October Pics!!

So, my lovely friends helped me celebrate my birthday in style! We dressed up like classy people (and I'm pretty sure we fooled strangers into thinking we actually were classy...) and went to El Fenix. Delish. And then we went back to J's, and she had made me a cake!!!

I said classy, right?

My brudder and me! He cleaned up pretty nicely. What you can't see in this picture are his Blow, Gabriel shoes. With short, white socks. Somewhere my grandmother is crying...

Jule and I have a tendency of having WAY too much fun.

So then, we headed to the park (after dressing like our regular sloppy selves) to act like 2 year...I mean, 22 year olds. Singing Celine Dion the whole way, of course. :)

These are my friends. (Craig took the picture.) See? We're classy. And intense. And altogether FIERCE.

...and, out come the true colors. At least we're fun!!

The next pictures are from TCU's Homecoming!!

These are a few of my spirited friends, and the boys on the ends are some of the awesome new freshmen.

Jule and I with our Kiss Cam date.

After Homecoming, we watched the REAL football men play:

Craig thinks he's SO cool.

CATCH IT!!!

It's been a fun few weeks--more pictures will happen soon, I'm sure, since Halloween is approaching. See you guys soon--Hooray for USO!!!!

I love you~

Last Day of Summer 08

Home away from home.

J.ND. and I celebrated the Last Day of Summer on Sunday with corn dogs, the Botanical Gardens, and a small party with long-lost friends. It was awesome.





It was indeed a worthy end to the summer.

Auditions are this week, but other than that, life has transitioned pretty smoothly into the school year!!

Returning Home

It's been real. It's been fun. It's even been real fun.

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I am so ready to see Texas.

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I have a lot of pictures from Bath and the last few days, but I'm running out of time, so I'll have to post them once I'm back on the other side of the Atlantic.

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List of shows seen in London:

The Lion King

The Vortex

The City

Gone with the Wind

Avenue Q

Cabaret

Romeo and Juliet

Harper Regan

Merry Wives of Windsor

Revenger's Tragedy

A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Woman in Black

Fat Pig

Pygmalion

Good Soul of Szetchaun. Pretty sure I spelled that one wrong.

Afterlife

Don Quixote

Rosmersholm

Chalk Garden

Lord of the Rings

Marguerite

Blood Brothers

Major Barbara

Billy Elliot

Brief Encounter

Lord of the Rings...again

Les Miserables

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27 performances in 34 days...I feel like that's sufficient. :)

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I've been so incredibly lucky to be here, and it's been an experience I won't forget. Our oral reports from this week have been evident as to what we will bring home with us: Set the standard. New ideas. New relationships. Excellence. Passion. Confidence. Always try for something beautiful and epic, even if you fail.

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But however beautiful and exciting and awesome London has been, I'm ready to leave. It's time.

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"Let the waking morning find

The weary traveller returning home."

-Lord of the Rings-

4 days...

Well, time is short, but I've got a few crazy busy days left!

A.S., M.M., and I went to the Texas Embassy for dinner...Go Frogs!!

Today, E.D. and I went to Westminster Abbey today, and got close and personal with Big Ben as well.

The church (...cathedral?) was beautiful! Poet's Corner was pretty much amazing. This past weekend I took it easy; I spent some time in Hyde Park, stumbled across Speaker's Corner, and saw two shows: Marguerite (which was okay) and Blood Brothers (good, in an 80s-tastic sort of way). Tomorrow we're taking a day trip to Bath, Wednesday we're seeing shows and I'm giving my oral presentation, Thursday is our last day of class, and then it's all over! Pretty crazy.

See you soon!!!

Harry Potter and LOTR

Sadly, I haven't done anything quite as exciting as le gay Paree, but C.P., B.L., and I all made it to the legendary Platform 9 3/4. (This is a Harry Potter reference/landmark, for the lesser learned.) We thought about showing our true identity and going all the way through, but we thought we would alarm the small children standing by.

We also had to take the classic in-a-British-phone booth picture, though no phone calls were actually made.

I've seen several more shows, including The Chalk Garden, which was pretty awesome. Today, however, I witnessed one of the most awesome theatre experiences ever imagined: The Lord of the Rings.

