Natalie, Katherine and I went to to Blenheim Palace up near Oxford on Friday. It was an incredible day. I really enjoyed getting out of London for the day and taking in some of the beautiful countryside. This was our first view of Blenheim and the grounds as we entered the gate. We arrived just as they were opening and it was a cool clear morning. It really was breathtaking. I enjoyed it so much that I can't wait to go back!

Strolling down the lane.

A view of the grounds.

Blenheim Palace and gardens, we had lunch overlooking the terrace!

The Secret Garden at Blenheim! Wow!

Blenheim has a real hedge maze!!! This is another thing I have always wanted to do, it was so much fun! It was a dream come true, I can't wait to go back and do it again!

Fun on the putting green at Blenheim!!!

Katherine, Natalie and me overlooking the Oxford skyline.

Sarah, Natalie and myself went to the changing of the guard. It was very funny because we were standing in pretty much the worst spot we could have picked. We really saw pretty much nothing aside from a couple of carriages that drove by!! It was so hilarious we were completely foiled!! We followed the band after it finished and got a couple of pics. We have to go again and now we know where to stand!
Guess what!!! I've done something that I can mark off my list of things to do before I die!! I went to the Globe Theatre in London!!! Natalie and I went to see Loves Labours Lost, it was beyond amazing!! Seriously we had the best time ever!! We were 'groundlings' meaning we only paid 5 pounds and had to stand through the performance. But we went super early so we were some of the first ones in and we were literally leaning against the stage in the front center. It really was incredible! I even got hit in the head by a flying loaf of bread in one scene! Excellent!!
Ahh.....the beautiful London skyline!
A lazy afternoon stroll through Hyde Park.

Walking along the south bank of the Thames at twilight.
Optimus Prime on a budget!!! On weekends there are so many street performers! Covent Garden is an especially popular area, every fifty feet there was another act dressed up or performing, very entertaining!!!
Here I am at the Portabello Road market enjoying a scrumptious mushroom and cheese crepe!!
This is Regent's Canal just down the street from my house. Quite picturesque!
Here I am at Kew Gardens, my new favorite spot!!! I've been to many botanical gardens but this place is huge!! My flatmate, Natalie, and I went one day. We spent six hours walking the gardens and we didn't come close to really seeing everything!! Yay for plants!! I'm going to have to spend a lot more time exploring the gardens!

So here I am with the London Eye in the background! Even with a year I don't know how I will see everything on my list, there are so many things to see and do!!!

So I'm back! Or I'm off again depending how you look at it! I've settled into London and am having a great time so far. Classes start on Monday and I'm just finishing up my orientation meetings. I've already done some really fun things and have many more on my to do list. Here I am welcoming you into my flat in London! (Okay so it is Kew Palace but whatever, mine is a bit more humble but a great place).

Well I has been a while since I have updated my blog but I have been quite busy.  I came back to the States briefly before I set off to Namibia with my parents on safari.  So here are some of the highlights of our trip.  Namibia is absolutely incredible!!!  I loved every moment and have to go back!!  This first picture is my mom.  She and I had some serious fun playing with long-exposure photos on the roof of our bungalow one night!

I can't break with tradition so here is a crazy jumping picture African style!

Namibia is very desert which really felt like home.  The scope of the landscapes was immense.  I loved how open and free it feels!

While my dad and his friend Shawn were hunting the rest of us went on a tour to some incredible locations.  We had so much fun and visited many wonderful areas of Namibia.  Here is our group at dinner in Etosha National Park- Bernd (our tour guide), me, mom, Sherry and Kyle.  The food was great, make sure you try the oryx if you go!

We watched the sunset after hiking to the top of this mount.  The vast beauty of the landscape was incredible!  Truly breathtaking!

This is some bougenvia at one of the places we stayed.  It was very much in the middle of nowhere in an incredibly beautiful area of Namibia.  It was wonderful! 

Here I am attempting to hitchhike!  Talk about the middle of nowhere!!!  We stopped for lunch where we literally couldn't see anything the horizon in any direction.  What is funny is that this is a pretty major road in the region (that's the road on the right of the photo).  I think three cars came by in the hour we were stopped.  It was one of the most memorable lunches ever, we had a blast running and horsing around!

 It was amazing to watch the giraffes and the way their tongues maneuvered around the acacia thorns to eat the blossoms.

The zebras often laid their heads on each other it was sweet and made for great pictures.

Here are some elephants coming in to drink at a water hole.  One of the neatest things I learned and was able to observe was the hierarchy that exists among all the animal species, especially at water holes.  The elephants are definitely in charge, they're the real kings.

