#update: my cousins actually took me yesterday it was soooo good

[la-llama-sims]

𝟛𝟙 𝔻𝕒𝕪𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝔹𝕒𝕣𝕓𝕚𝕖- 𝕄𝕪𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕪 𝕊𝕡𝕪

This Barbie is on a mission to steal your heart and look good while doing it!

[canaryatlaw]

Sigh. I didn't *mean* to stay up this late....although I never really mean to stay up till 4:30 am. Ugh. My room is currently filled with various flies and other bugs which is very irritating so we're gonna have to deal with finding how that's happening tomorrow. But today. The last 24 hours have been pretty nuts and intense, for some reasons I'll share and some I'm going to keep to myself. I could NOT fall asleep last night, and kept tossing and turning because I was sure I took my meds, only when I finally went to take another melatonin around 5 am I discovered I took the meds from the wrong fucking day, which did not include the Xanax I'm now apparently dependent on to fall asleep (and that's fucking wonderful). Even from there it still took a while, I think I finally passed out shortly before 7. Luckily I got to sleep until like 11, so that's something at least. Everyone was pretty much waiting on me so I got ready quickly and threw my stuff together, since we were gonna go to the "downtown" section of the town my cousins live in and go to the airport from there. So we head down there and end up having lunch at this cute little brewery place, I got a kind of curious burger that had shrimp on it but was really good! I appreciated that in the women's bathroom stalls they had a specific note about if you're date isn't going well or you're uncomfortable with who you're with for any reason, go to the bar and order an angel shot and they'll get you out of there safely. That has been floating around the Internet of course, but I very much appreciated them putting it there as I'm sure there are many who don't know. From there we went to some of the little shops and mostly just browsed, looking at the touristy t-shirts and such. I wanted to get a pirate themed sign that says "wenches" for my sister and I to hang out our door but my mom was dead set against it and wouldn't let me 😂 lol. There was one store that had a bunch of funny things and I ended up getting two bumper stickers and two magnets from there, the bumper stickers say "well behaved women rarely make history" which I gave to my sister, and the other says something along the lines of "those who say it can't be need to stop getting in the way of those who are doing it." I couldn't resist the magnets because I knew my roommate would appreciate them, one of them says "Jesus would kick the shit out of you" which is great because that's how I feel about many people who call themselves Christians and then do terrible things to people, and the other has a picture of Trump and it says "days without being a national embarrassment: 0" and I just couldn't resist. From there we made a final stop at a coffee place and then headed to the airport. We said our goodbyes and got through to the gate extremely quickly because the airport is ridiculously tiny, it's literally one hallway with like, 8 gates total lol. Earlier when we were driving my aunt had asked if I was planning on staying in Chicago after law school, and since I made up my mind yesterday that I won't be I said no, and of course my mother was like "this is the first time I'm hearing this" and I was like "yeah well that's because I made the decision yesterday" 😂 lol. But while we were waiting at the gate I mentioned I would really miss my church in Chi more than anything, and she was saying how there are plenty of good ones and I started voicing my objections with many churches which then led to a bit of a political fight and me getting frustrated because she like just doesn't pay attention to anything that's going on and thinks everything is sunshine and rainbows with Trump and I'm just like UGH. But whatever. I'll probably send her news updates now 😂 though idk of she'll read them. Oh well. Got on the plane, and I spend probably a solid half hour defeating the "hard" sudoku puzzle in the back of the airline magazine. I'm out of practice, or it would've been shorter lol but I was still proud of myself for getting it done because there were a few times I thought I was gonna be stumped but I got creative. After that I started a long CC fanfic that had been on my marked for later list but I REALLY wanted to start reading it and it's soooo good so far I just want to read it all the time lol. So I got like 30 pages into that (out of 120) before we landed. Got our bags, then had to take a shuttle to another lot where they were making the cars wait which was irritating, but I guess it's better than the mess it was trying to get through beforehand. Drove home, and are Chinese food with the family. I felt randomly inspired to kick around a soccer ball after, but the soccer ball I had last year had since disappeared, so I ventured into the basement to see if there were any in there. I found 4, two were deflated and two had something else wrong with them that they were like, rock hard, and I swear one of them I bought when I was like six. But I took those two up and tried to play with them, but they did not function as actual soccer balls so I'm gonna have to make a trip to a sports store at some point to remedy that situation. I went back inside after that and decided to watch a movie with my sister, I said she could pick and she chose "the space between us" (I think that's what it's called? Something like that) which I hadn't heard of but was pretty cute, as per usual we only got like halfway through before my sister bailed because she apparently has a very short movie attention span (sigh). We'll finish it tomorrow. I stayed in the back on my laptop for a little bit before joining my dad and brothers in the den, where they were watching an episode of house of cards, which I haven't seen any of but of course recognized Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright from their appearances at the Tonys the other night. After that my brothers bailed, and my dad went to watch where he was up to in season 2 of Supergirl, episode 7. We're watching and they have the scene where Maggie is talking to Alex about still being friends after she initially turned Alex down, and I went to needle my dad about it like "oh aren't you just so mad to see them shoving their gay agenda down your throats???" (totally sarcastic obviously) which then led to a political debate which was endlessly frustrating, but it eventually gave way to a really good conversation about the future and such, and I told him about my decision not to stay in Chi post school and of course he was thrilled, though I made no promises that I'd be returning here the goal is still the job in NYC. I did happen to stumble upon another nonprofit law firm I'd be interested in working for today, except this one is based in California (not an improvement from Chicago). They focus on more than just foster care for broader youth issues including juvenile justice reform, which is definitely something I could get behind. But I really don't want to have to take the California bar exam (you probably don't know this, but it's by FAR the hardest of all the state bars, and the last passing rate was like 49% which is ridiculously low) or really be that far away from everyone when the goal was really to be closer. But I mean, we'll see. Of course my dad immediately starting making his pitch for all the things he has going on here that could draw me back, and I'll admit he did make a compelling case in several aspects. I said that if I did end up out in this general area of Long Island (in a temporary position at least, probably for the government in some capacity) I do not think it would be good for my mental health to move back into this house, which he seemed to understand but said you know we'll deal with that when we get there, so *shrug* I guess we'll see how that works. It's a lot more inconvenient to want such things when you're still asking your parents to finance it because you don't have any money since you're a full time student. But anyway. I also told him something I've been musing on lately, just because it seems like I've been seeing an influx of stories of abuse against children (which it's possible is entirely due to one or two Facebook groups I'm in, but still), especially child deaths, and it's made me want to work as a prosecutor for a crimes against children unit. It's hardly the first time I've considered the idea, I've always said that is the only way I would consider being a prosecutor. But it would be another option at least. But yeah, it was a really good convo and it reminded me why I do love my dad so much, even when his political views frustrate me to no end and I don't think I can ever forgive him for voting for Trump (sigh). But yeah, that's it and it's 5 am now so I REALLY need to get to bed. Goodnight my darlings. I hope you get more sleep than I do.

