Ah, finally able to post two posts in one weekend!  Wow, that’s unreal haha.  So I got back from Scotland a week ago, I’ll fill you guys in on my week and this past weekend then to catch up…

The only stressful thing about this week was my group Sociology presentation on Wednesday.  We did our project on Polish minorities on London, so on Monday two of my group members went to interview a deli owner, who’s a Polish immigrant.  Then on Tuesday night and a little bit on Wednesday (before class) we basically did all the work for the presentation.  Yeah, a little bit to the last minute…whoops!  We were all EXTREMELY stressed out, oh my gosh.  But we did our presentation and I think we did pretty well!  We won’t know, though, until we get the grade…hopefully we did okay!  :) I also went to a ballet on Tuesday night for my dance class called “La Fille mal gardée”.  I went to dinner at a pub in Covent Garden with the rest of the group and then we went to the Royal Opera House down the street to see it!  What a wonderful ballet!  And it was opening night for it, too!  Great one to see for my first ballet! Then on Wednesday, after my Sociology class, I came home, had dinner (breakfast for dinner, actually–french toast made from croissants! Yum! A friend made them for Jenny and I and then I went up to Camdentown to the Odeon theatre to see Alice In Wonderland (in 3D) with some of the Wyoming girls!  Great movie!  On Thursday, we had a guest lecturer in my Art History class and she talked to us about art history in mesoamerica.  We then went down the street to the British Museum to see the Mesoamerica art on display there.  Pretty neat art they did back then!  After class, I went back and did some things in Dilke House, mailed a letter, and then went to the Imperial War Museum with Brianna.  I love this museum!  They have a lot of neat things there to see.  I did a suggested tour that was given to us by Bob Craig, my professor for my British Life and Culture class.  A few weeks ago in that class we talked about WWII in London and he told us to check out some things related to it at the museum.  We spent a couple hours in there.  Brianna had to leave early so she left before I did.  I stayed until close and as I was walking back to the tube station, I saw the London Eye over the buildings a few blocks away so I decided to walk to the London Eye, across the river on Westminster Bridge, and then got on the tube at Westminster.  It was a nice walk and a pretty evening!

Friday was the last AIFS day trip ( ) to Oxford!  The journey there is pretty short, only about 1 hour 15 min (ish) on bus from London.  What a pretty town and campus, though!  We walked around a bit and took a tour of the Sheldonian Theatre, where they have a lot of ceremonies for the students at Oxford.  The ceiling in it was pretty, too–it had a beautiful painting on it.  We went up stairs to the cupola and got a nice 360 view of Oxford!  We walked around more after that, saw some more of the pretty campus (it started to rain a little bit unfortunately, and of course I didn’t bring an umbrella…).  Bob walked us through a covered market and then after that he let us go for 2 hours to get lunch and explore.  So I went with Lindsey, Elisa, and Cassidy to Pret A Manger to get a hot sandwich and then went to the Ashmolian museum (and it started raining/HAILING on the way it…so we got extremely soaked. Wonderful.).  Lots of interesting things in there!  They even had Pocahontas’ father’s mantel piece (it used to be thought of as a cloak, but now is thought to just be a mantel piece) there.  That was awesome to see.  After the museum, we went to an Oxford Campus Store and I got an Oxford sweatshirt and a t-shirt. By the time we were done there, it was time to meet the rest of the group for our tour of Christ Church College, the biggest college at Oxford University.  I loved this college!  It was gorgeous!  We even saw the dining hall that the Great Hall in Harry Potter was filmed in!! By the time we finished touring the college, we walked around Oxford for about 20 more minutes then hopped on the bus to head back to London.  Great last day trip!

So I was here by myself this weekend because some people didn’t go to Oxford and are gone on trips this weekend and the other people who are here have friends from home visiting.  I was completely fine with it, though!  I enjoyed myself. This weekend was also my last weekend here in London (before my Mom and aunt come to see me, of course) because the next 3 weekends I’m going to be traveling around Europe!  Next weekend I’m in Poland, the weekend after that I’m in Paris, the next weekend I’m in Italy, and then my Mom and aunt are here the following weekend!  It’s so crazy that I have less than a month left of the program here!  So yesterday I woke up, got ready, and left to have a great day.  I first went to The Monument (monument for the Great Fire in London).  I got there and climbed all 311 stairs to the top to see the fantastic view!  I even packed myself a lunch for the day and ate half of it at the top.  I could see St. Paul’s, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, city hall, the Gherkin, Tower 42, London Eye, and even a bit of Big Ben and Parliament!  I enjoyed it up there. After that I walked across London Bridge and down along the river up towards Tower Bridge.  I had the other half of my lunch along the river by Tower Bridge (the pigeons definitely liked me, haha…).  I then walked across Tower Bridge and decided to do the Tower Bridge Exhibition.  So I got to go up to the top and walk across the viewing platform of the bridge!  Again, great views of down the river!  I learned about the history of the bridge and even saw the engine room when it used to be powered by steam (it’s powered electrically today).  When I finished there, I finished walking across the bridge, passed the Tower of London, and went to the tube station and went to South Kensington, where I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum!  This museum is such a WONDERFUL museum!!  There are SOO many things to see!  I didn’t see it all because I’m going back there with my Mom and aunt when they come so I wanted to save it for then.  I mostly went because I needed to go to a Britain and India exhibit to report on for my British Empire class.  So after the museum I then headed back to my flat, made myself dinner, and relaxed after a long day of exploring and walking!

Today I slept in until about 12:15 and it felt so good to get lots of sleep!  I then ate, got ready, and headed outside because it was 50 degrees and nice out!  I decided to walk to and check out Hyde Park, which is only about a 10 minute walk from my flat.  Huge and wonderful park!  I saw the outside of Kensington Palace, too.  There’s a big pond there and it had a ton of birds there, including swans!  There were SO many swans!!  I sat on a bench by the pond for a while and wrote a little bit in my journal.  Of course, when the Wisconsinite comes out to enjoy the weather the clouds come in and the wind picks up, so I got a bit cold sitting there and decided to walk around the park some more.  There were so many people outside enjoying the weather!  Today was also “Mum’s Day” for here…which is weird that it’s a different day than ours, but whatever haha.  So there were a lot of families around the park today.  After walking around the park for a while, I stopped in at Starbucks (for the first time since I’ve come to Europe…I know, it’s shocking!! ) and wrote in my journal since I was a little behind in it.  But that was my day today!  It was nice a relaxing, I loved it.  This whole weekend was great! Awesome last weekend in London!!

This week I’m seeing Phantom of the Opera (on Wednesday night, I believe…) and then I’m going on the AIFS trip to Krakow, Poland early on Friday morning!  Should be a good time!!!

Cherio!

Hey guys, I finally have a breather and can sit down and write an entry!  It’s difficult to get a good internet connection while I’m on my trips outside of London, so I always have to wait until I get back to London.  What a crazy busy week I’ve had even after my trip, though!

