Peacing out of America for 6 months. This is an account of my travels and experiences.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

"insert something creative here"

i am supposed to be studying right now.




but i'm leaving for my year long trip across the world on thursday so i wanted to update my loyal followers before i leave (also year=month, world=france, italy, and greece) ((sorry for my code, i've been reading the da vinci code lately, and yes, i just double parentheses'd))

anyway, no EXTREME EVENTS to blog about lately, we've just been doing our thang in londontown, lookin cool and american. but here are some events that recently happened in daina's real life

1. i went to chinawhite. what is that? well you should probably google it, go ahead it has a wikipedia page. it is a club in london. and not one of those flasshy "i'm a club" clubs, one of those, in some dark alleyway because its a  "i am too cool and trendy to be on main streets" type of club.  and the most important thing about this club was the faucets in the bathroom! they came down from the ceiling onto real live chinese rocks! it was wicked cool! i went to the bathroom/escorted anybody that wanted to go to the bathroom so i could see these dang rocks! also, you may be wondering how we got into this really awesome club, although besides me showing my face at the door, a friend's friend's friend knew a promoter. but that part's not as important. ALSO, i'm sitting at this club in my dressed up gear lookin fly, and all i wanna do is get my dance on, but i cant, because all these people are wearing like fancy pin stripe suits and expensive dresses and stuff, and gettin your groove on is not cool to them. it is more of a place to see and be seen. which i have decided is not my style. i'd rather be shakin my booty all day errday.

lookin flyyy


2. today i went to the library. i know it was weird. and i also got really mad because i went to the library and i sat at this desk thing on the main floor because you can eat there. and i was eating a tuna fish sandwich so i had to. anyway, i'm sitting there calculatin some bitches, doin my engineering homework when these people came up to me and asked if they could share my table, i was like "ah sure!" but then they just screamed the whole gosh darn time, so i had to get out of there. i then went to the 1st floor (which is actually the 2nd in england! ((which is annoying when your room is on the 3rd but actually the 4th floor and there are quite a bit of stairs!!!) and sat in the silent area. i sat at this desk that had another one connected to it. and what do you know, 3 people sat down!! for one desk, and they were chatting and punching each other and chewing gum (those are the things i noticed) and this girl told them to be quiet. in fact, i was so mad!!!!, that i almost blogged about it right there and then! but i didnt!

this is me and kristen on st patrick's day. i am practicing my sorostitute squat. butt out, suck it in, and some weird elbow thing that i haven't figured out yet.( this is not very appropriate (but it looks like we are about to use the lavatory facility (aka the bathroom)!))

this is me showing my cool and weird arm. also, we had green eggs and green beer on st patrick's day in a moderate amount. there is nailpolish here because our new hobby is painting nails/drinking beer at the same time! my nails have never been painted the same color of purple so many times! **i made these eggs myself and decided that oncei graduate from bucknell, i'm going to be the new eggbar lady, engineering is overrated

in hyde park (the sun is making us cool and artsy)

(this is me and a leaf that i found that was bigger than my head so arden took a picture of me with the leaf!)




3. i am going traveling in less than 48 hours, holy smokes! kristen and i are going to paris, marseilles, nice, cinque terre, verona, venice, florence, rome, athens, and then mykonos, hopefully we're gonna meet up with some of our other people along the way!, 27 whole days wowzers. it is going to be rockin and i am so pumepd and cannot wait. we are taking the eurail and i am taking a backpack (aka backpackin through europe!) which i have always wanted to 1. actually do 2. update my facebook status saying that....wait for thursday, everyone, it's coming.


we went to hyde park one day, and we're having a very serious discussion about laguna beach




p.s.a. (you may have noticed the big, and or bold, and or italic,and or colorful text. ((it is because this blog is very wordy, and i wanted to make it more interactive and fun, so i hope it was) )...there is one word in here that is not supposed to be all decorated...guesss!!!


