A Day in Birmingham, and more Paris pictures

Today, Tooley and I headed to Birmingham to run some errands and hang out at the Bullring, probably the best mall in all of Europe! Birmingham is an hour away from Stratford by train, and it's the second largest city in the U.K. It's also where the main campus of my university is located. I had to go to Birmingham to pay my tuition (the type of debit card I have requires that I pay large sums of money in person). Tools and I hopped on the train and set off towards Birmingham. The University of Birmingham has about 16,000 students and is located in a section of Birmingham called Edgbaston. Tools and I roamed around the Student Services building, which is HUGE, and finally found the Cashier's Office. Guess what...my bank wouldn't allow me to transfer that much money from account! I even went by the bank this morning to make sure everything would be ok, and they said it would be. So now I have to transfer money from my account into the school's account online. I'm sure my crazy bank will find a way to mess that up, too! After we left the campus, we headed to...the Bullring! The Bullring is a huge mall full our favorite stores...Topshop, H&M, Oasis, River Island, Office, and delicious restaurants like Costa, Nando's, and Wagamama's - my favorite! We browsed around the mall for awhile, but didn't end up getting much. That's fine with me, though! We went into Selfridges (an anchor store like McRae's), and guess what we saw...a whole section full of food specially imported from the U.S.! Oreos, Jiff peanut butter, Teddy Grahams, Betty Crocker dessert mixes, canned pumpkin, cornbreak, Aunt Jemima syrup, even Quaker Oats Grits! It's like Selfridge's had read our minds to figure out what foods we missed from the U.S.! Get this, though...the prices of the food were outrageous. $8 for a jar of peanut butter, $10 for a pack of Oreos...unbelievable! Of course Tools and I weren't going to pay that much for food that normally costs 1/4 of that. I did, however, get some canned pumpkin that was 70% off...only 1 British pound ($1.80)! Not too shabby. We felt like we had hit the jackpot for awhile, though! I was just waiting to see a stand full of People and US Weekly magazines...but I never did! After shopping, we headed to Wagamama's and enjoyed a delicious meal. After dinner, we caught the train back to Stratford, and here we are! It was fun to get a change of scenery for the day. Good news...I turned in my last paper today! Now I have to write four more for this semester...wish me luck! I hope everyone is having a great Monday. By the way, I'm suddenly craving Oreos... :)

The girls riding the Metro in Paris

Inside the Madeline Church

A beautiful hotel near the Opera house

The Opera House, home to The Phantom of the Opera

All of us girls in front of the Opera House

The beautiful Sacre Couer church, all lit up at night

Back of the Sacre Couer. By the way, all of us girls decided that the Sacre Couer (especially the view of the city from it!) is the most romantic place in Paris :)

Jessica, Ash, and Emily walkin' the Rose Line...the Earth's original prime meridian, before it was moved to Greenwich, England

Moulin Rouge!

In front of the Louvre