London Part 4

Day four in London...this is a fun one. We woke up fairly early and made our way to the bus stop. Our plan was to see as much of the city as we could on the big red open air tour busses. We went down Fleet Street, across the Tower Bridge and by Saint Paul's Cathedral, among other things. By 10:15, however, it wasn't looking like we were going to make it to Buckingham Palace in time to see the Changing of the Guards, which I had really wanted to see. So we hopped off the bus and took a tube. The closest tube stop was still a bit of a walk away from the palace for security reasons. You had to walk through a park and then down a road.


London Eye


Fleet Street...


Barber shop on Fleet Street...get it?


Tower Bridge

It was about 10 minutes until the ceremony was supposed to start and we were still walking through the park. My mom told me to run ahead and that the rest of my family would catch up with me. I ran through the park and saw about 14 men in their guards uniforms riding horses. I had the perfect timing to follow them down to the left. I made it in just enough time to see the ceremony. It lasted about 30 minutes and I hadn't seen my parents yet. I waited and waited in the hot sun. This was the one day I decided to wear a tanktop, though I didn't have sunscreen on. I was too preoccupied with being lost to worry about preventing a bur. As a result, I got a pretty bad burn on my shoulders and chest, and a really sweet TOMS tan on my feet. I walked around for about 3 hours before deciding to walk back to the tube and heading back to the hotel. I was SO convince I was at Buckingham Palace but after three ad a half hours, I figured I should do something other than just stand there.


The horses at the ceremony I went to


The Royal Mews, which I was convinced was an unimpressive Buckingham Palace


One of the guards and I

I was pretty freaked out because I was in London by myself with no cell phone and nobody who I could contact. About halfway into the park, I heard somebody yell "There she is!" I looked ahead and saw my family running towards me. They said that they had been looking for me that whole time and didn't see me. I told them I was at Buckingham Palace and they said they never saw me. I though that was odd because I thought I was standing in a pretty obvious position. I told my dad that and asked which direction had gone at the end of the park and I told him left. Wrong answer. As it turns out, I was actually down at the Royal Mews that whole time. I was pretty freaked out with the whole ordeal, but I had to keep moving since it was our last day in London.

Our next stop that day was Abbey Road, where we got pictures as crossed the street in front of traffic. Then we signed the wall. It was pretty neat because there were lots of people there to do the same exact thing as us. After that, we quickly mad our way back to the tube to catch another hour or so on the bus tour. My parents had a tour booked in Notting Hill, so they got off at that stop. Jen and I stayed on until we reached the Paddington Station, where there was a nice selection of places to eat.


The famous crosswalk in front of Abbey Road Studios


Signing the wall


My signature


With the statue of Paddington Bear at Paddington Station

We then took a tube over to Camden, where Jen had planned a cocktail night with some of her friends. We went to this awesome bar that was totally my scene. There were concert posters up all over the place. We each had a couple of cocktails as it was 2-4-1. Then we walked around outside a bit. It was pretty funny because I was acting like my normal crazy self and Jen's friends made a comment about giving the 19 year old alcohol and that I was tipsy or something. I'm not quite sure they believed us when Jen and I told them that that was how I always acted. haha


Cocktail time!


Jen's friends


Camden

Jen heard some people doing an acoustic concert on the balcony of one of the buildings and liked it, so we all went up to the balcony. Somebody asked a guy who was watching them who they were and he told us. He turned out to be the band's videographer. It was an indie band, nothing major. Somehow, word got out that three of the six of us were broadcast journalists and all of the sudden, Jen and her friend Hannah (who is a grade below Jen in the journalism program) ended up doing an interview with the band on Jen's FlipCam. It was all pretty random.

We ended up talking to the videographer guy for a while. He tried hitting on because he liked my accent or something like that. I shut him down when he asked for my facebook info. haha So then we made our way back to the tube station. It took forever to get home as one of the lines was down for maintenance. We did finally make it home quite tired. Jen and I also both got sunburnt as the sun was beating down on us while I was lost. Luckily, I had brought some aloe vera gel, just in case.

Oh, and after all of that, I never got to see Buckingham. Next trip!

Katie

London Part 3

On our third day in London, we really started in on our touristy visits. We spent the morning at the Tower of London, a real castle set right along the Thames River. Its not just one tower but many different buildings all with a lot of history. My mom is awesome and found a two for one coupon, too, so we only paid half-price to get in! The Tower of London houses the Crown Jewels of England, which was our first stop at 9:30 AM or so. They are one of the most popular attractions at the Tower and can be quite backed up. However, as we were there so early in the day, we had no lines whatsoever!

