Odds and ends and stonehenge

  London, England, United Kingdom
Thursday, March 5, 2009

nefeli, sun young, hannah

WOAH!!! It's march!  can't believe it - i've been here two months!!   i guess i've been slacking a bit in the blog department of my life - so this one's for you brian(my loyal reader)

I got back from Istanbul and that's when the chaos began here.  We were all preparing for thinking day - the shared birthday of our founder and world chief guide, Lord and Lady Baden-Powell.  The days were crazy and the nights were crazy too as we had a couple late night movies in the conference room to work on preparing things for the big day.  We were expecting a couple hundred people to come in through the weekend and the days before were just as busy as the saturday and sunday.  Saturday started out with a bang, making packed lunches and breakfast for lots of people, the morning passed quickly and soon all the staff we heading to westminster abbey for the founder's day ceromony...very cool since we were VIPs and got to cut the line and sit with alot of women from girl guiding UK.  No time to waste after the service, we were back here for the pax lodge festivities to begin  - i was running the new zealand station for maia and couldn't tell you how many braids i did to make poi(craft i was in charge of) between the two days. Everything finished up, dinner wizzed by as did the campfire and then we did it all again on sunday, and i was looking forward to days off after working a fun but tiring week.

waiting for the tube in our uniforms

KT lost her button...

megan is prepared!

we got split up!

westminster in sun!

american volunteers in the abbey

UK girl guides

Katelyn and i had a day off together...a rare occasion, and we went to stonehenge.  Before going, i had heard other people had thought it was boring, but i was still looking forward to a day out of london with some company.  I actually found it very interesting and just so amazing...how does something like that get there.  even though they've tried to explain it, it's like you really can't quite wrap your mind around it.  We also visited old serum while we were there - which is the location of the original village of salisbury and the ruins of the old castle and cathedral.  the lady in the gift shop talked us into sampling all the wines they had for sale and after doing so we thought it might not have been such a good idea on empty stomachs, so we headed back into town, ate, and did a little exploring(and getting lost) in salisbury before heading back on the train.  We met some french and italian guys on the train who had been in the same tour group as we had and it was funny how they had realised that once they remembered that i was the girl that was taking the jumping pictures.  they are in london going to an english school for a month so they talked to us for a good amount of the train ride and were happy to practice their english with us.  

lookie!!

oooohhhh cool!

stonehenge

katelyn and hannah

fun listening guides

i'm the princess

look lydia!

getting ready

finally getting the jump!

landing...

it's me!

I finally had another saturday off and with no questions asked went to portabello market again...which may have been a bad idea seeing that markets are my weakness and of course i spent more money than intended, but i got some cool pillows with indian designs on them and of course ate too much food.  mmm i love markets.  i made a quick trip to oxford street that afternoon as well and picked up two shirts for brian at primark(the cheapest clothing store i have ever been too - not even joking!  ever! love it!)  i know what brian thinks is "nice" vs. what i think is nice and that my friends needs no other explanation.   he'll have two things to wear that aren't gray t shirts when he gets here!  i'm so happy!

i can't really think of anything exciting that's happened at pax lodge lately.  i moved into a new room and i have everything sorted again.  it's also a huge mess already - that didn't take long.  i finally have posters and pictures up and it feels like "my" room.  while moving i realised how much stuff i've accumulated since i got here...it's actually ridiculous.  i'm pretty sure i have to buy another suitcase to go home...it's just too much stuff for my one bag that i brought.  we also had a milk and cookie party in finland, but that's been about the extent of our exciting social calenders except i did learn that i don't like pub quizzes and two in one week was enough to put me off for a while.  i'm just not smart enough for them or maybe i'm just not british enough...i think it's the latter of the two..but you never know. 

today is just a lazy day for me.  i was so tired that i fell asleep with my reading lamp on and book in bed with me last night and didn't wake up again until this morning...which really confused me.  it felt good to sleep in and by the time i got up i made some lunch for breakfast and then headed to the heath since the sun was shining.  i have to say that the heath is probably my favorite place in london as of now.  i just love how it feels so far away from anything having to do with the city and there's always so many people to watch.  i sat and read for a while and then moved on to a coffee shop where i sat outside and read.  as for the rest of the day i'm thinking of taking a bath and finishing my book...i love days like this.  tomorrow i am picking up a new resident volunteer from Alberta, Canada - anastasia.  We're all excited to have her arrive.  She's my age, so that will be nice.  Since katelyn's arrived, the resident volunteer age has taken a shift in average age.  but even so katie and i are still the babies!  yay!! oh and that reminds me that pax lodge is starting a senior section of girl guides and i'm going to join!  i'm going to be in a girl guiding UK group.  i'm excited!

so now that all of you loyal readers are caught up on my london life that's it until next time! 

peace, love, rocks...lots of rocks