MoreSightings of Famous People

Ok, so I didn't get to meet them
per se
but Ben Affleck was filming right around the corner from my work yesterday.

That's Ben Affleck and John Hamm getting ready to shoot the scene.

So I couldn't resist walking by on my lunch.
And then I had to snap pictures.
Because really, how many times do you get to see movie stars in real life?
{Sorry they're not better, I just snapped them with my phone, so that means no zooming in...}
I was having lunch in the Au Bon Pain, which conveniently had a window looking right out on the action.

That's John Hamm in an FBI jacket.

Other people were gawking, which made me a little uncomfortable joining in, but hey, maybe they're used to that? That's Ben under the black tent thing...

And it was pretty cool to see how movies work for a bit.
They were setting up the scene
getting directions from Ben (he's the director)
and setting up the cameras.

I didn't realize till I walked by today, but the electrical box on the wall was placed there by the crew. It's not there in "real life". Crazy huh?

Have any of you met a movie star?
Who would you die to see?

I'm famous!

Well, not really... but I was mentioned in an article in the Harvard Crimson published today. Check it out here!

It's funny, I wasn't expecting to be singled out at all, the reporter spent over 2 hours touring out lab last week and only stopped at the rubbings I was working on for a small amount of that time. And it's also funny to see what I "said" since although I remember saying some of that, I think he really just paraphrased me. But who really cares right? I'm famous!

I'm going to go find a copy since it's a front page article and there's supposed to be a picture with it. Not of me of course, but I'm interested to see what it will be of.

In other news, guess what comes out tonight? That's right! The Twilight DVD! Unfortunately I won't be going to a midnight release party, but we're getting some people together to watch it tomorrow night, right at twilight. Should be fun!

Oh and if you're in the mood for some funny Twilight reading check out this blog! Hilarious! I'm really enjoying the adventures of Pocket Edward...

Also stay tuned for an update on the sewing I do this weekend... I bought fabric!!

{ Happy Weekend! }

England Trip Part 1 - London

Get ready for picture overload!

Ok, so I've needed some time to recuperate since my trip so sorry for the delay on posting. I have a million pictures so I'm going to break this into a few posts, so you've been warned! I'm sorry if I overload your computer, but really, I crammed so much into just a few short days, it's amazing! Ok, onto the recap!

I got in at 9:30 am on Thursday morning after flying all night. I had a layover in Halifax, and unfortunately didn't get much sleep, so was pretty dead. Aimee, my friend from High School who I was staying with, met me at the airport and we headed to her "fella's" house in south London. I crashed as soon as we got there. Man jet-lag is such a pain! I seriously didn't feel normal until 4 days into the trip! After a good 2 hour nap, I was ready to get out and see some sights.

We had decided before hand that we should try to see a play on Thursday, since it was a bank holiday which meant more people in London over the weekend, so we first went down to Leischester Square to the discount ticket booths. Unfortunately Les Mis wasn't on sale that weekend because of said bank holiday so instead we got a great deal on tickets to... "Spamalot"! This one has always been on my list, just because I love the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" so I was actually happy to go, plus it was high on Aimee and John's (Aimee's fella) list. Since most of the day was gone (thanks jet-lag) we walked around the book stores on Charing Cross Road looking for used paperbacks with not a lot of luck. We eventually ended up at Foyle's, a five story mega-store, like Borders and they had newer editions of what I was looking for. Then we met up with John, grabbed a quick bite at McDonald's (don't worry I had better food on the trip) then headed to the theater with you "pick-n-mix" candy (shhh...)!

The "curtian" before the show opened. The stage was great! Very "Python"...

This theater was seriously cool, there were little cherubs along all the balconies. As you can see from the pictures our seats were pretty great. Right in the center about ten rows back. But the seat I wish I had (and which you should all try to get if you have the choice is D1... you might just get to meet the cast, we'll call it a mini role). The show was so much fun, Aimee got a killer rabbit, plus there was even a famous actor in the cast! King Arthur was played by Alan Dale who's in Ugly Betty, the O.C., and aparently some really famous Australian TV show... he was pretty good! Overall, I'm glad I got to see it. Les Mis would have been great, but this was fun, and very British!

We got Chinese food in China Town after the show, then headed home to collapse again, this time for about 8 hours.

My attempt to get up early the next day was not very successful, so by the time we got to our first stop, The Globe Theater, we didn't have time for a tour before I had to run off to meet with people at Camberwell College, one of the schools I'm considering for Grad School. We grabbed some lunch, which included some Banoffi Pie and then I braved the busses to get to the school.

My tour of the school was great and it's made my decision making process even harder! They both have pluses and minuses, but they are pretty much opposites, so we'll have to see which is a better fit, luckily I have a bit of time to do that.

