Sunday was a nice day in London as well. We went to Abbey Road and took pictures crossing the road like the Beetles' album cover. Since that took a while with other people taking pictures and avoiding making drivers angry, it took a good hour or so.  A few members of our group had to go back to the hotel to get their luggage because they had to be at the bus station by 1:00. The rest of us went to a Piccadilly Circus for lunch and shopping...the name is misleading because there was no circus. I got a little something from a souvenir shop and then we went in to a magical, 5-story toy store. When I went to the very top floor, I was in bliss! It was a mini Lego land complete with life-size William and Kate in wedding attire, plus Prince Harry and Prince Charles next to them. The life-size queen sat on her throne and I went inside a telephone booth that had a round dial-style telephone. Other features included Sherlock Holmes, Iron Man, a ninja, and many royal guards. Kayla and I were delighted by a magic show on the other side of the stairs, and we ended up buying a small kit. I can't wait to entertain Hunter and baby Charlotte with it!
         We also went to a large store called SuperDry...they have them in all the major cities in Europe and I'm sure they have some in the states as well. I got some mint-colored shoes because I was tired of wearing dingy sneakers when the weather was nice.
         Afterwards we took the tube to Covent Garden, also a misleading name because I never once saw a garden. It was another shopping area with a market for people's handicrafts. I met a man who was an expert with Coats of Arms, so I ordered one for Ward. He told me that Ward and Hannon were both very old names and you could tell by the simplicity of the shield. Newer names would have more elaborate symbols and mottos below. He could not find the old version of Wyse that I had seen before, Wysse, but he did find Wyss. I'm not sure if that applies. Since I think it's a German name, it would have been pronounced Vysse, so there may be more spellings. The man suggested that it might be Dutch. So I just got his email address on the order form and we can follow up on that when I get back home to where I have more resources.
           On our way back to the hotel, we all stopped by the train station where Harry Potter  was filmed going to Platform 9 & 3/4 on his way to Hogwarts. We took pictures with a cart like we were going to Hogwarts as well and that was pretty fun. Remembering a couple of Fandom quizzes I took, I knew that I would either be in Slytherin or Hufflepuff. I used both scarves in different pictures, but I personally prefer Slytherin. I think I would have knocked some respect into that blond kid...I don't remember his name at the moment.
        After we got our bags, we waited at the bus station for a little while before we boarded a totally packed bus. Luckily, we got on first so we sat together in the back seats. I watched The Sword and The Stone with Laurie on her ipad and then we boarded a ferry to cross the English Channel. I had such a lovely time exploring the ship and going to the deck where we could see lights from both sides of the waterway. Others had a less than lovely time aboard the ferry, but I thought it was a wonderful experience. We arrived in Brussels a little bit before 7 and, already bright outside, I didn't try to go to sleep before class. I went down to the mini-mart, got a hot fresh pastry, and took about a 20 minute nap.

          There was free breakfast in the hotel's glorious dining room...well, it was free for up to 4 people from each room and we didn't know that the hot sausage & such were not included in the "Complimentary Breakfast" until Saturday morning.
           We started our day by going to the Tower of London and looking through the torture tower, the crown jewels, and an armory exhibit. My favorite things there were a jewel-encrusted sword handle and sheath, and the kings' crowns. 
            It was a nasty, rainy day but we trekked over to Buckingham Palace to meet up with Eddie and Lindsey. We had to arrange buses for the way back, which was quite a hassle. Luckily, once we got to the EuroLine office, they were able to help us get all 13 of us on two different buses leaving Sunday.
            The weather was so dreary, we went back to the hotel. Then all of us ladies went shopping. There's a discount store called Uniqlo and it's found back in the states...they had pretty trendy stuff. We went into another shop and looked at swimsuits so we could get in the hot tub at the hotel. Unfortunately, their dressing rooms were closed since the store was closing soon and they didn't have anything that I would find useful wearing back home, so I didn't get a swimsuit. We went into a huge department store called Harrod's next...they had the most wonderful swimsuits, but for some of the most out-of-this-world price. Back at the hotel, I ended up putting my feet into the hot tub and spent some time in the sauna with a towel wrapped over undergarments.  
