PT 2

So after the tour of Rome by bus we ate at HardRock Cafe! Let me just say that we felt like we were at home for about an hour and a half! For starters (appetizer) we had southwest egg rolls with salsa and ranch dressing that were amazing! For our main course Lauren had a chicken sandwich and I had a bacon and cheddar hickory burger that was so big I couldn't finish it. I had to eat it with a fork and knife, which is quite common in this part of the world anyways. I guess people do not eat food with their hands because of germs. Thats just my guess though. The fritas or french fries that came with the food were definitely American style. Everything about HardRock was American. Even the drinks at HardRock were Shrek sized with ice! This was definitely our splurge in Rome which was quite nice because dinning in Rome was cheaper than anywhere else that we have been too. After dinner we decided to stop by a gelateria down the street from our hostel and see what all the fuss about gelato was about. It was nasty! definitely not what people made it out to be. Needless to say we were disappointed and decided that we would wait until we were back home to get some real ice cream.




On sunday we booked a walking tour of Rome which included the Coliseum, the Roman Forum and the Emperial Palace. I will only talk about the colusiem due to the length of this blog but the rest of the tour was awesome. So for the coliseum which was our first stop. It was massive, beautiful, over powering, bare, breath taking, and any other word that describe the indescribable. It is amazing to see such massive buildings and wonder how anyone erected them with such little technology. There weren't any cranes to help these people do it. It was all built by hand and I can't imagine how it was done. We learned so much about the structure of the coliseum and how they used concrete for the first time with bricks in an attempt to earthquake proof it. Which by the way, was pretty successful. I wont go into all the details in writing but it was absolutely amazing!




After visiting the Coliseum, we stopped by Trevi Fountain to see it at night and make a wish as we tossed a coin into the fountain for good luck. While we were there, we found another gelateria that looked so good that we had to give it one more try. This is where we found something way better than ice cream. I had Carmel first and had to go back for another scoop of Coconut. I'm not a fan of coconut anything but this was the best dessert ever. Lauren had vanilla with chocolate syrup and she was in heaven she loved it! It is the only thing that she would ever give up ice cream for. So I take back everything I said about it before, and if you ever get the chance, you have to try it!







Rome has been one of the best and worst parts of our trips. Lauren described Rome as a love/hate relationship due to some issues at our hostel. There is so much to see there in such a small city. If I could go back to Rome or Paris, I would choose Rome in a heartbeat.

On monday we went to the beach for a little while and enjoyed some pictures and lunch before we went back to the airport to get back to our temporary home. Our home for another 11 days.


For class, we visited the Coca Cola plant here in London. They gave us a tour of the plant and showed us their processes which was really fun and interesting. We got to wear goofy hair nets and safety vests.


Today we took a tour of the Lloyd's of London which was one of my favorite tours. Richard Rogers was the man that built the building about 40 years ago. Its a building that was said to be ahead of its time. Still today, I believe it to be ahead of its time. When the initial concept was conceived, they wanted the building to be able to be made into whatever they wanted. They wanted to be able to make offices on any floor or have any floor available for space. So mister Rogers designed the building inside out. All of the toilets, elevators, air conditioning and the such are on the outside of the building, leaving all open space on the inside. Its beautifully designed. From the inside you can see all four outer walls and almost every individual floor. Its really hard to describe. On the outside, what you would call the guts of a building, almost look like works of art. Anyone with interest in design should look up the building and all it marvels.

And lastly, I have to mention our dinner for tonight. We went to the grocery store to pick up some pasta to make for dinner and discovered that Ole Elpaso had made its way into the UK. So we quickly changed our plans and made tacos for dinner. Now it wasnt as good as home made tacos from back home, but it will hold us over until we can get there!

I hope you have enjoyed this blog and that I have not bored you too much! We miss all of you back home dearly and can't wait to see you and tell you all of our stories!

Finally a New Blog! PT 1

I am very sorry to have kept all of you waiting so long for a new blog. I hope this one makes up for the lack of blogs that there has been.