I’ll back up to last week before Scotland briefly…what a stressful week, oh my gosh.  I had a book review for my British Empire class and my Sociology Exam on Wednesday, which stressed me out a lot but I got it done and think I did alright on my exam.  I was up late Wednesday night until about 3 am because I was working on my take-home midterm exam for Art History and then had to pack after that for Scotland!  So yeah, all that school work was pretty stressful but I was just happy to have it done!  For my Art History class we went to the National Gallery for a little while and then walked down to the Banqueting Hall to see it’s beautiful painted ceiling.  The ceiling has a baroque style painting by the artist Peter Paul Rubens.  The ceiling is simply gorgeous!  This is also the place where Charles I waited to go to the scaffolding and be beheaded.  After seeing the ceiling, I can honestly say that being in there for your last moments of life would not be bad.  The pictures are all of heavenly beings and cherubs, which could have been put Charles I’s mind to peace seeing the lovely place he would be in soon.

After leaving the Banqueting Hall, I went back to Dilke House and met with the other Scotland people to head to Kings Cross Train Station to get on our train to Edinburgh, Scotland!!  The train ride lasted about 5 hours, so we got to Edinburgh around 8:30 pm.  When we got there, it was dark so we didn’t see much of the city…but I’ve heard it’s a gorgeous city!  We walked to our hostel (”SmartCity Hostel”) and settled in.  I stayed with 6 other girls from AIFS on the trip in one room.  After we settled in, some of us went to a Scottish pub down the street from the hostel.  I ordered Veggie Haggis for dinner!  I didn’t get regular Haggis because, if you guys don’t know this, it’s actually like organs cooked in sheep’s stomach…no thank you.  Veggie Haggis was good enough for me and very delicious!  After dinner we went back to the lounge in the hostel and played a couple games of pool then headed upstairs to bed.

Friday morning we woke up and had an english breakfast provided by the hostel.  After breakfast, we checked out and loaded on to our Haggis Tour Buses!  The touring company AIFS books their Scotland trips with is called “Haggis Tours”.  Our tour guide’s name was Dan, and he was pretty awesome!  We left and set out for the north-west.  I loved seeing the Scottish countryside!  Along the way, we stopped at the National Wallace Monument in Stirling.  This monument stands on a hill that we climbed up to see the outside of the monument and the view.  The monument is the largest monument dedicated to one man, and that man was Sir William Wallace, a 13th century Scottish hero.  The view from the top of the hill was spectacular!! After seeing the monument, we stopped at the castle (and the name of it escapes me, sorry ) they filmed the opening scene for Monty Python!!  That was pretty awesome, even if we did just see the outside.  Shorting after the castle, we stopped at a resting point (with a gift shop of course).  Here they had a HARRY COO!!  A harry coo is a Scottish cow–orange, long-haired, and big, long horns.  The Scots like to yell HARRY COOOOOO when they see them while driving haha We left again and stopped at another resting point for lunch before we entered the highlands!  I tried Cullen Skink, which is fish stew.  Oh my gosh, it was DELICIOUS!  I definitely recommend getting it if you ever get the chance!  After lunch we then entered the HIGHLANDS!  I immediately fell in love with the highlands…they’re mountains!  And were covered in snow!  It reminded me of driving through Colorado, and I LOVE Colorado.  We stopped at one point in the highlands and got out to walk around a little bit, and it was beautiful!  Words can seriously not explain it.  We even had a snow ball fight and made snow angels…yup, IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND!  That kind of made my day haha :D.  When we got out of the highlands, we took a tour of a whiskey distillery!  That was pretty neat, especially since we got to try their newest whiskey at the end (it’s only 4 years old!).  :) After the distillery, we then headed to our hostel “Morags Lodge”, located near Loch Ness!  Oh my gosh, this hostel was seriously my favorite hostel ever.  I wanted to stay here for like a week!  It’s in Fort Augustus, a reeeeally small town.  But the hostel was just so cozy and made me feel at home!  The food was AWESOME, the beds were comfy, and we had great views of the highlands from our windows.  Oh, and the place had a PIANO in it, which made me very happy :D.  After dinner I participated in a whiskey tasting…oh man, I am never drinking whiskey again.  It’s so strong and burns my throat and I got a major headache after it!  But it was still a nice experience to do a whiskey tasting in Scotland .  When the whiskey tasting was done, I was pretty exhausted so I went up to bed.

Saturday morning we woke up and I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast.  Then we checked out (which made me sad, I didn’t want to leave the lodge haha) and made our way to the Isle of Skye!  Along the way, we stopped at Eilean Donan Castle, which is built out on a loch with a stone bridge connecting to it!  Once again, we just saw the outside, but it was still a really pretty castle to see.  And the area around it was simply GORGEOUS! When we left the castle, we then headed over the bridge to the Isle of Skye!  After driving for a bit, we stopped at a place and went down by the river running by there.  There’s a myth that goes with the river, and long story short, it’s believed if you stick your face in the river for 7 seconds you’ll be forever gorgeous and immortal.  So I gotta say to you guys that I’m going to live forever and be beautiful (try not to be jealous ) because I put my face in it That was a lot of fun to do haha.  For lunch, we stopped at a port town called Portree.  We went to a restaurant called Café Arriba, and it was quite delicious!  We didn’t have much time in Portree, so after lunch we had to head back to the bus and get going again.  After driving for a while, we then went “off-roading” (yes, in the bus…) and got to a volcano plug!  It’s hard to tell a volcano was even there, because it’s completely covered in grass (and sheep droppings…ick).  But WHAT A VIEW it had!  You could see the main land of Scotland in the distance across the water, and see the snow-covered high lands.  It was breathtaking, and once again words cannot explain it.  Pictures did not do it justice either!  After spending probably about 2 hours walking around and taking endless photos, we loaded back on to the bus and made a loop back towards the bridge that we went over earlier in the day to get on the Isle of Skye.  Along the way we made a quick stop to see some cliffs and waterfalls, and neat rock formations (again, absolutely beautiful!!).  At dusk, we finally arrived at our hostel (which is right by the bridge to get back to the main land, still on the Isle of Skye).  Our hostel was called “Saucy Marys” and it was a pretty nice hostel once again!  Of course, not as nice as Morags Lodge, but still nice. I had Vegetarian Lasagna for dinner because I wasn’t wanting the other two meal options (fish pie or lamb stew).  After dinner, we hung out in the bar until about midnight…the bar had a guy come in a sing some songs.  He even sang “Take It Easy” by The Eagles!!  I completely freaked out and was singing along because it’s my favorite band AND song by them! We also met some people from Texas who were traveling around Europe and staying there that night.  They taught Brianna, Will, and I a new, fun, English card game!  I’m stoked to teach it to people back home!  After about 10 rounds of that game (haha) we turned in for the night.

