Mom's Visit and Amsterdam

Ok so it's definitely been toooo long since I've updated, but I'm a busy girl! Since my last update, my lovely Mah has come to visit from Wichita and I've been on a visit of my own to see Anouk in Holland:


A lovely view of London from the top of the Monument to the Great Fire of London (we had to climb 311 steps for this beaut!). Mom had never been to London before so that was the first thing on our agenda.


St. Paul's Cathedral. A lot of it was under scaffolding (just like the rest of the country) but the front was looking very nice.


Mom and myself, chillin by the Big Ben clocktower.


Westminster Abbey. We wanted to go inside but the line was enormous, so we settled for just snapping some pictures outside.


Buckingham Palace


God save the Queen?


View down "The Mall", the road leading to the Palace.


A beautiful shot of the English countryside. After seeing London, we rented a car for a little road trip up to Liverpool and past Stonehenge. Luckily we had GPS in the car, but that didn't help with driving on the left side of the road! Mom handled it wonderfully, with maybe just a tiny bit of stress, hehe.


Stonehenge! I had heard that it was just a bunch of big rocks...it was. But it was still really cool!


What does one do in Liverpool but go to the Beatles museum of course!!! It was really really cool and I wish I could live there.


Penny lane is in my ears and in my eyes...So great!


Let me take you down 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields...Loveee it!


Mom at the Carpenter's Arms Pub with her first Fish and Chips and a half-pint of Strongbow Cider (and mushy peas). Best!


Cute.


The day my Mom left to head back to the states, I caught a plane to Amsterdam meet up with Anouk and Lauren. Anouk used to live down the street from me in Eton but moved back to the Netherlands in March, so of course Lauren and I had to go visit. Here we are, myself, Anouk and Lauren enjoying some champagne to celebrate our reunion!


Our first night in Amsterdam. So much fun!


Cute canal. They're evvverywhere.


At the top of a huge swing in Dam Square, with a nice view of the Royal Palace (yeah, who knew Holland had a Queen?)


Klompen! We went to a shop with wooden shoe (not clog apparently) making demonstrations and about a milllion you could buy (or just pose with).


Me and a windmill


More windmills bein cute


Canal in Amsterdam. We rented bicycles and rode around for hours one afternoon in the sun...so nice!


Lovely flowers in the Dutch countryside.

What a nice month. And another nice one ahead of me! Lauren and I leave Saturday morning to go to the island of Ibiza off the coast of Spain for my 20th birthday. Unfortunately it might be one of my last abroad (for now). My return flight is set for June 27, two months from today. Though I'm looking forward to a summer in Wichita, there's still a possibility that I can find a job in Ireland a move on to work there on a 4 month visa and come back in November. It's all pretty up in the air right now and it hurts my brain to even think about what I should do and what will make me most happy. Finding a job right now is pretty tough, so I might be back in time for the 4th of July...?

Love love love,
Kelsea

I now know that...

Continued.

I've decided that, having gotten past the excitement of being here, I'm really starting to enjoy myself in a not-so-touristy kind of way. I'm all settled in with my job, I've made great friends and I know the Eton high street like the back of my hand. I can find my way around London without looking like a lost kitten and when I get on the tube I no longer clutch nervously to my map. I've learned a lot about myself and I've learned even more about the ways of those silly British people and their silly kingdom. For example, I now know that...

...if you go to someone's house, they will try to make you tea. This is not a stereotype. I have come to accept this and will take milk and two sugars, please. Also, if you have someone over and don't offer to "put the kettle on", they may think you're weird.

...rugby is superior to American football (sorry Dad!). Not only do the guys not wear heaps of pads (or even a protective cup), but they also don't stop the clock every 2 minutes and walk in circles with their hands on their hips catching their breath while the referees do some silly arm things. Oh, and rugby players are also, as a whole, cute.

...in Mary Poppins, Dick Van Dyke's attempt at a cockney accent sounds absolutely ridiculous and may or may not be offensive. Genuine cockney accents, however, are lovely (much in the same way that rugby players are cute.)

