched some good ole American football.

On the 28^th of November, we had our school’s Winter Ball. The night before I was up pretty late, watching TCU beat Baylor (!!!). It not only had a rain delay, but it also went to 2 overtimes. By the time the game ended, it was 5:30 am… but it was worth it. However, the next morning I was paying for it. I had to go shopping and find some nice shoes for the ball, but all I wanted to do was sleep. After searching Angel up and down, I finally settled on some shoes that I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk in after an hour. After that, I headed over to a friend’s place and got all dolled up. Once everyone was ready, a group of 50 of us hoped on a double-decker party bus and headed to the ball. It was so much fun! We ended up at the ball earlier than planned, so we stayed on the bus, drank wine, danced, and waited around. Once arriving to the ball, we were amazed at how beautiful everything looked. Our student services did an amazing job!!

Over the last few weeks, I had a lot of group work and assignments to do. But on the 4^th, my girlfriends and I went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. It was such a good night! We rode all of the scariest rides, enjoyed a beer on the carousel bar, and lots of delicious food. I definitely plan on going back!

Coming up: I have finals and presentations. It’s going to be a very couple stressful days, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. In TEN DAYS I am headed home!!!! Words cannot express how excited I am to hug my family, cuddle with my Benny boy, see all of my friends, eat all the queso in the world and so much more. I’m honestly going to start packing today. Okay, not today, but soon! Already looking ahead of that, I will be returning to London on the 29^th with four friends and we will be doing some traveling. To change things up a bit (and to post more), I will be introducing a guest blogger a couple days during our mini Euro-Trip. Stay tuned :-)

Rach & Irish

LOL

First stop of the street art tour: Joe's Kid
This took 1 week to complete & the artist used pointillism for the entire piece

Fun fact: I took this photo of Rachel to test the lighting for our group photo... she ended up posting it to her instagram and hashtagging a few things. CNN contacted her and asked her if they could post the photo to their website. *yes, she gave me photo cred*