My 6 Months in London: Wow.

Dear All,

I am incredibly sorry I am so horrific at updating this blog. I've been meaning to do this I swear, it's just hard to find the time/effort. Haha who knew writing would be so difficult? But a certain Dutch friend of mine reminded me that people read it and that I need to continue to update. So here I am!

So it tells me my last update was Nov 9. Let's see what I've done since then.

Well, most exciting was going to BARCELONA Nov 11-14, which was literally, just amazing. I just had the time of my life. Such a beautiful city, who knew? I basically went to Barcelona knowing nothing about it, and only went so that I could meet up with my best friend from Kindergarden who was studying abroad. He normally goes to school in California, so we're actually geographically closer NOW than we are in the States. So I had to go. And just by sheer coincidence, two of my friends from high school who were also studying abroad in Europe, one in the south of Spain and one in Prague, just happened to be going to Barcelona the same weekend! So it was actually really nice being about to reunite with old friends and run around a foreign country together! Plus they both brought a few friends, most of which spoke fluent Spanish, substantially more than myself! So that really helped a lot...with my limited (next to no) Spanish knowledge and not-very-helpful French skills. Even so, the dialect of Spanish in Barcelona has a good number of French words or French-based words in it so that actually came in handy more than I thought it would. It's like a mixture of Spanish, French, and Italian or something? Crazy stuff.

So I showed up on Thursday night and left Sunday afternoon. And I am pleased to say I pretty much saw and accomplished everything I wanted to! I got some Christmas shopping done, had some "Dunkin Coffee," and saw the entire beautiful city. I went to the Picasso Museum (highly disappointing), saw FOUR Gaudi creations, saw the harbor, strolled along Las Ramblas, and drank champagne at 1 AM. Overall a very successful experience, plus I was among good friends, it just made the weekend a blast for all of us to be back together again after about 3 years since high school ended. I think my favorite parts were the four Gaudi works, I saw Casa Baillo (a house he built), La Pedrera (an apartment building), Parc Guell (crazy park with mosaics and sculptures), and Sagrada Familia (AMAZING cathedral). Basically he seemed to use nature as his inspiration for most of his work and so a lot of his elements were mosaic-y and tended to not contain any straight lines at all. Just AMAZINNNGGG. Sagrada Familia was pretty much the most aesthetically pleasing thing I have ever seen in my entire life, just an AMAZING cathedral. I mean google it, it looks strange from the outside, but still mind blowing. The inside though, doesn't even seem to compare. I've seen a few cathedrals in my time, including some big ones like Notre Dame and Canterbury, but THIS was wayyyyy above anything I had ever seen, by a MILE. Amazing. I also went to the chocolate museum..where they had about 40 or 50 sculptures of things made solely from chocolate! I'm going to put a few pictures at the bottom of this post of everything, for sure, no worries!

I know Barcelona does have a bit of a repuataion for pick pocketing and such, which I think is true, but I think if you have your wits about you, then you're fine. But honestly, I HIGHLY recommend this amazing city, especially if you're into art and architecture at all, it's just amazing.

So once I came back, just completely thrilled with life, then I found out the minute I got back to work that I am not allowed to go to the big giant hospital Christmas party because I only have an "honorary" contract seeing as I'm only here for 6 months and am voluntary...so that was kind of a bummer, considering everyone has been talking about it since I got here, but no worries, there are THREE other Christmas parties, so life's not all bad! Haha :)

The week following Spain, I was just EXHAUSTED. Literally. I really try hard to go out and do things in the evenings after work so that when I leave I won't feel like I just stayed in my room the whole time. But seriously, I was just so exhausted after a weekend of running around, lots of walking, Spanish, and loads of CULTURE. Craziness! So I really didn't do too much.

But then this past Friday there was this giant conference/meeting for my project team at work where about 150 people from all around the country came to London to hear all about the project and listen to presentations about everything, and basically get updates and ask questions. And it was great! I just had such a good time, and I was pretty pleased with myself that I understood mostly everything in the presentations. It was just great. I swear, every day, at least once, you hear the phrase, "Man, I LOVE my job!" come out of my mouth. This is just the best place ever, I'm quite disappointed I have to go back to school really.

Then after the meeting went out to the pub with the team, that was excellent too. I love all the people I work with, they're just so lovely and friendly, it's really excellent. But then I needed to come home so that I could a) eat dinner and b) pack for the weekend. I did eat dinner, but instead of packing, I watched Family Guy with Rachel and Pete until midnight in our pajamas. Same/diff. HAHA.

Then I got up Saturday morning and packed as I got ready, and caught an 8:30ish train down south to see the family! My granny is in the process of having her entire kitchen redone, from top to bottom, so I basically went down to ensure things were going to plan, talk to builders, and help move stuff back into the kitchen to assist with lifting and organization! So not a very exciting weekend, but it was lovely to see family and I think I needed to relax after the chaos of the previous weekend! Plus I got to see my little cousin...well daughter of my cousin, not sure what that is. But she is BEAUTIFUL. She's two, so we were playing Polly Pockets and reading books, and she was highly entertained by this foreign concept of long hair I introduced to her. haha!

This week at work has also been amazing. Gone a little slowly, but that's ok. The thing I love about my boss is she doesn't really treat me like a subordinate and doesn't make me feel any less than her in any way. She pretty much just treats me like her equal, so that when she's not there, she trusts me to carry on with HER work and I just feel like I'm just filling in for her, she's just amazing. She, a genius woman with a PhD, and me, who doesn't even have a Bachelor's yet. I could not have found a more amazing boss, seriously, I know it's horribly cliche and cheesy to say this, but she's an excellent role model and really is giving me something to aspire to become and do with my life. It's great!

So this week I have been working with this new technology that uses a special plate that is 200 quid a piece! INSANE! And I am trusted with this technology! Haha I think this is the kind of think that my uni dreams about at night. So basically it's splitting a reaction into about 800 replicates so that many many replications can be done of one reaction instead of just getting one result. Excellent. And it's actually working! I feel so great and smart when I learn something new that completely blows my mind, but I understand how it works, and then I try it and it works SUCCESSFULLY! Incredible. Haha! Enough positive adjectives yet?

Most of this week hasn't been to exciting, Rachel and I made Thanksgiving decorations, I wrapped presents last night, and then today is Thanksgiving!

For my legitimate dinner, Rachel and I went out and bought stuffing and chicken nuggets, and hand mashed potates. So mash, stuffing, and chicken nuggets. Legit enough for me, considering our oven barely works! And it was super delicious of course. So happy Thanksgiving to all!

I've also done something to my finger where it's quite swollen and a little painful. I've been given some cream for it, but I'm thinking it might be infected. If it doesn't get better I'm off to the ER (which is apparently called the A&E here, which needed to be translated for me). I know this seems a little extreme for a finger, but I think it's really the only way I'm going to be allowed to see a doctor in this strange foreign land. Haha fingers crossed!

This weekend:

Friday-no idea. Work then maybe nothing.
Saturday- I am off to a shopping mall about 40 minutes outside of London because it is the only place in the UK to get Taco Bell. haha Plus a shopping mall doesn't hurt. Then in the evening I have Bola's 23rd birthday party at a fancy French restaurant, oh la la!
Sunday- off with Rachel to Birmingham for the Christmas market! It made the top 20 in the world list so I'm excited for this!

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and Black Friday! Hope all is well, leave me some love, and I'll talk to you all soon!