Home for the Holidays

Forgive me for not writing. I have been home for the past two weeks. A much needed break from London. Wish I could stay home. I leave to fly back to London tomorrow. The day after my boyfriend and our friend Rob fly out for 10 days. We are going to do all the touristy things and watch the fireworks for New Years and do something fun on my birthday. I will update you with all the information once it happens. Nothing really exciting had been happening in London since I last wrote that is why I haven't written anything. Home was really nice. I got to see my mom and my dad and go to NY to see my friends up there. They didn't know I was coming so that was one of the best things to surprise them. Their reactions were priceless. I am going to miss being home, but I will be back in April. In February I am going to Brussels with my Aunt Brenda and then in April Dan is coming and we are going to travel somewhere. We will have it fully figured out by the time he leaves London. But it's 11:05pm and I have to be up in 6 hours to get to the airport and I have yet to pack. I promise promise a better update as soon as I can. xoxo

Still Alive

Just wanted to say hello and that I am still around. Nothing exciting going on over here. Hope people had an amazing Turkey Day. I had class then my roommate and I ordered Chinese food. I got to talk to my family online for a little bit. Wished I could have been home for Thanksgiving. I am counting down the days until I am home for Christmas. 13 days and counting! Love you.

Here Comes the Rain

It's finally starting to get cold here, so it's finally starting to rain. Up until a few days ago, it had only rained here about 4 or 5 times, if that. And it wasn't for very long. I was told that it was an exceptionally warm fall. I would have liked to have kept it that way. Maybe I will trade the rain for the snow too. There is just no way for it to really snow here. It's way too warm. Even if I think it is cold. Snow just doesn't stick here, even if it forms. Oh well. Sorry for the lack of updates. There hasn't really been anything exciting going on here. Last weekend my friend Vanessa from Hartford (She was one of my sorority sisters) came to visit. Thursday was Guy Fawkes Day. Basically to make a long story short, the British celebrate the fact that Guy Fawkes didn't blow up Parliament by having bonfires, fireworks and little children lighting scarecrows that are supposed to represent Fawkes on fire. Morbid I know. But the amount of people who were out watching the fireworks was ridiculous. I went to Clapham which is about 20 minute Tube ride south of here. Well I think it's south. I could be lying to you. Here is a picture of one of the fireworks going off.

The next day we went to Borough Market. It's ALL food. Some of them cooked and others not. Like there was a meat section and veggies and fruits. My favorite area was the food you could buy already cooked. I got some AMAZING spinach and ricotta tortellini with AMAZING pesto sauce on top to eat. It was so yummy and filling for the little amount that I did get.

Beautiful Flowers

FRUIT!

Fish

Meringues the size of my face.

Vanessa's Yummy lunch.

After even though it started to rain, we went to Abbey Road. Yay Beatles. We didn't find the studio though. It started to pour, we were tired and just wanted to go home.

Street sign

Wall that everybody signs.

Other then this, nothing really exciting has been going on sad to say. I did get my plane ticket home for Christmas which is really nice. My boyfriend is helping me pay for it. I am going to go up to New York for a few days when I get home to say hi to people. Classes are going well. Last week we didn't have any classes for reading week, which is for students to catch up on any projects and reading that they have to do. I worked on an essay that was due this past week. It was a stupid essay too. It was stressing me out and wasn't even graded. It is so we can see how the teacher grades and how we write. I have another essay due for this class, which is my elective and for my major. Both are due January 11th but I am going to try and get them done as much as possible before I come home since right after I get back to London my boyfriend and my friend Rob are coming for a week to play for New Years and my birthday. I am heading to York tomorrow with work which will be my second to last event with them. My boss is pregnant so in the spring she has to get a new assistant who works with the company and has more experience dealing with the schools and students then I do. It stinks but I will find something else around here to do. I think I am going to do the waitressing thing even though its not the kind of money that I would make at home. But it's better then nothing. I am not going to start a job though until after the new year. But that is all for now. I will try and update again soon. Hopefully something of interest will have happened then. Miss you xoxo

Happy Halloween

Okay, Happy Halloween a day late. But hope it was great! Here is a picture of my costume and one with my roommate and I. I am Michael Jackson and Jessie is a Twister Board.

