A Weekend Adventure in London

I'm sitting in my flat right now watching the rain come down lightly on the neighbor's backyard. Yes, I know it's a city, but they really do have backyards here, and if you don't have a backyard, you normally have a square across from your house. I was told that about 1/3 of the city is devoted to green space, including parks and squares. I'm drinking the instant latte mix that I had to buy because I couldn't find a coffee maker, and with the exchange rate, it's too expensive to buy coffee from a cafe everyday even though there are about five down the street from me on Earl's Court.

Two of my flatmates have gone to class and the other one is sound asleep, so I essentially have the flat to myself.

My weekend was quite adventurous starting Friday night with our official pub crawl. Our RAs took us around to the best pubs in the area, which were way better than the ones we had found on our own the night before. We ended up going to the Imperial College Student Union (aka "the Union") which was by far the best place yet. Drinks are about half of the price of all of the other pubs and there are tons of British college students to meet.

Saturday morning no one woke up until noon, so we got a rather late start on the day. A bunch of us planned on going to Portobello Market on Portobello Road. The market is only open on Saturday and tends to attract a lot of tourists, but I had heard that there was a lot of neat things to see. We had planned on taking the tube all the way there, but half the line was closed down for construction, so we had to get off two stops earlier and walk almost two miles there. We ended up seeing some very pretty sights, but since Portobello Road itself is two miles long, by the end of the day we had walked about eight miles. Next time I'm definitely going to go when the tube is running.

Portobello Market

Sunday we got up a little earlier and went to the Russian winter festival at Trafalgar Square. We saw a Russian rock band, watched some dancing, and then ate food that we couldn't pronounce but tasted very good. The sun came out, so we decided to go to Hyde Park, the biggest park in London. It was very pretty, and very green, especially for January. Apparently, the grass doesn't die here in the winter, but stays green all year long.

Russian Winter Festival at Trafalgar Square

Elisabeth, Crystal, and I eating tasty Russian food.

Hyde Park in January

The park was a lot farther away from our flat than we thought it was, and I was not prepared to spend that long out in the wind, so it was really too cold for this Florida girl. I'm looking forward to the weather getting warming.

Another view of the park

The sun is shining now (the rain patterns really remind me of Florida) so I'm going to go explore and see how lost I can become before my 2:30 class

Five Days Down

I've recovered from jet lag and spent an amazing five days in London. I feel as if I am on vacation, so it's a bit strange to have to start classes tomorrow morning. I would have updated earlier, but the internet has been down in the flats all weekend, and we just got it fixed tonight.

Thursday morning we had to be downstairs by 8:45 so the coaches could pick us up at nine for our bus tour of London. We were split into two groups and led by a Blue Badge guide. These guides know just about everything there is to know about London. They have to study for years in order to achieve Blue Badge status. Our guide was a wonderful British woman named Diana and she was almost like a real life version of Mary Poppins. When she took us on our walking tour, she used a pink umbrella so that we wouldn't loose sight of her and be lost in London. However, she did end up taking us to Piccadilly Circus and left us there to find our own way home. My flatmates and I decided to hang out in the touristy areas of London for a while before heading back to the flat. I kind of remembered how to get to Covent Garden from my last visit to London, so I led us there to look around for a while. It started raining, but I was the only one with an umbrella, so we walked past Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly Circus for some cheap umbrellas that ended up breaking later. By this time it was starting to get dark, so we bought an Oyster Card to use on the Underground and took the tube back to Earl's Court, which is only a short walk from our flat.

There was supposed to be a pub crawl that night, but for some reason it had been pushed back to Friday night. Some of the other kids in the program decided to do their own pub crawl, so the flatmates and I decided to go out too. We went to one pub that was VERY crowded, probably because there were about twenty American college students crammed inside of it. My flatmate Elisabeth and I had our first half pint (we're still working our way up to a pint) of a tasty cider called Strongbow. After that, we went down to the Irish pub and had diner, but no more cider for me! Half of a pint was more than enough.

Friday we were in orientation meetings at the college all day. The campus is beautiful. The main campus is very new and state of the art, but the Union is very 19th Century looking, with ivy and brick and everything. After orientation, my flatmates and I went to the grocery store closest to us called Sainsburys. It was an adventure trying to find everyday items like toilet paper and dish soap without any familiar brands in sight. And the food selection is like stepping in to a completely different universe! I can already tell I am going to have many adventurous culinary experiences while I am here.

I will have to update about my Friday night and weekend experiences tomorrow. It's 1:00am here, so I'm heading off to bed. Toodles, kids!

Welcome to Londontown!

