Hola Zebras!

My year abroad has almost come to an end.  The unfortunate thing about having to pack up is that I have more stuff now than when I started the year and I am running out of space.  The packing is also a bit sad because I have to leave behind my 1 year home but when I get back to the states I have a brand new life in Reno along with a new school (IMS) waiting for me.  I also will have had my fair share of plane rides this year considering all of the cityhopping we did.  I will also miss all of the friends and memories that I made here

I also can not wait to see most of you zebras in person when I get back!

Can't wait to see y'all! Keep LOLZing!

Sabrina

This is Liam Payne from One Direction. Random... I just love him so... here he is

Hello again (finally) Zebras!!!!

It is exciting (and sad) that my year here is slowly coming to an end.  I am of course all a buzz about my recent school trip to London (details to come) and my most recent trip to Florence, Italy!  First lets talk about my trip to London.

Well we went by coach and not by plane (as I had previously expected) and it took almost a whole day, and we were only in London about 2 - 3 full days (excluding the here and back days).  I sat with one of my Euro besties Elize and unfortunatley about 4 hours in (when we reached the border) she got car sick and I got to see it, and as a funny side story when we got to the border some people could not get through due to their passport! (they eventually got through but it was a minor setback) The passports that got held back were from:

- India (?)

- Pakistan 

- Ukraine

It was kinda intimidating because the people that check your passports just look at you with a really judgemental glare as they look from you to your passport photo as if to say "This is you?  ...goodness it looks like someone slapped you across the face with a sack full of ugly😲"   Well anyway after that setback we were on to the road and away with the wind.  We then drove to the port and onto the ferry!  It was cool because we got to just sit in the bus as they drove it onto the ferry (p.s. our bus was one of those big 2 story tourist buses) and there were like 10 other buses like that on this ferry.  As soon as the ferry started we all filed off the bus and onto the ferry.

After a long day of travel, we arrive at the place were we would be staying: The London Youth Hostel.  Some rooms had more than 5 people and some had less and most rooms were okay and the beds went out Jenga-style.  We then got time to unpack and go down to dinner, and dinner that night was not my favorite but, meh, it was edible.  That night after dinner we went for a walk down the Thames River, and then back in time for a 10:00 bedtime.  

The next day we walked around and went to the Tate Museum.  It was fun even though we did not get to see much art because to get to most of the exhibits you had to pay extra money so my friends & I were like "Uuummmm.... passss...." luckily there was free wifi so we had stuff to do.  While we were at the Tate Museum I facetimed a Tahoe friend! Cooper to be exact! Sure it was a short call just to say hi and introduce him to my wacky friends but it was still fun!  After the museum, we went back to get ready for the theater.  It was fun and I got to sit with two of my Euro besties Elize and Francisca!  We went and saw the Lion King!!! It was one of the coolest experiences of my life and it was amazing, especially because it was live and there were scenes with kids acting representing the lions when they were cubs and I thought about how amazing it would be to begin acting that young! Anyway it was super cool and after that it was back to the hostel for bedtime.  

On the final full day we went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour.  It was amazing because we got to see were some of the secenes were filmed and how they did the costumes and special effects.  We got to walk through the Great Hall where the actual actors "ate" and studied.  It was throughtly unbeliveable (even though it did kinda take the magic out of Harry Potter) we got to see how they did the creatures and the goblins and the makeup and how they made Hagrid so tall, and for some of the Hagrid scenes they made an anomatronic head to make him look 7 feet tall (they also had to find a tall man to play him).  There was also a hall of fame that had all of the different animal actors for the different scenes that included Hedwig, Fang, Crookshanks, and Scabbers.  

We then went back and had time to pack and get ready for leaving in the morning.  The next day we got up and away! This drive seemed longer than the first probably because we were all tired and sick of driving.  It also stunk because my IPad ran out of battery so Elize and I could not watch any of my movies, but c'est lavie.  After we returned to school my mom was on a midnight run so I went home with my Euro bestie Elize and we went almost immediatly to sleep.

Well I hope everyone enjoyed this super long blog post!  See y'all soon!  

Zebra kisses! LOLZ!

Sabrina