The Euro 2004

Sunday afternoon brought two new roommates (Bryan and his girlfriend Erin). They both attend the University of Maryland. I think the hostal at which I am staying attempts to set up rooms with people from the same country.
I returned to Piccadilly this afternoon to pick up a travel guide book of London at the bookstore, Waterstones. Waterstones is a Europeon chain and this particular store was 5 stories. I also wanted to go see if a could find a few articles of clothing because 1) I did not bring many clothes to Kenya and 2.) Most of the clothes I did bring, I either left for the people or threw away. So I wandered in and out of many stores in an effort to pick up some cool items. I found what I was looking for @ the french connection. I got a pair of pants, a button up, and a sweater.
Another good thing about being in London is the availability of british export records/cds. These cds are expensive and hard to come by in the US because they are made in Europe and to be sold in Europe. So today, I purchased the British realease of "Is This It" by the Strokes. I bought it for £6.99. I love that i can use the pound sign! I don't have it on my laptop @ home so im going to use it a lot right now... £££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££.
At night me, Bryan , and his girlfriend went to a bar to catch a quarter final game of the Euro 2004. Soccer is nuts here! Everybody watches! I single game is like the Super Bowl in the US. Everybody goes out and watches the games. Last night the Czech Republic played Denmark. England was put out a couple of nights ago as a result of David Beckam's missed penalty kick. You would have thought England was still playing by the crowd watching last night's game. Czech won 3-0.
Monday morning we are going to see the changing of the guard @ Buckingham Palace then maybe go to a few museums, gallerys and other spots. We also really want to take daytrips to Wimbledon and Stonehenge.

Sunday Morning in Chelsea

Sunday morning it is and the past 24 hours have been adventuresome. Yesterday, (even after the 8 hour night flight from Nairobie, Kenya) I was so excited about being in London that I couldn't bare myself to waste any precious time catching up on rest. I bought a 7 day tube (aka: the underground) pass. "On average three million people use the tube every single day." I read that info tidbit on www.LondonTown.com. That is my favorite website as of now and what I use to get all the info about London. I am staying in the City of Westminister, one of the 7 central boroughs of London. Yesterday I viewed Buckingham Palace with my friends, and later that evening I returned for the Torch Run. I love the British dialect. I had a great place to snap a few pictures of the lady (I'm not sure who she was) carrying the torch. Suprinsingly the torch was carried on horseback. In between the visits of Buckingham Palace I hopped a bus to Picadilly Circus. The area included a big shopping district full of designer name stores. Everything in London is twice as expensive everything in the US! 1£ = $1.95.
I also walked by the Tate Modern, London’s most visited and innovative gallery. Permanent collections includes works by Bacon, Matisse, Rothko and Andy Warhol.
Last night a family of four from Montana slept in the same room of me. It was kind of wierd because I had not noticed any older individuals around the hostal earlier, but they were really friendy and were able to answer a lot of my questions about London since they had been here for 3 days. They are flying to Amsterdam tonight. Two other guys from CA also stayed in the room but I didn't have a chance to talk with them. Overall I enjoyed the hostal and booked 3 more nights their for 17 Pounds per night.
This morning (Sunday Morning), I decided to go for a run. The run didn't go as planned, because I am still a little "lost in translation"; I have trouble knowing which way to look before crossing the street, and which street I am on because there are no street signs. The names of the streets are sometimes placed on buildings but the placement is sometimes hard to find. Yesterday, I struggled in the grocery store. I think Sainsbury was the name of it. The brand names are all most all different and the items are located differently than their locations in US grocery stores. I had the hardest time picking out soap.
Back to this morning... my run turned out to a be a Sunday morning stroll through the Chelsea borough in central London. This is the most beautiful area I have visited yet. I crossed paths with a few families (parents with their young children) dressed nicely as if they were walking to church. Chelsea is a lot more residental and less touristy than the other parts of London I have visited. I think this is because of the lack of tourist attractions in the area. The busier roads of Chelsea were populated with sidewalk cafes and interior decoration furniture stores along with locally owned tailoring stores and clothing boutiques. In the South-West of the borough is Notting Hill, one of the most attractive parts of London.
I think during this stay in London, I will only venture though the city of London. My next trip to London will include other attractions outside of London and accross Great Britain country side such as Stonehenge, the city of Bath.