             Finally feeling a bit warmed up, we went out and around the block to a locals' bar called Minories. They were really nice and had a 2 for 1 cocktail special. I tasted the Long Island Iced Tea and liked it alot, but they didn't have nearly as much alcohol in it as it normally would. I actually a virgin cocktail of orange and cranberry juice with some fizz. Apparently we were in the business district, because everything was closing. We ran into a study abroad group from New Jersey who led us to a club called Pause...they couldn't get in and assumed the place was closing. However, we saw some other people go in and the bouncers even let one member of our group go in to use the restroom. It turns out they were practicing racial discrimination against most of us. One of the bouncers actually suggested to the girl coming that she should kill herself for hanging out with these white people.
              We quickly made our way back to the hotel.

               Saturday was a pretty nice day for me. We started out with lunch and somehow I thought that a salmon and goat cheese sandwich would be a good idea because it was fairly cheap on the menu. Wrong. The salmon was good, but the goat cheese overpowered it. The sandwich came with another salad that had arugula (which tastes awful in my opinion). So I picked out the spinach for my sandwich, and somewhat tried to force myself to eat the other greenery to try to maintain a balanced diet.
               I’m not quite sure why, but we went into an enormous department store. I wasn’t there to shop for myself, and certainly not to spend a ton of money (US department stores cost enough as it is), so I went with some of the guys to different floors. Since European power tools probably wouldn’t work well in the states, I figured this wasn’t the best place to buy gifts for my dad and brothers. I was just going with the flow. Soon we went upstairs and found the electronics section. While the guys were enamored over a huge flat screen HDTV, I found myself rather entertained by a children’s gaming system about like LeapFrog. I played a couple of rounds of Uno before I got impatient with it. Eddie found us and I went to toy section with him to find something for Hunter while he looked for gifts for his nephews. Unfortunately, everything I thought would be characteristic of European toys was also characteristic of European prices. HotWheels were reasonably priced, but they weren’t anything special.
             I got to see the Notre Dame again and really study the details. I found it interesting that all the statues’ heads were at the same level on a row, so shorter figures stood on taller pedestals than others. I don’t know which one of the twelve apostles was supposedly the shortest, but the sculptor must have assumed that one must be shorter than the others. We were amazed at how the statues would have been lifted and attached to the side of the building.
              We shopped for souvenirs and I almost bought a way over-priced music box for baby Charlotte when Laurie stopped me and suggested a painted canvas that I missed at the front of the store. It cost a little more but it was a much better idea. These music boxes were cheap and generic, but every canvas they had looked unique.
                  Once we got back to the metro, Eddie led us to the neighborhood where they stayed last year, near Moulin Rouge. We must have gotten off the metro at the wrong stop, because we had to walk through several blocks of the red light district. However, Eddie noted that he had never been that far away from the hotel in that direction, so I’m sure he  didn’t expect to take us through there. Once we were in front of Moulin Rouge, I took some glamor shots above a large air vent that blew my hair around. We had some group shots and then went to an Irish pub for supper. I was thrilled that they had a few frozen virgin drinks to choose from: I got one called “Teenage Dream” with strawberry, pineapple, and coconut. Really tempted to go out with the others afterwards, I decided that I wanted to get up early the next morning, so I went back to the hotel with the professors. In hindsight, I would have had time to sleep in a bit and really enjoy my night with such a hospitable group of people.
                 When I got back to my hotel room, all the other girls were lounging around sipping some wine and waiting for midnight to wish one of the girls a happy birthday. I know they had a good time going around town with real Parisians, but I was very glad I spent my day as a tourist with the other group.

           Classes started today. I'm taking COMM 150 at 10 am and COMM 366 at 12 pm. COMM 150 is the Intro to Communications gen-ed course that I need. We will do three speeches: informative, persuasive, and then one about what we have learned from the trip at the end. 
           Since our research abilities are limited here without access to the library across town and slow internet, our informative speech will be mostly based on our own knowledge of a topic. I think I might do mine on teaching practices, although that might require some review of notes that I don't have with me (meaning I'd have to ask my mom to scan them & email them to me), or I might choose to talk about Dominica. Since I studied abroad in Dominica last summer and read a couple of books about it, I could definitely speak about the formation of the island and its history, and then conclude with a few cultural facts if time permits. 
        One of my ideas for the persuasive speech is to talk about poverty in the Clemson area and encouraging students to volunteer and donate items to the non-profits in the community.  
        COMM 366 is a documentary class. It consists of just about everyone on the trip. We were split into 4 groups to focus on topics. My group wanted to look at Europeans' views of Americans and also Americans' culture shock in Europe. However, another group had the same idea of Europeans' view (because our group member who proposed the idea had brainstormed with others before we decided groups), so we will focus on Americans' view of Europeans and our culture shocks here. The two other groups will look at alcohol usage and dining in Europe.