[travelsofablonde]

Going, Going, Gone!

Hey guys! I'm a little behind on blogging, sorry! The thing is, we are CONSTANTLY going over here. The first day it was walking to the grocery store and the immediate area around the dorms to acclimate ourselves. The 2nd day it was a full day walking tour of the city and important historical locations (the entire city is important as a historical location). The third day it was getting up super early to walk to the train station (20 minute walk), catch the train to Liverpool (no wifi on train and barely any A/C and squished in there), and touring 2-3 museums in Liverpool, (seeing my awesome cousin!) and then getting back in time to grab dinner and buy one of the girls a birthday drink for her 21st (we literally all did this as a group and took over a pub). Then there was today, which will be the main topic of this blog entry!

Today was our 4th day in country. And let me just preface all of this by saying that I am having a BLAST. The food here tastes better (to me), the air is soooo clean and fresh, the rain is relaxing and refreshing, the sights are beyond words. It's so incredibly beautiful here and the people are all so kind and helpful. BUT. Today was kind of a cluster fuck.

So we get up early today and get ready to head to the train station again to catch a train to London. No big deal, perfectly normal, we pretty much do something similar to this EVERY DAY. Well for some reason I couldn't be on time today even though I woke up even earlier than I have every other day of this trip. I manage to make it to the dorm lobby with like 1 minute to spare and just as my professor and the rest of our group is ready to head to the train station together (we can go alone if we know the way but I wasn't quite comfortable with the directions yet so I chose to go w/ the group).

We get to the train station and me and my friend Ray (Rayanna) decide we desperately need breakfast and coffee because my baby granola bar definitely wasn't cutting it (I had a whole box but I ate it already and only had the one left). Well by the time we get our food and coffee our train is already boarded and we have less than 5 minutes to get to our platform and find a seat. So we race up the platform entry stairs, across a bridge, down the secondary platform stairs and on to our train. Here, we are met by the veerrryyy disapproving stare of Dr. Mann, one of our History professors. He's happy we made it but now he has to follow us through the various train cars while we hunt for an available seat! Well every single seat (a table with 2 seats on each side) is either full or someone has placed a full suitcase/luggage set in one of the 2 seats and is unwilling to move it. We FINALLY find a seat in train car D and our professor deposits us with great annoyance as he makes his way back to his car. You'd think that'd be it, no more issues, we've boarded the train all is well! Nope!