Past Week

Sorry for the delay in writing. My boyfriend came into town for the past week so I was hanging out with him and showing him the city. (Which he loved). The night he landed we took the tube back from the airport, which took about an hour and a half from door to door. Well airstrip to flat door. I felt bad because he hadn't slept the night before and was on the plane and then stayed up late here. (Brining him back to the airport when he left, he said he didn't really remember the tube ride to my flat when he first got here). We put his stuff down in my apartment, made him some food and then walked up to the river so he could look around for a little bit and to see what the river looked like at night.

Here he is with Parliament behind him. The next morning for one of my classes I had to go to a museum, so Dan ended up coming with me to look around. The museum was okay. There were a lot of artifacts there which isn't really something I am interested in but my favorite part was the aquarium downstairs. The jellyfish case was the best, even though I hate them so much. They are really pretty creatures, although they hurt a lot when stung.

Later that day for work I had to go to another museum with some of the students. We went to the Imperial War Museum, which covers WWI and WWII. The different types of machines and planes that they used during these wars were pretty awesome. The only part I didn't like was the children of war exhibition. It just made me sad how so many children were separated from their parents during the war. Although because of it, some of the children led a better life outside of the city in the countryside. Below is a picture of the main lobby in the museum with all the machines.

Thursday consisted of Dan attending my afternoon class, since he slept in while I went to my morning class. Afterwards we took the train to London Bridge Station and walked home from there. It took about 45 minutes to an hour to walk back. But that's because we took our time. We walked a little bit across the Millennium Bridge and there was an art piece in the window outside the Tate Modern Art Gallery, which was lit up with orange. I saw somebody else taking pictures in front of it, so Dan and I did the same thing.

The rest of his trip here we just hung around the city, going out to eat, seeing a few movies and just spending time together. For your viewing pleasure, a picture of the two of us waiting at the bus stop. We were on our way to see Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs. (Great movie by the way).

After the movie, since all the food falling from the sky made us hungry, we went for sushi. My favorite, favorite place to eat sushi in London is a place called Yo! Sushi. You go inside and there is a conveyor belt running around the tables that have different pieces of sushi sitting on them. You pick up the ones you want and then keep the little tray it came on to be counted at the end. Each different colored tray is a different price. So it can add up pretty quickly. It is really good though. I hope they bring it to the United States at some point. I think there might be one in Boston, but hopefully D.C will get their own at some point.

The night before Dan left, we went to the London Ice Bar. It's inside but made completely out of ice. They give you big hooded capes to wear, gloves and our drinks came in cups made of ice. It was pretty cool. Literally. You could only stay in the bar for 40 minutes though because it is so cold in there. Apparently they change the design of it every three months, so maybe I can go again to see what it looks like next time. This time is was decorated to look like you were underwater. Being in a room though made totally of ice, it gave you this odd feeling. Kind of like you were floating. Maybe it was the fact that I was supposed to feel like I was underwater anyways.

Here is a picture of the street that the Ice Bar was on. It was really cute. Lined with tons of different places to eat.

Bringing Dan to the airport was really hard. I didn't want to have him leave. But I know he will be back in December with my friend Rob. Dan and I are also going to Greece and Italy in April for about two weeks before I fly home for my dad's wedding. So I get to spend time with him then. The day after Dan left I had classes and then a walk in Brick Lane to take pictures. Here are two of my favorite ones that I took. The last one is a panoramic of a wall that is completely covered in graffiti. The people who write on this wall are allowed to. It's a local project. I love and miss you all. xoxo.

Stonehenge and Salisbury

So today I woke up at 6:45am, after going to bed at midnight and waking up numerous times throughout the night as I have been doing for the past week. Well the waking up multiple times, not the 6:45am thing. I met up with the students for API (my work) and heading up on a minibus to Stonehenge and Salisbury for the day.