Then it was back to meet Aimee! We had missed the last tour by that time so decided it would have to wait until the next day. We grabbed some pictures and then boarded a boat for a tour of sights from the Thames.

In front of Shakespeare's Globe

From the boat:

London Bridge

Tower Bridge (don't know why I didn't get close to this last time)

The Tower, this inner building used to be the Norman's castle. It's most famously been used as a prison.

From the other side of Tower Bridge

Passing back by the Tower, this is Traitors Gate, where prisoners used to be taken into the prison.

The Globe again.

The London Eye (a 400 ft tall ferris wheel, scary!)

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Did you know that Big Ben is the bell, not the clock?

After our boat tour we walked from the Houses of Parliament up to Buckingham Palace. There's a beautiful park along the walk, I was so glad that the weather was nice for the first few days of my trip!

St. Jame's Park

The Palace with a monument to Queen Victoria

Palace Gaurd

In front of the gates!

It's hard to remember (since a lot of this and the next day had been spent in the same area) but I think this was also the night we ate at Wagamama's for dinner, which on the reccommendation from Aimee was very tasty. We also had some fabulous coconut ice cream for dessert! Yum-O!

We were tired after all that walking so headed home, watched some telly, then crashed again!

The next day we got up bright and early to do the Globe tour! Yay! Finally! It was a really great tour, great museum, and I only wish I could have seen a play! If I'd come a week later I could have seen "A Mid Summer Night's Dream" which is my favorite, so kind of a bummer, but someday... This building is obviously a replica, the original was somewhere in the near vacinity but had burned down only a few years after Shakespeare's death. I learned lots of interesting facts that I hadn't known before, and now of course I want to go read more! I'll spare you the details though as this post is getting long and just get to the pictures...

The Stage and the pit. You can see the decoration on the ceiling and pillars.

More of a view of the audience seating.

After that we headed to Oxford Street for shopping at New Look (great deals!) and then lunch at the Marloborough Head, a true English Pub! I wish I got pictures of the basement where we sat. It had a whole wall of bookshelves (with false spines) which cleverly concealed the doors to the "loos". It was funny to watch people try to find their way. We helped many a poor soul since we were right next to the Men's room... so funny. I had a true English Sunday Roast, with Yorkshire Pudding (yay!), Mashers (mashed potatoes) and Roast Beef. It was delicious!

After that we headed up to the British Library, but first since we came out at King's Cross station we had to make a pilgramage to Platform Nine and Three Quarters of course!! So much fun to push a trolley through the barrier...

Off to the Hogwarts Express!!

Oh, and in other related Harry Potter news, guess who gets to hear J.K. Rowling speak this Thursday at Harvard's Commencement!? You guessed it! I'm sooooo excited!

Ok, back to London... We spent a good chunk of time at the Brit Lib of course. Had to go check out the new Conservation facilities even thought it was Sat. so they weren't open. It was great to see all those treasures again, especially the Jane Austen letters and manuscripts!

So that night we went home to have a Birthday Bash for Aimee's friend Claudia which involved ordering "a curry" (indian take-out to you Yanks) and watching the craziest thing this American's ever seen, Eurovision! And of course cake! Just for a little taste of what the competition looked like this year, check out my favorite of the performances: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Let's just say it was an experience...

On Sunday we packed in the last of the things on my "to-do" list. First we hit Harrod's and saw the "Egyptian Hall" and the "Food Halls". Wow, that is all I can say. Shopping at Harrod's really is an "experience".

At the top of the Egyptian Hall

They even had an opera singer singing live!

We then went on to the Victoria & Albert Museum where we had lunch and then I walked quicly around my favorite exhibit, the Fashion hall, before heading off the the Brittania ward, which is the only singles ward in the UK.

They were having a special exhibit about the Supremes, which looked great, although I didn't see it.

While I was at church the rest of the group went to the Natural History Museum to see a live Buterfly exhibit. I snapped this picture of the great hall while I was waiting for them in the gift shop.

By that time it was getting close to the end of the day. We had just enough time to head home, change, grab some food then walk to the local movie theater to see the new "Indiana Jones" movie! So much fun!

Wow, so that's just the first end of my trip! Whew, is everyone even still with me? I think that might be the longest post I've ever written! So maybe tonight or tomorrow I'll post about the next part which I think might be my favorite! London was great and I'm so glad I was able to stay with Aimee and that she played all weekend with me, but the English country side is GORGEOUS! Just wait, it's gonna be good!

Ok, that's all for now! Check back soon!

Super Summer Post

It's been an amazing summer for me. So many fun times I didn't have much time to blog about them! I'll try to squeeze everything in here now, but I'll never be able to do it all justice. I really should try to be better about this.

Anyway, onto the fun-ness!

