Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I was super busy with my last week of school before easter break and getting ready to go on holiday that I just didn't have time to sit down and write it all out.

On Wednesday Caitlin and I did a day trip to Stonehenge, Bath, The Cotswalds, and Stratford-Upon-Avon. We had such a great time, but the day was very long and by the time we got home we were both ready for bed. My favorite part of the trip was the town of Bath, I wish I had more time to see it all, maybe I'll go back one day.

I had a paper due on Friday and TONS of errands to run to get ready for holiday so Thursday kept me very busy and way too stressed. I finished my paper Thursday night after running all of my errands earlier in the day but ended up staying up super late to pack my bags.

Friday morning was hectic, I had to go turn in my paper at school and print off all of my confirmation emails for our trip. At 4:00 Sally, Lindsey, and I got picked up to go to Heathrow for our flight to Dubai.

It will come as no surprise to any of you that I like nice things, I'm used to nice things and am completely set in my ways. You'll be interested to hear that for our 7 HOUR flight to Dubai I flew coach. It was only the worst thing I've ever done, I am so not looking forward to the flight home on Saturday. We landed in Dubai at 8:30am today and quickly made our way off the plane, thru passport control, luggage collection, and customs with no problems. It was actually MUCH easier than entering the US and I was a bit surprised.

Our car was there and waiting for us to go to The Atlantis. We arrived around 10am, but of course our room wasn't ready. We walked around a bit before finding The Shore Restaurant and grabbing some lunch. After that we stumbled upon a henna tattoo station, sat down, and got our beautiful designs. I got a floral design on my inner wrist, Sally got hers done on her foot, and Lindsey got a gorgeous design on her hand. Over all I would saw we had a successful henna session. Our room was finally ready around 1pm so we went up, unpacked, and got settled. I hadn't slept much on the plane so while I napped Lindsey and Sally headed down to hang out by the beach for a few hours.

Dinner tonight was AMAZING. We ate at Ossiana, a gorgeous restaurant that served a delicious meal. Little did we know when we sat down that we were about to embark on a 3 hour, 12 course meal, but that is exactly what happened. The quality and preparation of the food was exquisite and we had the cutest waiter from Spain. I had veal for my main course, a chocolate sponge cake with vanilla ice cream and molten chocolate inside among many other dishes. We were SO full when we left that we just came right back to the room and got ready for bed.

Tomorrow will be spent exploring the property, laying out by the beach/pool, and enjoying the warm temperatures of Dubai. Until Later, love you!

-audrey

Sorry I haven't written in a few days, honestly I haven't been doing too much and didn't really have anything interesting to tell yall!

Yesterday I met up with Lindsey and her friend Adriana (from home) at Borough Market. There were food stalls with every imaginable produce/meat/ethnic food you could imagine, and even a few exotic meat stalls (ostrich anyone)? My favorite part about the market wasn't any of the food, but an ADORABLE dog that we saw. When i first spotted it it reminded me SO much of a westie, but it was black, which made me confused. We walked by at first, and I just kept turning around to look at this adorable little thing, he looked so playful and cute and I wanted to go hug him. So I turned around, walked over the the owner, said hi, pet the puppy and asked what kind of dog it was. Get this. It was a poodle WESTIE mix. I was right. It was maybe the cutest thing I've seen since I got to London. I want one for Scout to play with, I would have a matching set, one in each color!

Once I tore myself away from the little guy we decided that we had had enough of the market and it was time to head over the my favorite place in London, that's right, we went to Harrods. It was around 2:30 now and I hadn't have anything to eat all day so by the time we got there I made a beeline for the food hall and we were quickly seated in the cafe above the produce section. I had a delicious bowl of cheese ravioli with a creamy chicken sauce -- AMAZING. Adriana had never been to Harrods before so we showed her around, took her to the pet kingdom, watched the puppies playing, before we decided she had seen enough and we wanted to continue our shopping adventure over in Covent Garden.

