Playing Catch-up

Sorry I've taken so long to get back to this, things have been a bit of a blur recently, with classes and traveling! I've been a bit more consistent with updating my pictures so hopefully you've seen some of those (I think I've invited you.. if not please let me know).
Time has been going by so quickly! It seems like 2 weeks ago was last week. Classes are still good, very different in format and the expectations are also very different. But its good to be exposed to new things every now and then :)
Before I left for St. Andrews, Hanna and I went to Trafalgar Square and did a quick run through the National Gallery. Both were pretty cool. I feel as though Trafalgar Square is sort of one of those things that gets written off as a HUGE tourist attraction (which it is) and not that cool, but it actually was a really nice place to visit. The fountains around the monument were really pretty, and Hanna and I had fun attempting to climb on it to get to the lions... a nice lady even decided that I needed help on the way up and decided to push on my shoe.. I thought she was attacking me. Oh well! The National Gallery is also somewhere I'd love to go back to and spend more time on, London is totally full of rainy day places (conveniently because it is a rainy city) that you can pop in and out of and do in small chunks, so I really want to head back. While we were there we saw a little bit of Monet and van Gogh and a special exhibit about Love which was pretty interesting.
That weekend I went to visit Justin at St. Andrews in Scotland. First off, I'm so jealous that he gets to spend so much time there. Scotland is probably one of the most beautiful places I will ever see and St. Andrews is absolutely no exception. The town is really cute and small, very collegey so its a really nice set up. We went to the ruins of the St. Andrews Castle one day, and went into the Mine and Countermine... apparently during one of the attacks on the castle the opposing forces thought it would be best to actually dig under the castle to attack it, so the inhabitants of the castle created a countermine to fight back... so basically there was a battle fought in these three foot high under ground mines... which we then went into. So that was pretty adventurous, it took a little convincing to get me down there, but while we were down there I saw a section that was barred off and thought to myself "If I was a little kid, that is absolutely the first place I would want to go.. and would have started running into it right about... now" So I guess I wanted to go down there more than I thought I did! The next day we went to the ruins of the Cathedral, which was absolutely incredible. Its just this huge crumbling structure that's been converted into a graveyard for the town. So it's a bit of a strange tourist attraction. I was unsure of how to behave and what the proper etiquette for it was because it is literally filled with graves. But it was also quite cool seeing how far the graves went back, and reading the headstones. After the Cathedral we went down to the pier that sticks out into the North Sea, and that was really beautiful as well. So to summarize. St. Andrews = Beautiful.
Last week I really just kinda went to class and did my thing. Friday night I ran into an old camp councilor at a live music club, so it was nice to see him and catch up for a bit.
Yesterday I ventured out and went to the British Museum for a while, which was an interesting experience. I looked at the Egyptian and Greek sculptures (specifically the sculpture taken from the Parthenon) and really enjoyed what I was seeing, but at the same time felt kind of distanced from it. It felt really strange to be seeing an enormous Egyptian sculpture in the middle of a museum and even stranger to see the Parthenon in so far away from where it should be. I feel like I didn't get to appreciate it as much as I would have otherwise.
Today I wandered around Green Park, did a circle of Buckingham Palace and wrote for a bit in Wellington square. Later I wandered around Harrods, and wished I could pay for everything!
More later:)