I will start with Rome and do not know where I will end. So here goes. We left Paris on saturday morning and got to Rome at about 11 o'clock. While we were coming in for landing i was looking for the coliseum because I wanted to see it from the plane. Unfortunately I never saw the coliseum, but I did get a beautiful view of the coast and the Tyrrhenian Sea while coming in. We took a train from the Airport in Fuimicino to Rome. Once we got to Rome, we decided to eat at a restaurant that was just across the street from our hostel. This place was amazing! The food in France and Italy can't even be compared to London food. London does not deserve to be in the same category.

Then it was time to check-in. Our hostel had massive wooden doors welcoming in visitors that wished to stay. You had to push a button at the door to call the receptionist who let you in. It was so nice..... until we got inside. First of all we tried to pay with a credit card. This was odd to me because most hotels are paid for after the stay, not before. Anyways, they didn't take credit cards because "their machines were down." Well I knew we would be there for two nights so I asked him how long they would be down, can we just pay before we leave? He said they will be down for several months, we are in the process of changing banks. Clue number one, changing banks doesn't take several months for a fully functioning business. Oh well, I went and pulled cash out of the ATM and paid in cash.

Next we get into our room which brings me a list of problems that I was so furious about, all Lauren could do was laugh at me. We were on the first floor which meant that in the 100 degree heat of Rome I couldn't open my window to get a breeze. Anyone from the street could hop in my window. We had our own bathroom and toilet (which took 13 minutes to figure out how to flush.) But private or not, it was nasty. The beds were uncomfortable and when I laid down I saw what had to of been a painting from someone in the 1st century. Needless to say, this was not suitable.

So, my body poured with sweat as I sat in my room looking up hotels in Rome. I was not able to find anything else so we decided that it would have to do. We situated all of our belongings and headed off for our bus tour!

The bus tour was as opposite as you can get from our hostel. Rome is very old and dirty, but so beautiful on so many levels. You have to have an imagination in Rome because structure is mostly the only thing left. But on our tour we saw so many places. We saw the Vatican, Basilica Santa Maria, Coliseum, Pantheon and everything else. These places are massive. We Loved our bus tour as well as Rome after the tour.

I will stop here for now because Lauren and I are about to head out for class. i will continue Part 2 tonight after class....

Bonjour!

OK, here goes my post from yesterday. As many of you know, we were quite afraid when we arrived in Paris. By the way, let me start out by saying that a nine hour flight from the US to London, England has less cultural change, than a two hour train ride from London to Paris, France. It is amazing to me how so much changes in such a short jot across the pond. French is the first language and sortie(Exit) is the only word I know. Oh yeah, and bonjour. (hello) Anyways, there is a definite language barrier between the US and France. Maybe this is why we do not get along so well!?! Other than the language barrier, Paris is a nice place. The food is great and the scenery is very different from London.

Starting with yesterday. There is a local bakery right outside of our hotel room that is wonderful! They have any kind of pastry you could want. You can get a pastry with: jam, chocolate, almonds, caramel, raisins, powder sugar and on and on and on. They also have all sorts of candy to choose from too. But since we were there for breakfast, we chose one that had raisins, one with jam and one with powdered sugar. They were all so good that I could not choose a favorite.

From there we went to the Eiffel Tower to see what everyone rants about. People either love it or hate it. We happened to be indifferent towards the structure. The steel tower doesn't seem to belong where it is. Nonetheless, it's there, and its not too ugly. So, indifference it is.