The Crown Jewels are literally inside of a giant vault. When you enter, you enter through a vault door. There are actually several rooms housing the numerous treasures and then you exit through another vault door. Everything was enclosed in glass. They had everything from coronation robes to dishes to scepters. They even had a giant gold bowl that could hold 144 bottles of wine! It was crazy. The big attraction, though, were the crowns. They are set up with a moving sidewalk on either side so you can't really stand in front for too long. They are so cool to see, though, as several of them contain some of the biggest diamonds ever found.

After seeing the jewels, we did a tour with one of the residents of the tower, called a Beefeater. They are the ceremonial guards of the tower, formerly in charge of looking after the prisoners who were held there and such. They now are basically in charge of things like tours. The guy who did our tour was hilarious and we learned all about the history of the tower, which included quite a few beheadings. I am actually supposedly related to Mary, Queen of Scotts, who was held there before her execution.

After the morning at the Tower of London, we made our way by tube to this station that had tons of food. It was a really hot day out and we were all really overheated, so it was nice to relax for a bit with some cold drinks. After that, we made our way over to Westminster Abbey. It was really beautiful in there, and really interesting as well. We all did individual audio tours. One of my favorite areas was the poets corner, where they commemorated all of the authors that were buried there.

My mom and I were going to do a bike tour through London starting at 3:30, but we lost track of Jen in the Abbey. My mom and I tried running for it, but we would have been late, so we just had to skip the tour. So once we found Jen, we all made our way over to Harrods, a giant department store in London. We had dinner from there and then made our way back to the hotel. We hung out in the dining area where there was A/C and power plugs for our laptops.

Overall, it was a really great day to see some cool stuff in London.

London Part 2

Our first full day in London, we split up. My parents went to Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare's home) while Jen and I went on a full day Harry Potter tour! We went all over London and even over to Oxford. Our tour guide, Ryan, picked us up at 9 AM. Our first stop wa the Millennium Bridge, which is in the opening sequence of the Half-Blood Prince. Its the bridge that they show the death eaters destroying. its a really cool looking bride...very modern.


From the movie


From the tour

After that, we went to the two different locations used as the outside of the Leaky Cauldron. They used one location for the first movie and then another location for the rest. We went to Kings Cross again and stopped at the fake Platform 9 3/4 as well as the location that was used in the movie. I had actually walked by the one they used in the movie quite a few times not knowing what it was. The interesting thing about Platform 9 3/4 is that at Kings Cross, there is actually no barrier between platforms 9 and 10. JK Rowling meant to use the train station Euston; however, that station doesn't have a barrier between platforms 9 and 10 either.

Clip from Sorcerers Stone showing Platform 9 3/4



We then made our way up to Oxford, where parts of Hogwarts castle sets were based off of. Oxford is an interesting campus as the university buildings are mixed in with the city. Oxford is made up of many smaller colleges, such as Christ Church. If you attended Oxford, you would consider yourself a student of your specific college, not the university as a whole. The Great Hall in Hogwarts is based off of three different great halls in three different colleges. Unfortunately, we were only able to see one because the other two were closed. We saw the one inside of Christ Church, which was really cool. They have portraits all over the room of different alumni of the school and such. They also have stained glass windows all over the place. If you look close enough at the ones towards the front, you can see figures from Alice in Wonderland in some of the corners.




Alice in Wonderland!

We also went to a room in one of the other colleges that was used as the infirmary in The Sorcerers Stone. Lastly, we went to a courtyard at one school that can easily be recognized from Goblet of Fire. It is the location where Mad Eye Moody turns Mayfoy into a ferret as well as when Harry tells Cedric about the dragons, etc. Just standing in the courtyard, you could tell it was from the movies. It was so cool!





We also were given an our to explore the city a bit. Ryan showed us the pub where the Inklings, a group of authors that included CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, met every week for years. We were actually able to have lunch in the corner where they sat week after week. They had pictures and placards up around the table and people were coming up the whole meal to take photos. CS Lewis is one of my very favorite authors, so it was amazing to see. We were going to go inside the free museum in Oxford that has a lot of Egyptian artifacts, but its closed on Mondays. We did look through the gift shop, but that was it.