Sunday morning we woke up, packed up, and left for our last day in Scotland! We went to see Loch Ness!  No, sorry to disappoint everyone, but I didn’t see Nessie.  Dang it!  The loch is absolutely HUUUUGE though!  And deep!  Apparently if you drain the loch dry, it’s so large and deep that it can hold the world’s population 10 TIMES!!!  Yeah, it was pretty impressive.  We got out and saw from a distance Urquhart Castle, which is by the deepest part of the loch and where the most sightings of Nessie have been (too bad I didn’t get to see the monster, though).  After seeing the castle, we went to a very “cheesy and pointless” gift shop (as our tour guide, Dan, called it haha) and got some things.  When we were done with our purchases, we made our way back down to Edinburgh.  Along the way, we stopped at a battlefield where the English and Jacobian fought back in the day, resulting in many Scottish people dead and forever made Scotland a captive of England.  They had red flags lined up representing where the English lines were and blue flags across the battlefield where the Jacobians were lined up.  It was quite sad to see and know how many Scots died there. After the battlefield, we continued our way back to Edinburgh.  Around lunch, we stopped at a hotel that has really good food and ate there, but then were soon on our way again.  When we reached Edinburgh I finally got to see the beauty of the city!  It’s really spectacular!  The architecture is wonderful, I wish I could’ve have more time there!  But once we got there, we went to the train station, grabbed some dinner to-go for the train, and left for our 5 hour journey back to London.  I definitely wasn’t ready to go back to London, I was loving Scotland too much!  The trip made me feel closer (I guess?) to my ancestors since they were MacDonalds and MacMillans.  It was a nice trip to the motherland.

So that’s my trip to Scotland, truly amazing!  I think everyone should try to make it to Scotland at least once in their life!

I went to Oxford today for an AIFS trip but I’ll write about that in another entry (hopefully to be posted late this weekend!).  But on that note, I’ll talk to you guys later!

Cherio!

Hey everyone!  I’m back in London after my mid-semester break to WALES!!!  Sorry I wasn’t able to update during my trip, Internet was very difficult to come across!

I’ll start where I stopped last week…Thursday was a fantastic day!  I went to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery for my Art History class.  I loved seeing the portrait gallery!!  After that, I went with two girls, Elisa and Cassidy, to Leicester Square.  We went there to see the people showing up for the world premiere of Tim Burton’s “Alice In Wonderland” at the Odeon Theatre!  We got some lunch at an Italian place called “Bella Italia”, followed by DELICIOUS gelato, then went to join all the crazy fans along the road.  It was really neat seeing the crew members setting up for the premiere!  Anyways, we waited 3 hours in the on-and-off pouring rain for the celebrities to show up.  Finally, the one celebrity who everyone was there to see showed up and came by us…the actor who places the Mad Hatter in the movie:  JOHNNY DEPP!!!!  That’s right, I SAW him, my favorite actor, two feet away from me!!  :D  Everyone went INSANE…pushing, pulling, shoving, and knocking people over just to get a glimpse of him!  I got some good pictures of him, too.  I pretty much looked like a drowned rat afterwards because of the rain but it was SO worth it!  When I got home that night, I took a hot shower, made dinner, then packed for Wales!!

On Friday morning, I got up at 6 am to get ready and leave for Wales!  We took a MegaBus to Cardiff at 8:30 am.  There were 5 girls including me originally:  Lindsey, Brianna, Erika, and Katelyn.  But when we got to the station we saw a guy we know from our program, and his group had bailed on him so we just invited him along with us.  When we got to Cardiff it was very VERY windy!  We went to get lunch right away and already noticed how much cheaper things are compared to London! After that we walked around a bit, taking in Wales.  One thing we noticed right away is that everything (street signs, ads, etc) are written in both English and Welsh, the native tongue of Wales!  It was pretty neat!  So we bought Wales hats, supporting the Wales VS France rugby game that night (even though we weren’t going to it).  We walked some more and then got to the train station and hopped on our train to head to southwest Wales.  After changing trains about three times, we finally arrived at Pembroke Dock.  When we got there it was dark outside and we went to search for our hotel.  We kind of got lost so Lindsey called the place and they told us where to go.  We FINALLY got there and settled in for a bit, then got ready and headed to a local pub to watch the Wales VS France rugby game.  When we walked in it was a hard rock music sort of pub and a lot of people looked at us weird because we probably didn’t look like the typically Pembroke Dock locals haha.  But we just sat down and there wasn’t an issue  It was a lot of fun to watch the game in a local Welsh pub!  Unfortunately, Wales ended up losing to France 26-20 .  It was still a lot of fun, though!  After the game we left and went to sleep back in our hotel…we were SO tired after a long day of traveling!!

The next morning we got up at 8 am, got ready, and had our complimentary full English breakfast.  I had eggs, a sausage link, some sort of English “bacon”, a croissant, yogurt, tea, half a slice of some sort of deep fried bread (I don’t know if that’s what it was, it was REALLY good though!), and fruit.  It was so yummy!  After breakfast, we walked to find the coastal cruiser to take us to the cliffs by the coast!!  The driver drove and took us on a sort of “tour” of the Welsh countryside and coast.  The roads are so narrow!  It’s crazy, and she drove so fast!  We finally got there and were amazed at the beauty of the coast!  We were lucky to have such a gorgeous day!  The cliffs are simply amazing .   At the cliffs there is a natural bridge–the Green Bridge of Wales–which we walked out on.  It was all so surreal!  We walked up and down the coast a bit and even went down a path to go right down to the water.  We also saw a sea lion in the water!! (we named him Herbert haha ).  Words cannot explain how amazing it was!  So after the coast, the coastal cruiser came back a little after 2 pm and we then went to Pembroke Castle!  We only had 45 minutes in it but that was alright…it is a smaller castle, right on the river in Pembroke.  After that we had a late lunch/early dinner and then took a bus back to Pembroke Dock.  That night we went to dinner at a place called the Ferry Inn, right along the river.  Cute place!  Once again we were pretty tired after a long day, so we just went back to our hotel after that and fell asleep right away.  What an awesome day!!

Yesterday we got up at 8:30 am, had our English breakfast again, and got on our train to Swansea at 11:45 am.  At Swansea we then transferred to a coach bus to go to Cardiff (it was cheaper to do this rather than take the train all the way to Cardiff).  When we got to Cardiff, we walked to our hostel called “Nomad”.  For my first hostel experience, it wasn’t bad at all!  Since we had six people, we got our own room with three bunk beds.  After we checked in and dropped our stuff off we went to see the town centre.  Immediately we got pretty hungry and hunted down a place to eat…a lot of places were already closed since it was Sunday evening.  We found a square with a lot of restaurants though and one of them was Bella Italia!  So we ate there and had a DELICIOUS meal!  After that we went next door to Hard Rock Café and hung out at the bar for a little bit.  On our way back to the hostel, I saw on the jumbo screen in the town centre that the USA VS Canada Men’s Olympic Hockey game was on!  And this was the final game for the gold!  So Brianna and I rushed back in front of everyone else back to the hostel to watch it.  I asked the manager to turn it on and he did just in time fro me to see the last minute of the third period.  With 25 seconds left, the USA scored to tie the game up 2-2!!  So they went into overtime…but unfortunately Sidney Crosby scored the game winning goal and CAnada won the gold medal and USA won the silver .  Oh well, I’m just glad I was at least able to watch it!  After the game I went back to our room, got ready for bed, and went to sleep.

Today we woke up, ate our complimentary breakfast (not an English one here, just a bowl of corn flakes and toast), then packed up and checked out.  We walked around the town centre for a while, got some coffee, then went to tour Cardiff Castle at 9:30 am.  This castle is also really awesome!  I love that I got to see two Welsh castles this weekend!  After the castle, we walked and browsed more and went to lunch at a cool pub.  It had really good food!  I got a tuna, cucumber, and mayonnaise sandwich and a drink.  During lunch we unfortunately missed a parade going on down the street because today was Saint David’s Day, which is basically like Wales’ version of Saint Patrick’s Day apparently?  Anways, after lunch we loaded the bus at around 2:30 pm (the bus was a half hour late).  We didn’t want to leave though!  It was SO pretty there and the weather was great!  It was sunny and probably around 50 degrees!!  The people are also extremely nice!  We came back to London and right away were sick of the busy life and people here seem so much more rude compared to the Welsh!  The Welsh people would talk to us, ask us where we’re from and what we’re doing there, etc…and it was so nice .  I highly recommend taking a visit to Wales!!

