Buckets of Rain

Rain rain, FINALLY went awayyy! And now we have some actual summer weather here in Boston MA. After 5+ weeks of pretty much nonstop rain, summer weather is (hopefully) here to stay! Given that it's August...

This summer has absolutely flown by, I can't believe it's already August 6th. I move into my new apartment in less than a month! Haley and I still have so much organizing to do, and we still have more furniture we need to buy. It's a whole new world to us... a world which involves lots and lots of bills. :( But other than that I am veryyyy excited to leave the comfort of the dorm life, and become an off campus student in the bean :)

Honestly, I haven't done much this summer, other than live in Beverly, commute into Boston for work fulltime. However, I have gone to 2 amazing concerts this summer, one of which was last night at Fenway! The first show I saw was at McCoy Stadium and it was the Bob Dylan "Never ending tour" including Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. Honesttttly, not a huge fan of Willie or John, but Bob Dylan happens to be one of my all time favorite artists. Even though he's old(68) and his voice, which was never anything great even in his prime, is pretty bad, I still love seeing him perform. It really is a marvel that a guy like Dylan would still be touring the world at his age, writing and producing new music every few years, and continuing to please audiences across the globe. Regardless of his croaky and rusty vocals, I will still continue to go to Dylan concerts until they are no more. :) Here's one of the many videos I took of Bob that night at McCoy; one of my personal favorite songs "It Ain't Me Babe". In the picture below, Bob is front and center on guitar, wearing a very late 70s looking white hat. :)



Last night at Fenway I saw Paul McCartney! SUCH an amazing show, I honestly don't know how to describe the feeling of seeing Paul live, and the excitement in the atmosphere that was shared throughout all of Fenway Park. Indescribable. Paul played for 2 and a half hours nonstop, including a set of 30 songs and 2 encores with 3 songs each! Throughout the show he would dedicate or mention a few of his loved ones; John Lennon, Linda(his 1st wife) and George Harrison. Those dedications were always followed by an extremely emotional song: For John he played Here Today, for Linda he played My Love and for George he played Something. Anyways, once I upload the videos and pictures I took I'll add them to this blog :)

EDIT:
A few pictures from the Paul McCartney concert :)





I'm pretty excited about the upcoming school year, however it is going to be crazy busy! I'm taking 4 classes and one lab. My classes are Advertising, Journalism, Intro to American Democracy, Physical Science and the Physical Science lab. I have a few classes with my roommates from London, as well as one with Haley! Along with a full class schedule, I somehow managed to get Fridays off :) but it looks like I'll be (hopefully) working 9-5 at the State House on fridays!! I applied for an internship there, and am waiting to hear back. So if I get that internship I'll be working 12-16 hours a week there, as well as 10 hours here in the admissions office. So, needless to say, I will be extremely busy this Fall! But, it's better than being completely bored, right!?

Feels good to blog again, it's been awhile! I won't wait this long next time, but it's 4:30 and almost time to leave work, so until next time...


xxR

There and back again

To say the least, a lot has happened since my last post. To summarize, I traveled to Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Edinburgh, and Dublin. But more than traveling those new places, I explored the beautiful, busy and wonderful city of London, and made it my home for 4 months. I made some amazing friends, with whom I know I will keep in touch with and hopefully see again soon. I miss London every day... and fully intend to go back to visit as soon as possible! It's hard for me to put into words what the past semester has meant to me, and how much I feel I've learned and grown from the experience. Traveling outside of the states definitely opened my mind to different people, cultures, and new ways of thinking about how I want my life to be. It might just be because I miss London and Europe so much, but I can't really picture myself living in the states for the rest of my life. I would love to live in London again, but if not London, then maybe Scotland. I love the way people feel and think about life in the UK. Things are more relaxed, and everyone seems happier; things are not as rushed over there as they are in America. There is not as much as cut throat constant competition. Anyways, enough gushing about the UK. Below I've posted some pictures from my semester...

My London Roommates:
Brittany, me and Alaina


Rome, Italy:
the Trevi Fountain


British Friends


Paris, France:
Montmarre


Barcelona, Spain:
Park Guell


New Friends in London


Edinburgh, Scotland


Dublin, Ireland


Dinner on the last night in London

View from London!!

Hello all!

So I am currently in London, studying at Regent's College for the semester! I've been here almost 3 weeks(as of Thursday) and I still can't believe I'm here. London is such an AMAZING city. So much to offer, and the night life is ridiculously entertaining; always meeting new and interesting people! So far we(my friends Melissa, Brittany, Geralyn, Alaina and Kirsten) have pretty much been trying to meet people we're going to school with, and it's been great getting to know new people from all over the US as well as some locals! Here's a picture of us in front of Parliament and Big Ben :)

Classes here are starting to pick up very quickly. I'm taking a Contemporary Theatre class, and we've already had to go to a play on our own and write a 6 page analysis! It was rough seeing as I've never written a theatre analysis, but I think I did fine. The play we chose to see is called "The 39 Steps". It's a spoof off of the Hitchcock thriller movie made in the 1930s, and there are 4 actors who play over 50 different roles throughout the performance! It was hilarious and way better than I expected. Since I've been here I have also seen the musical Wicked, which was absolutely amazing, and last night I went to see a show with my theatre class called Shunkin. Shunkin was very interesting because it was entirely in Japanese, with English subtitles. I loved it, and I thought I would hate it and be frustrated with having to read subtitles for 2 hours, but it was one of the best plays I have ever seen. Right now, I'm trying to write a paper on postmodernism for my Art in London class. Any help would be much appreciated :) I have no idea how to even begin this paper! So blogging is a nice distraction.. :)

Last Saturday we went to Bath for a daytrip planned by our school! I posted a picture of me and some girls touching the Roman Bath water. It was really fun, about 90 students went, and we got to tour the ancient Roman Baths and just basically explore the amazing city of Bath. It seemed kind of gloomy, because every single building was the same, sandstone color, but then I realized it was part of it's uniqueness. The shopping in Bath is amazing as well, tons and tons of stores! It was very tempting.. but then I remembered I need to have enough money for the rest of the semester! Which reminds me... I'm going to Rome on Friday!!!!! AHH. I can't believe it!! I'm really excited! I will post pictures of Rome in my next blog!

Also, London got about 5 inches of snow yesterday, and the entire city pretty much shut down! It was hilarious, all the Londoners were sooo excited for snow... people went sledding on lunch trays at Primrose Hill! Haha, so funny to think that 5 inches is a lot of snow, but it was the most snow London has seen since 1991. Nuts. 5 inches is NOTHING back home! And I was really upset to see snow, I guess us New Englanders brought it with us ;) Speaking of New Englanders, I've been trying to catch up with people from home(like CG ;) ) but my power cord to my laptop blew when I plugged it in 2 weeks ago, so I'm hardly on my computer at all! It's really hard to keep in touch without the internet, but soon my new power cord will come in which I'm very excited for..

OK so I suppose I really should go write my art paper, but I will blog again soon!

xxRachel