Despite the fact that a lot of people told me the flight home would be close to 8 hours, the pilot said before takeoff that it would be 6. We took off late, but we made it up and landed on time. I watched Catfish, Never Let Me Go, and Love and Other Drugs on the flight and had Shepard's pie for dinner. They gave out a ton of snacks and drinks and really took care of us all. I talked to the man sitting next to me, an IT guy going to Boston for a conference. He was really nice, and gave me a lot of good tips about my computer. I had a window seat this time, and I think there was a lot more leg room than on the flight going. The entire flight was a lot more comfortable and passed much more quickly than when I flew to London.

When we landed, I got through security really quickly. The man reminding people to have their customs cards ready had a fantastic Boston accent, and I told him how much I had missed hearing it! My bags came out and I loaded them on a cart. Dad was waiting for me, and we headed out. It was great to see him after 4 months of being away. We went home, and I got to see Trixie again. Then we went to Panera for dinner because I'd been missing that food so much. I went to see grandma, and made her day, when we dropped the car off and walked home with Trixie. I spent the rest of the night unpacking all my things and organizing the next week's plans.

 I'm back in Boston after spending 1 day less than 4 months away. It's so good to be home. I missed everything here so much. I guess I'll have to make a new blog for LA next semester.

Today, I spent some time doing a bit more packing and preparing. It was also Amanda's birthday. We went to get our nails done with her, and I got a pedicure. I got red toes with a Union Jack on my two big toes. It's cute. We all got really intricate details on two fingers. This place was really cool in their ability to do a really huge range of designs. They used nail polish pens and small nail polish brushes to do it. I wish it had been a full pedicure, but even getting just polish like I did was a lot more expensive than at home. It was nice to do something relaxing to celebrate with Amanda though. After that, I tried to get Dad his candies at a shop in Piccadilly Circus, but the store was closed even though the hours on the door said they should have been open.

I went home and relaxed and packed for a few more hours before it was time to go to Camden Town for Amanda's birthday dinner. We went to Gilgamesh, an Asian restaurant. I got chicken croquette and miso soup. It was really really good, and the restaurant was so cool. They had intricate wood carvings everywhere, and cool lights all around. We sat at a booth that was above the other tables, so we felt pretty cool up there. We had a great time, and we got Amanda a dessert with "Happy Birthday" written on it. It was a fantastic dinner. After that, we headed to Dirty Martini to get martinis before heading home. We each got a martini. Mine was Apple and Kiwi. You couldn't even taste the vodka in it, and I really enjoyed it. We toasted to our last night and to Amanda and took a lot of pictures. It was really a fantastic and relaxing last night.

My final words on the London blog:
It has been a great semester. I've done everything I wanted to and more. I wouldn't change a thing or give my experiences back for anything. My favorite trip was the Highlands, but Paris and Italy were also fantastic. I learned to be more independent to the point of cooking for myself, booking all my travel arrangements, and traveling alone once. I can't believe it's been 4 months already. It seems like it went by so fast. I am so glad I got to have the experience of studying abroad. It has opened my mind to so many new things. I got history lessons and experienced a variety of cultures first hand.I loved it here, but I'm ready to go home to Boston and see my friends and family again.

Friday night was the end of term party at Doggett's pub on south bank. There was sooo not enough food to feed that many starving teenagers, but the pub was nice, and I got a strawberry/lime cider, which was great! It was a nice but sort of sad night. For a lot of us, it was the last time we'd be seeing each other. I said goodbye to Claire and Sarah. We watched a slide show of everyone's pictures from the semester, and the ICLC staff gave our raffle prizes. I got two canvas bags and a CD. All the work study kids were given chocolate hobnobs and a bag with the ICLC gates on it. My superlative was, "most likely to meet Doctor Who." And Bill signed it, "Doctor Who is not a part of British Youth Culture." He teaches that class, and I've been trying in vain to get him to watch it all semester. It was really funny, and nice of them to think about us. It was a really great time overall. Afterwards, Jess, Katie, Kaitlin, Michele, and I went to a pub to get one last drink for the night.

Today, or I guess yesterday considering when I'm writing this, I went to the V&A and Science Museums by myself. I really enjoyed everything at the V&A. They had a whole range of paintings, artifacts, furniture, and anything else you could want from every century and everywhere, sort of similar to the British Museum in a way. The Science Museum was fun, pretty interactive. I'm partial to the Boston Science Museum, but this one had some good exhibits too. There was one that was interactive games about development and the workings of your brain. I took one that tested my memory and another that with a quiz to see whether you think like a woman or a man. Both genders think similarly, but men are better at some types of thinking and women at others, so that was pretty interesting. I got all the female ones right, but none of the males, so I guess it really works. Another exhibit was an art installation. It takes words and phrases from live chats online and a computer filters them to put them together.  There are about 200 little screens that display the words scrolling while a computer reads them and soft music plays. You can hear a typing noise in the background. It was really interesting, and I'm not really doing it justice describing it here, but I could have watched it for hours.