Epic picture outside of the museum

Ryan then drove us the hour and a half back to London and dropped us off at our hotel. We were talking to him on the drive home and Jen mentioned that she likes this musician Marcus Foster and that she goes to his gigs a lot. Ironically, Ryan is a musician and just played with Marcus Foster the week before. How crazy is that?! So now Jen is going to one of Ryan's gigs at the end of the month. haha Anyways, after we got back to the hotel, we just chilled and tried to keep cool. And I got McDonalds from the train station.

The end!

Richmond Part 2/London Part 1

Our second day in Richmond, Lyndsey had planned something really special! First, a bit of history. Both my sister and I had a Peter Rabbit themed nursery with many items mail-ordered. Our wall paper was mail ordered all the way from London! I've always loved the Peter Rabbit books and in 6th grade when my class did a living wax museum, I was Beatrix Potter. My mom has wanted to visit the Lake District, where Potter lived, for years but we weren't able to fit it in this trip.

Lyndsey knew how much my mom wanted to head up to the Lake District, and it is only about an hour and a half outside of Richmond. So on Saturday morning, we all headed out! The parents were in one car while Jen and I were with Lynds in her car. I put a patch on for my motion sickness but it unfortunately doesn't work too well on roads and the one we were on was extremely twisty. I laid my chair back and slept, so unfortunately I didn't get to see the English countryside. Jen recorded a lot for me, though so that was nice.

We got to Hilltop, where Beatrix Potter's house and gardens are, and it started pouring rain. (And they call Washington the rainy state?!) We took about a half an hour to look through Beatrix's house. Most items in the house were the original things Beatrix picked out and purchased things herself. The remainder were replicas of the original. Throughout the two story house were copies of her books opened to certain pages. Those pages had illustrations that were based off of the room that they were found in. It was so cool to see after reading the Peter Rabbit books for so long.

From Hilltop, we headed to a town called Bowness. We got some lunch at a little restaurant as it poured rain outside. However, by the time we were done eating, it had stopped raining and was actually quite sunny! We went to a couple of Beatrix Potter stores and then walked down to the waterfront, The crazy thing about the waterfront is the swans that live there. They basically just walk around the sidewalks right near people. Lynds did say that one attacked her when she was little, but it was still wild seeing 8 or so swans just wandering around among the people!

We headed home after that and had a delicious dinner of quiche, potatoes and salad. We had a chocolate log and cheese board for dessert .Unfortunately, we were only able to stay in Richmond two nights so the following morning, we packed up and headed back to the train station.

We went back to Leeds and went to our hotel there, Roomzzz, to get our dirty clothes out of storage. My parents headed to the launder matte while my sister and I went to her apartment and the shopping center. We all met up again and repacked our bags. We had a total of 9 bags for the four of us to take to the airpot. We were going to walk, but the wonderful staff at Roomzzz insisted on paying for two taxis to take us. Seriously, if you ever find yourself in Manchester or Leeds, please stay at Roomzzz. The apartments are so nice and modern, and the staff is incredibly helpful and friendly.

Anyways, we caught a train from Leeds to Kings Cross and made our way to our hotel, the Travelodge at Waterloo. My opinions of the place are gonna be different than the rest of my family, mostly because I can sleep pretty much anywhere under most any condition. So this place just opened in July. It hasn't even been open a month. My mom booked the rooms months ago so we got an amazing deal. We figured that as the hotel was brand new, it would have air conditioning. Well, we found out a couple of weeks ago that the only part of the hotel that had AC was the bar and the dining area. We all got little fans, but they didn't help much.The rooms were rather small and didn't even have a telephone. However, considering I slept great each night and didn't really overheat, I was perfectly content staying there My parents and sister, however , were not.

That night, we ate dinner at the bar. The portions were quite small but my burger was great, in my opinion. My dad's chiken burger came out bout 2/3 the size of the bun...way too small. So my parents walked over to the train station to get some supplemental food haha Meanwhile, Jen and I went to another area of town. We met up with her friend who lives here and drank Starbucks.

Thats about it for now. I'm quite tired and starting to fall asleep in bed. Tomorrow is a big day as we are hading to Versaille. I hvee wanted to see that palace since I was in seventh grade.

Thats all for now, folks! I love and mis you all!

Katie

Richmond Pt. 1

Alright, I'm quite behind on these blogs. I apologize. I haven't had much computer time lately. I might not even get all of my videos edited until I'm back in the states. Last Thursday, we went to Jen's campus and I met one of her instructor people Judith Stamper. She has been Jen's contact at the school since 2007. I've heard loads about her, so it was really cool to finally meet her. We also had lunch at a pub on campus called The Library. Its one of the former libraries on campus that is now a pub and the food is quite delicious! The remainder of the day was spent packing up some of Jen's belongings for us to take back to the states with us.