I have something to admit. So, I leave for Dubai this Friday, and lately, whenever we go shopping, if I see anything I want it is automatically "so perfect for Dubai", and I buy it. It's becoming a problem. I was being good, only having bought some cute westie items in Harrods, that's it, until we got to this store called karen miller. I crumbled.

There was this FABULOUS dress, bedazzled and gorgeous and so cool, I had to have it. I ran over, found my size, and quickly made my way to the fitting room. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes, I fall in love with clothes that just don't look very good on my/my body type, and not to sound arrogant or anything, but this dress looked really good. Like fit me perfectly. And then the sales lady brought me these heels that match. Im not always one to go for matchy-matchy but come on, the amazing shoes that match the amazing dress, it was an easy sale. I cant wait to wear my new outfit to dinner in Dubai, I'll make sure to get pictures for everyone :]]

After that we walked around a bit more, but I was super tired for some reason, so I left Lindsey and Adriana at the tube station and headed back home for a easy night in. I really need to write a paper that I have due on Monday, and for some reason I woke up today at 6:00, so maybe I'll do the paper today..who knows. Until later, love you!

-audrey

Yesterday Sally and I went to Brighton for the day. This adorable seaside town was the perfect way to start my weekend.

Brighton was only a 40 minute train ride away and we got there nice and early, around 9:30am. We walked down towards the beach but quickly got sidetracked by a mall. There aren't shopping malls in England, not like the ones back home, so when we saw this one we had to go inside, plus it was so cold outside we needed to be in the heat.

I got a cute top from H&M and once again we were on our way to find the beach.

Most of the shops on and around the pier didn't open until 11:00 so we just walked along the beach (its made up of pebbles, not sand) taking pictures of all of the seagulls and the beautiful clear water. Once the pier opened Sally and I got some cotton-candy to much on while we tried to find a place for lunch. Most of the restaurants and pubs around here don't start serving food until noon, but we were welcome to sit in the bar and wait, and that's just what we did.

After lunch we wandered up to the Brighton Pavilion, a royal house built by King George IV. The entire thing was built in an Asian and Indian theme and the interior decorations were completely different from any of the other building I've seen yet. It was beautiful and fun to visit, but the best part of the entire thing was the fact that we were able to get inside and out of the cold.

We decided to walk down to the marina, which was entirely across the town. It took us a good 35-40 minutes to walk there, and at first all I did was complain about being cold, but we quickly warmed up a bit and enjoyed the leisurely stroll along the beach. Down by the marina there is a bowling alley, cinema (movie theatre), restaurants, shopping, and obviously, the marina. The shopping was nothing special and most of the stores were closed actually. Once we stopped walking we were both so cold and had a lot of time to kill so we decided to go see a movie, if only to stay out of the cold.

It turned out that the only show we could catch was the new Matt Damon movie 'The Green Zone.' I didn't know what it was about but I love Matt Damon, so we decided that we should give it a go. The movie, while entertaining and suspenseful, was defiantly not something I would have chosen to see had I known what it was about. Basically, it's about a soldier, Matt Damon, who is in charge of finding WMD's in Iraq during the beginning of the war in 2003. Damon's character quickly becomes questioning of where the intelligence of these WMDs is coming from, and from there the movie moves on the criticize the Bush administration's reasoning for entering into the war, in not so many words. Like I said, the movie was entertaining and a good way to stay out of the cold, but it was a bit too much for me to watch and try to completely ignore the lies put forth by the screenplay writers.

The film ended around 7:00 so Sally and I decided to stick around the marina and grab some dinner. Afterwords we hopped in a taxi and went our separate ways, Sally back to the pier and me to the train station to grab a magazine and wait for the train, which didn't leave for another hour and a half. I basically froze to death waiting, and when we were finally able to get aboard the train at around 9:30pm I wanted nothing more than to be home in my warm bed. We got back into London around 10:40 and got back to Nido a little after 11. It had been such a fun-filled busy day that I went straight to bed and slept soundly until noon today.