I had to go home at 3 to get our deposit back from our landlord, William, and then Katie, Kaitlin, and I headed out to Bill's house. I brought his wife a candle and some hand lotion. We met up with Giana, Liz, and Jason, who were also going because I shared my prize with Jason. It was a really fun evening. Bill met us at the bus stop and took us around a cemetery right near where he lives. Apparently, it's a North American thing to have manicured cemeteries because many of the ones in Europe are overgrown. This one was really really cool because all the vines were growing over the graves and the grass was really long. The pathways were narrow, and all the stones were very old. They had to built 7 new cemeteries in London at the start of the 20th century due to cholera and other diseases. It was gorgeous there. We then went to Bill's for an amazing dinner, which actually made my stomach feel like it was going to explode because I was so full. We started with olives, bread sticks, dips, and white wine with other alcoholic flavorings added in. I had black currant. Then we had a vegetable and couscous starter. It was so nice to have fresh fruit and vegetables for once! The things I'm typically too cheap to buy. As a meal, there was a chicken, onion, sherry, and garlic dish that was really good, or there was also a vegetarian dish of quiche which was also really good. For dessert, we had a plum cake and a fruit and jello mixture, also very good. Bill's wife, Lynne, is a great chef. I'm going to miss Bill. He's been a fantastic program director.  It was a wonderful night of good food and conversation.

Last day is tomorrow, and it's my roommate, Amanda's birthday, so we are going to get our nail's done and then taking her out to Chinese dinner.

Yesterday, I spent ALL DAY writing my final paper for contemporary British fiction. Is it the best paper I've ever written? No. But it got done. I am officially done with this year, so I'm a senior!!! Also, I'm almost fully packed to go home on Monday afternoon!!!

I got such bad cabin fever after all that work, and I went with Katie to a Mexican restaurant for margaritas and pina coladas for Cinqo di Mayo (no idea how to spell that).

After that, it was time to go to the pub with all the flatmates, except Katie who had a paper to write, because it was the last music night that we'll all be able to go to in London :( . I'm actually really going to miss listening to Seb and Tim perform. It's a tradition we've held since we first arrived in London. We were all having a great night until some older woman with short hair tried to get us to dance. A lot of people were dancing, and I probably would have if it were not for the fact that we had to keep our seats and watch our bags. She was completely pushy and wouldn't leave us alone at all! She kept trying to actually physically take us from our seats. We kept telling her to no, and she called us boring American girls, and we were like, well that was rude. Kaitlin came in at that point, and the woman refused to stop asking us to dance. Kaitlin politely said, "We are kindly asking you to leave us alone." To which the woman responded, "your country is a piece of shit," and proceeded to flip Kaitlin off. It was like really! Come on. Kaitlin then leaped out of her seat, I retrained her or she actually would have punched the woman in the face. She had to take a break outside for a little while before coming back in for the rest of the set. The woman was way over the top, we just wanted to have a fun night where we sing and dance at our seats together, but obviously she was too rude to let that happen. Whatever, we got over it. At the end of the set, we took some nice pictures with the band, and Seb gave me his card, so I could facebook friend him. It was a really nice evening, and we were able to say our goodbyes to the band and the pub.

Afterwards, we spent a few hours dancing at Beluschi's, and I had to get home for some sleep for work at 9am. Tonight is the end of term event at Doggett's pub!

I took my last final exam today, and I think it went well. It was in European Mass Media, and we had to write a response to two questions after watching a short documentary. From what I gather, everyone basically wrote the same things, so I should be alright with that. I turned in my internship journal and final project as well.

After the final, I went home for a few hours and watched some shows, relaxed, and packed up a bit. I have two days to write a 3000 word essay for fiction that I'm really not looking forward to doing, but I don't have my internship tomorrow, so I have all day to do it. I just needed a break, these last few weeks have been a little stressful.