So Ray and myself are safely seated with two quiet but, I'm sure, very nice ladies and we're preparing to take notes or read or sleep or whatever for the duration of our 2-3 hour train ride. Well one stop in and both of these ladies are needing to get off of the train which means me and Ray both have to get up to let them out. Realizing that if we get sat with new people at any of the train stops this will get quite annoying we decide to take-up one side of the table and sit side by side. As we begin making this transition the train lurches a bit on the tracks and Ray's coffee spills all over the table AND HER BRIT RAIL TRAIN PASS. Why is this a problem you ask? Well not only is it the pass for our train rides for the entire duration of the trip but you CAN'T. GET. IT. WET. Shit.

So immediately whip off my plaid cover shirt and start trying to dry it and Ray and I can't help but laugh about this annoying sequence of events. And of course, being the smartasses that we are, we decide we should post about it in the class group me and tag Dr. Mann. That brief discussion is as follows:

Ray: "Oh and what happens if you spill coffee on your train pass? Asking for a friend"

Dr. Mann: "As I said yesterday, it's your most valuable piece of paper, keep it dry and secure."

Ray: "It's still legible, just has a vintage tea stain look"

**at this point a ticket master comes by to check our tickets and we show Ray's ticket to him and ask if it's ok-he says it should be since we didn't smudge the dates too bad**

Me: "The train guy said it's still good!"

The rest of the train ride was uneventful thankfully! When we arrive in London things are already hectic. There are people EVERYWHERE and it's loud inside the train station. We make our way inside to a coffee shop so everyone can take a bathroom break and we can get our OYSTER cards which we need to get on the tube in London. (The Tube is the underground rail line). Then we go to the tube station directly next door which is even more crowded and start the long descent down towards the platforms. On the way we have to stop and wait in the worlds longest but fastest line to load money onto our OYSTER cards to pay for our tube ride for the day. This is just annoying and only some of the kiosks took card payments so if we didn't have local currency we had to stand in another line to use the ones for card payments. I had just enough local notes (cash) on me to cover the cost and was done pretty quickly.

When we got down to our tube platform the train was already half loaded so we had to rush on and basically squeeze into two cars like sardines so none of us would be left behind. At first this wasn't really an issue with me, I've ridden the express trains around Austin and squeezing in has never been a problem other than it gets really warm. Well... the trains in Austin are above ground where you can see outside. The tube is all underground. There is no outside. You are literally sandwiched into a metal tube speeding on a tiny track in a dark, dank, hot underground tunnel. I FLIPPED OUT. SILENTLY. Basically I got insanely claustrophobic within like 0.5 seconds of the train moving because I had no air and no space and could see nothing but blackness as we (loudly) hurtled forward! I was able to sit down after the first stop (It took everything I had not to jump off at that stop, the trip be damned) and that helped a little as there was a small air bubble of cold air blowing near my seat. That's about it. I had to keep my eyes closed, grip the hand rail, control my breathing and try not to cry because I felt like I was trapped in a box in the ground. It was the worst part of the trip so far. I stayed super quiet during this entire ordeal because I really didn't want to bring attention to myself or my mini freak out. I didn't want to be THAT person. However, my friend Ray and my Museum Studies professor, Dr. Denton, both noticed me not joining the conversation and squeezing my eyes shut. They both calmly and quietly moved over to me and asked if I was ok, to which I explained that I was but this was too tight and confining a space and I just wasn't enjoying it at all. They both understood and (God Bless Her) Dr. Denton stayed near me and quietly kept me updated of how many more stops we had to go. She did this so that I would know we weren't stuck in a box in the ground and so I'd know we'd be in an open, brightly lit space soon.

Luckily this was a short-ish ride and as soon as our tube stopped I was the first person onto the platform.. honestly at that point I was so relieved to have some kind of space and air to breathe and some actual light that I let the tears fall but only a couple of them before sucking it up and calming down so we could get moving to the museum. Dr. Mann checked on me, I assured him I was good, I just needed space for a second. That was done thank god! Dr. Mann assured me the next train was above ground and much less crowded and I happily boarded it. We arrived at the London Docklands Museum and proceeded into the free Hidden Rivers Exhibit which was very awesome. They had very light blue transparent screens erected on wooden casings which separated the different portions of the overall exhibit and I found the entire thing extremely moving. It started with prehistoric tribes, moved well into the 19th century and the industrial revolution and cholera outbreaks and ended with modern times and future plans for the hidden rivers of London.

