Final Thoughts

Brantome:


The Image above is my favorite from the whole trip, i know you have seen it before but after i browsed my 4,998 photos in 56 files i kept returning to this image as my fave. my second favorite is this one:
Rain Rose


My Favorite day was obviously the Hard Rock London when i got to hold Gene Simmons Bass:


After spending a week back in Kansas, half of which i was in Wichita with my family and the other half i was home in Manhattan i have had time to reflect on my experience and journeys over the past month.

First I will give you a rundown of traveling home:

The night before we all hung out and had fun goofing around, after a bit I gave in and went to bed to that I would get up at 7 am, I already had all my bags packed so all I would have to do it hop up and put shoes on. I set up my wake up call for 645 a.m. so that I would be downstairs at 7 am as planned. Well the next morning the phone rang and I was expecting it to be the wake up call, and I heard Armon's voice telling me it s 7 am and they are heading to the underground station. I was like CRAP and put my shoes on and headed down stairs, where I ran in to abbey and told her bye and to have fun because she was staying an extra week in London. I rounded the corner and saw Easton and Dani and told them bye and ran to catch up with armon and the group. Jen had already left for Scotland so I didn't get to say bye to her. We got to the subway got our one way pass and hopped on to get to Paddington station to take the Heathrow express to the airport to head home. Once we arrived at Paddington we had to get our passes stamped and get on the train. Kacie and Matt where first in line so the caught the first train and the rest of us had to take the next train. We got to the airport, got checked in and dropped of our check bags and got our passports stamped again and headed to the gate. Somewhere in the process Hanna and I got separated from Jeremy and armon then I got separated from Hanna so I got to the gate solo and discovered Kacie and Matt. Shortly after Hanna and Jeremy showed up and later Armon. Soon we where boarding the plane and getting settled. We were in the middle section again, but this time there where TV screens in the head rests and you could choose movies to watch or games to play. So I watched Valentine’s Day, when in Rome, Extraordinary Measures, Percy Jackson the lighting thief and finished with bride wars and next thing I knew we was landing in Chicago. Where I had a 6 hour layover before my flight home and everyone else had like a 2 or 3 hour layover, once we got through customs and got our check in bags re-checked and allowed back in the country and to TSA to go through to our final gates to head home. I mostly sat at my gate and read a book until it was time to board. Then it was a quick 2 hour flight home where once we landed and I got off the plane, my duffle bag strap broke! WTF? Lol so I literally had to DRAG it through the airport in ICT and after I passed security again I looked upon a familiar sight of my stepdad and with him my mom and finally maw maw. It was so good to see them again. I spent a few days at home with them and came back to Manhattan on Thursday and surprised josh. I rode up with Maw Maw who was heading to KC to see her BF Donna. Walking in the door and seeing my hubby and babies was better than anything I can describe or imagine. My babies have been snuggling me nonstop since I have been home.

Like I said now that I am home and have had time to reflect I had a great experience. For the most part I had a great time! I got to experience things that I thought I would only dream about! It was a whirl wind trip, something new every day. I am sure that as I get older I will appreciate my experience more. But as of right now I know that I am one of ten lucky people who got to go and have a great time. I appreciate Armon organizing and creating this class. I am a very visual learner and getting to see the places that I have been reading about helped bring it all together. I have experienced and seen things I thought I would never get to see, Stonehenge, Eiffel tower, London, The Louvre and Mona Lisa and other things I can’t think of right now. During this trip I have been able to mark a lot off my "bucket list" and I have had to rearrange my list so now in my top five is: Pyramids of Giza, Las Vegas Strip by night, Rome to see the Coliseum, see the blue coastal waters off Miami, and Mount Rushmore.

Anyway I mostly wanted to say how much I enjoyed the overall experience, and things I got to do. Yes there where bumps here and there, but nothing can go smoothly all the time and I think for the most part all the pain and heartache was worth it to have this once in a life time experience.