1 week in London

whew... a lot to say, but i will try to abridge my last 3 weeks in my next few blogs...
I am currently in London, England. (June 26)
My flight got in at about 6 a.m. this morning.
Originally, I was sceduled for a connecting flight to Atlanta, GA 6 hours after my arrival to Heathrow Airport (London).
Last week, I decided that I would like to spend some more time in London since i would be connecting flights in the city.
This is one city I have always wanted to spend time in.
So i called British Airlines, and a long story short, July 3rd was the most optimal available time for me to rescedule my flight back to the US.
5 friends from the trip to Kenya, came with me into the city of London for breakfast after our flight arrival this morning. They had to return to Gatwick airport afterwards for their flight back to Atlanta.
A few wanted to stay but couldn't afford to stay 8 days (the closest time to reschedule a flight from London)
After breakfast in a local pastry cafe and many pictures around Buckingham palace ect., we walked back to Victoria Station where we said our goodbyes.
I then went to an information center and made reservations for a hostal (Astors Victoria Hostel, 71 Belgrave Road).
I walked 4 blocks to the Hostal with my bags. The area is beautiful, the buildings on Belgrave Road are all beige.
It was 9:30 when I got there, and I then found out check in time is at 1 pm, so i left my big bag there in a locked storage room.
The people hanging around the hostel all looked very interesting (almost all in there 20s; and of all ethnicitys) I think i will be sharing a room with 6 or 7 others, so I pray this goes well.
I only made reservation for one night, but if i enjoy it tonight, I may spend the rest of my nights their.
I also discovered 2 more exciting things....
1)Wimbledon is being played in London now and for the rest of the time i will be here. Because of this, Lodging, ect. is more expencive.
2)The Olympic torch is being run through London TODAY at 7 p.m! (I will watch it infront of Buckingham Palace). James Brown and Rod Stewart will headline an after Torch Run Concert.
_I am going to find a place to get something to eat now, but I will reveal all of my adventures in Kenya over the next few days...

The Belmont Stakes

I am @ Jocelyn (my sister) & Ben Renfrow's house in Charlston, SC. It is Sunday and i have been @ Murrels Inlet since Friday (6-4). My grandparents have a house on the inlet. Last night my grandparents have a couple they are friends with that also live on the inlet a few miles down. The couple had a little drop in for the Belmont Stakes. About 4 or 5 other couples stopped by to mingle and watch the race. Before the race, the host of the party decided to have a gamble with the race in which we would bet money on the winners of the race. The idea was to auction off each horse one by one. By placeing the highest bid on a horse would entitle the winner to that horse. If that horse won 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place the person who won the right to that horse would get a money prize from the pot. We started the bidding on the horses least likely to win. Mom won the auction for the worst horse Caymin (something like that). She started the bidding at $1, then someone raised her bid to $2 and mom came back and bid $3. Noone else wanted the horse bad enough to bid any higher. So each of the 9 horses were auctioned off. I won one of the lower ranked horses @ $5 simply because I didn't have too much money to buy a better horse. My grandma won the 2nd most likely horse to win the race, Purge, @ $25. Smarty Jones was auctioned off to the lady host of the party for $45. The pot ended up being $100. After all the horses were auctioned off, we waited for the race to begin. Well the Belmont race began with Smarty taking the lead and leaving the rest behind, including my horse. I watched my jockey and horse fall behind early and I was sure I wasnt going to place. I was sure Smarty had this race by a longshot and have the Triple Crown. Well about turn three, I recognized my jocky in light blue and my horse come into the picture. My horse was far behind the leading 3 but was gaining and gaining quickly. My horse caught up the the horse in 3rd place the passed the 2nd place horse. With a few yards left my horse passed Smarty Jones for the Bemont Stakes victory. I had won the auction for Birdstone with a winning bid of $5. In winning the race, I earned $60 for the $100 pot! I was so happy but felt a little nervous for taking all of this money from these poor old couples. I now know what i am supposed to do with the rest of my life... Gamble on horse races.

