Birthday Tales

Wait, where did October go?! I know, what a cliché thing to say but seriously the month of October flew by so fast. Last time I posted I was still settling in, figuring out how to balance school and social life, and traveling around doing fun things. Well at the point of this posting I am pretty well settled, I have learned that I can’t have a social life if I want to pass school, and I don’t have time for trips because my homework is never ending! But let’s not focus on that-lets go back to “Laura’s birthday week” which was SO MUCH FUN!

As many of you know, I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. I love the books and I love all of the experiences that have been created around them. One of the more recent HP developments is the stage play- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which premiered in London in July of 2016. There has been an incredible amount of demand for these tickets and since they came on sale I had been trying to get tickets. I waited for hours on end in online queues, put my email down for every announcement, and entered every contest to no avail. For months I would check random dates to see if I could get two tickets together and decided that if I could, I would get myself to the show no matter what, but there were never any available. Well, just before coming to Birmingham I was doing one of my random checks for tickets and somehow, I miraculously ended up with two tickets the weekend before my birthday in my shopping cart!! I didn’t have to think-I booked them immediately. So, on a Friday afternoon, Briana and I headed down to London for our pre-birthday, Harry Potter celebration! Saturday, we woke up early to do a bit of sightseeing before heading out for our theater day. We ran around Westminster taking self-timed pictures and marveling at the fact that we were in London again and musing that it would be impossible to ever be sick of London. We headed back to get ready and then went off to the theater district for a pre-show lunch at a cute little wine bar restaurant around the corner from our theater (called the Cork and Bottle and we would 9 out of 10 recommend). Then it was time for THE SHOW!

I should preface this by saying that the screenplay of the Cursed Child was published when the play started and Briana and I have both read it-and neither of us like it. It’s not written by JK Rowling and it reads like a bad fan fiction from someone who has only seen the movies (in our opinions). This fact aside, we were not going to miss out on seeing the play because we were sure it would be a different experience, and oh man was it!! The play was absolutely amazing. The actors are wonderful, the production can only be described as magical, and the music and company were all incredible. The poor plot and bad script literally didn’t even matter when watching the play because it was just brought to life so phenomenally. The effects were magical and they really figured out a way to recreate the magic of the Harry Potter universe, which is no small feat in my opinion. The show is long and is split into two parts-so all together the Cursed Child experience was eight hours long; it never for one moment felt like it had been that long and I would have loved to stay and experience the magic for eight more had there been an opportunity. During the break between shows, Briana and I headed around the corner to the House of MinaLima. For those who don’t know, MinaLima does all of the graphics for the Harry Potter movies and they are awesome. The house is both a shop and an experience and all throughout are different prints and publications from the movies-some of them limited edition. This was so much fun and was such a great way to stay in the Harry Potter spirit during the break in the show. At the end of the play Briana and I stood outside the stage door and waited for the actors to come out so that we could get autographs and tell them how much we loved the performance-they were all so nice and very happy to stand and chat with all of us, it was a great way to round out the experience! After getting all our autographs Briana and I met up with my friend Trevor who studied in London with me the first time and is studying there again now! We all went to a super fancy bar/restaurant called The Ivy and splurged on yummy drinks and dessert that were much too expensive but worth it because dammit we’re adults and we can do that sometimes! On Sunday, Briana and I enjoyed a birthday afternoon tea and a lovely autumnal stroll through Kensington gardens before heading back to good old Brum!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

On my birthday, I received a very special present from my parents, who are just the best. The entire package was handpicked by my mom just for me and it was such a wonderful and thoughtful surprise present. There was wine, cheese, pate, cookies, a delicious candle, and a special mug dedicated just to me. THANKS PARENTS! LOVE YOU!

After opening and marveling over my wonderful gift, Briana and I headed back to the train station. This time we were headed to Bristol for a couple of days. Why Bristol? Because there is a coffee shop in Bristol that makes massive freakshakes and during the month of October their special freakshake was HARRY POTTER themed. So, to answer the question I know you’re all asking, yes. We went to Bristol to get milkshakes. The freakshakes may have been the reason we went to Bristol but we ended up falling in love with the city during our time there. Bristol has some truly amazing, old, intricate architecture and it’s mixed in right next to sleek modern buildings. And then featuring on all of it is some really incredible and interesting street art. Bristol is where the famous street artist, Banksy, started out, and many people have followed in his footsteps since then. The city is a remarkable mix of old and new and it was such a joy just to walk around and see what we could stumble across. The freakshakes were 100% as delicious as we were hoping and were definitely worth making a trip to Bristol just to get them. I also demolished a huge t-bone steak for my birthday dinner and they brought out my tiramisu with a candle and a passionfruit martini (two of my favorite things ever!) Needless to say, it was a really, really fun birthday trip and I’m so glad that we got to see Bristol and find out how cool it is! 

Since coming back from Bristol, I have been elbow deep in group project work for my courses. I have endless amounts of group meetings, lectures, readings, and case studies to do and I can’t believe that there are only four weeks left in the term- I never thought I would be this person but last week I lamented the fact that the term is so short and expressed a desire for my two-hour lecture to be three hours. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?! Overall, I feel a bit stressed and I hope that I have time to finish everything that I need to do in time and I hope that I can keep up with all of my readings in the midst of all the group work. I’m feeling the squeeze right now so any good thoughts and prayers that those back home can send will be very appreciated! Despite the stress and the crazy schedule-I really am enjoying my time here and definitely haven’t regretted my decision to undertake my masters here!

