Minerals are a girl's best friend!

Hello! I have to say that this blog will be rather short considering I did almost nothing this week! On Sunday I started to feel pretty sick, and by Monday I was miserable. I did not go to my internship on Tuesday or Wednesday because I was so tired. I had this horrible sore throat and cough...so I slept in my bed for most of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

On Monday, even though I felt terrible, I had to attend the play London Assurance for class. I am very glad that I did end up going even if I felt tired in the morning. I was laughing the entire time! It was so much fun, and Fiona Shaw (Aunt Petunia from Harry Potter) was absolutely hilarious...as well as Mark Addy who did an impeccable job (Roland from A Knight's Tale). I would recommend this play to anyone because it was just that good.

On Thursday, I really needed to get out of the house, so a group of us went salsa dancing! There were lessons at the club for 3 pounds for a half hour...it was a lot of fun even though I really am a horrible dancer, but my partner was not very good either so it worked out well. I ended up dancing with some 'advance class' salsa dancers, and that was awesome! They were very good at leading, so I didn't really have to be very good, I just followed. The picture is of Rachel and me before going salsa dancing!

Earlier in the day, we went to Holborn (pronounced Ho-burn). It was a part of an assignment for our seminar class, and it was a great part of London. Very quite compared to the rest. We had to go into a museum called Sir John Soane's Museum. He was a famous architect, and he liked to collect many things...Greek statues, an Egyptian sarcophagus, paintings...all in a tiny house. It was very eclectic, and I really enjoyed it! There was one room full of old books, and I really wanted every single one! We also saw The Inns of Court, the area where barristers practice law. And, I saw the Knight's Templar Church. It is dated back to the 1000s and is the site in The Da Vinci Code. It was gorgeous inside; the stain glass windows were amazing.

On Friday, Michelle and I went to the Natural History Museum. It was really interesting and had some great exhibits. The dinosaurs were pretty neat, and the animatronic dinosaurs were really cool, especially the T-Rex! I also liked the minerals area...some diamonds were there and other minerals that are actually prettier than diamonds, in my opinion. One part that was a little shocking...human anatomy. Now, nothing new to us, but the diagrams (not just drawings, but fake body parts cut into cross-sections) of a particular intimate act displayed on the wall for five year olds...well that's a different story. Michelle and I were a little shocked that there were naked manikins and drawings of childbirth all over the place. I'm pretty sure a lot of that would not have made it into the museums back home.

On Saturday, Michelle, Rachel, and I went to Portobello Road Market. It was a gorgeous day...sunny and close to 50 degrees! A ton of people were out, but I love that market so nothing could bring me down. I didn't buy anything, but I saw some great dresses for 15 pounds, and I might just have to do some shopping there. I'm pretty sure that Rachel and Michelle think I am absolutely nerdy because when we were passing the stands in the streets, there was one with a lot of old books. I headed straight towards it and Rachel commented something along the line of "Oh, of course the English major would look at the books!" I considered buying a really old copy of Jane Eyre, but that book was just painful to get through, so I passed.

I have the play Jerusalem tonight...hopefully it's good! More exciting things coming up this week!