"When you have eliminated the impossible, however improbable must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

I arrived in London and immediately felt lonely. I think its because I had such a good time in Dublin and was with a friend and I won't see someone else I know for a week. My friend Jessica thinks because I felt so comfortable being in Dublin and with Kevin that I felt like I was home. In her words "Good people make you feel like you're home" and I think that's what it was. Kiah thinks its because it feels like home since its harder to think that I'm abroad being in London or Dublin. Whatever the reason is...I'm homesick and feel a little lonely.

But anyway, my flight into London was far from the center of the city. So I took an hour or so bus into the city center. And driving through I was surprised. It's more brown than I imagined. Way more brown actually.

Also, London is huge. It reminded me of New York which was a little boring. With the crowded public transportation, people on the streets walking rapidly, jay-walking, the skyscrapers and all sorts of diversity walking around. And other parts reminded me of LA, at least the part I passed through on the bus totally reminded me of the downtown LA area that were all like filled with buildings and restaurants of immigrants that settled in the outskirts of the area. I arrived in London in the early afternoon at about 5:00 after passing through the outskirts and after settling into my hostel went across the street to get Indian. I had been craving Indian food since Dublin since walking around we saw so many in such a small area but I am glad I waited. I forgot that India was a colony of England and therefore there are tons of Indians walking around. Based on that history, I can only assume that the Indian food in London would be better than in Dublin. But of course, this is only speculation. 

My first day in London was just me kind of walking around and going to bed relatively early because I felt like I had been traveling all day. My second day, I planned to go to Buckingham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guard and then grab lunch and eat it in Hyde Park because they are airing the Olympics on big screens there. So I got up, got some breakfast and proceeded to walk from my hostel to Buckingham Palace. I thought it would be nice to walk around and maybe find some things I wouldn't normally see if I hadn't walked. BIG MISTAKE. London is HUGE. I had gotten so used to these small European cities where you can walk from one end to the other in 20-30 minutes. London is not like that at all! I bought and Oyster card which is used for the "Underground" (not just for underground systems but for the buses too) and have been using it since! But anyway, I walked by Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. As I arrived at Buckingham Palace and asked the officer where I should stand to watch the Changing of the Guard, he proceeded to tell me that it would not be happening today. Instead the men's cycling part of the triathlon would be passing through instead. Uh....free Olympic event? Yes please! So I waited for it to start and pass through the Buckingham Palace area. It was pretty fun! And people from all over and each lap of the cycling was different than the rest. Then I tried my hardest, my absolute hardest to make it to Hyde Park to watch the end and see who won but unfortunately I did not and saw the announcement of who won. (More specifics on the Olympics in another blog post soon to come!) 

After I left Hyde Park, I walked down Oxford Street. Even though my friend Hayley told me to avoid it, I just ended up walking on it because they rerouted me to that street since other parts were closed due to Olympic traffic. Hayley told me to avoid it because it would be busy and crowded. WOW, she could not have been more right. It was horrifically busy as people were walking around lost or looking for the next Underground stop. As I got on the Underground, I headed to the next stop that sounded the most interesting to me: Baker Street. For those of you that don't recognize the importance of Baker Street, it is significant to Sherlock Holmes. And walking out of the stop, the walls are tiled with little Sherlock Holmes hats. (Don't worry, I have pictures). Anyway, he lived at 221b Baker Street. I went to the "museum" if you can even call it that. Not worth the money if you have a good imagination and have already imagined what his little flat looked like. I would just go into the gift shop instead because that was adorable. So adorable I considered getting a Sherlock Holmes teddy bear. But I don't need it so I didn't get it, but I'm here for another few days. 

The day ended with me going back to the hostel and booking my flight home!!! I think the homesickness was my final push to finally book it! See you soon my fellow Americans! 

Have you heard about the Battle of Oranges?

Tomorrow, I will have been in Ivrea for a week. Almost everyone I have spoken to has asked me "Have you heard about the Battle of Oranges?" Why yes I have you Ivrean person you. When you Google Ivrea and look at the pictures, almost all of the pictures of these battles that apparently shut the city down for a week. My understanding is that, there are 8 different teams that you can join starting at any age you want to start paying. Two teams are at one Piazza, 2 at another and 4 at the large piazza. It is a time honored tradition during Carnivale. Apparently it lasts about 3 to 4 days during Carnivale with a princess and other days of celebrations for the week. Then my kids in class asked me if we had any thing for Carnivale and I said "nope, it's pretty much an international holiday and my fellow tutor said came up with the reason because we don't have a lot of Catholics in the United States since we have the right to all kinds of religion. And too bad that February and March are hard to take time off of work because I would love to experience any sort of Carnivale celebration. Us Americans are missing out apparently.

Also the castle here has 3 towers which I thought was kind of cool. Apparently the fourth tower fell during World War II due to ammunition inside the tower exploding. But this castle is the biggest one I've seen so far. They said because Ivrea is close to the mountains, if people on their horses were going north and weren't going to make it before the winter came, they would stay in the castle until they could pass. How nice!

So it was Friday once again. And we had our final show. Only this week because I had the cool kids who did not want to act. So we made a video based on some Italian parody of Lord of the Rings. And when I say the parody is long, it is about the same length of the original Lord of the Ring movies because it is dubbed over the actual film. My kids found the clips they wanted, transcribed them, translated them and then with giant white pieces of paper, plastic bags and nature, a film was born. I have it on Youtube and can show it to you when I get back or email you the link if you can't wait. But I filmed it and edited it all on my iPad. Thank you Apple. So during the show, when the younger kids were doing their show of Grease, and the kids were singing, my class gets my attention and tells me that our video is better than the Grease show. And I said, I know, I'm good huh? And they were like yeah, you are good. I gave them my email and said if they wanted the link to email me so I could email them the link of the film since its on private now. And you know what? I had 4 add me on Facebook. Cute huh?

I also forgot to mention updates on my Chris Pine twin. He was very sweet. When I asked him to find the parody so I could see what they meant, he found it, stopped it for a second to tell me there were "bad words and sometimes we use bad words to be funny" and I laughed. Being from the US has desensitized me enough I think where I was ok. But then I thought about it and on tv here, there are very scantily clad women, I don't think language is a big issue and I look around at the ads and commercials and I don't think there children are overly sexualities like in the US. For example, at the pools here the little girls don't wear tops. And to be fair they don't need to because other than a couple of things little girls and boys look the same. However, being from the US, this culturally bothers me. However, no one around thinks anything about it. And you don't get the feeling of perverts lurking in every corner. It is just a little vibe of looking out for each other and enjoying the outing without worrying about anything.

I hope a couple at least email me to practice their English and I can practice my Italian! I may create a blog sheet of all the Italian words and phrases I have learned so I can practice. We'll see.