Stonehenge. Yeah. Well. Not that amazing. You can't even get within 50 feet of the rocks. It's one big circle to walk around it and you have headphones to listen to. To be honest, I didn't listen to the headphones. Because how much can they tell you about rocks that they don't even know much about. Plus it was cold and I didn't want to stand in the windy open field for long. And I was hungry. I mean don't get me wrong, the rocks were cool. But, they were just rocks. I wish I could have gotten closer.

Salisbury was really nice. It has a cathedral with the tallest spire in Great Britain. It was really pretty from the outside. I didn't go inside when the group split up. I decided to walk around the town instead. It was really cool because a lot of the area was pedestrian only, so we didn't have to worry about walking around and potentially getting hit by cars. There is so much history in the town. There is an original copy of the Magna Carta. And the buildings are from the Tudor time period. There was even one building that the front was all crooked because one side of the floor sank and the other side didn't. It's still in use today though.

Big Dog/Little Dog

Not sure if you can read it, but it says Salisbury, MD

Hope you enjoy the pictures. Sorry I am not writing much. I am beyond tired. Miss you all. xoxo.

Second Set of Classes

So my core course classes started yesterday. In the morning I have my talking practice, which is basically a critique for work that we bring in each week. We started talking about some peoples work already. I hadn't brought anything in since I didn't know I was supposed to. I felt bad. I am not sure if we were told and I missed it, or the students knew that a talking practice meant we were supposed to bring in work. They can be pictures of anything. There were other people who didn't bring in stuff so I didn't feel as bad, but I did volunteer myself to bring in work next week. Mostly to make myself feel better about not having anything. I started taking pictures with my point and shoot camera today while walking around with the students for the study abroad program. We went to the Tower of London so I took some pictures there. They are close ups of random things. I didn't want to take the touristy pictures. I have to bring in a sample of 20 pictures and put them in a power point, since apparently that is how we present them.

My night class is called Through the Lens. It's all lecture which is half interesting, half I want to go to sleep since it starts at 4 and goes until 6. And it's right after I eat food since I wouldn't be able to eat until much later. It talks about photographing through the city. There are going to be night and day walks around the city where we can take pictures and then discuss them. One of the walks is when Dan is in town to visit. I asked the teacher if he could come for the walk and he said and the proceeded to tell the class that anybody can come to the walks, spouses, friends, kids, family pets. I was like oh geeze. But it's nice that others are allowed to come. I am looking forward to the walk at night where I can take pictures. I need to either borrow a tripod from the school or see if I can find a cheap one. I left mine at home since I was having packing issues and figured I could borrow one from the school. I might just find something to prop my camera on though. That usually seems to work out alright for me.

Tomorrow the study abroad program is going to Westminster Cathedral in the morning and then moving into their housing in the afternoon. They stay in the hotel for the first few nights of the orientation. I get to stay too for a few nights. It's nice to get away from my flat, but at the same time, packing up things and bringing them somewhere else is slightly annoying. Oh well. Free breakfast. Sunday we are going to Greenwich, which I am going to bring my camera and take more pictures if it is a nice day. There is a market there too which I wanted to start taking pictures of. I like the idea of taking pictures of markets because there are so many different types of people in such a small space. I am planning on going to a local fish market. Problem with this is that it is only open from 5:30am-8:30am. The sun comes up around 7am and the Tube starts running at I think 5am. It's supposed to be really big. I took pictures at a fish market in Sicily and had a lot of fun with that. With the exception of one of the guys trying to sell us a live octopus.

Monday the students have their orientation which I drop them off for and then I am pretty free for a while. With the exceptions of some day trips and random outings for the program. I am looking forward to them though. It's just the all day stuff is a little rough on my body. Plus I am going to be spending the rest of my life in the library doing all the reading I have to do for this year. I have a four hour gap on Thursdays between my two classes so I figure get lunch and then spend it reading and doing my homework. Well I use the homework term loosely since I only have a few papers to do for each term and then my final dissertation to graduate. Anyways, I am probably going to head to bed soon since I have to wake up early tomorrow.

xoxo.