I've arrived! I've had a crazy flight schedule, stayed awake for over 30 hours, wandered around London, and met a whole lot of people that I will not remember tomorrow.

Although my flight to Chicago was delayed, I managed to make my connecting flight. I had been advised to collect my luggage and bring it manually to the Air India check in counter so that it wouldn't get lost. However, no one informed me that the international flights left from another terminal and that I would have to take a tram to get there. So I set off with 100 pounds of luggage and, after much stumbling around and asking for directions and taking luggage carts into areas where they are prohibited, I managed to make my way to the Air India check in counter. I met up with JT, Lisa, Sarah, and Gen at the security checkpoint, where we waited in line for over and hour. Our plane had been boarding for 45 minutes by the time we got there, so we made it just in time.

My flight was uneventful and about as boring as most international flights normally are. I couldn't figure out how to work my tv screen for about three hours, and when I finally did, the couple next to me wanted to know how I did it. They were an older Indian couple, and it was a little difficult to explain because they didn't speak any English. So we mimed to each other and they eventually figured everything out with my sign language help. My first international experience before I even got to England!

I didn't sleep on the plane, so I was starting to feel sleepy after we had landed. We all made it through customs okay and met up with the IE representative. There are eighty or so people on the program, so they split us up to take us to our flats. I was assigned to live in Knaresborough, which meant that I didn't have to walk for two streets to Hogarth with all of my luggage, so I was happy. Our flat is pretty small, with a bedroom/living room (and a bay window!) and a small kitchen located up a few stairs that leads into an even smaller bathroom. We have a ledge outside our window that is pretty big. If you open the window, you can climb onto the ledge, so we have started referring to it as a mini balcony. We plan on having tea parties out there throughout the semester.

I met two of my roommates, Crystal and Elizabeth, right away. My third roommate had major flight delays and wouldn't be in for another six hours. After I had a quick shower, we were shown the location of the local library, and then taken to have fish and chips at a local pub. Lunch took approximately three hours, probably because the pub had to serve eighty five American college students. By this point I had been awake for 25 hours, and everything was starting to feel like I had taken way too much Sudafed. While waiting for lunch, a few of us ran down the street to Starbucks for some much needed caffeine.

After "lunch" which ended around early dinner time, we went to Imperial College for our "safety talk." I don't think anyone was awake enough to remember anything that was said.

When we got back to the flats, our fourth roomie had arrived, a girl named Lola. We went with her to get dinner, then came back and crashed. I fell asleep around 8:30, which was a lot later than I thought I would make it, but we all woke up at 1:00 a.m. feeling wide awake. Crystal and I couldn't go back to sleep, so right now we are sitting on the floor of our kitchen on our laptops. It's 3:00 am local time, and we have to be downstairs at 8:45 tomorrow morning for our tour of London with a Blue Badge guide. Hopefully this guide is not as weird as the last Blue Badge guide I had a tour with two years ago, who told me that makeup would give me skin cancer and that she had lived many past lives and could remember some of them.

Pictures to come tomorrow. As for now, I'm going to try and get some sleep.

Leaving....well, maybe after all the delays

I'm in Ft. Myers airport right now wishing that my flight to Chicago wasn't delayed. I'm hoping it doesn't become even more delayed and that I will have enough time to make my connection flight to Air India. I'm going to have to claim my baggage and then recheck them through Air India, a process that will take almost two hours. But his way, my bags are guaranteed to make it with me to England.

I had a little last minute bad luck when my debit card expired a few days ago and my bank hadn't yet sent me a new one. They were supposed to overnight a new card to my bank by 10:30 this morning, but as of 11:30, the time I had to leave for the airport, FedEx had yet to arrive. So I'm now using my Mom's debit card until I know my London address and she sends my new card to me.

I calculated last night, and I am probably going to be awake for the next 36 hours. I don't plan on being able to sleep much on the plane.

I'm off to go search for something to eat for lunch and to find an outlet to charge my laptop. See you in London!

My last few days in America.

The holidays are winding down, and I'm less than a week away from London. I knew I was going to be excited, but I didn't think I would be nervous. I don't think I've spent a single night were I haven't had a dream about forgetting to pack before I go or about being in London and not knowing how I got there or where I'm supposed to be staying. I hope the real trip doesn't turn out to be such a nightmare.

I'm now left with the task of condensing four months worth of my things into two suitcases, making sure I have copies of my credit cards and passport, and finding an affordable laptop to buy and take with me to London.

I'll be using this blog to write about my travels and experiences to keep everyone at home updated. Hopefully I'll remember to update about once a week. So keep an eye open for updates and pictures from my semester in London!