Hoping the Broncos can pull it together as I don’t need anything more to stress over at this point! I also hope that you are all enjoying a beautiful fall that is rapidly turning to winter and that your stress levels aren’t quite as high as mine. As always, I really appreciate every view that this blog receives and want to thank you all for being such a wonderful, supportive group of people! Next post will feature pumpkins and castles at the very least so make sure to tune in.

You all rock,

LP

I'm Back!

Hello world and thanks for visiting the new blog! I hope that this one will be just as interesting as the last one, but that’s a tall order considering all the cool places I went last year!

As I’m sure you know at this point I am pursuing my masters degree in international marketing at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Many people have asked me how I chose this university to study at and to be honest-I really didn’t do a whole lot of research. I knew what I wanted to do and I knew that I maybe wanted to do it somewhere outside of the USA. I studied abroad in London in 2014 and I absolutely loved living in the UK, so that’s where I decided to focus my search. I found the University of Birmingham and when I read the program description and read a little bit about the school-I was sold! I didn’t know much about the school, the city of Birmingham, or the program that I was entering but I knew I was excited to study and live in the second largest city in the UK for a year. Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK but it’s a pretty big difference: London has 8 million people whereas Birmingham only has 1 million. It’s a big city with lots to do but it’s not quite as huge and overwhelming as London-which is only an hour and a half away when you need your dose of the big, big city!

Many of you know that my best friend Briana also found the perfect program for her career goals at UoB and we made this trip together! We each have our own studio apartments in the same student village but different buildings. Sometimes at night we flash our lights at each other and we often facetime from across the duck pond. This is a big university for undergrads as well as postgrads and since I live in student housing I am constantly surrounded by 18 year old college freshman-talk about a situation that makes you feel old….but its been really fun to go to all the events put on by the school and the different organizations. We have done all kinds of fun things in the month that we have been here; the first week we arrived was Welcome Week and was an entire week of fun events. We have been to all kinds of job, volunteering, and society fairs, we have excelled at pub quizzes, we have eaten lots of free food and made all sorts of friends from all over the world.

I have joined a few societies including the Harry Potter society and a skiing society called Brumski. A couple of weeks ago Brumski hosted a trip to an indoor snow dome so we could ski and practice some freestyle tricks. Growing up in the beautiful Rocky Mountains I had previously never skied anywhere but outdoors and on great mountains-that all changed when I went to the snowdome. It was a steep narrow hill in the middle of a shopping mall! It had all manmade snow and had a magic carpet and two pull lifts and a lot of people. It was probably one of the most interesting things I have ever done and it was fun although I did end up with a lot of bruises from the lifts. They also hosted an intense house party complete with “Brumski punch” served out of a plastic bucket….who says postgrads can't have fun!? The drinking culture is pretty extreme here but luckily most of the postgrads have all been there and done that so we do other fun activities that often include drinking but allow us to function the next morning.

Briana and I have travelled around Birmingham city centre a few times and have also been on a few adventures farther from home. On our first weekend here we went down to the Lickey Hills and spent a day trying to navigate buses, walking the wrong way multiple times, taking a tea break and eventually making it to the one of the highest (possibly THE highest, but I cant remember) point in the West Midlands-a whopping 975 feet above sea level. We also took a day trip to Stratford-upon-Avon which apart from being the birthplace of William Shakespeare and where he is buried, is a very cute, quintessential, English town. We had a lot of fun strolling around window shopping, actual shopping, sightseeing, and drinking tea. Last weekend I found out that my friend Kristen, who I met in Tanzania, was taking a quick trip to London so I came down for the day to visit with her and see some London sights! We had a wonderful day walking around the city, eating great food, and seeing all the sights that make London great. It was a lot of fun to reunite with my friend and it was so cool to realize that I can take a day trip to London whenever I want-I mean really, how cool is that!  

So far things here are going great! It’s really awesome to have my best friend here with me and the school really did a nice job at putting on events that helped me make other friends as well. I have joined a local yoga studio which is nice because it gives me a community outside of the university and I also get a two mile walk in every time I go there! I miss my dogs, my family, my friends, the broncos, and the babies and kiddos in my life back home, but so far I haven’t had any issues with homesickness (thankfully). You guys followed along with me on my last trip and I hope that my personal growth was as obvious to you as it has been to me-I feel like a totally different person on this trip than I did the last time I left home for an extended period of time. Of course this is a pretty different kind of trip but I learned a lot from last time that has made the beginning of this one much easier.

I will do my best to keep this blog interesting for you guys and I hope that you will all follow along as wonderfully as you did last time-and that you enjoy it. If there is anything you want to know or want to hear about just leave a comment!

Thanks for expressing interest in my adventures! I sometimes wonder how I can love my home so much and yet have such a strong desire to travel, but I think having a wonderful place to go home makes adventuring afar that much easier.

“Laura’s Birthday Week” has commenced so next post is sure to be packed with fun adventures! 

Until next time!

LP