After we were satisfied with the time we spent at the tower, we decided to take a bus tour of the city. Donc, nous avons vu à Paris en bus. (So, we saw Paris by bus) Ok, its not a good as what it sounds, but it was nice. There are definitely bright points all around this city. The Seine River is very pretty, but full of boats moving cargo through it. The Louvre, the largest museum in the world, is a pretty place. We went to see the Louvre, but did not go in. After that, we hopped back on the bus and went to the next sight, which is one we really enjoyed. The chapel of Notre Dame was beautiful. We were lucky enough to have entered the chapel right in the middle of thursday mass. I didn't even know they had mass on thursday, but it was something to see and hear. The choruses that were sung, echoed throughout the chapel as it did at St. Pauls Cathedral, but something was different about this church. I still can't figure out what it is that made this chapel so different. The lighting of the church came through stained glass windows with a certain ambiance that was silencing. All we could do was look around and absorb as much of what we saw as we could. If you are ever in Paris, this is a must visit.

From there we went to the Opera house de Paris. It is similar to the structures throughout Paris but still stands alone in terms of beauty. I don't know where the money that built this city came from, but they must still be paying for it. No not really. The rulers before our time obviously had an expensive taste. Most every large structure here is copper that is so old it has a marbleized green and brown swirl to it, or it is gold plated. By far the most gold I have ever seen.

This next part brings me to my favorite part of the city, the Champs Elysees. Champs Elysees is a very upscale part of town lined with shopping centers and dinning as far as the eye can see. We stopped for ice cream, because Lauren loves her ice cream! We split a strawberry banana something or other ice cream dessert that was amazing.

Shortly after that, we took the metro (which is a whole other mess within itself) back to our hotel to relax before the sun went down and Paris came alive.

I know this is getting rather long, so i will try and wrap this up without missing our favorite part. The Eiffel tower at night! You may be sitting here thinking to yourself, "didn't he say he was indifferent?" Yes I did, and now I take that all back. Across the street from the tower is a little carousel that goes round and round all day and night. Next to the carousel is a place that I would go round and round all night if it was possible. This crepe stand is amazing. Crepes are a very thin pancake folded in half and stuffed with an kind of goodness you can think of before its folded in half once more. My crepe was filled with strawberry jam that was to die for. By far the best dessert since I have been in Europe. Lauren had the Eiffel Tower which consisted of a chocolate filled crepe topped with whipped cream, making it look sort of like a scoop of ice cream perched atop a chocolate filled pancake. Boy these desserts are amazing! I can see Steve in dessert heaven right now.

So we ate "creep," as I like to call them and then sat in the middle of the park that faces the Eiffel Tower. At night everyone brings champagne, wine, beer, cheese and crackers or anything else they wish and enjoy as they watch the tower light up the night sky. The tower is beautiful at night. At the top of every hour starting at 10, the tower starts to sparkle. For five minutes flashes of light come from the tower, and it looks like a million camera flashes going off everywhere. So Lauren and I enjoyed our bottle of wine among several thousand people as we watched the tower sparkle. We loved it so much that we are going back here in about 30 minutes to catch it one last time. This is our last night in Paris so we hope to enjoy it and look forward to our trip to Rome in the morning!

A few pictures From the town

Yesterday.

Yesterday we went to a little town called Belvedere for our business class. We went to a place called Thames Innovation Center, which is a non-profit organization designed to help small businesses start-up. Basically they provide general service to individuals who wish to start a small business that push them towards success. They only provide these services to individuals who live in the borough that they are apart of. So you go to them and they start you out in for seminars that cover all the basics. After you complete the workshops, you are assigned an agent that is there to assist you in any questions you may have. They help to find funding, teach you how to market to your target market, and so on. It is really a nice concept designed for growth within the community.

After school we came home and studied a little bit until some friends on our trip asked us to go to dinner. We went to a nice restaurant, probably the most Americanized restaurant we have found, and ate dinner. By Americanized, I mean that your glass was full of ice, the restroom actually said "restroom" instead of "toilets," and they had all kinds of specials to choose from. Come to find out, the reason why the other people wanted to go was because they have 2-4-1 pizzas on tuesday night. So, tuesday marked the third day in a row for pizza. Although I am not burned out on pizza at the moment, I will not be having pizza until I get to Rome. I have always wanted true Italian food, so I cant wait!