Kaitlin and I headed out to eat dinner with our Drama class at our professor's house. Munmun is a really wonderful woman. She's taken us to see some excellent plays this semester, and the discussion in her class is always lively and engaging. She has so many interesting things to teach, and you can really tell how much she enjoys teaching our class particularly. We spent a long time talking about what we liked and disliked about each of the plays, and we had an amazing Indian dinner. Munmun doesn't cook spicy food (checked with her in advance). We had a chicken dish that tasted really cinnamon-y and was delicious. There was a mango chutney and rice, a potato dish, and a mushy (I think) leek dish. All the food was really really great, who knew I liked some Indian food. We talked some more, took some class photos, and then had cake (chocolate and vanilla with jam and cream inside). It was a really great night and a nice end to the semester. Munmun actually cried when we were leaving. She's such a caring woman, and I know she meant it when she said we were the best class she's ever taught. Honestly, I had the best experience in this class. It was never overwhelming in the amount of work we had, and I got so much value for my money based on the amount of plays we saw, speakers we had, and things we did in London. It was wonderful, and I'm so glad I had Munmun as a professor.

I forgot to mention that last Thursday was the last day of my internship. I got everyone cookies and fruit, which I hope they liked. They got me a cake, in conjunction with someone's birthday, which I thought was nice of them. It has been a really nice experience working with all of them because they are all such nice people at Prospect.

I didn't have much to do at the internship for the day, but I was able to finish my internship final project, detailing the steps of getting from an idea to an actual television show. I felt productive. I did stay an hour extra to help Nick at reception stuff envelopes!

After work, Mum and I met up to go to Prince Alfred's for music night! We had a fish and chips meal, and I further introduced Mum to cider, which she now loves just like I do. My two favorite guys were playing, and Mum thought they were really good too. She thought the guitar player was fantastic. It was a great night, and the music was almost over when a group of three really drunk people walked into the pub. The girl in the group proceeded to "sing" (in the loosest possible terms) behind me, but it was more like screeching in my ear! One of the guys in the group, wearing sunglasses in the pub and obviously on something, walked all the way up to basically on stage with the guys as they were singing. They were like "um, can we help you?" He proceeded to stare at me for a solid minute and then swayed to the music while I watched to make sure he wasn't going to spill his drink all over me. He went back to his group who then began using our table as their own, which was fine because we weren't using it. The other guy put his drink down, and we knew we were in for it. Not 3 minutes later, one of them spilled the beer all over Mum! She immediately got up, grabbed things, and walked out. I didn't see where she had gone because I was too busy yelling profanities at him because he didn't even apologize for doing it! All he could say was, "I put my drink down on the table." I responded with, "I know you put your drink down, you also knocked it all over her!" As I was yelling, the girl who had been screeching in my ear decided to continue screeching whilst waving her hand in front of my face. I saw Mum outside, shoved the girl to the side, and went outside with her. I was pissed! We went back so Mum could change and immediately went back to the pub. I was still mad, but I felt terrible for yelling during the show. We went back to apologize to the musicians, and the guitar player said he was so sorry that it had happened. He said he was going to get them kicked out if we had stayed,and it was terrible because we'd been having a good night until then. He was really nice to us about it, but I apologized for yelling during the song, and he had overheard the lack of apology from the guy who knocked over the drink, so he said he completely understood why I had yelled.  People who are in that state should never go to pubs. They just aren't that kind of scene. Anyway, it was a good day and most of a good night, and I'm glad Mum got to meet and see my two favorite musicians this semester and the guys I look forward to seeing Sunday and Thursdays at the pub. They know me by now, and I asked them if they would be there this Thursday, as it will be my last music night in London, and they said they definitely would. I'll have a last Prince Alfred's hoorah on Thursday night! Bitter sweet.

We got up early to go see the changing of the guards, and luckily got a great seat by the Victoria Memorial- some French people were pushing us. Apparently they think children deserve front row seats- that's why no one likes the French- they have no sense of perspective. I deserved those seats based on my extensive ten yrs over those children. (DISCLAIMER: THE PREVIOUS SECTION WAS BASED ON KATIE'S LOOSE INTERPRETATION OF MY DICTATIONS WHILST COOKING)
So anyway, we watched the whole changing of the guards with the marching band and all. At one point, we walked across the road to stand by the gates to get a view into Buckingham Palace's courtyard where the rest of the ceremony occurred. Malcolm, a man who used to be a palace guard in the Scottish Infantry, was there, and Mum went up to listen to his explanations to other tourists. He was a proper professor on the subject. The first time he laid eyes on me, he teased me saying that I must be Scottish because I have pale, white skin. Most times I only recognize Abbi based off the blinding white halo around her as she reflects the sun. (AGAIN THAT LAST SENTENCE WAS KATIE!) After the ceremony was over, Malcolm walked us down to the Guards Museum and Chapel for a bit more of a history lesson. He was really sweet, apologizing for taking up our time. He likes meeting new people from other places, so he had a group of about 6 of us from a bunch of different places. He was really informative, taking us around the museum, getting us in for free, and teaching us about all the uniforms. He was a really nice man, and it was cool that we got to meet him and learn a few things we might otherwise not have.