Well I got back today, Monday, from a trip and am leaving Thursday for another trip!  It’s the AIFS planned weekend trip to Scotland through Sunday!  And I’m SO excited for this trip!  It’s going to be so much fun  Wednesday I have a Sociology midterm, AH I hope I do well…wish me luck!

That’s the update, though.  I had a fantastic mid-semester break and wouldn’t have wanted it any other way!  It was nice a relaxing, just like a vacation should be

Cherio!

Hey everyone! So sorry again for not updating this for yet another week, but my weeks just keep on getting busier and busier! And it’s only going to get more busy from here to the end of the program in April! I’m so busy not only because of school work but because of all my trips coming up! This weekend I’m going to Wales for my mid-semester break (Friday to Monday). And then next weekend I’m going to Scotland; the following weekend my friend from home, Breanna, who is studying in southern France this semester, is coming to visit me; the weekend after that I’m going to Krakow, Poland; the next weekend I’m meeting up with Breanna in Paris; then my last weekend before the program is done I’ll be in Italy! Then the next weekend my mom and my aunt are here!! It’s INSANE how fast everything is flying by! I already can’t believe that next week is March, my last full month here! :O

Freaking out aside, I’ll now fill you in on what has happened this past week haha . My British Empire midterm went fine, I think…it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. On Wednesday I had my Intro to Dance “test”, which was us just doing 2 of the dances we have been learning until then. That test brought an end to our modern dance unit and today in dance class we started ballet! It’ll be nice to try and work on my balance, because I certainly don’t have the best balance haha. On Thursday for my Art History class we went to the National Gallery once again and saw high renaissance paintings by da Vinci, Michelangelo, and others. It was nice to finally see paintings by artists I know!

So the week was pretty chill and relaxing until Friday, which is when we had our day trip to Stonehenge and Salisbury! The last time I was here, I had seen Stonehenge but it was still nice being able to see it again! And luckily we had nice sunny weather for it. I never seem to get over the countryside here, it is just absolutely gorgeous. We left London at about 8:30 am and arrived at Stonehenge, where we had about an hour to walk around it. It still boggles my mind how, whoever and whatever built it, was able to put it together. Some of the stones weigh 50 TONS and came from over 200 miles away…even with our technology today that’d still be difficult to do and take a long time. And the stones are even placed mathematically perfect and even from each other in a circle. It’s just amazing! From Stonehenge we then went to Salisbury. When we got to Salisbury, we had about an hour and a half free so we just went to lunch at an italian restaurant called ‘Strada’ where I got a delicious bowl of spaghetti . From there, we spent the rest of the day in the Salisbury Cathedral, which is a GORGEOUS cathedral! The architecture and the stain glass windows are beautiful, too. The cathedral is known for it’s massive steeple, which towers over the town. The steeple is so massive that when it was first built, the structure settled into the ground about 2 1/2 feet! It’s that heavy! Even the support structures used have bent a little, which is so comforting to see as you’re standing under the steeple haha . But overall, it is a very pretty cathedral surrounded by a cute little town.

The next day my friends Lindsey, Brianna, and I took a bus to Dover!! We left London at about 8:30 am for it and had BEAUTIFUL weather! It was another sunny, gorgeous day! Dover is a port city and is the ‘gateway to England’, so I got to see the sea! And on a clear day, you can actually even see France across the English Channel because it’s the closest part of England to France! It was a little hazy on Saturday to see it, but we saw a little of it! When we arrived in Dover we walked around a little bit and then decided to walk up to Dover Castle. I immediately fell in love with this place once we walked up there! You can see the white cliffs, miles of the English Channel, and the city of Dover from the top! Words cannot explain how gorgeous it was!! It was interesting to see along and in the cliffs old WWII bunkers used by British soldiers to lookout for enemy fighers coming in from across the channel and shoot them down. They even built a tunnel system to stay in deep INSIDE the cliffs, which we got a tour of! The castle itself was amazing as well, still in great condition. In the center is the Great Tower, which we went on top of and saw an even more amazing view of the sea and the city and the countryside behind it! I could’ve spent HOURS exploring around the castle and it’s grounds. From the castle and the WWII Secret Wartime Tunnel tour, we went back down to the city and ate at a cute cafe, where I got a toasted cheese and ham sandwich with a hot chocolate. After lunch, we went down to the beach and to a pier to walk on a get a better view of the white cliffs! It was AWESOME being able to see the sea! I got some rocks from the beach to keep and bring home with me so I could have a little bit of the English Channel shore . After seeing the cliffs from the pier, it was getting dark and close to the time our bus was departing to return to London. By the time we left, it was dark outside and we got to see the Dover Castle lit up on top of the cliffs, which was beautiful to see!

Sunday Brianna and I got up to see the Tower of London and the London Aquarium! Unfortunately when we got to the Tower of London, it was POURING rain outside…but we didn’t let that ruin our fun of being there! Luckily it stopped raining about 30 minutes after getting there! I also had been to the Tower of London the last time I was in London, but it was awesome being able to see it again! I even saw things I didn’t see last time, which was great! So after spending a few hours there, we then got some take away Fish ‘n’ Chips for lunch and ate it right next to the Tower of London YUM! From there we got back on the tube and headed over to Westminster. We got out of the tube across the river from the London Eye and under Big Ben. I love being there, it never gets old standing right by Big Ben! We walked across Westminster Bridge and went into the London Aquarium, which is right next to the London Eye. What a neat aquarium!! It’s actually underground, so after you buy your ticket you get in a lift and “dive” down to the aquarium! It’s full of lots and lots of beautiful fish (of course, haha). Their main attraction is a big tank that has sharks in it and you can take the “shark walk” at the end and walk over a glass floor over the tank! That was pretty neat. There were a lot of families there, and LOTS of kids freaking out over the fish haha. It was so cute, though. So after a few hours in the aquarium, we both decided it was time to head back to our places for the night. I just had a pretty relaxing night, cooked myself dinner and did some homework.

Tonight we’re going to see the show “Avenue Q”! I’m not quite sure what it’s about, but it’s a comedy with puppets and the humor is really sarcastic I guess? That’s all I know about it, I’ll let you know!

Friday morning I’m leaving at 8:30 am for Cardiff, Wales with Lindsey, Brianna, Katelyn, and Erika (4 girls from Wyoming) for our mid-semester break! Our plan so far is to go to get into Cardiff around lunch time, hang around for a few hours, and then catch a train to Pembroke Dock, which is in south-west Wales. We have a bed & breakfast place to stay there Friday and Saturday night. Saturday we’ll probably go to Pembroke Castle and then take a small bus to a town close to the coast called Bosherston. There’s a cool natural bridge on the coast called the Green Bridge of Wales…it was made by a unique formation of rocks I believe? I’ll probably know more about it after I go to it Late morning on Sunday we’re getting a train/bus back to Cardiff to enjoy a festival going on during the weekend, staying there Sunday night, and then around lunch time on Monday (we don’t have classes on Monday) get a coach bus back to London. So that’s our trip! Lots of traveling, but I’m also excited to see the countryside in Wales along the way! I’m sure it’s absolutely gorgeous So that’s my update so far. Again, I’m sorry I haven’t updated in a week! I’ll definitely try to update maybe after I arrive and get settled in to Wales? Hopefully I’ll have internet access!!