Anyways, we have a meeting this morning for class where we will discuss how our final exam will be laid out and what we can expect from it. We will also discuss what our individual topics will be for a research paper on British Studies. After then I will attempt to finish my final paper that is due for today. We had to read 4 articles from a selection that was given to us and write a 2 page paper over each article. It would not have been bad if the articles did not put us to sleep. So between our meeting this morning and the class this afternoon, I will finish my last paper and start packing for Paris! Directly after class we will leave the campus and head for the Eurostar which will have us in Paris at 10 o'clock tonight! I hope to be able to write for you guys while we are there and apologize for not writing yesterday. We have been super busy trying to get our papers done before we leave, but we can now enjoy the rest of our trip!

So today was not a normal class day for Lauren and I. After being here for a week and a half now, our coordinators of this trip scheduled a walking tour of London. How convenient. Now that I have walked the entire city of London, twice, and taken a bus tour I might add, we get to walk it once more. This one was different though, we were led by a guide we have not been led by yet and hear that he knows exactly the same history of every other tour guide we have visited with. Yippy! No it's not as bad as it sounds. Our tour today took us through a few parts of town that we have not yet walked through and added a few extra tidbits of information that we have not already heard. And although the four hour walking tour of London was a bit tiring, we did get to see a few places that we would not have ventured to outside of a group led tour. Places that i could not find again unless I really tried hard to find. So lets just leave this at, "been there, done that, but I didn't get the t-shirt."

What does amaze me so much about this city is that everybody here knows the history of the city. I know they know their history because I get the same story about every building, fixture or monument erected here from multiple people. Anyways, after we toured the city, we went to Camden market to see what all the talk about the markets really is. Camden town is a place that is lined with little huts one after another full of clothing, hats, drinks, food, artwork, and just about anything else you might wish to find. Lets just say it's one heck of a flea market that extends farther than the eye can see. You actually can find some decent stuff at this circus too!

But since today was not all that exciting and I did not get to blog yesterday, I will tell you about our adventures from yesterday! We decided to go to the zoo since animals are amongst one of my favorite things to watch. The London Zoo is laid out is several different sections with all types of exotic birds placed throughout the park. When we first got there we headed over to the otters for feeding time. These little blobs of an animal scurried over logs and under rocks darting towards pieces of meat that were thrown into their pin. As cute as they might seem, I would hate to see what would happen if you took their piece of meat from them. From there we toured Africa and saw wart hogs, giraffes, okapis, and many more animals with origins of Africa. We walked through a cage full of birds as they flew over our heads and landed in the trees all around us. Honestly after seeing as many birds as I saw at this zoo, I don't care to see another bird ever again. Birds are just nasty. We walked across the park to see lions, tigers, emus, reptiles, fish and on and on and on. We planned our walk around the park so that we could finish just in time to see my favorite part of the whole zoo trip. We saw my mothers favorite animal, something that's close to Lauren's heart, the PENGUINS! These little fellers knew it was time to eat! They lined up about ten minutes before their waiter came with sardines. Just about all 36 of them lined up on the edge of the pool waiting for their food. When the waiter made his grand entrance, the penguins went crazy. Some of them ran to greet him while those that were in the back dove into the water to pass the one in the front that were running. Anyways, we had a great time and enjoyed every minute of the zoo.






Also yesterday was the first time we rode in the "Famous Black Cabs" of London. The cab was actually really clean and it was funny to try and stay in our seat as he took us through the round-abouts and corners like he was Mario Andretti.

As for now, we are busy trying to finish some papers that are due on Wednesday so I am not sure how much blogging we will get in. We have four papers due by wednesday, which is the same day we leave for Paris! We will be sure and take lots of pictures as many of you have asked and keep all of you updated!

We miss Texas! Eat for us this evening, we could stand some good mexican food!

Dinner Hop!

