Our Royally Insane Adventure....

For whilst thou proceed northward
to a land filled with merriment.

Sound like Shakespeare? Maybe? Anyway, on the topic of being British, this is our trip to London!

THE William Shakespeare was a regular at this very pub.

There's no way we could possibly recount all the AMAZING things we did and saw, but here's a pretty good recap.

So we didn't get to meet the Queen like we intended...she must have been out on holiday...but we did see Her Majesty's home, or one of them. Buckingham Palace was enormous and the guards were funny looking. We walked up expecting to see the famous guards in their little red get-ups, right? Well, they weren't the only ones there. Some random (non-Caucasian) guards in green uniforms were parading away from the Palace and guarding its doors. We found out that it was the Royal Malay Regiment - Malaysian and Indonesian men sent to guard the queen to signify the close ties between the countries. But then, the other guards were back the next day. Whew.

Here are the real ones:

London Eye = The biggest ferris wheel IN THE WORLD. The pictures speak for themselves (wow).

Once a castle for King Henry III and then Charles I, then eventually a prison notorious for torture, the Tower of London was a grand visit. Now it's home to the Royal Jewel House (the collection of all past royalty's crowns, swords, etc.). Who knew so many diamonds, ruby's, sapphires, and other rather expensive stones could be in one building at the same time?!?

Fortunately for us, London Bridge didn't fall down while we were there. Especially since our hostel was like two blocks from it! Even though Danielle sang the song every time we even mentioned it (which was a lot).
The Tower Bridge (pictured below), however, was much prettier.


Obviously we had to see the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. Luckily, they're all within a quarter mile of each other. They definitely are famous for a reason. Some of the "Londonesque" things we just had to do were: see a West End Play (the British equivalent to Broadway), eat fish and chips, take the underground everywhere, visit one of the largest parks in the world, Hyde Park, home of Peter Pan (monumental if you know how much Kely loves Peter Pan), eat at the Hard Rock Cafe, and use our umbrellas.


Speaking of...

Not to dampen the mood at all. But we officially had our first transportation mishap of the entire trip. And boy was it a big one! SoWeGotToTheBusStopOnTime, Actually, EARLY!, OnlyToHaveToWait IN THE RAIN ForAnHOUR JustHopingToCatchTheFirstTaxiOrBus. WhenWeFinallyDid, ItGotUsThere TEN MINUTES LATE AndOurGateHadClosedAlready. ThereWereNoMoreFlightsToFranceThatDayExceptForTheOnesWhichCostUs 300 POUNDS (that's $600, fyi). Something about the trains being closed and Great Britain being bloody lame...


Kely's a little bitter toward the Queen for this. Thank the Lord for the Sound of Music and American programming (aka Friends and Gossip Girls) on British T.V.


Whew, glad we got that off our chests. You can see how big of a deal that was to two people who think of themselves as somewhat on top of things. So we just spent the night in a hotel and caught a flight back this morning. We're now safely back in Clermont-Ferrand. Even after the blast we had in the UK, it's good to be back to somewhat normalcy.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSS (tomorrow)!! We love you. =)

Lastly, we'd like to know if there's anything exciting going on back home. A comment or an email would be delightful for, say, a tornado or whatnot. But that's all for now. We're still having a ball and still missing all of you. Until next time!

We ate at a McDonald's in France...

The days are blowing by here. Despite our plans to visit some of Danielle's family in Germany this weekend, we had some trouble getting reservations on the trains. No worries, though, we rescheduled for the end of May! Since we spent the weekend here, we got to experience some things the students do. FUTBALL!!! Soccer for us Americans. For those of you who know Danielle well, she's absolutely in love with the game. It made her weekend. We played with a group of students who are still being extremely nice to us - driving us places, cooking us dinner, taking us bowling, downloading illegal copies of this week's Grey's Anatomy, and other essentials. Weirdest thing, on Sunday we had the hardest time finding any stores or restaurant (other than McDo) that was open - definitely not America.

Today we didn't have afternoon classes, so we went into town for a little shopping. Despite going into numerous stores for the both of us, Kely is the only one who bought anything, haha. HOWEVER, there are some promising brown shoes just waiting for Danielle to return to sometime soon. The perfect ending to the day was sharing cheese fondue at a local restaurant. Perfect.

We'll have another post after we return from London this weekend. Have to admit, an English speaking nation is sounding very appealing about now. Love you all.

Our First Week!

Sorry for the delay!! It feels like we're going and going every minute. Today we didn't have class; so, we slept in, then went into town for a few photo ops. Let me tell you, the chocolate eclairs are to die for. Be jealous.

The city of Clermont-Ferrand is gorgeous. You might wonder why the huge cathedral is black. The region we're staying in is built on a series of extinct (hopefully) volcanoes, so a lot of buildings in the town center are made of volcanic stone. A lot of people thought Clermont was cursed for a long time because the church was black. We thought that was funny. Black or tan, the city is very beautiful and picturesque - not like anything we see in the US.

We are staying in the dorms on the Isima campus. The Universite Blaise Pascal is comprised of a bunch of different little colleges, but Isima is the engineering and computer science school (aren't we smart?! haha) Our rooms are tiny, but not too bad. We each have a sink, but the toilets and showers (les toilettes et douches) are down the hall. We've learned that taking showers at night = hot water. In the morning, well, it's risky.

Our legs (and butts) hurt! We both stay on the fourth floor - the highest floor in the dorms - which is really the fifth floor in America, and there are no elevators, naturally. The French students here are VERY nice. They picked us up at the train station and brought us here in their cars. We meet them multiple times a day to eat lunch or just to hang out. Speaking of lunch, the food is amazing! We'd both get fat if it weren't for all the walking. And hills. And stairs. But we're not complaining! Class isn't too far away. We go to French class in the mornings from 10 to noon. Then, we go to either French History or Economics in the afternoons from 1:30 to 4. Our teachers all speak English well. I (Kely) am getting much better at speaking French...and practice a lot. Danielle is learning a lot too! But she doesn't practice quite as much.

We have to toss in here a little something about Jilly Bean (Danielle's sister)! She graduated from Owasso High yesterday and is on her way to becoming a SOONER!! Jill, we're so excited to spend the next few years with you and are sad we missed the big day. You know we love you a whole bunch, and we'll both bring you presents. :-)

This is long enough for now. We'll definitely try to post more often in the next few weeks, due to popular demand. We're getting the hang of things around here, so it'll be easier to. We miss you all, but we're having a blast here in France!

Day 1.... Well, Almost

11 May 2008

Can we really call it an early morning when we didn’t even go to bed the night before?? OU graduation + Charleston’s + last-minute packing + a 2 AM Wal-Mart trip = no sleep for us

The flight to Chicago was a little rough provided the itty-bitty plane, but we managed to get a few winks of sleep, even though the bumpy descent made Kely a little queasy. Given our extremely long layover, we took a subway ride and both got our first taste of Chicago mixed with rain but still magical!

Our long layover has given us the time to write our first blog of many. We can’t express how excited we are for the next few weeks of traveling and learning!

To our moms, we hope you had an amazing Mother’s Day and know that we love you very much.

So this is our lovely little trip to rainy Chicago, the Sears Tower, and us just hanging out in the airport!!