Next up is getting my assignment together for the class. Armon rented a gallery to have a showing of all our projects together. I am nervous because I have never had my work publicly displayed. I am not even totally comfortable showing it to my friends and family let alone have it in the same room as my peers. Some of them are way better than I am. I think mostly because they have the instincts that I do not, I still try to evaluate everything in a scientific way instead of letting my instincts take over. Something personal I have to work on and I will over time.

This is the last official post for this blog but I will keep it active so that I can reflect on my experience and so that future groups who get to go on this trip can read it and see what we did and how much fun it was. I hope that one day I will get to go back to Europe and experience it with my husband cuz I think that I I will have a much better time with my family and loved ones.

Thanks for reading and keeping up with me over this last month and leaving comments! I enjoyed reading them while I was gone it helped keep me from getting home sick.
Love,
Natasha

Last Day

June 19th - Saturday - Day 27

Final day in london. in europe. away from my family. its bittersweet that this trip is over, i mean i have had a ton of fun and dont want it to end, but at the same time i am beyond ready to be home.

today is a free day and i choose to pack, guess what? i dont have to leave anything behind! i was able to get everything in my suitcase and our duffle bag, and a few things in my back pack but thats why i brought it :)

After breakfast and crit i went to lilly whites with armon and abbey. NIGHTMARE! so many people i as ready to start screaming, of course they where having a major sale like you could get a LARGE suitcase for like 10 pounds so it was a good sale and worth it if i wanted anything other than new head phones! lol. after i left i explored on my own. I wrode the tube to King Cross and went to the harry potter platform and got a few cool shots.

i tried to go to White Chapel but the tube was shut down on that line, and the bus fair was to expensive so i didnt go :( sad face i know. but i just kept exploring and went to Hammersmith district and inquired about prices for tats and body peircings...too expensive. i asked him how much a black ink only tat smaller than my butterfly and he said 60 pounds, conversion rate? 90 bucks! i said um no and just walked around the neighboorhood a little bit then came back to the hotel. we are all going out for dinner, sort of a last supper if you will (per Hanna's metaphor) and get the details for leaving in the morning.

Keep an eye out in the near future as i will write one last final blog about my travels home and my reflection of my trip. I will post it on FB once it is finished :)

love, 
Natasha

Gallery

June 18th - Friday - Day 26

This morning has started slow. We all went to breakfast where i discovered that Jen's hotel room is infested with bed bugs, she looks like she is 5 and has the chicken pox! they looked up bed bugs online and hopped over to the pharmacists for conformation. so she is getting a whole new room and has to get a new luggage and everything!

I cant believe i only have 2 days left on this trip! it went by so fast, and it was mostly amazing! i just wish my husband has been there with me all they way. I know that someday he and i will get the chance to travel Europe, at least i hope so. we are getting ready to meet together for one last group discussion on the history of photo and a crit before we go to a photo gallery.
well the gallery was neat. its was sort of a lifes work of Sally Mann. very interesting stuff, then we went to a showing off liver pool street. it was an exhibition of a local art schools, basically a mass aBFA show called Raw 9, it all was very interesting. i bought the exhibition book that had artisit's statements in it, which i have very much enjoyed reading. after the showing i walked solo to the hotel ran in to armon on the subway, kind crazy lol. anyway i got back to earl's court and decided to go to the gormet burger company for my dinner adn man it was yummy! now time for me to pack a bit and get to bed tomorrow is the last day and i want to walk around some more :)

Love,
Natasha

Tate and Tate

June 17th - Thursday - Day 25

Happy Birthday to my lil puggie butt Monkey Face, yesterday was his 6th birthday.
Tate and Tate. we went to the Tate Britain this morning and looked around, i went to a few of the galleries and then sat outside for the rest of the time, and the door i went out of to chill had a huge camera crew and people and make up artists and a big red bus. so i sat down and started crowd watching and girls where going crazy for a few of the guys and getting photos taken with one of them and autographs from others. but i didn't recognize the guys, so i asked some girl who was sitting near me and he is a celebrity here in Britain. and they are filming a movie, but she didn't know the title so i think when i get back i am going to look it up.

once the group got done with the museum, we walked to the Pier and hopped on the ferry to the next Tate museum. the ferry was pretty cool, quick smooth ride, and i got some cool shots from the sides of the boat! once we arrived at the opposite Pier we went and ate at pizza express, had some yummy food. then we went to the Tate modern.