Lauren and I are exhausted from going, going, going. This morning we decided to sleep in and catch up a little bit so that we dont wear out and become ill. We ended up getting about 9 hours of sleep and even though that seems like a lot, I have not been able to sleep well from all the noises of other students coming home late or others that wake up at 5 am. Anyways it was nice to get a couple extra hours of sleep even though Im still tired.

Since we slept in, we decided to hang around the campus today and didn't go do anything till about 15:30. Thanks to my mom and Harold, Lauren and I have our own personal tour guide of the city of London. This tour guide come by way of Rick Steve's Guide to London 2010. It's too bad we waited until now to seek his opinion about restaurants. I looked through his book and decided that our night would consist of a dinner hop!


First up, Fernandez and Wells. We enjoyed a couple glasses of wine with bread, cheese and chorizo. We had chorizo and manchego. Most of you know that chorizo is a type of spanish meat that resembles sausage, but most probably dont know that machego is actually a spanish cheese used to compliment the meat. So we had spanish cheese and meat with bread that was toasted and drizzled with olive oil for starters. The cheese was dry yet still creamy. It was almost like a wafer because of the pockets of air that had been trapped inside the cheese when it was made. Everything about Fernandez and Wells was amazing. It is set well off the beaten path down a side street off of Oxford Street which is shopping central! Oxford street is a another story in itself. Every store of class you can imagine must fight for a face on Oxford Street. You have H&M, Burberry, Apple, Armani Exchange, Anthropology, and the list goes on and on and on. Anyways our little hole in the wall wine shop was tucked away perfectly from the hustle and bustle of London which really added to our day of relaxation.


After our wine and pre-starters we ventured over to Soho Pizzeria. Soho is the gay district of London, but it also has some of the finest dinning in London which really isnt much to brag about.


At Soho Pizzeria Lauren ordered a salad from the starters menu. It was like tomato caprese with a twist. Add I might add, two of Laurens' favorite twist. This dish came with sliced tomatoes and mozzarella as usual but also had, sliced avocados and onions to go along. It was topped off with a balsamic vinaigrette sauce that was really good. Two minutes later, it looked like this. Literally!

Once we were done with our starter we ordered mushroom pizza that was not amazing, but was edible. Honestly the only reason why I say edible is because the ingredients were so fresh. You could taste the freshness of the mushrooms. I usually love any kind of mushroom, but these just really did not have a great flavor other than fresh. But Lauren loved the pizza so, it was a success.

From there we decided to have dessert at the dorms. The other day Lauren and I picked up some ice cream from the local market down the street. We decided that we would finish our dinner hop at the dorms while we enjoyed ice cream and our favorite tv show at this time, Top Design.

Today was nice to relax and catch up with ourselves. Wh hit the ground running from the moment that our plane landed in London so it was nice to catch up today. Tomorrow we take off running again although neither of us know where we will be running too. I guess tomorrow will be a surprise for both you guys and us. We plan on getting to the train station early and picking a destination for a day trip. We're not quite sure where we will end up, but we will be sure to let you all know.

Star-filled day with a little Dazzle Dazzle.

Our adventures started late today as our classes went until 4:30 this afternoon. Because we got a late start, we were not able to get tickets to Wicked. I know, Im sorry I have nothing to write about on Wicked. I am sure Lauren and I would have loved it.



Fortunately, we were able to salvage our day with a few tweaks to our schedule that made for a very nice evening. I wont bore you with our lectures today about head hunting and recruitment, followed by a guest lecture from a member of the technical staff at the International Accounting Standards Board. Although we did find it interesting that the lecturer was from the states! He graduated about one year ago. Not to scare anyone, but he was apart of a study abroad program in London that also sat through a lecture from an individual of the IASB and found it so intriguing that he decided to pursue a career in London with the IASB. Needless to say, he moved here about 9 months ago and plans on staying through the end of the Olympic games all while hoping that the US will adopt IASB standards in the mean time so that he can transfer to work in the states.



