Florida

London is over. I moved to Florida. But I promise, one day, I WILL live there again. And for much longer than a summer.

it is a sad goodbye

The past two weeks have been a lot of fun but filled with sad goodbyes.
Friday was full of the goodbyes to all my wonderful co-workers. Yesterday I said goodbye to some friends.
Yesterday I packed. Today I enjoy one last day.
Sadly, I leave tomorrow. But it isn't all sorrow because as this chapter closes, a new and exciting one begins in Florida.
I will see you all soon.
Cheers!
Alissa

pictures

PS. Sorry for the poor or lack of pictures in the last post. I was running short on time. I'll try to put more pictures up later.

Catching up...

Hello again my dearest family and friends. Let us hope this blog will catch me up because I am starting to forget what I’ve have been doing.

Early last week was normal. Nothing too crazy. Work, home, dinner and etc. Last week was the start of Wimbledon though. I think we are really lucky to have been here during the World Cup and Wimbledon!
I decided on Thursday after work to go to Wimbledon and check it out. How could I not? Since Megan was in Scotland and no one else wanted to go with me I adventured off by myself. It was actually relaxing since I had been craving some much needed me time. Getting off the tube was like entering into another world. Beautiful bouquets of flowers greeting me as I stepped off the train with Wimbledon décor hanging everywhere. Where was I? I’ve never seen a tube station look so inviting. After a few minute walk I headed toward the queue to enter into the tournament. Before I could even enter the gates I had to go through a bag search and metal detector. I guess better safe than sorry.
After purchasing my basic entrance fee I adventured around to see where my ticket would get me into. It allowed me to enter courts 3-16. I found a match that was just about to start and took a seat. After a while I decided I wanted to see the famous people. I walked up to the return ticket booth and bought a second row, centre court ticket to the Hewitt v. Lee match. I watched the remainder of the match. It was very interesting to see how excited people got over tennis. If not more, as much as football. It was also very intriguing to see how empathetic the fans were. I mean this because even if they were cheering for Hewitt, and Lee made a good play they would clap for him too…and visa versa. They also cheered very loudly between sets but when it was time to continue they were almost silent. It was a very respectable crowd. Worth the money and the experience.