holes to heaven

I ran parameter road (5K) today in 22:44 which is the best i have run it in the past few weeks. The heat and humidity make it really difficult to breath well while running.
I got a fcuk (french connection of the United Kingdom) catalog in the mail today which really excites me. ha. For one it was shipped with Great Britain postage and two, while its written in english some words are spelled different that they are usually spelled in America. For instance colors is spelled colours in the catalog. I have never received mail from the UK so this is new to me.
I have mastered the art of ankle tapeing. There really is an art to ankle tapeing, because my first attempt was a disaster. There are eight steps involved and I will be tested tommorrow morning on it. This is my final exam for my athletic leadership course.
When I played football in highschool for DHS, I became captain of the team my senior year. Well, our big rivalry was Marion High. Before each game, the team captains had to walk on the field for the coin toss. I knew of the captains for Marion because I was dating a girl from Marion at the time. He was a white guy by the name of Ira Harper. For one, it was odd to see two white football captains on the field at the same time, and two, it created even more of a tense situation because he was part of the "in white crowd" in Marion.(politically correct?) So of course my Dillon friends were viscously on my side as the Marion kids were on the Marion (Ira's) side. We all knew each other or at least knew of each other because of parties that we would all go to in Marion or Dillon and what not. So the highschool kids in my crowd would really get pumped for the Dillon v/s Marion game. We (Dillon) had done really well during the season prior to this game winning all the games we had played. Marion had too, so the conference champioship was to be determined by the winner of this game. We lost to Marion in this game. I remember losing by just a few points in the final minutes of the game. Well, we went on the the playoffs as did Marion. We each one our first three playoff games and were to play each other for the lower state championship. This game was a HUGE game and the fans were unlike any I have ever seen for a highschool game. Marion was determined to beat us again and go to the State Championship which would be played the following Sat. @ Williams Brice stadium in Columbia. We were here for revenge. I walked on the field before the game as always for the coin toss and shake Ira's hand. I really was sooo pumped up for this game. Of my four years playing varsity football for DHS, this game was more exciting than any other. While on the field, I could see all of my friends cheering me on and the glazed looks from my friends of Marion. We were predicted to lose by a few points. This game was played in Marion so their crowd was extremely rowdy; but that night we came to play. We won that night getting our revenge on Marion and by winning this game we went on to play for the State Championship @ the USC stadium. So here is the irony in all of this. The following year, I began my freshman year at Clemson Univ. I walked into my first chem. lab of the year. As I sat down, Ira Harper comes in and grabs the seat next to me. We had never really talked before but knew of each other really well, and definitely remembered the two big games we stood head to head. Well out of the 1000's of students taking chemestry, Ira and I became lab partners. Throughout the semester Ira and me became really good friends and have had a cool relationship these past 4 years. If we ever see one another on campus or out at night we always talk and catch up. I saw Ira in Fike today which is the reason for this paragraph which turned into pretty long flashback story.
I am heading to Charleston for the weekend to visit my sister, Sara Bryant, who has an appt on King St. My older sister, Jocelyn, is also in charleston studing for th Boards which she must pass in order to continue her final two years of medical school. I will hopefully get to see her a little, maybe grab lunch or dinner with her and play with the dogs. I absolutely love being in Charleston, especially when I will step out the front door onto King Street. I have been blessed with two truely amazing sisters.
Tuesday (6-8) is my flight to NYC. I will then drive ~1000 miles home to Dillon. Thursday (6-10) is my flight from Atlanta to London, which will then fly to Nairobi, Kenya. To me, this is what life is all about. I can truely see God's hands at work as I travel to far away places. I always stand amazed.

Night swimming-_

well it's 12:00 @ night and brian, braydon, and me decided on playing some pool @ the club house a couple hours ago while watching detroit and indiana in the finals. Then, what the heck, it's nice out and the pool is lit up with the stereo radiating through the speakers around the pool. Lets go swimming! so we jump in. Swimming in pools is such a fun thing to do @ night. I know for a fact that i will have a pool when it is time for me to build a house. I absolutely love pools; especially large ones for swimming laps.
Brian leaves tomorrow to move in @ his new appt in Charleston, where he will begin med school (MUSC) next week. Earlier tonight, Brian and I went to backstreets for pizza night ($3 large pizzas). You can't beat that with a stick! It was a great time. Brian and I don't hang out much primarily because he is in a serious relationship and spends a majority of his time with his girlfriend; but the time we do spend together is really fun because we are so much alike. We have the best and most interesting conversations. So it was nice to really spend some good quality time with Brian before he left.
Summer school ends for me in 2 days, so i have been finalizing group projects and what not.
I will make a secret trip to NYC next Tues. I cannot reveal why at this moment, but I will get to see a good friend (maybe 2) of mine from a forum (NYLF) in Boston I attended the year after I graduated highschool. My friend's name is Katis Wai. She is from Long Island and perhaps I will also meet up with another friend by the name of Jenni Rosenberg from Jersey whom I met @ the same forum. We have all three kept in touch since we met four years ago. I am really excited about this trip.
I bought the best picture of my sister, Sara Bryant, and me off of www.classicphotoinc.com. We took this picture @ KKG Destination Unknown. I may frame it and put it up on my wall somewhere.
Ben Folds is so fun to listin to.
New York minute is playing @ the astro! Justin has seen it twice already.
I just realized Summer doesnt begin until June 21st. I thought it had been summer for some time now.
To worship is to bring pleasure to.
Sometime, I would like to visit Japan; to experience their cities & modern culture.
my eyelids are heavy, goodnight...