After class we traveled to Trafalgar Square to get our tickets to Wicked at a half price dealer that we found during a tour of the city. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, the show was sold out. But don't worry, we decided that Chicago would work instead! But before Chicago, to our pleasant surprise, the premier of Karate Kid was showing right in the heart of Trafalgar Square. Will, Jada, and Jaden Smith alongside Jackie Chan walked the red carpet while they shook hands, posed for pictures and signed autographs for onlooking fans. The entire north side of Trafalgar Square was barricaded from sidewalk to sidewalk with the red carpet rolled precisely down the middle of the street. Funny thing is, The cast didn't even walk the red carpet because they signed autographs for the entire length of road. Will Smith is a true entertainer that admires his fans almost as much as they do him.



Now for the Dazzle Dazzle! If you have not seen Chicago, it is a musical set in Chicago during the days of prohibition. Two celebrities, Roxie and Velma who is a cabaret dancer are accused in two separate cases of murder. The musical tells the stories of their lives during the trial while exploiting the corruption that was involved in the criminal justice system at the time. All their attorney had to do was present his client to the jury and have his client "Dazzle Dazzle" the jury until the are acquitted. Lauren liked Chicago a lot better than Jersey Boys and I just happened to like both of them so much that I will not try and pick a winner. Let's just say that both are must see performances. We have enjoyed our night so much and look forward to many more nights in London. There are so many things to do and places to see!



For tomorrow, I think we will plan a free day. By free, I mean an all free tour. We will see how that goes, but we plan on visiting the National Portrait Gallery, Skin Exhibition, and The changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace.

Until next time, good day mate!

"It has been a Robbery!"

Today was a late class day for Lauren and I. We did not have to meet for the the tubes until 11:30. Unfortunately the two vacant rooms that are in our suite are used for offices so at 8:00 am our suite becomes a revolving door of problems seeking answers. Needless to say, the light sleeper that I am, awakens no later than 8:00 am when the revolving door is unlocked. Except for being somewhat tired, it is not bad though. I was able to download the episode of: "Work of Art" that I missed and catch up before I headed out to class.

We ventured out towards the coast today on a 2 1/2 hour journey to Shepherd Neames' brewery in Faversham. It is the oldest live brewery in the world that was constructed in 1682. We learned of the process that goes into brewing beer in the UK, which is quite different than that of the the US. The UK tends to brew their beer longer because the majority of their beer is a real ale. For those of you who dont know the difference, Ale (which is what we have in the US) is a light beer in color and real ale (which is most common here) is a darker beer. The color difference is like apple juice and tea and obviously can be almost black. Also because the curing process is so long, the alcohol is stronger too. It is legal to brew up to 14% alcohol in beer here where as beer in Texas contains roughly 3.2%. Although they can legally brew up to 14%, most beer here contains between 5 and 7% alcohol.

The city was very small with brick streets and no traffic signs. The population is about 20,000 people which is extremely small compared to London. I find it very interesting that the change of pace is so drastic from city to city. In London you have to fight for your spot on the street and when we visit the smaller surrounding cities that is not the case.

We ate at a well known Italian eatery while we were in Faversham that was amazing. We had mushrooms stuffed with beef and other spices that I cant remember and served with a side of garlic mayonnaise. Then we shared a pepperoni pizza that had to of been stone baked to perfection. We love the Italian food here.

For our journey back home we had quite the adventure. It definitely took longer than it did to get there and we could not figure out what was taking so long. The train moved slower and finally at one stop did not continue to run for quite a while. As I tried to figure out was going on, I heard a loud banging sound coming from the toilets and a continuos chatter coming from those around us. After I saw a man that was dressed in a uniform yelling profusely about what just went on, I asked a person standing in the doorway what is going on. He proceeded to tell me that, "It was a Robbery!" The gentleman that works on the train taking tickets from the passengers had been robbed while he was collecting tickets. Sad thing is, he didnt even know he had been robbed until he turned around and saw his cell phone tucked under the shirt of one of the robbers. These guys pick pocket people for a living here and are so good that you dont know it until you reach for your wallet and find that it is gone. He told the guys to give his belongings back to him and the guy pleaded that he had nothing that belonged to the man who had been robbed. The worker called the conductor to inform him about what happened and the train stopped at the next station without proceeding. Come to find out, this is the reason why we never left the station. The banging noise coming from the bathroom was one of the robbers who tried to flee but did not get passed the guard on duty. The guard locked the robber in the bathroom until police arrived at the scene to arrest him. The robber had another accomplice who did get away with the money and whom I am sure will be caught by police. All of the city and its' trains are monitored with cameras and once police are notified it usually doesn't take long to track someone down. Needless to say, this has been yet another interesting day that I will never forget!