Insert Uncreative Title Here

So I have successfully survived almost four weeks in London. Although the term successfully is used in it's loosest form possible. For many things it's just been one thing after another. First, we get to London, try to get our bank account open so we can get a cell phone. Can't do that because we need to be registered for classes. We didn't register for three weeks. Even after we did that, it would have taken another three weeks to get our bank card which meant that it would have been six weeks to get our cell phones. We ended up buying pay-as-you-go phones until we found HSBC which let us open an account early. Then we switched to our blackberries. Then two weeks after getting my blackberry, it got turned off. I called to find out why and apparently I have a £300 phone bill. How I got that, not sure. It ended up being an error at the store. And that is after the three other times I had to go into the store because my phone stopped working. Secondly, my loan money. I thought I was supposed to get it a lot earlier then I did. No big deal when I find out. Then, the day I am supposed to get it, Sallie Mae didn't realize it was labor day there but not here. So no check. Eventually I get it. Once I get it though and try to put it into my bank account. They freeze my account because the check was so large. Seriously?? I had to find paperwork to bring it to the bank and prove that I was allowed to put that money into my account and then they would unfreeze it. And to top everything else off, the other day, my laptop power-cord decided to melt. All of a sudden something smells bad and I touch the power-cord and it's burning. I pull it from my computer turn it over there is a hole melting in it. I love Apple though. They gave me a new power-cord for free.

Now that I have vented about all the bad stuff, although overall it's not that bad. It was just one thing after another and finally got to me. I had my first class today. It was Anthropology of Art. I think it's going to be a really fun class, especially because we will be talking about art, a lot. We had our lecture then our smaller seminar groups, which is where we do our discussions and ask questions. The lectures are really supposed to be just for listening. I am technically not registered for the class because the secretary in my major messed up when sending the information to the Anthropology department. So cross my fingers I can still get in since it is full. I will find out tomorrow I think.

Tomorrow's classes are my core classes for my major. They are my talking lecture, which is in the morning. To tell you the truth, I have to clue what those are. I will let you know once I find out. And then in the afternoon I have my Through the Lens class. Again not sure all the details but I will also let you know about that. The only probably I have about the school so far, is my commute. It's not long, like 20-30 minutes by bus. But if there is traffic, it's frustrating and it's boring. Not that big of a deal though. I only have class twice a week. Maybe a few other meeting times thrown in there. Trust me, although it doesn't sound like a lot of class, but at looking at the course schedule for the semester. I am gonna get my butt kicked. The way schooling works over here, is a lot of on your own. Which on one hand is cool but on the other not so much. I am going to need that on my own time though when I have to take my pictures and write my thesis so I can graduate. Getting an "A" over here is really hard too. I was told a teacher might only give out one "A" for the year. A WHOLE YEAR! It doesn't seem to hard to pass though. The way their percentages works give you a lot more leeway.

Work has been going well too. I am working for the same study abroad program I went on two years ago. I am working for my resident director. We have had two groups come in already and they are settled into their dorms and one group already started classes. It doesn't seem like a lot of work, just walking around with the students and showing them London. But I am exhausted by the end of the day and my feet are killing me. With the group I have gotten to go to Greenwich, Tower Hill, Parliament (inside), Buckingham Palace(inside) and upcoming events are: a play at the Globe Theater, Stonehenge and Salisbury (Lindsay, if you are reading this, I am pretty sure it's not like your school, but it would be cool if it was), York, Oxford and I get to see Hairspray at the end of the semester. These are the events that the program puts on. I got to see Wicked when I came. The beginning of the semester is a lot of work, but once the students get settled into the housing, we only seem them every other week give or take. The last group comes in tomorrow but I can't meet my boss to help her since I will be in classes.

But well, I guess that is it for now. I will let you know how the other two classes start and everything else that is going on here. Let me know if you have questions for me, because sometimes I don't know what to write. Miss you.

