sketchin around

stonehenge

villa savoye

london eye

king's chapel light

london city hall

versailles garden

rialto

david

st. peter's basilica

coliseum

summary of summer study

ITALIA
Italy came with the first views of European splendor. This would be the place my eyes had first beheld works of wonder and glory, from the Coliseum to the David.
Hues of red, yellow, and orange glisten off the cobblestone streets and river roads leaving an eternal sunset. Life walks slowly down centuries old alley ways, flowers blossoming through shuttered windows, and hours of long memories formed while banqueting. Historic architecture sat huddled around every corner, disturbed by the newer homes belonging to decades past. Renaissance arts showered culture with a refined sense of pride and self enlightenment which continues in hearts today. Language became a barrier of communication through mouth; architecture, art, and design flowed with language from the eye to the heart and forever in the mind.

FRANCE

From snooty culture to historic monuments, France had it all a la carte to Italy. Classic architectural style pushed by the edgy reform movements of modern contemporary. We’d see the Louvre Palace competing with I.M Pei’s glass pyramid, Eiffel’s steel competing with the classical stone of the Musee D’ Orsay, Versailles’ golden gates competing with the silver paneling of the metro. Mouths would salivate at the sight of deliciously prepared desserts and close at the sight of escargot. Culturally, people seem to battle themselves for prominence and place in society, modern or classic, new or old, color or bland, now or forever. The river flows through the heart of Paris creating a constant stream of intellect from Europeans past culture to the hearts of artists’ minds inspiring creativity. From the earliest of palaces to the most modern of museums, this culture will continue to fight itself to impress and change and glorify ones own wildest dreams of art, architecture, and design.

ENGLAND

Comparative to our American culture, stemming from the same roots, culture and perspectives aligned. This would be the place of palatial homes, gardens, and lives; each place bringing a moment of old class and modern sophistication. Cohesive balance of countryside and city, cleverly woven into a finite individualistic nature represented through architecture and art. Discoveries of historic past juxtaposed with elements of modern artistic creativity. Delicately designed tea delicacies wound their way into our bellies and hearts. Cultures collided minimally as people would be arrogant at best, proper manner in the rest. England eternally will be remembered.

last calling for london

Nostalgic. Such is this day. D-Brooks let us sleep in today, such a sweetheart. The entire group had the blessed opportunity to tour Buckingham Palace, THEE residence of the Queen of England. Another audio tour attached to my ears, walking through state rooms, such were my thoughts. Boy was I mislead. The palace was so beautiful and grand, but not in the gaudi sense like most other palaces we've visited. It was just the right amount of detail and grand design. Of all the ginormous homes we've visited this is pleasantly small considering what it actually is. My favorite details in the house were the glass domes that contained etched crowns and family symbol designs that really added to the rest of the design. Cohesive project done by John Nash. Loved his design and intellectual ways of making things interesting and inventive. The Queen is one lucky lady, which reminds me about the exhibit of her jewels and commonwealth items she's collected. I loved seeing her gowns and gifts. So richly designed and purely fabulous! We finished up the tour and headed out to see our favorite little London town. I wanted to just enjoy the experience of being here and not be rushed to do anything or forced to take another tour. This trip has been the trip of a lifetime and I am eternally grateful to my parents for letting me have this opportunity. I have made so many friends and would not trade this experience for the world. Most importanltly I have learned so much about myself, things that I would like to improve and things that I'm great at doing. I've learned what personalities I mesh with and how to handle those that I don't. Europe is beautiful and life changing. I love thinking about the history and people that have lived here and the lives and cultures that have developed. I hate that this is my farewell blog to Europe, I'll cry on the plane. So bittersweet because I miss my family but I am going to miss my transient life here. Farewell Europe, you have been a gem.

... rewind to July 31

Last day of the underground, train, and bus to another house days. Today's agenda was Haddon Hall, which is the oldest palatial residence we have encountered. Definitely an experience. Princess Bride was filmed here as I'm sure countless others. It was incredible to think that this building dated back to the early 1300s and is still in such great condition. My favorite part by far was the green tinted glass windows that had warped under pressure over the time. The effect on the outside was so hip. The gardens were very English Garden-esque and natural. Super had to have a model shoot. Megan was all up on that. Hence the following pictures. Our next bus trip took us to the 'Champion' of English homes... Chatsworth. Countless movies were filmed here and for a good reason called it was beautiful and full of lush natural gardens. The interiors were different than the others. It's funny how we can look at all the same style of design and judge the details into something completely different. Go figure, Interior Design majors. The gardens were lovely due to the fact of the grotto and these amazing ponds and waters and mazes and tunnels and fountains. Great. Also, this was the place where they filmed the recent film The Duchess which portrays the actual life of the Duchess Giorgianna who actually had a pretty horrible life. I should consider watching that. Regardless it was beautiful and a great time. After this we headed back to London.

I headed to Abbey Road for some quality Beatle memorabilia moments. We had to take the classic picture, what a joke that was. People do not like to stop so you can have a kodak moment. It took 77 tries. Then we signed the infamous Abbey Studios wall with a clever quote by me... here's the picture proof as evidence. I was in magical heaven! I sure do love those beatles, and even more than you Garrett. Here is exhibit A of my love.... Exhibit B is the cash I spent on merchandise.