Hope you continue to enjoy our blogs!

About yesterday.

It is wednesday morning here in London and I am writing tuesdays' blog. I do apologize for having not posted this yesterday, but both Lauren and I were exhausted after out day out on the town.

Our group of business students met early yesterday morning to visit a project manager from South Africa that lives in London and works for Visit London. Visit London is a marketing campaign agency that basically markets London. You ask, "What's so hard about marketing London?" In particular, her job is to market prior to the 2012 Olympic Games and as much as 5 years beyond that. She stated that well over fifty percent of revenue that London will receive with regards to the games will come after they have been played. So she tries to get tourist to visit London before the games begin by presenting, "Limited Edition London." LEL is a campaign focused on various attractions that you can only do in London before the games begin. Once the games begin, the exclusive attraction that you can only do before the games will no longer be in operation. Prior to LEL, she launched "Only in London." Only in London featured attractions that you can only find in London. Such attractions as exclusive shopping centers or markets, the famous black cab, or Tower of London attractions, all of which you can do before, during or after the games. It was amazing to me to see how real-life marketing puts the perfect little twist things like this to entice individuals.

We also had a class about fight financial fraud. I don't want to bore you too much with this so I will keep it short. Jonathan Fisher of the Queens Council talked with us about financial fraud in Europe. He told us how much money has been lost and the lack of prosecution against such offenders. In fact one individual laundered of 10 million british pounds and received 4 years in prison. As absurd as that sounds, laws are not written in favor of prosecution for such offenders in Great Britain making it very difficult for them to bring justice to offenders.

We ate a nice Italian restaurant yesterday evening. We split a pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers, and ham. It was wonderful; probably the best dish since I have been here. After that we had dessert at a Belgian Waffle place. They make waffles with toppings. You can get dark chocolate and milk chocolate, with or without cream. Also you can get ice cream or fruit toppings on the waffle. It was also amazing.

i hope you do enjoy and I will be sure to write back this evening.

Short and Sweet

I will try and keep todays blog short and sweet since the last few have been sooo long. I am sure you may be getting tired of reading them. We went to Oxford for the day to visit the Mini Cooper manufacturing plant. We toured the plant and learned how each car was made from start to finish. I will share with you a few facts that I found quite interesting. 1. Every car on the production line has been sold. 2. 900 cars are manufactured in a single day. (22 hours of operation) 3. Lead time for parts entered into the plant for manufacturing run as little as 6 hours and as long as 2 weeks. 4. There are of 50 millions ways to custom design your very own mini cooper. 5. If you visit the plant, you will most likely want one. These machines are manufactured with the highest quality control there is and the employees pride themselves in it.

Before our tour we went to the University of Oxford which is more of a large community of colleges. Each college resides in a different building making the University a large area of beautiful buildings. If you have ever seen Harry Potter, Oxford University is quite similar. The campus is beautiful. Also Oxford is much cleaner and more relaxed than the city of London. There is great shopping in Oxford as well as nice market places that reminded me of my sister. There is a larger bakery in the center of the market that made some very interesting cake designs. We had very little time to explore Oxford so Lauren and I plan on taking a day trip to Oxford or Cambridge in order to spend more time. We hope to tell you more about it.