It's Celsius not Fahrenheit

One of our biggest problems here is converting celsius into fahrenheit. First the temperature then last night I tried to master the oven. Which didn't turn out so bad. I had to call my mom first to ask her what it was supposed to be in fahrenheit to cook chicken and then I went online to figure out what it was going to be here. I have to say, my chicken turned out pretty awesome.

I started work last weekend. I am working for the same program I studied abroad through. I am assisting my resident director in working with the students and taking them to their orientation meetings and show them around the city. I also have to have a cell phone that is on 24 hours, just if something happens they can call me and hopefully I will know what to do. The rest of the groups come in next Friday so from then on I will be a lot busier with those students.

Starting Monday I will be doing things for school. My own orientations and registering for classes. I know I am only going to be in class on Wednesdays and Thursdays this semester. I am not really sure about the spring though. It should be interesting getting used to the classes over here since a lot of it is on your own type studying. I mean grad school is supposed to be like that anyways but school here is really lets do things on your own type studying and teaching.

We are still getting settled in. Still ordering books and things needed for our room to make the next year comfortable. Eventually we will have it done and this place will feel a little more like home. I have been taking buses everywhere instead of the tube. There are two bus stops right outside of our flat that can take me either to my school or right into the center of London so there is no need to walk the 10 extra minutes to only be on the tube for one stop. Plus on the bus you can see London and not just the basement of it. It's fashion week this week so the streets are a mess with the shows going on and some roads are blocked off as well for people to ride their bikes through the city instead of driving. I wish I had a bike here for this so I could ride around and see the city in a different way.

That's all for now. There is nothing really exciting going on. But I will try to update when things are. <3

here we go again

So Jessie and I have been in london exactly one week. Day one consisted of me trying to go to a completely different terminal to wait for jessie since neither of us had cell phones. My flight was uneventful. Can't say the same for Jessie's flight. She has to circle the airport for 45 mins before landing. They were literally circling so much so that she said the twin girls sitting in front of her got sick. After that we took a taxi to get to our flat. Which by the way is the cutest thing ever. Most of the rest of the day was spent trying to get some things we needed for our flat such as bedding and food. We tried to get cell phones but had a huge hassle with that since we were international students and had no bank account set up yet. We ended up getting pay as you go phones for about a week. 

Friday we made the hour long trip to Ikea via the tube which was an adventure in itself. We got off the tube and ended up walking ten minutes in the wrong direction until we found somebody to ask. We ordered some stuff that was sent to us on Sunday and we got a few things for the kitchen that we didn't have such as a frying pan and a strainer. 

Saturday we got to see the graham family since everybody was in london for the weekend. And that night jessie and I went to veritys flat which is really cute as well. The kitchen is all pink. Too cute.

Sunday we received our ikea stuff that we ordered. We don't have screwdrivers or hammers so we put together everything with a butter knife and what we assume to be a bottle opener. The best part was finding out that Jessie's desk had no instructions. We called Ikea to have them email the instructions to us and then attempted to find an internet cafe open on a sunday afternoon. When that failed, we admitted defeat and went to the pub across the street for a drink. Armed with a little alcohol in our system, our butter knives, and our pretend hammer, we managed to put her desk together with only a few remaining pieces leftover. Its still standing half a week later and pretty sturdy to boot. 

Speaking of the pub across the street, that's how we decided we are going to tell what the weather is going to be like for the day. Besides looking at the people who are walking around and what they are wearing, we are looking at the doors to the pub. Two doors open means its really nice out. One door means it can be a bit chilly and no doors means its cold or we have been up too late and its closed for the night. 

We have still been setting up the flat, trying to get my loan money from my school and exploring the neighborhood we live in. We are right between three tube stations right on a major bus route and are off of st. George's circus (which by the way has no elephants or lions) and can walk to Picadilly circus and Trafalgar square in twenty minutes give or take. I love our area. Its still gonna take some getting used to but I think this next year is gonna be pretty awesome.