I haven't disappeared!

So I've been terribly remiss about posting, yet again. I can assure you it won't get better lol. The last two weeks have been pretty busy. Two weeks ago my Aunt and Uncle came into town for five days. I hadn't seen them in about five years so it was so great to catch up and hang out. They're just really cool people and really fun to talk to and seeing them helped me a lot with my homesickness. They took me out to dinner every night (from this really good, affordable Thai food pub only two tube stops away from my hall, to a fancy, absolutely delicious, foam-filled French meal that is not quite in my price range lol, but as Aunt Liz said, is a great place to have my multitude of dates bring me haha) which was so nice of them and we did a lot of sightseeing - they treated me to one of the bus tours around London, a ferry ride down the Thames, and a visit to the Tower of London and the British Museum. I had such a good time with them and was really sad to see them go.

Then last week I had to catch up on all the school work I had been putting off to spend time with family lol. Unfortunately at the same time I got really sick. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me for the first several days, but it felt like I had strep throat. I went to the doctor who saw me for (no joke) less than five minutes and told me I was going to be alright, just gargle salt water. Monumental waste of time. So I waited it out and then at the beginning of this week it calmed down to a simple cold and I'm about over it. But being sick and feeling like crap without friends or family around? It kind of blows. No one to listen to you whine :)

Class is still going well and yesterday I went on my field trip to Westminster Abbey. It was sooo cool. They unrolled the carpets covering up the cosmoti mosaic floor (which they rarely do as it is) and their conservator told us all about the floor. It's the area of the church where they do royal weddings, funerals, and coronations. It was really quite interesting and it was pretty large, about 25 square meters. Once she finished her introduction she told us that (if we took our shoes off) we could walk on it to get a closer look. I seriously can't explain how surreal it was to be able to inspect 800 year old mosaics like that. The tourists who were watching us got pretty jealous too lol. She also took us to look at the tombs of some of their most famous kings, like Richard the Lionheart, and showed us more mosaics in the tomb area. She also showed us their conservation lab. It was simply one of the best field trips ever.

Other than that I have really just been spending all of my time reading. This grad school stuff is hard believe it or not lol. I still don't have access to my money and I have been here over a month now! It can't be too much longer though.

I finally got my student oyster card so that I can get a discount on a monthly tube pass. I have been riding the bus, and after a full out brawl between the bus driver and some teenager last week which caused the driver to pull over and stop on the side of the road indefinitely, I would like to get back on the tube!

I'm kind of bummed out though because Halloween is so not a big deal over here at all. It's my 2nd favorite holiday, so it's sad to see it kind of just skipped over. My mom and stepdad sent me a care package with some Halloween candy and a Halloween card in it last week though which was so nice and cheered me up!

Anyway, I guess that about sums it up for now and I'm sorry about the delay. Take care everyone!