We accidently stumbled on to what might just be one of the nicest shopping centers that we have visited. Lauren and I heard that Covent Garden was a very nice place. We found a store called Next in Oxford that Lauren really liked and they also have one in Covent Garden so when we got back to London we took a train to Covent Garden. Every store imaginable is in Covent Garden. It really a pretty place that we look forward to visiting again.

Other than that, Lauren and I ate a Wagamama's which is an Asian cuisine restaurant. It was decent food but pricey for the taste. Overall I was ok with restaurant but will probably not go back. The only way I will go back is to get the chili squid which was amazing. It was deep fried squid with chili pepper, garlic and coriander dipping sauce. Can you say seconds please?

London Eye and tour by bus.

Today was a great day up until just a few moments ago. Lauren and I toured the city on top of a double decker bus and saw all of the major monuments of the city. Our tour started at the London Eye and proceeded across Waterloo Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral, London Bridge, London Dungeon, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Shakespeare's Globe, Sherlock Holmes Pub, Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and a slue of other places. We just about saw the entire city of London in two and a half hours time. It was great! We decided to go ahead and do the bus tour so that we would know exactly where we want to visit here in the city of London.

Before all of that, we enjoyed visiting St. Paul's Cathedral for service this morning. The cathedral is absolutely stunning. It sits about a minutes walk from St. Paul's train station and we followed the masses of admirers to the front steps of the church. Although the church is undergoing some construction, the church had Lauren and I awestruck. The church is enormous. The front doors of the church are at least 6 foot wide a piece. I wont even begin to estimate how tall they are. Once you enter the church, you notice that the main body of the cathedral is in the shape of a cross. The entrance face starts from the west side and services are held right at the very intersection of the cross. Unfortunately visitors are not allowed to take pictures once you are inside the church so I will try to describe it to you the best I can. Once you enter the doors of the chapel, vigil candles are available for those who are praying for something in particular. Also, there are monuments on either side of the chapel for people that have dedicated their lives to the church or lost their lives in battle. Each casket has a message written on it with a short story of the individuals life. In the background you can feel the pipes of the organ rattle to your bones before the service begins. After all of the ground level has been soaked in and you find your eyes wondering toward the ceiling, beautiful painting and gold coated flowers stop you in your place. I am glad we were there an hour before the service in order to take in all of St. Paul's Cathedral. To begin the service, the choir walks the middle isle to a hymnal that echos from each corner of the cross and are followed by the deacon, president and the priest. As the choir finds their place on their risers, a young child lifts his angelic voice above the choir around him for his solo part. All through the service in prayer, singing and the sermon, each voice echos through the chapel as if hundreds of people were repeating each word that is said. Even in silence there seemed to be an echo from the song of word spoken before the silence. St. Paul's Cathedral has a reverence beyond any church I have ever been apart of. Anyone who visits London has to attend at least one service at the chapel.

After church we went to Yo! which is a sushi bar directly across the street from the church. Their slogan is, "Not just Sushi." It wasn't just sushi. The entire restaurant is a bar around the center of its' cooks. Each chef prepares a dish on a circular plate that is about 4 inches in diameter. He then places the dish on a conveyor belt that constantly circles the bar. When a dish passes you that you wish to eat, you simply take it off of the conveyor and enjoy it! Each dish is color coded and each color represents the price of the dish. You can have as many dishes as you like and at the end, all your dishes are totaled for your bill. Its almost like a sushi buffet that comes directly to you in your seat!

Today was a fabulous day until just moments ago when the Netherlands lost the world cup with only minutes to go before sudden death. I was at The New Globe pub watching the game with Spain and Netherlands fans. It was an awesome experience even though I was not rooting for Spain. Enjoy it Gilbert, we will be back in 2014!

I hope you have all enjoyed our blog for today. Tomorrow we will be traveling to Oxford for our first day of class. We leave here at 0630. (12:30 am CST) We will be visiting the Mini Cooper plant in Oxford for our first class. I am sure that we will have plenty to write about tomorrow evening. So be sure and check back for an update.

Have a wonderful evening mates!