Friday night the weekend began. Jason was in Ireland and Bomo was at a play. Megan and Alex didn’t want to go out. Hmmm. Who do I know that always wants to go out?? ERIN. I met Erin and her mom at a local bar for a few drinks then Erin and I headed downtown. We didn’t have a destination in mind so we thought we’d just go and play it by ear. I was very eager to go out without boys for the first time. I know they don’t mean to, but sometimes they get in the way. They are what we call “cock-blocks”. Sorry family, it is just a generic term like “wife-beater”. But they are.
We did know however that we wanted to meet up with Erin’s friend Nick before he left to come back to the states. We were going to meet in Piccadilly, so we headed there. As we were existing the tube station this funny looking Mexican looking man with a skin-tight Versace shirt and bleach blonde hair came up to us asking for direction. It turns out he as Guatemalan. I did actually know where he wanted to go so he followed us up to the map so I could visually show him where he needed to go. This little guy was hilarious. Obviously drunk or on some type of drunk, talking a million miles and hour about random stuff. He was rather entertaining. Erin and I decided to keep him around for a laugh so he adventured with us.
After talking to him longer, his stories weren’t adding up. He claimed to have been adopted from an orphanage that did experiments on him testing cosmetic products. He also clamed to be a hairdresser who lived in Miami, Guatemala, Brussels, France, Belgium, Hawaii and now London. When I asked him how he works here (meaning visa information and etc) he had no clear answer. Things weren’t shady until we went to go into a club and we got carded. Erin and I pulled out our licenses and Pedro pulled out his one-day train ticket. The bouncer wasn’t amused. He then began to explain how he lost his license/id and on and on. We didn’t go into the club because Pedro couldn’t get in. We asked him why he didn’t have a license and he tried to give some lame excuse that didn’t make sense. It was still amusing so we headed to a bar that didn’t card….it was a gay men’s bar. Keep in mind it is gay pride week. It was probably more of a gay-man’s block party since the bar had an overflow monopolizing the entire alley way.
Pedro then showed us his back pocked that had a huge hole. Maybe he did loose his wallet?! We didn’t know or care at this point.
The Duke of Wellington was a very interesting place. Erin and I were 2 of 4 women in a mass of hundreds of men. We were practically invisible. There we met (I think the only straight man) Reid from Bermuda who was studying at Case Western! Small world. He turned out to be quite annoying really so Erin and I snuck out ditching both boys.
We headed to an Irish Nightclub/Bar down the street. Randomly enough I ran into several kids that I had met on a previous night. Really small world. Nothing too crazy happened at the bar. We chatted and partied most of the night.
The night bus was actually very convenient this time. Two easy nights home two weekends in a row? What was going on? Lol. Erin, myself, Paul and this other kid Erin met headed home. I ended up sleeping in the lobby…haha. I woke up to Bomo looking at me like a weirdo. I must of looked like hell because he had a good laugh. What else did he expect on a few hours of sleep on the most uncomfortable couches in all of the UK? Haha. It was funny though.
After exchanging our stories of the previous evening, we got ready and headed to Camden Market. This is a market. We spend ALL DAY (around 5 hours) and we still aren't sure we saw everything. What I liked about it was that it was tailored to my age group. It was a trendy yet cheap market.
Saturday evening we both were really tired. After getting little to zero sleep and walking around in 90 degree hot weather, we were whipped.
We took a nap, got ready and headed down to Leicester Square with Megan to people watch. France had just won the quarter finals match and the French were extactic. It was crazy. We all got some icecream and went and sat on the grass. It was a calm yet fun night. I didn't want to get too crazy since Megan, Alex and I were heading to Stonehenge early in the morning.
Sunday I got up early than I normally do for work. We had to be at the station around 8:30 to catch our tour bus. The first stop on our tour was Windsor. I was excited, but not totally thrilled since I have been there before. The main reason for the trip was for Stonehenge. I just thought I might as well take a full day tour and see other stuff as well. It was amazing though how much I remember from Windsor from being there six years earlier. Can you believe it has been that long??? Everything seemed to be exactly the same. It was just strange how I remember where everything was as I was walking through the castle. The “I’ve been here before” feelings were because I actually was! Haha.
Anyways, after our tour and time to walk around ourselves was over we boarder the bus and headed for Bath. Bath is the city that houses the ancient Roman Baths. Britain's only hot water spring. It was really interesting because they had many of rocks and carvings from thousands of years ago. They told us NOT to touch the water because it wasn't treated and all that jazz, but of course I had to put my hand in it. How could I not?
After Bath we headed to Stonehenge. It was very surreal to be standing in front of this massive pile of rocks that have been there since 3000 BC with no explanation of how or why they were there. It was one of those moments where you are like...I am really here. Of course I had done a little research, so I wasn't disappointed, but you could here several people say how they very shocked at how much smaller it seemed. I still thought it was rather larger. Of course because of tourists and scavengers, you can't actually touch the rocks. They have it roped off how close you can get. it is close enough. Perfect picture range. We were there when it was getting to close to the evening so the sun was shinning down at a beautiful range giving us a magnificent view. The country side was gorgeous as well. You can be in London and experience the large, crazy city atmosphere, or you can leave and drive for only a small amount of time and be in complete peaceful silence, the country. I wish the U.S. had such drastic distinctions. It really is the best of both worlds.
After a great day of touring we came home.




Monday was just like any other normal day other than I left work a few hours early and headed to Leicester Square to meet Jason and Megan. It was the Pirates of the Caribbean 2 movie premier. It was supposed to start at 5:30, so we thought if we were there by 4:30is we would be okay. Um..NO. If we did in fact want to see anything we should have showed up at 12noon…or earlier. We did hang around because it was neat to see everything. We did however see the cars drive by that Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightly were in. Unfortunately the crowd was tooooo big to actually seem them. At least I know that Johnny Depp was 30 feet from me at one point in time.
We hung around until they were inside and headed to China town to get diner. Megan can’t eat nuts so she went home. Jason and I enjoyed an authentic Chinese meal and did some shopping.
Tuesday was somewhat normal too. I ended up going to Hyde Park by myself after work to enjoy a nice, calm, peaceful evening by the small lake. I ended up falling asleep in the middle of the grass. It was definitely relaxing. I get a call from Alex and Bomo saying to come home quickly because they were worried about Jason. I come back to find Jason sick..they didn’t know what to do. It was cute, but he was fine.
Wednesday evening Bomo, Alex and I enjoyed a few drinks and a meal on EUSA.
Thursday was hell. I don’t feel like explaining it but everything that could do wrong did….haha. It ended up being quite comical though.
And here we are today…FRIDAY. We plan on going to this club called KOKO tonight. In my next post I’ll fill you in on this weekend.
I hope you all are doing wonderful. Sadly enough I will be home very shortly. Please take no offense to me saying sadly. It isn’t that I don’t miss everyone; I am just having a great time. It doesn’t seem like it has been almost 2 months either. Where does the time go?
Happy Birthday Aunt Eve! I hope you have a great day.