At the Tate Modern there was an exhibition called Exposed which gave a look into Voyeurism, Surveillance and paparazzi shots, not nasty dirty images. they took photos from history where the subject wasn't photographed knowling or they where not posed to have their photo taken. Photographers like Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Weegee, Robert Frank, Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, and Man Ray just to name a few. All photographers i learned about in my history class in the spring.
after i finished with that exhibit i walked down stairs and went to the Surrealism gallery and saw DALI and Picasso! very excited about that, and i got photos of them. photos where not allowed in most of the galleries, but i snuck a few in :) then i came back to the hotel to soak my feet in cold water, it felt good on my ankle. now we are just killing time waiting for dinner time :)

Love, 
Natasha

Stonehenge

June 16th - Wednesday - Day 24

this morning we got up earlyish and saw the changing of the guards at the palace, it was pretty neat. i video taped the ending cuz i walk slow after the insident with my ankle, so i got there late :( but it was really cool, i am going to try to go again and get a good spot and take pictures as well.

Stonehenge. word of advice, it looks exactly the same on tv or in photos, and sure you dont feel the magic when looking at it in 2d, but guess what? it wasnt any better in 3d, sure it was great. very awesome to see one of the 8 wonders of the world, but it felt to touristy. and it felt like all the magic has been drained. maybe it was just to surreal for me or something. i think it is pretty important that we went, but i almost would have rather kept the mystery alive and not seen it for my self. on the up side the bus ride there and back was pretty good, i got 2 very good naps in :) after we returned from stonehenge we all went to our rooms to chill, at 8 i went down to jen's room to get her phone and see what dinner plans where and no one was there, i check the other rooms and NO one! those bitches went to dinner without me! WTF? i am so beyond glad to be going home soon i am tried of feeling this way. Count Down is 4 dayz!

Love,
Natasha

Gallery Hopper

June 15th - Tuesday - Day 23

omz i have never walked so much! we gallery hopped today. pretty awesome, we went to like 7 or 8 different galleries and some of it was pretty neat and some of it the art work was like wtf? how is this art? i would have really like to read the artist statements on some of it. but i did see one exhibit in the white cube that caught my curiosity, he was a sculptor and he toyed with race and sexuality. he did huge sculptures of Micheal Jackson's head and hand, and one set was white and black and the other was an exact mirror image in black and white. i wish i could have taken photos. his other works was sculptors of the pregnant man, Pamela Anderson, and the porn couple that looks like one sex but they have the equipment of the opposite sex, and he casted them in bronze and brass. finally he did a head sculptor of the 'cat' man, the one of the guy who has tattoos and whiskers so he looks like a cat, you have seen him on Ripley's believe it or not. he also had paintings on the walls that where very colorful and at first glance they just looked like flowers and what not but if you got close enough and really looked, guess what? lol. no one else liked the exhibit, and maybe i am a perv but i thought it was a very interesting subject for him to take interest in and his spin on the subject was very interesting. i will find out his name so you can look up his work. tomorrow is STONEHENGE!!!

Love,
Natasha

Das Mummy

June 14th - Monday - Day 22

Oh Mummies!!! Today was the British Museum and i basicly spend my entire time in the egypition exibits. it was so awesome to see all the artifacts. I saw the rosetta stone, and it was pretty awesome. i took a lot of photos, over 300 i think. pretty awesome day. after the museum a few of us went in search of the toy museum, which turned out to be really small and basicly housed toys from thee 1800's and early 1900's. we thought it was goign to be an interactive museum with like the history of toys. but jen was the only one to go in, and she got some cool doll house shots. while we waited for jen we talked to Cafe Nero and had a drink, i had a mango and passion fruit icee thingy that was really really good. after jen was done we went to this huge department store called Harrods, which is apparently a pretty big deal, it was neat they had basicly everything you could think of, but all in high end name brands like Prada. i got some coffee for mom and maw maw and some dog treats for all the puggies :)

Love,
natasha