The next day it was time to check out of our hotel, Roomzzz. We all LOVED it there and they had an amazing staff, so we all knew we'd miss it a lot. They did let us store our luggage there as we'd be stopping back in Leeds in a few days. We headed to the train station that morning and took a train to a station called Northallerton. Some of you may remember Jen's British friend Lyndsey who stayed with us for a week last June. Her family invited us to stay with them at their home in Richmond, so Lynds and her stepdad Andy met us at the train station and drove us to their house.

England has at least two towns called Richmond: a larger one outside of London and this small one in the area of Yorkshire. Richmond, Yorkshire has about 9,000 people who live there. It was cool to be in a tiny town after a week in the big city...it felt kind of like being home! When we arrived at Lyndsey's house, we stayed and chatted with her and Andy for a while before Lynds took us out to show us around town. There is a river that runs through the town and it is rumored that Lewis Carroll wrote part of Alice in Wonderland in the fields at the banks of the river.

Richmond also has a castle that was built in 1071. How crazy is that?! You can pay to look inside but we didn't have enough time so we just walked along the perimeter and the wall and saw all kinds of cool stuff. Its crazy being from Anacortes--which wasn't officially founded until 1891--and seeing these buildings that are almost 1,000 years old. In America, seeing things from the 18th and 19th century is pretty spectacular. In Europe, when I hear that things are from those centuries, it actually sounds new and not as exciting to me.

Anyways, after we walked around the castle, Lynds took us to a cottage where some family friends, Harry and Sally, live. They heard that we were visiting from America and wanted us to experience proper English tea. When we arrived, Sally had just pulled some fresh, homemade scones from the oven. Each of us had scones and tea while we chatted with them about the differences between America and England. The amazing thing about this cottage is that it was about 300 years old and you could tell! After staying in a hotel in a big city, it was cool to be going inside of actual British houses in a little town.

After tea, we walked back to Lyndsey's house. Her mom Jackie had gotten home from work so we got to meet her too. She and Andy had made us a delicious dinner of gammon (ham), oven roasted rosemary potatoes and fresh grilled veggies. Andy also made fresh rhubarb crisp for dessert. It was so nice to have a home cooked meal! Lyndsey had a dinner party with her coworkers so she left just before dinner. After dinner, the rest of us hung out and talked. Jackie's friend Jackie (haha) came over after dinner to meet us.

Around 10, Jen and I met up with Lyndsey at one of the bars in town. One of the fun things about England is that the drinking age is 18, so I'm legal here. If you know me, you know I'm not into drinking and getting drunk and all that. It is pretty fun to go out for cocktails, though. So we went out for a bit and then walked back to her house. We got to bed about midnight and slept a few hours before a fun next day...which I'll blog about soon!

York

Last week on the 14th, my family and I caught a train out of Leeds to a little town called York. Its a really cool little town that has all kinds of ancient buildings and such in it. We wandered around the ruins of an old Catholic church that we believe was destroyed when Henry VIII set himself up as the head of the Anglican church. It was hard to tell what everything was, but it was still really amazing to see!

We then wandered around the shopping area of town and found ourselves eating lunch at the Subway. I normally wouldn't go out of my way to comment on a Subway, but this was seriously THE best one I've been to. The people working there were so friendly. When one of them heard that we had spend the previous day in Liverpool, he got really excited because he was from there. it was just nice to have nice Subway employees since most of them in the states are jerks.

So after lunch, we wandered around a street in town called Little Shambles. Its a narrow street with a cobblestone road. On both sides are old buildings with all kinds of shops. Then we wandered through an old church and made our way up to York Minster, the giant Anglican church in town. We didn't do a tour, but we did get to see part of the inside. It is pretty ridiculous how detailed those old buildings are.

After that, we walked around half of the old wall surrounding the city. it used to be the first line of defense for the city. That was a really cool experience and a cool way to see the city. We caught the train back to Leeds for a quiet evening.

After dinner, my mom and I decided to wander up to the city center. Our Beatles tour guide had mentioned a book and a movie that we wanted to get. We made our way up to the book store. Unfortunately, they didn't have the book in stock. We went to the electronics store and they were closed. Just then, as we were about to head home, it started to rain. We didn't have an umbrella and I didn't have a jacket because it had been nice out the rest of the day. It just kept raining harder and harder and we figured we'd have to brave the rain for our 7 minute walk home. Lets just say that in England, when it rains it pours. We ran through puddles and everything. When we got back to the hotel, we were dripping and soaked. It was like we had just jumped in a swimming pool fully clothed. I thought it was pretty amusing, honestly!