Cherio!

Hey all!  So I’m so sorry I haven’t written all week, but I’ve had such a busy (and fun!) week!!  Sunday as like I thought it would be…sleeping in and doing homework.  That night Jenny and I were looking at theatre shows around London and just booked two for this week!  So we booked the show “Waiting For Godot” on Tuesday night and “The Lion King” on Thursday night.  Since we spent a lot of money on those tickets, we decided to take it easy with the going out to dinner/pubs this week and stay in and cook, which ended up working out really well!  :) Monday wasn’t too special, I just had dance class and British Life and Culture.  In BLC we learned about London’s architecture, which was interesting.  Then Tuesday was the MAGICAL day, haha I only had British Empire class, and it wasn’t too bad this week (I’m finally getting used to the taking-notes-all-of-class thing haha).  That night, Jenny and I cooked some dinner for ourselves before the show: pasta with tomato sauce (along with a little white wine, garlic powder, and cheese thrown in) and a salad…so delicious!!  We then headed for the Royal Haymarket Theatre to seeing “Waiting For Godot”, which stars the actor Ian McKellan!  Ian’s name is actually SIR Ian McKellan because we read online that he was knighted for his great work in the theatre business!  How cool!  The show was great; the other actors were awesome too.  During intermission I asked one of the ushers if there’s a meet-and-greet after the show and I was told that we can head to the stage door behind the building and they come out to sign autographs and take pictures!!!  We got so excited at that point because we were going to meet IAN MCKELLAN!!!  In case some of you do not know who Ian is, he is Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Magneto from the X-men movies!  I love both of those movies, so it was SO exciting to meet my first celebrity!  There were a few people behind the building, and we probably waited for a half hour until the actors started coming out.  The other stars in the play were incredibly personable and kind, and autographed our Waiting For Godot flyer and got pictures with us.  Then the man of the hour came out!  Unfortunately, he doesn’t pose for pictures, but we were able to get pictures of us posing while he signs our stuff…so that’s what we did  He signed our flyers and everything, and he was very nice!  Jenny and I were so excited the rest of the night, we basically skipped the rest of the way home and couldn’t fall asleep for awhile…but it was totally worth it! haha

Wednesday we had a field trip of London with our lecturer Bob Craig of some of the architecture around the city.  We med at 8:45 am in front of Dilke House and left from there for the rest of the morning.  We saw a lot of neat buildings: #1 Poultry, The Royal Exchange, some old churches, Lloyd’s, The Gerkin, Tower 42, and more!  It was awesome seeing a mixture of the old and new architecture, especially when they sit right next to each other in the heart of the city!  After our tour, my dance class met up and we went to Freed’s in Covent Garden, which is famous for making point toe ballet shoes.  We weren’t able to be out too long because some of us (like me) had a class at 12:30 to go to, so we walked from Covent Garden to campus (which is only about a 10 minute walk!), and I went to British Empire, followed by Sociology.  Wednesday night, Jenny and I decided to go back to the stage door of the theatre and try to get Ian to sign our tickets and maybe get better pictures.  He came out really fast and kind of in a hurry, though, so we didn’t get a picture but we got his autograph on our ticket! After that we met up with our friend, David, by the Piccadilly tube station and just decided to walk around the city a bit.  So, we walked from Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square, then to Trafalgar Square, followed by Buckingham Palace and Victoria Station.  It was a good walk and the first time I saw Buckingham Palace at night!

Thursday I had my art history class, and we went to The National Gallery again (by Trafalgar Square) and looked at early renaissance art.  After that was finished, I headed up to Oxford Circus because I had an Apple Genuis Bar appointment at 3 pm to get my computer battery looked at (it was really weak and bad at keeping a charge).  Luckily, they didn’t charge me at all for the battery!  That Apple Store was AMAZING!  It was 2 stories, and my jaw dropped everywhere I looked.  It makes the Apple Store at Bayshore Mall back home look so small, haha.  I finished there at about 3:45 and didn’t want to go back to the flat yet so I ventured over to Piccadilly Circus and went to a souvenir store called “Cool Britainia”, which is probably the coolest souvenir store I’ve seen here so far!  It’s 2 stories and is full of anything you can think of that’s London-souvenir related haha.  I ended up getting 2 scarfs, which were 2 for 10 quid, and cheap little shot glass  After that, I headed back to get ready for the show.  For dinner, Jenny, Regina, and I went over by Harrod’s to a place called “Yo! Sushi” for dinner.  Yes, I tried sushi for the first time in London for dinner, how about that!? haha!  It was SO delicious, though!  I’m in love with sushi!  The place was cool, too…we sat at a bar that surrounds where they prepare the food and a conveyor belt goes around the bar, which has bowls of food to pick up and eat if you want it.  I definitely want to go back there sometime soon! Jenny and I after dinner went over to Covent Garden to Lyceum Theatre for “The Lion King”!  Oh my GOSH that show is just spectacular!  The costumes are unbelievable!  My favorite are definitely the giraffes The actors/singers were good and everything else about it was just awesome.  I HIGHLY recommend checking out this show!!  Then after the show, we headed over to a bar in ULU (the campus union) called “The Duck and Dive” to hang out for karaoke night with some people from our program.  It’s a lot of fun and a really cool, relaxed bar!  It was also entertaining listening to the people sing…some were a LITTLE pitchy We just headed home and to sleep after that.

Yesterday was another fantastic day!  We had our day trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon, which is about an hour and 45 minutes outside of London.  This town was the birthplace of William Shakespeare and where he grew up.  When we got there, we went through Anne Hathaway’s (his wife) cottage, located a few minutes outside of the center of town.  Jenny and I had checked the weather the day before and it said it was supposed to rain…but when we got there, it was beautiful and sunny!  Just shows you how unpredictable England’s weather is!  Anyways, after her cottage we headed back to the center of town where we had 25 minutes to ourselves for a quick coffee break.  Some girls and I found a cute shop selling fresh baked goods, so we got a little treat then went over to “Costa” coffee (I’d say it’s probably the same as Alterra Coffee back home) for some coffee and met up with the rest of the group after that.  From there, we went through The Guild Chapel, which overlooks the site of New Place where William Shakespeare lived in retirement and died.  It’s actually one of the town’s most historic buildings because it was founded over 700 years ago.  After that, we walked to the Holy Trinity Church, the church where Shakespeare is buried.  There has been a church on the site since 713, but the present building dates from 1210.  It was a pretty, tiny church with William, his wife Anne, and one of his daughters (Susanna) and her husband buried next to each other by the altar.  There was even a baptismal font that’s believed to have been the font Shakespeare was baptized in…and to this day you can still be baptized in it! From the church, we followed our tour guide, Russell Grant, to the house where Shakespeare was born in and grew up.  It was a very cute, quaint house just like the rest of the town!  After seeing his birthplace, we had about an hour and a half to do whatever we wanted around the town, so some of us just walked around and went through the shops until we met the coach bus at 4.  That night, I just stayed in because I was so tired from waking up early and walking around all day!  But overall, I’d say it was a fun, adventurous day!