The diversity of animal species at the water holes was quite varied.  Here is a photo with elephants, ostriches, zebras and oryx represented.  I was surprised at how freely they mingled, at one hole we saw eight different species all together.  How cool!

We visited a fur seal colony on the Skeleton Coast near Swakopmund.  It was remarkable to see so many seals together but they smelled VERY bad!  It was also very comical because they make a sound that sounds like bleating sheep.  So essentially it was like seeing a herd of thousands of smelly aquatic sheep, cool!!  This was one of our favorites because it was very asleep with a flipper sticking straight in the air, none of the others slept this way.

Welcome to the Bay of Islands!  My flat mate Sariah and I went on a road trip to the far north of the north island.  We saw some incredible scenery.  The Bay of Islands has always been on my list of things I have to see, so it really was a dream come true.  This was the view near a town called Russell, not too shabby!  I'm so grateful to be here!!

I'm on top of the world, well at least New Zealand!  Sariah and I went on a tour up to Cape Reinga and ninety mile beach.  This is the view looking north on the northern tip of New Zealand.  It almost felt like we could jump off the edge of the world.  Here I am making an attempt but don't worry I'm still here.

Hanging loose at Cape Reinga!  

Here I am on 90 mile beach.  We drove up the normal highway on the way to the cape and on the way back we drove on the beach for over fifty miles!  It was so cool!!  Talk about an incredible view out the bus window!  Our tour guide was very funny, he told us that because the beach is classified as a highway the speed limit for buses is 90 kph, unless the tide starts to turn, in which case the speed limit is as fast as you can go.  He also said it was the cleanest highway in New Zealand because it is washed clean twice a day!  So fun!!

Guess where I spent the fourth of July?!  I've given you a series of clues so you can figure it out.  But my first clue is that it is much farther away from home than New Zealand!  I had a wonderful day even though there were no fireworks!

This photo should definitely help you figure it out, (if you have gone to the movies lately- hint, hint).  No it's not heaven, even though you might think it is by the photos.

Maybe this photo will help.  Yes I know I am goofy, in fact I have an entire series of these jumping photos, but it is super fun!  Yay for silliness!!

Narnia!!  What a fourth!!  So this is Cathedral Cove, where they filmed the new Narnia move Prince Caspian.  Specifically the scene where the kids are transported back to Narnia while waiting for the tube.  Sariah and I spent the afternoon playing on the beach.  What was truly remarkable was that we had the entire beach to ourselves for nearly an hour.  When we arrived there were a few people but they left and we had free reign to be crazy, as evidenced by the photos!  So happy fourth of July!  I hadn't seen the movie though I knew it was filmed there so we went to it the next day and yes it is even more beautiful in person than in the movie!

The drive from Hinakura to Hamilton was one of the most beautiful days ever!!  It had been cold and snowy/rainy for several days before but the day we drove home was clear and bright!  There was hardly a cloud in the sky all day.  What a day to see the mountains!  This picture is Mt. Ruapehu (Mordor for you LOTR fans).  I don't know how often you will see the mountain with a fresh dusting of snow and not a cloud in the sky, we couldn't believe it!  It was so incredibly beautiful!  Wow!

I spent the last week in June at a sheep/cattle farm at the very south end of the north island.  My flat mate Sariah and I went to visit her uncle and aunt.  We had so much fun relaxing, exploring the region and just hanging out with her family.  The farm is located in a very remote area called Hinakura that is rugged and beautiful.  While we were down there we went to Stonehenge!  No we didn't fly to England, they have built a working stone circle right in New Zealand!  Random!  We took a tour that was very informative and learned some of the ways early civilizations used stone circles, one, for instance was as a calendar.  So here I am at Stonehenge Aotearoa!

Welcome to Orokawa Bay!  My flat mate Cherie and I went to the east coast yesterday and found a secret cove, or it seemed that way.  We found a great hike along the coast, it took just over an hour to get to Orokawa Bay but when we arrive there was only one other person there.  So there was just a man fishing and the two of us in the whole bay.  It goes without saying that we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves running up and down the beach and even relaxing in a makeshift hammock.  Every once in a while it is fun to act like a crazy kid (or if you're like me it's more often than every once in a while.)

I love New Zealand!!  We had so much fun wading in the ocean, relaxing and exploring the area.  To have the whole place nearly to ourselves was truly unbelievable.

So while Cherie and I were having lunch in our secret cove guess who I met -- Treebeard!!  Seriously this was the coolest tree I have ever seen in my life, isn't it beautiful!  Can't you see him walking with such lovely Entish features?  There was a whole grove of these incredibly unique trees, I really felt like I was in an Ent meeting.