After our interlude with Malcolm, we went to the Royal Mews where all the stately cars, coaches, and horses are kept. A mews used to be a falconry, but when the Kings and Queens began keeping their horses there, the name remained. The Mews used to be at Charing Cross, but was moved in the 1800s. There are people who live there 24/7 to care for the horses and tack. We got a whole audio tour with our tickets and walked through all the coach houses. We got to see coaches the Golden Coach that has been used in all the coronations since it was built. Apparently, it's a really bumpy and uncomfortable ride. We saw coaches commissioned by Scotland and Australia. The Rolls Royces and Bentley the Queen uses were not there when we went, probably because they were used at the wedding the other day. We saw a few of the horses that were there. Only two breeds of horses that are used at the mews, Windsor Greys and Cleveland Bays, the only British breed of carriage horse.  All the horse stalls have the horse's name above the door, and each horse is named by the Queen herself.

Mum went to the British Museum for the last hour before it closed to see the highlights and then to Harrods, also right before it closed, where they have closing day deals of 2 for 1! While she did that, I worked on my essay back at home. I tried to make baked mac n' cheese, but ended up with a dough, so I had to wait until Mum got home to help sort it out. Then the Teflon in the pan she was using to make the sauce for the mac n' cheese was scrapping off, so we had to go to the store to get more stuff and make it for a third time. This time was successful though!

Another final note, I discovered I actually might have allergies to some of the trees here. They shed some sort of fluffy crap that blows around in the strong wind and gets in my eyes and makes me sneeze. Mum and I are both the same way, and I think we say some people at the changing of the guards affected by it too. So strange. 

We had another really fun day, and Mum's last day in London. But that's alright, I'll see her in a week anyway! Home so soon!

On Sunday, Mum and I went to Camden Markets. I had been to some of the London markets before, but I had heard good things about this one and never been. It was huge and mobbed! They had markets all the way stretching down the street. Some were clothes, I got a nice pretty new dress, and others were food and crafts. We spent the better part of the day walking around there, looking at all the shops. I got a leather and beaded bracelet and a London sweatshirt, both of which I love! One market was built on a canal, and the seats that people could eat at along the water were the back halves of motor cycles. Another of the markets was built into an old stable area, so each stall was a booth for a craft person. That was Mum's favorite section. The architecture was really cool, and there were statues of horses and farriers around the place. It was a really great market, and we both enjoyed ourselves.




After the market, we came home and relaxed before heading out to our 6:30pm showing of All's Well That Ends Well at the Globe Theatre. It was not as lavish a theatre as what Mum was picturing, but still cool that it was outside in the open air with a thatched room. We had seats and we bought cushions, and the show wasn't sold out, so as it started we moved to a better viewing position. The pigeons kept almost attacking the people who were in the standing room at the center. I thought the play was good, and we did a good job understanding it even though we had never seen or read this Shakespeare play before. It was definitely important to have the experience of going to the Globe before I left here. It was a great time.

On Saturday, Mum and I got up early and just beat the crowds at the Cadbury Factory. It was about an hour and a half by train and a short walk from the Bourneville station to get there. They give you a total of 4 candy bars as you travel throughout the factory. You start off with a story about Hernan Cortes stealing cocoa from the Mayans. Chocolate then went from Spain to France and then to England. Back then it was just something that they drank. Cadbury was started by a man named J. Cadbury who was a Quaker. Because of his religion, he couldn't drink alcohol or be in the army. Therefore, many Quakers then were involved in trade businesses, and chocolate was seen as an alternative to alcohol, something wholesome to eat/drink. He had a tea, coffee, and chocolate shop that soon became the Cadbury factory. His sons perfected the recipe for the chocolate, expanded the factory, and introduced significantly advanced employee benefits. Bourneville, where the factory is located, is basically built by Cadbury. The boys decided to put playing fields and homes around the factory as well as transportation to allow their employees to get to work and live in more a more comfortable environment. Also, employees were given vacation time and benefits similar to modern day, but this was really the first time employees at any job were given anything on this scale.

After going through all the history, we saw the packaging department and the decorating area for some of the specialty chocolate. We also got to take a ride on a little car through coca bean land. It was like the it's a small world after all ride at Disney world! It was for little kids and a little creepy, but whatever, all part of the experience. Then we went out to the Essence exhibit where they give you a cup of liquid chocolate, and you can choose what you want to mix in. We got a ton of candy at the shop, which had everything you could ever want. I took a picture with chuckles the coco bean.

We waited around for a bit, looking around Bourneville before we got on the train to Birmingham where we had to wait for an hour before getting our train back to London. It was a really fun day, and I'm glad I got to go there.