After this we roamed the other exhibits in the museum.. all interesting but not quite enough to inspire me for my upcoming Museum paper and not as impressive as yesterdays trip to the Liverpool Museum (I know I haven't written about that.. I probably will later but there's not a lot to tell unless you're into history exhibits and museum logistics). After we all finished walking the museum we met up in the cafe where Dr. Mann asked all of us if we wanted to take a walk to the Tower of London and London Bridge. Well at this point it's almost 3 pm and we all have to walk back to the train station, catch the train back to Chester, and wash clothes and pack to leave for a 7 day trip to Scotland tomorrow! So obviously half the people want to go be tourists and go to the Tower and the Bridge.. (Why! We're literally going there officially on the 29th!) THANKFULLY Dr. Mann heard me protesting about time and laundry and packing and made an executive feudal overlord decision (we call him feudal overlord and Henry VIII) and decided we should all just go back to Chester instead. FINALLY A FREAKING WIN!

We make our way back, the tube ride was a little better this time around as it wasn't as crowded and Ray kept me updated on how many stops we had this time around and I just got through it with minimal panic. We boarded our train to Chester and .... No 4 seaters.. just tiny 2 seaters... WTF. Fine. Me and Ray squeeze into one and get comfy... well... now there's a 20 minute delay... WTF. FINE. Finally we get moving at around 3:20. I slept for most of the train ride, I was EXHAUSTED.. honestly everyone was. It was quite a bit of walking the past 4 days. We arrive in Chester around 5.. and a bunch of us head to the Tesco (grocery store) to get supplies and then split up for dinner. The Tesco was fine except for one of the girls had a payment issue, no big deal and not anything that effected me. Well then we get to the pub for dinner.. i'm expecting pub food (think shepherd's pie) NOPE! It's all fish and chips or American type food. NOT. WHAT. I. WANT. I'm in England.. I want English food. So I give in and order a burger which ended up being good but it was supposed to be 5 pounds and ended up being 8. No idea why. I also asked for a Coke (I could see the glass bottles behind the bar in the fridge) and the bartender said they were out and gave me Pepsi. At this point I'm just too hungry to be upset and eat my food and let it go. Then we begin the trek back to the dorms to gather our clothes and go do laundry. Oh man.. this is where it gets good.

Ray and I are sharing a laundry card and soap and decide to go together to the laundry facility. Now, let me explain laundry real fast. You get laundry cards, that you have to load with money online, and then you scan them into the washer or dryer you're using and it charges you for the type of wash or dry you do. BUT in order to get a good wash and actually get all the soap rinsed off of your clothes and get them any where near dry (because Uni washers and dyers suck) you have to choose the most expensive wash type which is 3 pounds 40 (think $5 in the US). And a dry is 1 pound 40 (think 3 dollars US).

So me and Ray get everything loaded and start the walk to the main campus to go do laundry.. well it's drizzling. At first this isn't a big deal but literally 30 seconds into the walk it's pouring rain and we're both getting soaked and neither one of us brought anything to keep the rain off because well we just weren't thinking. So by the time we get all the way onto campus and into the laundry room we are dripping and just so over the day.. then we try to get the laundry card loaded. Well the website won't work so we have to buy a whole new card for 20 pounds.. and we end up spending 19 pounds between us just washing clothes and Ray's clothes are still COVERED in soap and completely drenched as if they didn't even get a rinse or spin cycle. One of my loads is completely drenched.. just whyyyyy. So we combine our clothes to dry them and drop another 5 pounds on a new card and just hope that the dryer doesn't screw us...

That brings us to now. I'm still sitting here... in the laundry room.. with Ray.. Dr. Denton has joined us and they are engaged in a very interesting discussion about the slavery exhibits we say over the past two days... it's stopped raining and there's not even a cloud in the sky..

I'm hoping that's the end of today's calamities and that tomorrow will be better. It's been the only bad day i've had so far. It hasn't changed my opinion of England or this trip at all, it's just been a bad day. I'm very tired and ready for sleep and I know I'll definitely get plenty on the train tomorrow as it's a 6 hour train ride into Edinburgh!

I promise to do a much more positive post next time! And I couldn't get my photos to load so I'm still working on that If you haven't already, I recommend you follow my Instagram or my Facebook as I'm putting photos there as well!

Well... back to laundry and museum discussions!

-Chey