          After the classes, about half of us went to get pictures made for our metro (subway) passes. A few forgot to get pictures from home, but most of us just had pictures that were too big to be used for the metro pass. We had tried yesterday to get pictures at a photo-booth but the machine just took someone's money and wouldn't take a picture. That was partly because no one with us could read French. So we had to give in and pay 13 Eu each for pictures at the mall. On the plus side, we got four copies of our pictures and I really like mine!
        Davide, our guide from CEPA was going to take the pictures and copies of our passports to the metro office, which works about as efficient as the DMV in the states. When he told the lady that he needed 36 or so metro passes, she refused to serve him. In the states, we would have asked for the manager, but I don't guess the customer is ever right here. We trekked across town to the shadier metro office, where the guy agreed to help Davide get the passes. Since it wasn't a nice part of town, he told us to go back to the central square. We waited for a while at O'Reilly's Irish Pub, which has been a friendly meeting spot for us for the past few days, and supposing that it would take a while, I went with my roommates and a girl from upstairs to look at some shops a few blocks away. I found some reasonably priced jewelry, scarves, and purses, but nothing that can't be found in the states. At the hotel, 3 & a half hours later, Davide had our metro passes back for us. There were some complications that caused Davide's boss to meet him at the metro office and assist him. 
         Already at 6pm, going to Bruge (not the correct spelling, I'm sure) for the afternoon was out of the question. Bruge is a medieval town that we will see sometime soon, I hope. Prof. Eddie told us that he received complaints about noise and people coming in too late, people walking around town by themselves at night, and a broken picture near the conference room. The hotel manager blamed it all on us, although none of us even knew there was a picture near the conference room and the reported noise came from a floor that doesn't house any of our students. No curfew has been made but Eddie wants us to come in earlier. I haven't been out at night so far because (1) I need sleep, (2) I don't drink, and (3) I don't want to be out in the city after dark...it's too risky.

          Today we went to the Atomium, a giant model of a molecule. It was built for the 1958 World's Fair to symbolize scientific progress and encourage the use of atomic energy. We took an elevator to the top and took pictures of the city, then took a series of escalators and staircases to visit a few other bubbles. The other bubbles were like a museum, but uninterested in taking the time to read (I'm not even sure if it was in English) or watch the videos, I skipped through and took pictures of some really cool stuff. They had a chair made of extension cords, another of something that looked like auto-parts, and one that looked like a shopping cart. They also had some blobs made of batteries and shot-gun shells. I took pictures of some neat architectural designs for my Architecture major buddies back home to get some inspiration. 
        We took the subway to and from the Atomium and every station was totally different. Some were really nice and others were kind-of dingy with graffiti on the walls; several had beautiful pictures on the walls, inspirational words, and encouraging quotes. We took the wrong train for a little while, but it was not detrimental because they move very quickly from station to station. Cultural note: there are alot of Muslims in Brussels, although I haven't seen any veils, just women with the scarves over their head and wrapped around.
        Once we got back to our part of town, a group of us went to get lunch at the Sultans of Kebap restaurant; they are everywhere and fairly cheap. They mainly have wraps and pitas. I got a falafel because it was only 3.5 Euros and I ended up taking half of it back with me for supper. I don't think it had any meat in it, but they put something that seemed like hushpuppies in it. Whatever it was, it didn't taste bad at all. I suppose that as long as it's cheaper, I don't mind being vegetarian for a month. We also went to Quick, which is like a Belgian McDonalds to meet up with some friends there. They got a meal for 3.5 Euro, too, but I think I prefer paying for two meals for the price of one at the kebap place.
         Afterwards, we went to the grocery store which has the same symbol as Food Lion. It was really a bit difficult to find what I wanted, but I got enough to suffice for a few days. I think the bread is actually cheaper at the mini-mart down the street, so I just got some off-brand Nutella to spread over bread for breakfasts. My total bill at the Food Lion (not it's actual name) was about 10 Euros. Culture shock: you bag your own groceries here. Also, chivalry is quite possibly dead here. No one gets up so a lady can sit on the subway and the ladies gave strange looks to guys from our group who held doors open.
         Once back at the hotel, we took a nap...I slept for 3 hours! Later my roommates and I went upstairs, I sipped some cheap wine (I definitely don't want that kind anymore, it was rather off-putting), and played a card game guessing famous mustaches.