I know. I was a doubter. It sounds like the stuff of disaster (and in a way it is), but I haven't had that much fun in a play in a very, very long time. The story was cut incredibly, but it wasn't awkward and choppy (like Gone with the Wind). I can see why it didn't work commercially--the story and the acting aren't the most stellar to ever grace the theatre--but the effects, spectacle, and magic were absolutely breathtaking. Like Midsummer, it held some of the most beautiful moments I had ever seen onstage.

Gollum.

Lothlorien

We're starting on our last week here--crazy to think about. I'm hopefully going to see more awesome theatre, and I still need to go tour St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, but I think I'm going to spend some time revisiting the places I've enjoyed most, like Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. It's been a pretty great ride, but I'm not going to lie, I'm ready to see a Taco Bell.

...although I hear I'm too late for Taco Johns. What is happening to my town?!? You leave the country for a month, and look what happens...

Break a leg, Company!!!!!!!

Highlights from Paris

Okay, so I could write pages and pages about le gay Paree, but I don't want to spend hours in front of the computer, so the long story is going to have to wait till I'm back in the states.

Or, you could just ask Dad.

It's him! The Phantom of the Opera! He's here, inside is lair. Or there...inside your mind.

Omaha Beach.

American flag (and Dad) at Normandy.

Dad.

American Cemetery at Normandy.

View from the Eiffel Tower. After traveling eight hours to Normandy (to spend 3 hours there), we decided we would be smart and end the day walking up 668 steps, plus an elevator ride, to get to the top of the ET. We were exhausted, but we refused to be lame, and we finally made it.

To see more of the Eiffel Tower, look at the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7ti0jp_0xs

The original Lady Liberty.

Le Louvre. Home of the Mona Lisa and Mary Magdalene.

Arc of Triumph.

Comedie Francais, where I saw a show!!! I couldn't understand a word, but I followed most of it...I think. It was a pretty sweet experience, even if I didn't get the whole story.

View from Notre Dame. To see more of Notre Dame, again, check the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ukGwBd89YY

Dad and I at Notre Dame...after climbing yet more stairs.

Statue of Pierre Corneille (a playwright) outside of the Pantheon. I feel that his new hat suits him--no, we didn't do it. The Pantheon was huge and beautiful; Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Voltaire, and Mare Curie are all buried here, and we got to see their tombs.

Overall, it was pretty rockin'. We ate food (some good, some okay, all different--we finally caved and ate Hard Rock Cafe on the last day), walked eight million miles, and saw just about everything that is humanly possible to see in four days.

We met lots of nice French people; most of them could speak at least some English, but you should ask Dad about being bilingual.

More as the story develops--this weekend was definitely one to remember!!

Tribute to the Motherland.

On Saturday, we went to the Trooping the Color--and saw the Queen! We didn't stay for the ceremony (where Her Maj inspects the troops), but we did see many soldiers with rifles/music.

This is my new boyfriend Herbert. We bonded. I waved. He blinked (I think). It's true love.

It's her! It's the Queen! We took bets to see what color she would be wearing this year. I guessed hot pink...obviously, I was mistaken, but after last year's lime green, anything is possible. I thought she was very classy. (Although I guess if she showed up naked, it would still be considered classy. That's what you get when you're Queen. Instant class.)

Just in case you ever wanted the experience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9xeHqvGopM

Sunday we voyaged to Salisbury to mess around and to see Stonehenge. It was...just amazing. Absolutely incredible. And beautiful. And ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uLwt0gHF1E

One of our friends asked, "You're going to see....rocks?" I guess in essence that's what they are, but it was so, so worth it. Thousands of years of weather and war, and there they were. Awesome.

We walked into Salisbury Cathedral just in time to catch the service--both the service and the church itself were gorgeous. The Cathedral also houses one of the two remaining copies of the Magna Carta. Random, but still cool.

Get ready. This rock...the round one on top of the base...is one billion years old. Literally. That's what the sign said. One billion. I touched it--not sure if that's allowed, but it's not like there's a gate around it. I touched something that is a billion years old. I don't even know what that means.

This morning we took a tour of the Royal Court Theatre (now one of my favorite places on Earth), K.L. and I bought tickets to le gay Paree, and we're going to see a show tonight at the Old Vic: Pygmalion.

More as the story develops.