Most days we learn something... today I learned that London has some great roller coasters. You may say 'Kylee, you're on a STUDY abroad." My response is that every student needs a little fun, hence Thorpe Park. This would be one of the best days yet. Lindsey, Kaitlyn, Brady, Erika, Mark and I headed on a train, then a bus to Staines... yeah, Staines where the greatest park is. The size is that equivalent to Lagoon, only with a few roller coasters and water rides. Every ride was themed like Disneyland which made you love the wait, and believe me we did a lot of that. Approximately every 45 minutes we'd ride a ride. They were all completely worth it... Stealth (reminded me of Seth Cohen and was 0 to 1,000,000 in 1 second), Nemesis Inferno, Colossus (classic but good), and the best to come Saw. It was exactly like the movie and I loved every second of it, the fake blades, the twists, the loops, the speed. No words can describe how great it was. Look up a video and then you can believe the joy I experienced. There is not much to say about this day except that we did a whole lot of standing around talking, dancing to the themed music, laughing at our ridiculous riding motion pictures, and enjoying the break. Twas a blast. Cheers! (pictures to come when I get them)

Another day in the land of Scots. This time we chose to wake up early, 6 am to be exact. This occasion had a purpose being to go see the sunrise on the coast. Unfortuntely we had no idea where in the land we were so we headed on some random bus that said 'ocean terminal' thinking this would get us there. No such luck. Later on down the road we decided to just head until we found an ounce of water. This is to prove that we did find a beach and nice docking area. It wasn't quite the experience we wanted but we did get there and I did see the choppy blue waters of the ocean. We then just shopped on the Royal Mile (road which leads to the castle). My favorite moment was when we walked into a store and heard piping... Amanda and I walked right up to the desk and got that cd, called none other than The Red Hot Chili Pipers. Exhibit A, we were dying laughing, B. the songs were modern songs put into pipes. We've successfully listened to it 12 times since then.

Michelle and I then had to hurry to the train station to catch our train to Liverpool. We were pushing the time because we needed to get to Albert Dock by 2:30 to catch a tour and our train got in at 2:20. Needless to say our train was late and we were booking it to the dock that we had no coordinates to. We decided that it would be in our best interest to go to the information booth and see if there was another tour that we could take. The cute lady told us that the tour was at 4:30 too! I could not have been any happier than this moment... until later.

We entered the Beatles Story museum and quickly went through. It was so adorable because they had all these sets with wax figures, fake diaramas and even a fake yellow submarine. Super wanted to stay there for hours but we had a tour to catch. Here I am with the Magical Mystery Tour bus about to have the best tour of my life. The bus was vintage 70s with brown and pink seats. We saw all the boys childhood homes, Penny Lane, Eleanor Rigby's grave, the boys' school, the Cavern, and Strawberry Field. It fulfilled every fantasy I could have ever dreamt up about Liverpool and the Beatles lives. We listened to the songs and loved every second of it. Seriously life changing. We shopped and headed back on our train. Little did we know that our train would have a fatality and cause us a 5 hour trip instead of a 2 and a half hour one. Oh and PS the underground was half closed which led to four transfers and two sad, tired, and confused girls.

Land of the Scots

Who could be more excited for a free day? Yeah, that's me, and what do I choose to do with my free day... get up at 7 to get on the underground, to ride a train. Surprise, surprise. Good news was I was headed to none other than thee Scotland. My excitement could not be contained for the fact that we sporadically decided to do this and everything worked out perfectly! Let me introduce the players... Beccah Hardman, Mal Anderson, Michelle Paz, Amanda Colton, Julia Johnson, and myself. Plan of attack: Get to Castle in Alnmouth. We rode the train for about 3 hours before we got to Alnmouth which ended up being a huge train station, or lack thereof. I felt like I had been thrown into the back woods. Needless to say we had to transfer to a bus stop, not knowing where in the world we were going, hoped on a bus to Alnswick. We arrived in the town's center and took our chances by finding the castle. Lo and Behold we get to the castle and it is THEE Harry Potter castle! They had owls hanging out on the side of the lawn even. Definitely had to have a picture with the cute little birds even though one tried to bite my head off.

Next we went to the whomping willow (only pretend) and took some pics. Best moment was when Beccah really got whomped, fell off the tree for no intended purpose. Mainly I just laughed my head off and then realized what a jerk friend I was.

Enter the castle. So pretty, still lived in, and more of a modern classic baroque feel than all the other castles I've seen. I didn't focus much on the castle as per the ground were in Harry Potter, PUH-LEASE! This called for drastic measures and I had to buy glasses and a wand immediately. Next we took our first flying lessons on the lawns... people probably questioned our sanity.

We boarded the train and headed to Scotland, another 2 hour train. We were pumped and got in around 5 at night which left few options of things to do. We all checked into our quaint little hotel the Thistle, which was a god send, and decided to go on a sightseeing tour because we didn't have much time. The seats were most definitely tartan red and the sights of the city were phenomenal! I loved the architecture, both old and new. The city is framed by a large cliff, a valley, a hill in which the castle resides, and another valley. The castle shines above everything. Loved the tour, loved the city, loved the girls I was with. Good times. We quickly headed to an underground ghost tour with our guide Tanya who had bright pink make up, a black trench coat, and black boots. She fit the job description well. She took us to the underground city which was actually arches and vaults covered due to the expansion of the population and needing to grow upward. Hence they are haunted due to people's homes and shops being built over, lots of deaths, stories of ghosts, and guests being haunted. Beccah was scared out of her mind so I had to hold her hand as she was shaking. I have to admit that I was an ounce scared when she blew the candle out and shoved us back into the corner. Then I just said to myself Kylee, you don't believe in ghosts that can hurt you, only bad angels that give off a bad vibe. Therefore, I was fine and had such a fun little time with the girls being freaked out. We were starving at this point and headed to the nearby Hard Rock as none of us were up to the Haggis dinner temptation. You can always count on a decent meal, good music, and a good time there, which it was. Hotel time! Yay for Scotland.