And the Goodbye's Keep Coming

Saying goodbye is hard to do. Maddy and I went into town a little before we were suposed to meet Kaley and Ellyn for dinner. We bought her some candy that we don't have back in the States for her plane ride. We met them at Nando's and tried to have as normal of a dinner as we could. We were all trying to avoid any topic of Kaley leaving. In other news, I ate a whole chicken. With my Nando's card I had enough stamps to get a free chicken! Thankfully I didn't eat much that day so did it successfully. After dinner we went the the pub because we were not ready to say goodbye! When it was time to go I had to say bye first because my bus stop is different from theirs. Of course, I started crying. Kaley told me that she was glad she met me, and in response I said "I met you, too." I forgot to say glad. But I am glad I met you, Kaley! Anyway, I was crying walking to the bus stop and would get teary eyed on the bus. I definitely got some stares from some people.

The next day I stayed home. After the hectic week I needed a day to just be lazy. I can't stay inside all day though, and neither can Maddy thankfully! She texted asking if I wanted to meet up for dinner. We are trying to do everything as cheap as possible so we decided to go to McDonalds. Ellyn met us there, too! We realized that when we talk about Kaley now it sounds like she died. We say things like "Kaley would've loved this!" or "Can you imagine what Kaley would say about this?" If people heard our conversation that night they must have thought some strange things because we were all kind of a mess that night. When she left it really put into perspective that London won't last forever for me. I can always come back (and I do plan on it!) but it won't be the same. Even now, with so many people leaving our group, London seems different (but it is still amazing).

Tuesday got a bit more exciting! Ellyn had booked a tour of the Wimbledon tennis courts, so Maddy and I decided to head to Wimbledon with her to check out the area. We thought it would have been a nice tourist area since it is so well known but the only area to see was the tennis courts, and that is only if you are into tennis. Thankfully there was a shopping center near the train station, so that is where we spent our time. We love the store Boots. We like to look at the make-up in there. We also looked at clothes stores in the area and eventually got some tea at a cafe and waited for Ellyn to say she was on the bus back to the station.

That night I watched P.S. I Love You for the first time and loved it! I never cried so much in a movie, though, besides Marley and Me. I know a lot of people ball their eyes out in The Notebook and movies like that, but I only get teary eyed in those. I loved this movie, though! It did make me miss Ireland at times because scenes were filmed there. There is a scene at the end of the movie when the main characters mom goes to Ireland for the first time and her face when she is looking at the green fields is exactly how I felt when I first saw Ireland! It is little things like this that make me remember all of the experiences I have had while being abroad.

Wednesday was another lazy day. Ellyn had texted me that morning asking if I wanted to go to the Hangover Part III red carpet premiere that day. She was already in town and saw them setting up for it. I decided to opt out of it because I would've only wanted to see Bradley Cooper and I already saw him at the BAFTA red carpet, plus the last movie premiere we went to was so crazy! I already had plans that day with Maddy to go the river for a bit. There is a little area in Kingston where a lot of people hang out, and we wanted to go there. We must have chosen a bad day because there were not a lot of people there. It started to get cold so we went to McDonalds for a bit (I promise I never eat it this much.... but when you are trying to spend as little money as possible it comes in handy!). We wasted a lot of time in there and eventually decided it was a good time to go home. I felt like I had jet lag that night because I could not fall asleep! I feel like I am starting to slowly get back to Michigan time without realizing it, which is nice, I just wish it wouldn't happen this early.

We planned on going to Richmond Park on Thursday because we heard the flowers in the Isabella Plantation there were beautiful, and whoever said that was correct. It looked like a scene from a fairy tale. Maddy and I could not believe how bright all of the colors were! My pictures do not give it justice, but believe me, it was the most colorful park I had ever been to. We walked back to Kingston and decided to go to the movies. That is such an easy thing to do when you don't want to go home!

Today showed that Maddy and I know how to choose our museums! We started off our morning at Buckingham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guards. Of couse, my camera decided to stop working right as it was about to start so I will have to post pictures when I steal them from Maddy. There was a marching band there, too. They were mostly there for our entertainment we decided because when the guards change they do a lot of walking... that can get boring. So the band made it more entertaining. The first song they played was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." We thought that was cute because it was starting to rain so it was almost used to make it seem not so bad. But this is where it gets weird... when the song ended they started to play the Star Wars theme song. We were expecting "God Save the Queen" or something along those lines, but when that started we could not help but laugh! Also, two guards walked right in front of where we were by the gate for some kind of inspection and one of them said "Good morning" to us. I wasn't sure if we were allowed to talk to them so I just smiled and Maddy did too, I think. They turend around right away and walked back. Maddy looked at me amazed and said "Guards of Buckingham Palace just said good morning to us!" That is pretty amazing, I think!

Since it was raining we decided to do indoor activities. I had mentioned the National Portrait Gallery, so we decided to do that first since it was fairly close to where we were. We saw all of the main pictures we wanted to see: Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Diana, Prince Charles, Prince William and Prince Harry, some Andy Warhol paintings and, to our surprise, a picture of Ed Sheeran! Considering his music has not been very big for long we were shocked when we saw the picture. But props to Ed!

We were freezing from the rain so we went to a cafe for a bit to get hot drinks. We had along discussion on trying to figure out what our favorite part of studying abroad has been because we know we will get asked that question and we could not come up with one answer! We decided that people must ask us very specific questions so we can give an accurate answer.

Maddy wanted to see the Natural History Museum so that was our next stop! It was so much fun! We got to see a lot of dinosaurs, birds, whales, and so many other animals. We spent a while in the museum looking at everything. I love that so many of the museums in London are free! It makes days like today much more enjoyable!

 I have more goodbye's coming up. Tomorrow I have to say bye to Rachel, but she is another Michigander so hopefully I'll see her again! Saying bye to Maddy will be the worst because I won't see her for a year (fingers crossed!). She is hoping to come to America next summer, which would be perfect! I realized today that I feel like I don't have to say bye to Ellyn. We are flying home together, and since I am use to flying everywhere with her I feel like when we say bye at the airport it will feel like how it did after spring break. So Ellyn, if you get a text from me a few days after we get back, it's just because I probably feel like I didn't say goodbye the proper way. Be prepared!