Wow, I should really post more: Ascot, Liverpool, & American Nail's

I haven't updated my blog since the very first post!  I guess that's a good thing, because it means I'm very busy/having an amazing time!  This post will probably be a long one; so, I'm sorry in advance! I'm just going to give the highlights over the past two weeks to make it shorter!

ASCOT
Two weekends ago I went with three other USC students to Ascot to watch the horse races!  It was absolutely amazing!  It's a pretty far train ride, but was definitely worth it.  On the train from Brighton to Ascot, Erin and I sat with a group of 8 men (probably in their 40s).  They were all drinking pints at 9 am, one was wearing a horse costume, and one has a friend who lives in Houston.  All I can say is that it was a very entertaining train ride!  Immediately when we got there, Erin and I got some wine to start off the day right.  Ascot is definitely how I pictured it.  The people are dressed so nicely, and everyone's having a great time!  The best way to describe it would be a mix between the Hamptons and a South Padre Island Spring Break.  We bet on the horses, and my horses name was Sawyer (because of Lost of course).  Sawyer came in second place which was really exciting, but my friend Jason and Emin's horses both came in first!

 In the late afternoon, Erin and I bumped into some men we had met earlier at the bar who had given us betting advice! (Erin's wearing the guy's hat standing next to her) Obviously, I wanted a picture with them.

LIVERPOOL
Last Friday I went to Liverpool for the weekend with four other American exchange students.  We left Saturday morning at 5am, but no buses run to the train station at that time.  My friend Charlie (he goes to UT for all the longhorns reading this) let Erin and I sleep at his homestay in town for the night.  His host's house is so beautiful! It's right on the water, and I felt like I was staying at a hotel.  His host, Pauline, is probably one of the nicest people I've ever met!  She insisted on Charlie making us tea and a plate of crackers with gourmet cheeses right when we got there, which was almost midnight.

The room we stayed in for the night at Pauline's 

Albert Dock in Liverpool

We left for liverpool early in the morning, and spent the day walking around the town.  We went to The Beatles museum, and it was incredible!  That night we went to The Cavern which is a club where The Beatles played 139 times.  There was a cover band playing, and everyone in the audience was singing the songs at the top of their lungs.  It was absolutely unreal to be in Liverpool, dancing and singing with hundreds of other fans at a venue they used to perform at on a regular basis!  My explanation honestly doesn't give it justice, but at that moment I just felt so happy and content.  The next morning we woke up and went to Albert Dock.  We took a ferry across the river, and went to "New Brighton".  We heard that there was an amazing light house across the river, and we wanted to check it out.  The ferry ride was great!  It was so nice to spend time on a boat, surrounded by incredible views!  We got to New Brighton 10 minutes later, and walked a little over two and a half miles to the light house.  We walked along the coast, and it wasn't too cold outside which was really nice!  When we got to the light house, it was a very small, ugly building, and you had to pay to go inside.  We decided that it wasn't worth it to go in, and we walked back to the ferry.  Basically, we didn't really do anything in New Brighton, but the walk along the coast was incredible! (So it was worth going!)  That night we went to the oldest pub in Liverpool.  There was a comedy show happening in the basement of the pub, and we decided to try to sneak into it.  We met two couples in their fifties who were extremely entertaining to talk to.  They approached us by commenting on how "American" we were, but they were hilarious.  One of the men asked me where I was from, and when I replied with, "Texas", he could not stop raving about it!  He told me that he went there about ten years ago, and he went to a trailer park outside of San Antonio to get ribs.  Then, he proceeded to "eat fake ribs" in the air while chomping and wiping his mouth.  He was great.  The next morning we went on a Beatles tour that was incredible!! Our driver was awesome.  He knew so much about The Beatles, and he really wanted us to enjoy ourselves.  We went to George, Paul, Ringo, and John's childhood homes, the place where John and Paul met, the hospital John was born in, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, Eleanor Ribgy's grave, and so much more!  We listened to Penny Lane while driving down the street, and it was an unreal experience.  We were all singing along with our driver, and I honestly could not stop smiling the entire time!  I've listened to The Beatles almost every day since second grade, and I just could not believe that I was driving down Penny Lane.  I obviously got out of

Penny Lane

the car to take a picture also!
When we got to Strawberry Fields, our driver told us a story I had never heard before.  When John was growing up, he used to sneak into Strawberry Fields, an orphanage, to play with the kids.  He'd sit in the trees outside and watch all of the kids play.  (This is what the following lyrics are about: "No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.  That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right.  That is I think it's not too bad".)  If you know anything about John Lennon's childhood, you probably know that he was raised by his aunt.  He'd go to Strawberry Fields to interact with other kids who were just like him, to be with others he could relate to.  He loved Strawberry Fields so much that he would even spend the night there sometimes.  The people working at the orphanage caught John, and called his Aunt Mimi to let her know.  Mimi told him that if she caught him going there again, she'd hang him. "Let me take you down, cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.  Nothing is real and NOTHING TO GET HUNG ABOUT. Strawberry Fields forever".

Us outside the Strawberry Field gates.  Our driver positioned us so that you could see the "Strawberry Fields" sign in the photo.  Genius. 

American Nail's
When Erin and I went to stay at Pauline's last week, I noticed that there was a nail place right by the bus stop.  Today I went to go get my nail's done for the first time since I've been here.  It was amazing, but the reason I'm writing about it in my blog is to talk about the man who did my nails.  He was one of the most interesting people I've ever met.  He asked me a lot of questions, including where I study in the U.S. When I responded with California, he got up out of his chair, walked over to his computer, and played Katy Perry's California Girls for the entire nail place to sing along to.  He was dancing and singing, and it was hilarious.  He's lived in Europe for fifteen years, but was born in Vietnam.  About five times he told me, "I like you. I like you. I promise I'm not mad about the Vietnam war. I like America".  Once he even said, "See how much I like America?  I named my salon after your country.  I'm really not mad about Vietnam".  He also talked to me about how he didn't like living in Germany, because the clubs didn't play the right music for him to dance to when he'd take his "pills".  He was thrilled to talk to the first "real cowgirl" he has ever seen in real life, and asked me to bring a list of country music for him to download next time I come.  Any suggestions?

Sorry that this post was so long!  I miss and love all of you!!

I'm going to end this post with a little story for Melanie and Lomes in particular (and anyone else who has a pattern of attracting very weird men) Last week when I went to go buy new running shoes at footlocker, the guy helping me very awkwardly asked me for my number.  When I told him I had a boyfriend, he turned around, went into the back of the store where the shoes are kept, and did not come out the rest of the time I was there.  A different woman brought me out my shoes.  I think it's safe to say that Footlocker is the strangest place I have ever been hit on.

"...and in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make..."