Today, some girls and I went to check out Portabello Market in Notting Hill.  Between the tube station and the market are a bunch of cute boutiques with fairly cheap clothing!  We found a 5 quid store…everything was only 5 pounds!!  So I got two cute dresses for a total of 10 pounds, it was awesome!  After a couple more purchases we decided we should probably go to the market before we spend all of our money outside it haha.  You pretty much can get there if you follow a few signs and the crowd…because everyone in Notting Hill on the weekend goes to this market!  I fell in love with this market today…there are rows of pastel colored houses and a lot of stands full of pretty much anything you can think of!  There were stands with clothes, jewelry, produce, meat, crépes, antiques, sport team gear, london souvenirs, scarves, watches, headbands, CDs/records, books, posters, jackets, boots, flowers , and much MUCH more!!  The weather ended up being nice, too!  We thought it was going to be cloudy, but it ended up being sunny in the afternoon!  Go figure, England weather messed with us the second day in a row…but it’s fine with me if it involves sun! So we walked around the market all day until about 5ish.  For our lunch we stopped at a pie place and we all ordered a chicken, avocado, and brie cheese pie!  It was so delicious!!  Many purchases were made today by all of us, and we decided we need to return to the market to check out their produce more since it all looked fantastic.  We DID end up giving in a going to an authentic french crépe stand and all got banana nutella crépes (my favorite ).  But I definitely LOVE the Portabello Market!!!

Tonight wasn’t anything too special; after getting off the tube, Katelyn (who lives in the flat next to me) and I went to Waitrose (grocery store here) and get some ground beef and buns.  We had been craving nice thick cheeseburgers so we went back to her place and I cooked us some burgers with a salt, pepper, and garlic powder rub on them.  They were about an inch thick, too, haha…just how we like it!  Katelyn even had frozen chips (what we call french fries) in the freezer, so we threw some on a tray and popped them in the oven.  Oh my goodness, it was JUST what we were craving!!  It was delicious  The girls and I decided that since we spent a good amount of money today at the market we should just stay in tonight and save money.  So we just had a movie night at Katelyn’s.

Tomorrow I’m going to a rugby game with Jenny, Helena, David, Regina, and a couple other people at 3.  Unfortunately, I don’t even know who’s playing yet haha I didn’t ask Helena (she booked the tickets).  I can’t wait to see a rugby game, though!!  Then tomorrow night I’m wanting to go to Sports Cafe by Piccadilly to watch the Superbowl, Saints VS Colts!  It’ll be pretty late here (about midnight), but I definitely think it’ll be worth it! This coming week we have a football (soccer) game to go to on Tuesday night and then on Friday we have a day trip to Bath!  Can’t wait!

That was my week, sorry it was such a long entry and that I didn’t post anything this week…but it was a really long and busy but fun week!!

Cherio!

Hey everyone!!  So I can’t believe my second week in London is already finished!  Now the time is really starting to pass by quickly, which is unfortunate haha.  Sorry I haven’t blogged for a week, but since I really just did classes all week it wasn’t very eventful until Thursday evening!  I know the last time I blogged was last Friday…so I’ll just pick up from there.  On Saturday we slept in and went to Camdentown on the north side of London.  What a neat place to go!  We went through the Camden Lock Market, which was full of vendors with clothing, food, and other random things!  I definitely enjoyed it and plan on going back again before I leave in April! That night we went out on the town for a girl’s birthday and had a good time.  Sunday was pretty laid back, we just slept in and did laundry and homework.  Monday then started our second week of classes.  This second week went by so fast!  And classes are actually not as bad as I thought they were going to be with some of them.  I really like my British Life and Culture class.  We don’t have to do any homework or exams in the class but I still just like to listen and take notes because it’s so interesting!  In Monday’s class we learned about the history of London (in a nutshell because the class is only an hour and a half…can’t fit every detail in haha).  It was just really fascinating because my professor (who’s British) knows a lot of fun factual details, which makes the class much more enjoyable.  My British Empire class was better…I think the first week I was honestly still a little jet lagged so I was really sleepy and it made it hard to pay attention and comprehend all he was saying.  This week I am no longer jet lagged (finally!) and was able to pay better attention!  So my advice:  even though you’ll be extremely tired and it’ll suck to stay up all day, do not take a nap when you arrive to your destination (like I did…for 5 hours. whoops).  It’ll throw off your sleep schedule for about a week (it did for me at least), even if you get a regular full night of sleep that night…it still screws it up.  That’s my advice for the day  Going on… my Sociology class was a lot of note taking as well, but it’s definitely interesting.  Then on Thursday for my Art History course we went to the National Gallery (in Trafalgar Square) to look at some gold illuminated early art pieces.  I love my art history course!  We’re probably going to be going out to some art museum every class because she likes for us to see art in real life and not just look at it in a book.  Can’t wait to see where we go next week!

Thursday night I went out to a pub and a small club with some girls for another one of my friends’ birthday, which was a lot of fun.  Friday we saw the Cirque de Solei show called “Varekai”.  That show is AMAZING!!  I didn’t know that people could twist, flip, and have that kind of strength!!  The costumes were phenomenal as well, lots of bright colors.  We saw the show at Royal Albert Hall, too!  I’m glad I got to see a show in that hall, it’s absolutely gorgeous and is right across the street from Hyde Park and the Prince Albert Memorial!  I highly recommend seeing that show if you ever get the chance to! That night I went out to dinner at a restaurant called “Garfunkels” and got a meat and mushroom pie (classic British meal), which was delicious.  My friend Katelyn and I then went to the grocery store while my friends Brianna and Erika went back to the apartment.  Katelyn and I got Erika (because it was her birthday) a scrumptious chocolate cake with some birthday candles.  She loved it.  After that we then just hung out in their apartment and watched a movie.

Today I had the best day so far on my London trip.  I got up and ready and then Katelyn, Brianna, Erika, and I left to go to Greenwich for the day!  We weren’t sure how to get there via tube/train until our RA told us but she also suggested since it was such a beautiful day today (probably about 43 degrees F and clear blue skies!!! ) to take a boat down the Thames River to Greenwich.  So we did!  We took the tube to Westminster Station, which takes us right to Big Ben.  We got out, walked across Westminster Bridge, walked by the London Eye (which is HUGE when you’re right underneath it!!) and took a boat under the London Eye (called the Thames Clipper) to Greenwich!  Seriously, the best decision of our life to take the boat haha.  We passed a lot of the major sights along the river: started off seeing Big Ben/Parliament, the London Eye, then went under the Millenium Bridge, saw the Tate Modern Art Museum, the Globe Theatre, and St. Paul’s Cathedral,  went under the London Bridge, saw the Tower of London, and went under the Tower Bridge!!  It was such a cool thing to do, and not even expensive!  It took us about 30 minutes to get to Greenwich.  When we got there we were a bit chilly since it was cold and windy on the boat, so we went to a pub called “Kings Arms” to warm up and have a late lunch.  After that we checked out the National Maritime Museum to go to an Atlantic Worlds exhibit for our British Empire class.  For our class, we are required to go to two museum exhibits (he gives us choices) and then write a review on it.  So we decided to get one review out of the way early.  I love that museum!  :D We then hiked up the large hill in Greenwich to head up to the Royal Observatory.  At the top of the hill we had an AMAZING view of Greenwich and the business district of London!  And it was so pretty because the sun was still setting a bit, so the sky was a little pink. Unfortunately, we got there too late to go to the prime meridian (they stopped letting people in at 4:30 and it was 4:50 ), but we plan on going back to Greenwich before we leave for home so we’ll for sure see it and stand in two hemispheres at once!!  So since we couldn’t see the prime meridian, we just decided to walk around the Royal Naval Academy a little bit, which is so pretty.  The buildings are really tall and old and it sits right along the river.  Across the river from it is the business district of London and it was all lit up since it was dark….just gorgeous!