Thats all for now! Hopefully I'll be able to catch you all up on the weekend soon!

Liverpool Videos

As promised, here are my videos from our visit to Liverpool. I hope you enjoy them!

Liverpool!

Wow, so I have been so busy that I haven't been able to keep up with this blog! So I think I updated you all through Jen's graduation. The next day was one that I was very much looking forward to...Liverpool! About three years ago, my mom heard about this guy named Phil who does private Beatles tours in Liverpool. We managed to book him for an afternoon tour and we were very excited.

We woke up fairly earl in the morning and caught a train to Liverpool, getting us there about 11 AM. We wandered down through the shopping area and had lunch (more pasties!) before heading to Albert Dock, a big marina in town. Liverpool was a way larger city than I expected. It had a huge shopping area that seemed to be almost as big as Leeds! Down at Albert Dock, there is a Maritime museum and a Slavery museum. Both are free to get into. As we only had about an hour before our tour, we just wandered around the Maritime museum looking at exhibits on the Titanic, Lucitania and Empress of Ireland. They had all kinds of cool stuff like small scale models of the boats and things like life jackets from the boats. I have some video from the museum that I'll add later.

After a look around the museum, we met up with our guide, Phil. He started out by showing us some of the history of Liverpool, from its involvement in the American Civil War, Slave trade, the World Wars and even the sinking of the Titanic. We then moved onto the Beatles part of the tour. All of that can be seen in the video below. The tour was so cool. We heard all kinds of cool stories about the Beatles and their songs. I am the Walrus makes SO much more sense after the tour. haha Unfortunately, my motion sickness patch wasn't helping me much so I wasn't feeling well about halfway through the tour. I didn't want to end it early because I was enjoying it so much, so I just suffered through.

After the tour, we headed over to a store called the Beatles Story where we met up with Jen and her friend Katie. Jen had some stuff to do in Leeds so she came to town later. The store had everything from shirts to mugs to alarm clocks. I left with a Cavern Club t-shirt, some post cards and deck of cards. After that we went to dinner at a pub right on Albert Dock. My dad ended up in an hour long conversation with somebody there discussing the differences between England and America. He bought us all a round of drinks. It was pretty entertaining.

Right after dinner, we walked over to The Cavern, a little club that the Beatles played at 274 times. There was a guy there doing Beatles covers, so as we descended into the club, we were greeted with Hey Jude. We were down in the Cavern for about an hour. All of us besides my dad signed the wall. It was an amazing little club. My mom and I both said we could have spent another couple of hours in there; unfortunately, it was already quite late and we had a train to catch. We caught the train home and made it back to our hotel close to midnight. It was a pretty anazing day!

Harrogate and Graduation

I'm a couple days behind on blogs right now. I apologize. Its been pretty busy the last few days. On Sunday, we went to a town called Harrogate. Its a short train ride outside of Leeds. They have a shopping area and a cool teahouse called Bettys. We had lunch there and it was delicious! We wandered around Harrogate for a couple of hours and then headed back to Leeds.

That evening, we all went to dinner with Jen's friend Mel and her parents. We had a nice dinner and I even had a cocktail since I'm old enough. haha I had a cosmopolitan. I liked the other drinks I tried better, but it was still pretty good. After dinner Jen, Mel and I went to a couple of bars. We watched the end of the World Cup in one of them and that was really cool. I loved the atmosphere of it. After we left that bar, we went to another one called the Fab Cafe. You can see it in my vlog from that day. It was a really cool bar, though. I hope we have something just as cool in the Seattle area.



The next day, Monday the 12th, Jen graduated from University! Pretty exciting. So we spent our morning and early afternoon at graduation, a reception and a family lunch. If you ever find yourself in Leeds and need a good place to eat, go to the Blackhouse. It was amazing food. My parents and I went to the laundermat that evening. That definitely made me appreciate having a washing machine and dryer at my house! I wasn't feeling well on my way home so I took a nap. I woke up at about 8 PM and met up with my sister and some of her classmates for dinner. I also went to a bar with them for a bit, but I didn't drink anything. It was pretty cool to meet some of Jen's British friends. :)



I'll post another long update hopefully tomorrow! We went to Liverpool yesterday, so I have a lot of fun things to share with you all!