London doesn't participate in Day Light Savings Time, so luckily I didn't loose any hours of sleep :]] I only have class on Monday this week because for my other classes I have a "reading week." Basically its a day off from class that allows students to catch up on any homework, yeah right. I plan on sightseeing and enjoying the supposedly warmer temperatures (it should be in the low 50s this week!)

-audrey

that was the summer of 1963, when everybody called me baby, and it didn't occur to me to mind...

I saw 'Dirty Dancing' last night. It was amazingly cheesy and completely fantastic.

Let me start off by explaining to you how much I love the movie Dirty Dancing. Everything about that movie is fantastic and so entertaining, I remember the first time I saw it, I was like 8 or 9 and it was on TV and I watched it with Amanda Williams. It was an edited version obviously, and I had no idea what anything was about, but I loved it.

When I found out that there was a stage version of the show playing here in London I knew I just had to see it, and thats exactly what I did. Natalie, Caitlin and I had seats in the stalls (that's the main floor area) three rows from the back, our view was a bit obstructed from the overhang of the balcony above, and it was completely fine with me. I seriously was just happy to be there. Line for line the show followed the script of the movie, for the most part. There were bits of information thrown in about what exactly a freedom ride was and what was happening in the US during the 1960s (I assume this was since we're in England, and the people here might not have learned that in history class).

As much as I loved the show I was a bit disappointed with the acting. It was obvious they looked for dancers first and actors second, but with a show like Dirty Dancing I don't think it could have been done any other way. I must say, I love all of the music from that time, I probably should have lived in the 1960s.

I dont really know what else to say about it, other than I absolutely loved it and I kind of want to go see it again...dorky I know, especially because it was really cheesy, it actually kind of reminded me of a high school play, but I just loved it. The next show I want to see is 'Love Never Dies'. It's the sequel to 'The Phantom of The Opera' and it just premiered 2 nights ago. I SO want to see it, hopefully I can make that happen.

Well I'm off to eat a quick lunch and go to school, I have a paper to turn in and no idea where the room I turn it into is, wish me luck!

-audrey

Last night I got to enjoy my birthday gift from Natalie with her when we went to see The Lion King. Now, this is probably my favorite Disney movie, or maybe a tie with Beauty and the Beast, so boy was I excited!

We had a yummy dinner at a little italian place near the theatre before going to pick up our tickets and being seated. I must throw this little bit of information in for yall..there were like 200 stairs we had to take to get to our seats. Im not even kidding. Everywhere you go in London there are so many stairs, I swear to god I'm never using stairs once I get home again unless thats the only option. I know that sounds lazy but come on, my legs are tired. Anywho.

So about 5 minutes before the show starts this really cute little girl and here mom take their seats directly next to us, I actually thought it would be fun to sit next to a child while watching the show because I knew she would be so in awe of everything. WRONG. The little girl really wasn't so bad, but her mother, OH MY GOSH. She didn't shut up the entire night, and I'm not saying she was whispering to her daughter, she was freaking carrying on a conversation with the little girl the ENTIRE show. That got annoying real quick. Other than that little incident however I had the BEST time.

The show is so amazing, if any of you haven't had the chance to see it you really need to go. It was incredible to see how they took things from the animated movie and put them on stage, it was SO cool. I enjoyed myself as much as possible during the first act while the mom next to me just talked away and the little girl complained that she was tired. Then came intermission. I was hoping the lady would just agree to take her daughter, who kept saying she was ready for bed, home, but  no such luck. They went and go ice cream, a slushy, AND chips to eat DURING the second act. Joy. So the first song of the second act is Hakuna-Mattata. Mom over here decides to SING ALONG. I kept giving her mean looks but I guess she didn't get the picture that she was being SO rude. Next thing I know the little girl is ASLEEP on my arm with her head like basically in my lap. Dear old mom just looks over at my shocked face and does NOTHING. Now I wasn't about to dump this little cute girl on the floor or anything, and it didn't really bother me, so I just let her sleep the rest of the show, but COME ON, this lady was INSANE. The show ended, the little girl woke up, and I quickly got out of there when the girl started to whine. I'm sorry, but a 7:30pm showing for ANY young child (i'm talking like a 4 year old) that doesn't end until 10:00pm is TOO LATE.