So after walking through the academy’s grounds we decided to start heading back home.  We got on a bus that actually goes to Russell Square, which is by where we go to school.  We couldn’t believe it because it’s definitely a long way but we got on and made it there!  I definitely recommend taking the bus anytime you can because when you’re on the tube you don’t see the city.  You get to see parts of the city you’ll probably never get to see again when you take the bus, which is just incredible. After probably about an hour on the bus we finally made it to Russell Square, then hopped on the tube to go to Covent Garden.  It was 7 pm when we got there and the market there was already closed down, which is what I really wanted to see.  Last time I went to Covent Garden, we went after 7 and everything was closed then too.  I just can’t catch a break! haha We’ll just have to go back during the day sometime to see the market when it’s actually open.  :) So we walked around there for probably 20 minutes and then headed back to our places.  What an awesome day!!  Definitely my favorite day here in London so far!  I just got off skype with my mom…it’s her birthday today (or…if you’re going on my time here, it’s now yesterday..).  They were having a party and I skyped with them, which was fun.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!!! :) <3 I miss them all at home but I’m finally getting the hang of being over here and used to my new life for the next 3 months, so I’m alright now. I’m going to head to bed soon since it’s 1:15 am here…

Plan for tomorrow is just a chill, typical Sunday: sleep in and do homework.  This coming week should be a good one; on Wednesday we have our first British Life and Culture field trip!  We’re getting a guided walking tour of the old city of London!  Can’t wait for that…I’ll have to make sure my camera batteries are fully charged! haha Then on Friday we have our day trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon, which is where Shakespeare was born.  I heard it’s a cute town, so I can’t wait to see it!  Hopefully it won’t rain like it did for our last day trip!  But London’s weather isn’t the most predictable and can change pretty quick, so who knows how it will be!

Cherio!

Hey guys!  So, I swear I’m going to try to get photos up ASAP for you to see.  I was going to do it in this post but I’m sitting in the computer lab in the AIFS Dilke House, so they’re not on this computer.  They’ll be on the next one, I swear!

I have some good news, though…we got our computers to work!  YAY!  Yeah, turns out there was an on/off switch on the outlet that we didn’t see.  Our adapters worked on it, too, so we didn’t have to go out and spend money on new ones.  The Internet does work in our apartment (well, for mine at least…Jenny’s computer for some reason isn’t working with the Internet ), but it’s kind of weak at times.  But at least we have free, working Internet!!

Well, yesterday was a fun day.  For one, it was absolutely GORGEOUS outside!!  It was nice and sunny with blue skies and like 48 degrees!  (for a Wisconsinite in January, that’s AWESOME!)  We also got to sleep in until like 9:30, which definitely helped sleep off the jet lag.  I don’t know why, but for some reason the jet lag is hitting me a lot harder than it did when I was here 2 years ago.  Jenny and I were thinking that maybe it’s that 5 hour nap we took our first day here that threw us off…but, hey, we needed the sleep!!  Anyways, after we got up we had a travel safety meeting at 12 until 1:30, had a lunch break, then a travel information meeting at 2 until 3:30.  Some of the information in the meetings kind of seemed like they were common sense, but it was just nice to refresh our minds on how to travel safe within Europe.

So after these meetings were done, I went over to Dilke House and got my books.  I have 6 of my 7 books here, and I really hope my 7th (and most expensive!) book for my art history class arrives soon since I have that class on Thursday!  After that, we walked down to Goodge Street and found Cellphone Warehouse to finally get our pay-as-you-go phones.  I, along with the four other girls, just ended up getting a black Samsung cheap phone for like £10, and got a £20 plan with unlimited texting in the UK.  So, basically I can text the girls as many times as I want and I still have the £20 pounds to use as I want (like calling the US, and it’s only 7p a minute!).  We didn’t want to go back to apartment yet, so we decided to hop on the tube and go to Picadilly Circus to search for a pub to eat dinner.  It was such a fun evening!!  We got out of the tube, walked up to the street, turned around and right in front of us was Picadilly Circus!  It was so neat to see at night, all the ads glowing and the hundreds of people walking around.  We walked down the street past it, looked at some shops (even stopped at a store where they were selling 12 postcards for £1! I picked some up ), and looked for a pub to eat at.  With pubs, you aren’t seated by a hostess so you kind of just have to walk in a find a spot yourself.  Since there were 5 girls, it made it kind of difficult to find a big enough table during the busy dinner hour.  But it was still fun to walk down the side streets and see all the little restaurants and shops.  We even walked past Chinatown and into Soho a little bit (but not too far since Soho can get a little sketchy late at night).  We eventually found a pub called The Two Brewers and had a big enough table for us.  At pubs you also aren’t served by a server, you have to look at the menu and then go up to the bar and order and pay for your food right there, and then they bring it out to you.  We got a good Fish & Chips dinner at the pub–one slab of fish fry, french fries, a grilled lemon, and some peas.  The meal, along with a drink, only ended up costing me £10 (which is good for a decent dinner in the middle of London!).  We still didn’t feel like going back to our places after dinner, so we decided to walk and see where we get.  Well, we ended up back at Picadilly Circus.  I remembered going past here when I was marching in the 2008 New Years Day Parade and that Trafalgar Square wasn’t too far from it so we walked to Trafalgar Square with me leading the parade route backwards.  Trafalgar Square is so awesome to see and walk around in at night; the fountains are lit up and there are SO many people there!  After Trafalgar Square, I remembered that Big Ben was just down the street, so I led the girls (again going the parade route backwards-I couldn’t believe I still remembered it! ) and saw Big Ben ahead!!  We walked to Big Ben from Picadilly Circus!  It was so much fun.  I love seeing Big Ben, Westminster Abbey (which is right across the street basically from Westminster), and the London Eye at night!!  They look so beautiful.  I’ll definitely post photos of them I took last night in my next entry.  We walked half way across Westminster Bridge, too, and saw the London Eye pretty close up and Westminster from the river side.  Once again, SO pretty!!  So after that, we finally decided to head back since we had classes the next day at 9 am.  But what a great evening!!  You don’t realize how compact London really is until you’re walking around it…it’s pretty amazing.
I can tell you guys a little bit about my first class today, too, since I’ve already had it and I still have another 45 minutes until my next class (British Life and Culture) begins.  My 9 am class on Mondays and Wednesdays is Introduction to Dance.  Going into it, I wasn’t really sure what to expect…like if we were actually going to be dancing or if we were going to be learning about the history of dance, etc.  Well, it’s definitely a dancing class.  We moved a lot today so our teacher could get an idea of how our bodies move and what kind of person we are.  Apparently you can tell a lot about a person by watching them dance I learned.  But it was a lot of fun!  Should be an interesting class…