Until next time,
Alissa

a holiday spent working...

Happy July 4th.

I'm an emo kid

**This is not the immediate past weekend, but the one before. I will update this weekend shortly since we went to Stonehenge.

Just a quick update for your reading pleasure...if you even find it interesting...haha...because you know I probably leave the juicy stuff out. Just joking...there is only a little bit of stuff I haven't added...LOL. Sorry all, I’m in a funny mood. So what happened last week? hmm...

The week was normal. Work, home, play, sleep, work, home...the same routine. Although Jason, Bomo and I met for dinner in China Town one night. It was rather tasty. I love Chinese food...especially authentic Chinese food.

Even though there are over 7 million people in this large city, we continue to randomly see the same people over. It's happened to me several times as well as Jason. That night we went to get Chinese a kid he had seen in passing earlier that day (in an entirely different section of town) was eating in the same restaurant. What are the chances really? I've seen this one person on the tube several times and randomly see him on the street miles away! This seems to happen all the time with little things. It makes you realize just how small the world really is....and not just in little Minerva, Ohio!

Wednesday night we had our mid-term review meeting with the placement agency. They fed us free Dominos. It was tasty to have American pizza...although Dominos was never a favorite of mine. In the large room we were broken off into groups to play a trivia game. It was me, Alex, Jason, Veronica and some other girl I didn't know. After the first few questions we quickly realized this was going to be a hard game. The winner got a free gift (untold to us until the game was over). We accepted our fate that not matter how hard we tried, we weren't going to win. We either knew the information or not.
Surprisingly when we all revealed our scores WE WON! We each got £4 gift certificates to Starbucks. Free lunch so I was not about to complain!

Friday night we went to Fabric. One of the well known clubs of London, normally costing £15 to get in. We had bought tickets in advance for £10. I had personally been looking forward to Fabric for a while. I've heard great things about it from several people.
We left to enter the madness around 11:00pm. I don't even know how to describe it, so refer to Jason's blog for a better detail, but it was fun. Three huge rooms of a massive amount of people. Each room bearing its own distinct sound of music and crowd of people. Large crowded hallways connecting the rooms, with stairs other rooms and utter confusion everywhere. I loved it. People everywhere you turned. It was probably the largest club we've been to yet. You turn the corner and you've lost your party. So we didn't even try to stay together. We just set up a meeting time to make sure we were all okay and we went and did our own thing. It is nights like Friday night that reassure me that I am destined to live in a city. I love the craziness.
Everyone bailed at different times throughout the night, but Veronica, Paul and I ventured to stay until 6:00am. Luckily for us, when we decided to head home the tube was running...so no adventures with the night bus. We decided that we need to just stay out every night until then because getting home was sooooo much easier.




So obviously, I slept all day on Saturday. After a lazy day of catching up on some much needed rest from a crazy night of dancing, I went to the 0-2 festival at Hype Park. James Blunt was playing so I had bought tickets in advance.
I went to the show alone because no one wanted to go with me. I didn't care. I still had a great time. It was one of the best concerts I have ever seen.



When I got home I quickly got ready to go to this party/club that we got on the guest list for. It was 20 pounds to get in originally, but Bomo knows this girl he works with whose boyfriend manages thee club, so we got on the guest list, paid nothings and jumped the queue. Sounds great right?
It was. It was a great time. Originally it was supposed to be all 5 of us, excluding Erin because we didn't think she would want to go, but at the last minute Jason, Megan and Alex bailed and Erin ended up coming. I guess you know who the true partiers are....lol.
Anyways, they missed a chance of a life time. This was an exclusive POSH party. Everyone there was beautiful. It was a beautiful people only club, I think. They had dancers with perfect bodies on little stages in the club, confetti fell on us randomly and beautiful ornaments hung from the ceiling.




It was a good time. Plus, the night bus that runs right in front of our apartment came right in front of the club. Easy enough! Saturday when we woke up Bomo, Jason, Erin and I went to Spitalfields Market. It was cool. It wasn't really anything that special though.
Overall it was another great week in London.
I will update soon to fill you in on the most immediate week and weekend.
CHEERS!

My New Boyfriend

Jessa first introduced us, but we hung out at the England/Sweden game last night. He seems pretty nice. I'll keep you all posted as to how it goes.