Katie

The Journey to the City and A Day in the City

We left SeaTac early Thursday morning and flew to Boston. When we left Seattle, it was in the 90s and hot. When we got to Boston, it was also in the mid 90s but also humid. Fun stuff. haha We went to dinner at a Chicago pizza place. It was delicious and our waitress had a Boston accent. It was amazing. haha






So the next day, we woke up bright and early...it was 4:50 EST which is 1:50 PST. It was crazy. We went to the airport, went through security, got breakfast and had some computer time before we boarded our plane by 7:30. We flew British Airways and had THE nicest flight attendant ever. I switched seats so that my parents could have more room and ended up with an aisle seat and nobody next to me. That was really nice. There wasn't in-flight wifi for this one, but there were personal TV screens for everyone. I watched TV for a while and then played around on my computer. The flight was, like, 6 1/2 hours but it surprisingly went by quite fast. However, we did loose 5 hours because of time zones, so when we landed, it was already about 7 PM. Again, the temperature was pretty much the same as in Boston...hot and humid!

We went through the UK border and caught the Underground for a 45 minute ride to Kings Cross Station. We were making great time and expecting to catch the 9:30 train to Leeds. About three stops before we were due to get off, they announced that the tube behind us was running behind schedule and that we were going to sit for a few minutes to let them catch up. We got to Kings Cross and ran across the station to our platform only to come up right as they shut the doors. There were a group of us who wanted to get on but they wouldn't let us. We watched it drive away and found out that the next train wouldn't be until 11:30 PM...two hours later. We got some dinner and cooled of from the running.

After eating, my mom and I ventured over to Platform9 3/4, my first Harry Potter stop of the trip. I was pretty excited. We met two different groups of Americans and my mom also made a British friend. You can see him at the end of the video below. We got onto the 11:30 train and it rain ahead of schedule, so we got in about 2 AM. Jen met us at the train station and walked us to our hotel, which is amazing. She and I are sharing a hotel room. We stayed up late catching up and watching hilarious youtube videos. By the time we went to bed, it was already light out.







Yesterday, we woke up about 9 so that I could get onto England time. I honestly only have jetlag in the form of hyperness. I'm staying up until 1 or 2 local time, but if I was home I'd do the same thing. So I woke up and got ready and my family and I walked around Leeds. Apparently, Leeds has the largest shopping area in England outside of London. It was pretty awesome. I looked in lots of stores including my favorite, Urban Outfitters. I bought the British version of the first Harry Potter books as the international versions are something I've decided to start collecting. I had lunch at a place called Greggs. They are a fast food chain here where they serve things called pasties. Pasties are filled with different things like meat, gravy, cheese and veggies. They are delicious.



The hotel we are staying at is set up so that you are basically staying in an apartment. They've got kitchens, Apple computers, dishwashers and laundry machines. Its pretty cool. So my mom made homemade dinner for us that evening. After dinner, my parents and I went for a walk around town while my sister went to her house to pick some stuff up. Again, my sister and I stayed up way too late that night goofing off and having some laughs. The result can be found at the end of my vlog...;)



More to come soon!

Katie

On the plane

So we are currently on our plane to Boston. We woke up early this morning to check out of the hotel and head to the airport. We got some breakfast and I had my first coffee in almost a month! It was delicious. :) We boarded the plane and found out that we got free inflight wifi, which I am really excited about. Its pretty cool to be facebooking from 35,000 feet.

After we took our seats, my dad noticed that a woman a few rows ahead of us looked a lot like the Washington governor, Christine Gregoire. Turns out it was! My mom and I went to the back of the plane and talked to her for a couple of minutes. She was super nice! I may not agree with her politics, but it was still really cool to meet her.




More to come from Boston tonight. Be sure to keep in touch!

Katie

The Night Before

On Tuesday night, July 6th, my friend Hannah had her graduation party. I ran errands all day for the trip and was excited to get to relax for a while and just hang out with friends the night before I left. We ate and talked, jumped on the trampoline and had a bonfire by the Gilmore's pond. It was really awesome. Taylor took some epic pictures the whole night that can be viewed on facebook. Here are some videos from the evening.

The Prior Week

Alright, folks! Here is my blog to document my vacations this summer, particularly my trip to Europe. I do ask that while I am away you keep this blog private. Please don't share it with anyone without asking me first. I would love for you to comment on here and subscribe to my blog. While I am away, I will be posting blogs and vlogs on this page.

Here are two vlogs from the last week. Enjoy!

Katie