Wednesday, March 16, 2011

pittsburgh and fryd meet london





so last week mrahsters and gary came to visit me. i could write a small novel on this week of my life, but because i hate reading, and im pretty sure half the people reading this are engineers and know they do too, i'll try to keep it short.

 i went to bed at 5 am and woke up at 7 to pick garhead up at gatwick and maria at heathrow. without cellphones, picking up 2 people in international aiports is not simple. "DO NOT leave the baskin robbins" "i will find you" (turns out there was no baskin robbins and jesus himself walked me smack dab into my sister at heathrow)

 let it be known, that i am a really good person/ sister. maria refused to take a simple train ride to get to london because she was afraid of being kidnapped and sold into the sex trade, completely rational fear, so gary and i took the hour long tube ride to pick her up, only to find that she brought the biggest suitcase known to mankind.....for 6 days. i am here for 6 months and we had equal volume size. you can never have enough boots, party tops, jeans, socks, bobby pins..you get it

this is not an accurate picture.


after we got back my teeny little room instantly exploded with mess. i now know why the bathroom maria and i share at home for the past 17 years is always disastrous...dear mom, its not me. anyway, we hit the ground running first stopping in westminster to check out parliament and all those other "london skyline" buildlings for gar, who had never been to europe before.

maria in her natural pose


a summary of how my week went: maria hates monuments, all things history, and touring, but loves shopping and getting ready at least 3 hours before we need to leave. gary likes monuments, history, and touring, hates shopping and somehow already has his party top on.....he learned more than he's ever wanted to know about cute tops, clashing, and straightening hair.

so after about 20 minutes after arriving in london maria NEEDED a party top for the night's festivities, off to oxford street we went and we left gary to explore a bit of the city. we ended up going to primark 3 times

they really like eachother


basically the week went like this: touring all day, going out all night,  send daina to the hospital for exhaustion, repeat 6 times..also, add fried chicken at 3 am 4.5 times

but some really favorite things i liked was going to brick lane for food on sunday, gary and i ate moroccan and mrahskis...clearly chicken terreyaki, is that a question? and st pauls for ashes on ash wednesday, followed by fish and chips afterwards. kinda felt like i was back at our lady of grace going to the fish fry. though let me say, st pauls for ashes was one of the most beautiful church experiences i've ever had and i know gary and maria agree.




i also would like to tell you an excerpt from my real life. all week i begged maria and gary to ride bikes in hyde park. i have yet to figure out why that is a repulsive idea, but they were absolutely not feeling it. so the last day we left primark, and are walking to a pub gary wanted to go to. guess what we had to cross to get there? instead of walking through the park, maria wanted to walk  AROUND the park on the crowded street parallel to it.... i forgot, there were probably sex trade killer people hiding in between the magical horses and moats and boats and buckingham palace.... now it all makes sense. i made them walk through it anyway, and maria complained about pebbles in her shoes.

playing the lie down in the middle of crowded public area and see what happens game

workin it


not only did gary and mrahsters come to visit me...the noble sarah fryd was in town as well on some sort of school trip thingy..it was so nice seeing her,  we all went out the last night maria and gary were here and we all packed into my room to sleep for all of 2.5 hours, maria decided to roll in late, calling me at 5:30 am, so i made her sleep on a suitcase, with no blanket or pillow. that was sad.




gary and i walking abbey road style across abbey road
where's maria? oh wait...do you think she wanted to go here? no. there's too much history.


we also tried to go to hogwarts, but were thwarted by the lameness of platform 9 3/4...honestly if i was 6 i would not be impressed, at kings cross station they have a laminated poster and a shopping cart
maria about to get on the express


i said goodbye to maria and gary the next day, and fryd and i went to primark (4x in one week now) and let me say, i would be a great personal shopper/mom/person who holds your things while you try on 15 jackets and shoes and everything

frydhead and me in bricklane

the next night i literally wanted to sleep for years, but there was a foam party at drapers, our school bar, why sleep when you can smell like a washing machine in 3 feet of foam with complete strangers? you can guess what happens next, and here are some pictures



it was wild.