Despite all of my complaining I really did have a wonderful time and I was so thankful that Natalie got me that awesome gift! Tonight Natalie, Caitlin, and I are going to see Dirty Dancing. I can't wait. I'm pretty sure it only runs in London, and I watched the movie on iTunes last night, I am SO excited. I'm not sure if its a musical, it probably is, but that might be weird. Maybe they should just have it be a play with OTHER people like with the orchestra singing. Im sure it will be amazing, I'll let yall know how it is tomorrow!

-audrey

I woke up today with the best intentions of working on 3 essays for school. I am sad to say that nothing scholarly occurred in my room at all today. I did succeed in painting my nails, cleaning out my fridge, taking out the trash, and watching 2 movies. Getting up early has its benefits I guess.

So, as I'm sitting in my room bored I decided to look at the four season hotel website and pick a dream destination beach resort in a part of the world that I haven't been to. I know, its sad that I pick my travel destinations by the hotel but what can I say, I know what I like and I know what it takes for me to have a good time. Generally a four seasons hotel in involved. Or a Ritz-Carleton, I'm not picky. Anyways, so I type in www.fourseasons.com. DO NOT DO THIS. I have probably done this 5 times, and every time I do I have a mild freak out and quickly close the web browser. This website will take you to a nudist hotel. The home page has pictures of ugly naked people. You would think I would remember that this IS NOT the correct website for the four seasons..hopefully after today I will remember that.

I just thought I would share that little bit of information with you. Now I'm going to go google the four seasons hotel and find where I want to take my next dream vacation. Fiji anyone?

-audrey

Just got home from seeing 'Alice in Wonderland' in 3D. I really liked it! I had completely forgotten the ENTIRE story line of the movie so it was fun to see it. The 3D show was fun as well, and surprisingly didn't give me a headache. This weekend isn't going to be too exciting for me, mostly I will be doing homework.

I have a paper to write for each of my four classes, and one of them I actually have 2 papers. They aren't all do next week, only one is, but I'm going to try to get as many of them written this weekend as possible. I've been planning some more weekend trips over the last few days so I want to get the homework out of the way now so I am free to travel later.

Im off to bed now!

-audrey

Im sick today. It sucks. Not enough for me to drag myself to a doctor, but enough for me to sleep all day. I have to actually get dressed (im still in pj's) because my laundry is going to be delivered in 30 min. Oh joy, at least I can take a shower after that, I havent been able to because stupid me put ALL of my towels in the bag of things to be washed. Yesterday was fun, I went to Kensington Garden and walked around. There were SO many adorable puppies there, it was fun to see them playing. I went by the Peter Pan statue and sat in this area with multiple fountains with ducks and swans in them. It was beautiful.

Thank god I didnt have class today because I didn't get out of bed until 4:30 and as soon as I can I plan on going back to sleep. I need to stay up a bit though so I will actually be able to sleep. dafhka I hate being sick. I'll probably start the antibiotics I brought with me tomorrow if I dont feel better. Boo. Ok, enough complaining, I'm off to lay down until my laundry comes.

-audrey

I am in such a good mood today! I woke up and got to enjoy a yummy french toast breakfast with Sally, it was delicious. Then I started getting ready for my day and I opened my window and what do I find, a SUNNY sky and about 45 degree temperatures. It is absolutely beautiful. So while I wait for the laundry man to come pick up my dirty cloths so they can be washed I decided that after he gets here I am going to Hyde Park and Kensington Garden. Its is the perfect day for that so yay! I'll make sure to take lots of pictures for you all. Ohh, AND lifehouse's new cd came out today, its amazing and I love it. Today is just awesome.

-audrey