...if you answer a question in the affirmative with "uh-huh" like I tend to do, people will probably think you're making strange grunting noises and become too embarrassingly confused to go on with the conversation. Is it an American thing? Uh-huh.

...if you ask for a sack in which to put your purchases at a convenience store, the clerk, the person you're with, and anyone else within ear shot will probably laugh at you. It's actually very embarrassing (apparently only Santa carries a sack...)

...what we call "chocolate" back in America is pretty much cardboard compared to what they have here. Seriously, it's almost Easter, go buy enough Cadbury to last you until next April! I don't know how I'll ever go back to Hershey's...

Lastly, I now know that if everything works out, I'm definitely not coming back in June!

Love love love,
Kelsea

Fancy garden, Oxford, and Yorkshire pudding.

Heya dudes.

So, not only has the sun been out recently in this silly little county, but I think it might actually stick around for a while! It's about 2 miles everyday walking to and from school with each of the boys so having some sunshine makes it lovely, lovely, lovely. Also, my pictures are so much nicer when it's not depressingly (and characteristically) gloomy outside...


Making biscuits with Thomas. Here they call cookies biscuits so I had to carefully explain to him that they were special fluffy American biscuits.


Our lovely picnic in Luxmoore's Garden, a private garden only open to the Eton College community (fancy shmancy) that is actually on an island in the middle of the Thames. Honestly, it looks fake when you're there. It feels like you're either dreaming or in a movie. We ended up being told off by one of the many groundskeepers for having Tilly the dog with us and for playing frisbee. We told the kids that he said "No fun allowed!" and everytime we go back Thomas giggles about the man who wouldn't let us have fun.


Lovely.


The entrance to The Queen's College in Oxford. Our friend Johnny did his undergrad and masters here so he gave us a great tour. Apparently, you can't walk on the grass except for once a year when they play Croquet or something silly like that.


This is where Mr. Darcy from Pride & Prejudice would live were he a real person, we decided. It's amazing the looks you can get when shouting out for a fictitous character... "Oh Mr. Daaaarccy where aaaaaare you???"


Repping next to the math door in the Bodleian Library Quad. They have a door for every subject nearly and they used to lead to lecture areas but now its just library space or something. I just like math, is all.


More of the Bodleian Library Quad with the Earl of Pembroke, who was apparently important at some point.


Being dorks with a fancy gate.


The next day Lauren and I marched down to Tesco and gathered supplies to make an English Sunday Roast for Johnny and his roommate. Here you can see my Yorkshire pudding hanging out with the lamb. I had never actually had Yorkshire pudding before but it was so so so easy to make and so so so yummy.


Yum yum yum. (Check out the Oxford hoodie, a.k.a. the most comfortable article of clothing I own.)


Lauren being a domestic goddess with some peas, broccoli, taters and Tesco brand instant gravy.
(Tesco is the Walmart of Great Britain...hah.)


Thomas and myself. I can never decide if he looks really sweet and cute or really sneaky and evil...hmmmm.


This is the Lego house that Thomas and I built the other day. We built a cooler one the day before but Nicholas got jealous and smashed it when no one was looking (he's six). I am seriously considering buying some Legos of my own.


Changing of the guards outside the castle. I was minding my own business, smoking a ciggy, and trying to concentrate on a particularly difficult Times sudoku outside the train station when I heard the terrible sound of tourists gathering. Needless to say, I joined them. I can never take the foot soliders seriously, though. The army barracks are in Windsor so a lot of them drink in the same places I do and they're always completely pissed (that means drunk!) and obnoxious and ask us to marry them. Some of them have cute Northern Irish accents though, so they're ok. Usually you would see them wearing the traditional red uniforms but they wear the grey ones in the winter.

I'm not quite ready to stop typing but this post is getting a bit lengthy so...