First up we have the Friday Night Movie Extravaganza! This entailed 3 weekends in a row where my friends Anna, Amy and various others depending on the week went to dinner then a movie on Friday night, followed by ice creams at McDonalds. First we saw Hairspray, next week we saw Becoming Jane and then finally Stardust. Let me just say they just kept getting better with every week! I loved Becoming Jane, but Stardust is definitely my new favorite movie Of All Time.


Now for picture time!

This is a little slide show of the road trip I took over Labor Day weekend to Pennsylvania with my friends Ben, Holly, Aaron and Lindsey. It was a lot of fun! We left Sat. morning and drove to Philadelphia saw all the sights there including the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Ben Franklin's House, basically some of the oldest parts of Philly. My favorite part was Elfreck's Alley, which is the oldest occupied residential street in the US! All the houses were so cute and quaint! We stayed outside of Philly that night and then went to church the next day on our way to Gettysburg. We stopped on that drive in Amish Country, specifically, Intercourse, PA. Had some good laughs about that one. We got to Gettysburg, walked around the cemetery and saw a lot of memorials and some of the battlefields. My favorite part was that night we went on a Walking Ghost Tour where we got to use electronic "ghost finders". Our guide had a lot of good stories. On Monday we woke up and walked around Gettysburg a bit more then ate at "The Gingerbread Man", where it turns out Mary (my sister-in-law) worked when she lived there for a summer! Then we were on our way to Hershey, PA! Pretty much Heaven in my book! We went on a "tour" of the factory, which was really just a "choclified Disney ride". Delicious! Then it was back to Boston for just a day before heading out on my next trip!

I left on Wed. after getting back from Philly to visit my sister in Monterey, CA. It took forever to get there and they lost my luggage but at least the tickets were free thanks to Sky Miles! Plus on the way I had a quick layover in SLC and got to meet Jack! Christian and Mary came to the airport with Jack so I could see them! It was so fun getting to chat and see what a cutie-pie he is! Definitely not enough time, but at least I won't have to wait until Christmas now. He was little, sleepy sack of potatoes and I wanted to eat him up! I can't wait until we're altogether for Christmas.

When I finally made it to Cali Lizzie and Kirsten met me at the airport. The dogs went crazy of course when I came in. They remembered me! We had fun sleeping in, getting pastries at all the best bakeries, playing with Kirsten and watching movies. It was a low key trip, but that's what I wanted. We did go up to San Francisco on Sat. with Stuart and had fun walking all over China Town, Little Italy and Pier 39. On Monday before I left we visited the Monterey Aquarium which was really fun. I of course loved the Jelly Fish (anyone remember my Jelly Fish costume from a couple years ago?). Kirsten was so much fun and is such a happy little baby! She wakes up talking and smiles all day. The only not so fun times were when she got tired of her car seat on the long trip to San Fran. Who knew those little lungs could scream so loud? I taught her a couple new tricks, like standing up from a sitting position (it kind of helps that she likes her legs to be stick straight) and she did take her first bottle from me (for a little bit). She also started rolling over just before I left, she's such a smartie. I can't wait to see her again in a couple months! It will be especially fun to see Jack and Kirsten together!

Overall it was a fun end of the summer! And I've been up to a lot since then too. Too much to recount really. I'm super busy right now helping plan the Education Conference. It's going to be awesome. I'm in charge of the Black and White Ball at the State House on the second night. I'm really starting to stress out though, so I probably won't be posting much before then. But hopefully I'll post next week about the Ward Campout this weekend. We're going back to Sharron VT. Remember last year? It promises to be another fun adventure! See you soon!

I Blame Jane.

Ok, so lately I've become a little obsessed with Jane Austen. How you might ask, can *I* get any more obsessed with Jane Austen? Well, I think it might have something to do with the new rash of movies coming out about her (check out "Becoming Jane") and her works (see the 3 new movies in "The Jane Austen Season"). I seriously can't wait to see "Becoming Jane". I've heard it's soooo good. But even though it's out in the UK, it's not opening here until August! Can you believe it?! I will know the fate of Harry Potter by that time!! Ah, sometimes I think I might die from the anticipation this summer is going to bring. The end of Harry Potter (double whammy of movie and BOOK 7!), "Becoming Jane" (did I mentioned she's played by Anne Hathaway?), oh and of course how could I forget a new niece and nephew! :) Well, it will be exciting no doubt. So to curb my appetite for now, I've been binging on videos on YouTube. Who knew there were people more obsessed than me with Jane Austen? So obsessed they will make music videos with clips from movie adaptations. All I have to say is I'm very lucky there are people like that out there. So if you'll excuse me, I have some "Northanger Abbey" to go watch! Enjoy! Oh, and if you get hooked on these as well, the only person to blame is Jane!



Here's another worthy video which you might want to watch after checking out the new "Northanger Abbey".