After class, Helena and I went to EAT.!! (yes, that’s the name of the restaurant: EAT. ) I signed up for a meal plan when I signed up for the program, so I got a bunch of vouchers for restaurants around the area to eat at for lunch/dinner.  Then we came back to ULU and I got a notebook for my BLC class and a University of London sweatshirt (I didn’t bring any sweatshirts I realized when I got here)!!  And now I’m sitting in the Dilke House lab, waiting for my next class to start.  But that’s the up date so far, I might try to post again with my pictures tonight.  We’ll see, though, because I have to go to sleep early tonight to wake up at 6 am tomorrow.  We have to sign up at the Student Services office at 8:15 am tomorrow for our day trips/musicals/etc that we want to see at a discounted price with the program and it’s first come first serve (they only have so many spots open! ).  So Jenny and I want to try to get here right on time so we can go to all the places we want to go to!

But, like I said, that’s all I have to update so far.  I’ll see about posting photos tonight.  But if not tonight, I will for sure try for tomorrow!!  Well, talk you later everyone!#

Cherio!

Hey all!  Well, I’m here!  I’m finally here!!  I’m at the end of my second full day here in London and I love it so far.  Right now I am writing this from an Internet Cafe in South Kensington that’s about a block away from my apartment.  We’re working on figuring out how our computers can work…we need to get a converter for them since the voltage is completely different than ours in the US.  We did bring adapters but we learned once we got over here that they only work with small heating appliances, like curling irons or hair dryers.  So both of our laptops are now dead.  We did get Internet to work (even though it’s weak, it’s the best we’re going to get).

Anyways, the plane ride wasn’t too bad at all.  It was really cool, actually.  While we were flying over the Atlantic Ocean, I looked outside (I had a window seat ) and saw BILLIONS of stars.  It was so cool!  I couldn’t stop staring outside, it reminded me of the night sky at my cottage in northern Wisconsin .  And then while we were flying into Heathrow, I could see the glow of London through the clouds.  We were flying above the clouds still, so I saw the city lights glowing a pinkish-orangish color through the clouds and it was SO beautiful!!  So once we landed, we went through immigration, got our bags, went through customs, and sat in Terminal 5 for about 2 hours waiting for the flight from Denver to come in so we could hitch a ride with them to our apartment.  Oh, our apartment!  Where to begin…it’s very…..quaint, to be nice haha.  You walk in to the apartment and to the right is our tiny bedroom with two twin beds in them and a closet.  Across the hall is a living room and then through the living room is a very tiny kitchen (honestly, I think my closet at home is bigger than this kitchen! haha).  There’s also a bathroom that’s a decent size.  We even have a ‘balcony’ outside our window we can go out and stand on! Besides the horrible furnishing choices of the place, it’s really not bad at all (I was honestly expecting it to be smaller, actually).  So after we arrived and attempted to unpack a little, we took a 5-hour nap thanks to the jet lag…whoops haha.  I didn’t get any sleep on the plane even though I took a sleeping pill .  So after we woke up, we showered and then went grocery shopping since we didn’t have any food in our apartment yet.  We went to a grocery store called ‘Sainsbury’, which is probably a lot like our Pick n Save (it’s the cheaper grocery store choice of the other ones in the area).  We stocked up on healthy choices, haha we were pretty proud of ourselves.  After coming back and unpacking groceries we finally crashed on our beds since we had to wake up at 8 am the next day to meet in the apartment lobby with our ‘RA’ and other students from the program.  What a tiring first day!!

So today I woke up feeling pretty well rested since I slept like a log for most of the night and met with the other students in the lobby after getting ready.  We got on the tube at Gloucester Road (which is only about 2 blocks from our apartment) and went to the Bloomsbury party of London (got off the tube at Russell Square), which is where our school is, the University of London.  We went to ULU, which is the union, and had our orientation.  After that, we got a brief tour of the union, since that’s where almost all of our classes are held, then went across the street to Dilke House, which is the AIFS student house.  We saw where our mail is and the student services office and then went to find some lunch.  Being good americans, Jenny, Helena, and I got Subway for lunch haha.  Oh, I think I forgot to mention that it was POURING most of the day up until after lunch.  I didn’t think it was going to be raining that much so I wore my jeans with my converse shoes and got absolutely soaked.  Luckily, we got about a 3-hour coach bus tour of London after lunch so my feet got to dry off.  The tour was so good!  Sure, we saw many of the sites that I had already seen 2 years ago but it was just nice seeing them again.  I mean, the last time I saw Big Ben was when I marched by it in the 2008 New Years Day parade!  Something cool, though, that we didn’t do when I was here last time was see the Shakespeare Globe.  I learned today that it actually isn’t the original theatre; the original burned down in 1913 (I think that’s the right year, don’t quote me on that) and the current one didn’t get unveiled until 1993.  But another thing I didn’t know about the theatre is that it’s right along the River Thames!  I thought it was somewhere in the middle of the city, but no..it’s right by the Millenium Bridge and the Tates Modern Art Museum!  We just saw the outside of it, but it’s a neat looking building.  For my British Life and Culture class we get to go inside it and do a workshop with the actors/actresses!  I can’t wait for that.  We then did something I was dying to do when I came to London (and go figure, I got to do it on the second day haha): cross the Millenium Bridge over to St. Paul’s Cathedral!  The bridge is so cool, and the design of it is interesting, too.

After seeing the outside of St. Paul’s, that was the end of our tour.  So our coach brought us back to ULU (and before we got off, we found out that the tour guide we had for the day is actually our British Life and Culture professor as well! He knows so much, I’m really exciting to learn from him on Monday!) and from there we got on the tube (with Helena and her roommate, Breanna) to head back to our apartment to change into some dryer clothes (thank GOD! ).  From there, Jenny, Helena, Breanna, and I decided to walk to Harrod’s to check it out.  How cool was that!!  We’re so close to Harrod’s, I didn’t even realize it!  We walked around it and just were amazed at everything in that department store…it’s simply just amazing.  Last time I was there there were wall-to-wall people, so it was a bit better this time (still a good amount of people, though! ).  We were hungry after that, so we walked down the street from Harrod’s and found a cute little Italian restaurant called ‘Dulce Vita’.  The entrance is really small because it’s actually downstairs in the basement of a building.  But it was yummy!  I got penne pesto pasta for about £12, not bad for London!  We decided to be done after that and head back to our own places.  Jenny and I tried to find converters for our laptops but everywhere else is closed, so we’re going to try tomorrow.  Tomorrow we have travel orientations to go to at noon at ULU so at least we get to sleep in a little bit.  Jenny and I timed how long it takes to go from our apartment to university and it takes about 45 minutes, so just to be safe we’ll probably leave an hour before classes start to make it there on time (especially if there’s rush hour in the underground!)

Well my time at the Interent Cafe is just about up so I’m going to get going.  I’ll probably blog next after my first day of classes.

Cherio!