TO BE CONTINUED

love love love,
Kelsea

Half-term

Hiyaaa,

Here are some pictures from last week. The schools had their version of spring break (half-term) so I had five days off work while the Foster's went on holiday to Cairo...lucky me!


View of Windsor High Street from my friend Ronan's kitchen in the castle.


St. George's Chapel where dozens of royals are buried including King Henry VIII and King George III...this is our view when we go outside to smoke!


Another view from inside the castle (including the anti-tourist gates)


JFK memorial in Runnymede. This was really neat, it says: "This acre of English ground was given to the United States of America by the people of Britain in memory of John F. Kennedy, President of the United States 1961-63, Died by Assassin's hand 22 November 1963" (and then goes on to quote his inaugural address). So as I was standing their taking the picture I was actually on American soil, in a novelty kind of way...


View of London from the top of the Allied Air Forces Memorial in Runnymede


Getting blown away on the East Sussex coast.


Oh, oh, I think I see France in the distance!


A glimpse of Rye harbour


One of the picturesque medieval cobblestone streets in Rye


Couldn't resist. Waiting for the train to London with Morrissey


Drinks with the Eton girls: Anouk, Lauren, Myself, Danielle and Holly

Speaking of the Eton girls, some of us are off to go to yoga now. It's been almost 2 months now...sheeeesh.

Love love love,
Kelsea

Aussies, Snow, and the Full English Brekkie

Hey dudes,

I've finally forced myself to sit down for an update, I really couldn't be bothered the past couple weekends! I do have loads of pictures to make up for it, however:


Me and my boyfriend Jamie Oliver hanging out in the tube on the way to an Australia Day party with my Aussie friend, Lauren. Isn't he cute? Everyone here hates him for some reason!


The line to get into Waxy O'Connor's for the Australia Day thing. It was pretty miserable outside so we went and got sushi across the street until the line got a little less ridiculous.


We finally got inside...so many Aussies! I'm pretty sure they were well over capacity, we could hardly get a drink. Or move. Or breathe really...


Cute.


Half awake in London with my first full English breakfast: baked beans, a fried egg, sausage, bacon, tomato, mushrooms and toast. Oh, and of course a cup of tea loaded with milk and sugar...yumm.


The first of the snow (if only we knew!)


The view from my window on the day of the "terrible" snow ordeal. We got maybe half a foot of snow and the entire country shut down. I didn't even have to do anything that day because they closed the boys' school and their Mom didn't go in to work. London literally came to a standstill, you couldn't get any trains, and the bus and tube lines shut down. That night at the dinner table my host dad, Rob, asked me what would happen if we got the same amount of snow back home, to which I replied "Nothing really."


Snow again from my bedroom with the castle in background.


One of the fountains in Trafalgar Square in front of the National Gallery. This hardly captures how beautiful that night was (or how cold it was).


Birthday drinks at Lauren's with most of the Eton au pairs/nannies- Anouk from the Netherlands, Lucy's boyfriend Ned, Lauren, Lucy, Holly from Australia, Danielle, Carolina from Mexico, Nadia from Czech Republic, and Deb from New Zealand (Lucy and Danielle are just English, heh)


Lauren and I got a hotel in London the weekend after her birthday so we could do some proper partying without having to worry about getting a train home. I thought our view was kind of cute; it was nice being somewhere that wasn't super tourist oriented for once.


Trying to figure out how to pay for dinner...I've almost got their silly coins figured out. They have a penny, a 2 pence coin, then 5p, 10p, 20p, and 50p coins. It's not particularly confusing, but when you're in line paying for something it does get annoying having to stop and think about it!


Loz and I at a club in Shorditch called Sosho. We had to queue for a little while and when we got up to the front the door guy let everyone with us go in, asked us where we were from, and very sternly told us "We don't allow Americans or Australians." (We must have stood there arguing with him for 5 minutes before realizing he was just being cheeky...)

So that was my last few weeks. I can't believe I've been here for over a month already, it's starting to scare me. Before I know it I'll be getting my stuff together to go back to Kansas...god forbid!

Love love love,
Kelsea