London á la Charlotte!

Selfie in Trafalgar Square

This past (long) weekend, I was welcomed with my first official visitor, my cousin Charlotte, who is studying abroad in Prague and just happened to stop in London before! Since I have no Thursday or Friday classes, it worked out perfectly to keep her good company.

So much better looking in person

The first day began with National Gallery in Trafalgar Square which I had not been to yet. There were so many types of paintings and artists. My favorite are the impressionists since I had learned about many of the different artists in high school. However, my overall favorite painting was Cognoscenti in a Room Hung with Pictures. There is just do much detail put into the work, it blew my mind. We then enjoyed lunch at a nearby pub and continued to walk around and get your typical photos with the landmarks.

As we were walking across Westminster Bridge, we had our first "pinch me" moment. To our amazement, right over the London, Eye was a rainbow stretched from the north bank to the south bank. It was in believable. So along with every other tourist on the bridge, we all stopped in our paths for a photo op before the rainbow vanished.

We then continued to walk along the south bank to see more of London until our Mexican dinner with Charlotte's friend from school who was studying at another university in London. Charlotte could not stop raving about her hibiscus margarita so I of course had to try, and I sure do not blame her.

As Charlotte and I can tell you, our Grandma is obsessed with London. For the month I was home for break, A conversation with grandma was not spent without mention of London, especially the Museum of London so, we made sure the two of us went together. As my grandmother kept telling me, it is great because you travel through time throughout the museum starting from the pre-Roman era all the way to modern day. Even though I have not had many classes yet, I can already recognize information from my History of London walks that I initially learned in the museum.

Pinky out!

We officially ended the weekend with my Christmas gift from my aunt and cousins of tea at Fortnum & Mason! It was soooooooo good. I had a pot of tea (of course) with 2 scones with jam and cream, and 3 mini ice cream cakes of different favors, raspberry being my favorite. I could have tea and treats for days! And of course, we then walked around the store and pretended we could afford anything (on top of the really poor dollar to proud exchange rate). I guess I will have to wait to buy those chocolates when I actually have an income, or not eat for a week.

Well, I guess it is called Study Abroad for a reason

City University College Building

So after 13 oh so not stressful days, I have officially completed my first week of school... on a Wednesday! Yes, I am that lucky bitch with no classes (or modules as they are called here) Thursday or Friday, a schedule a second semester senior could only dream of. Last Wednesday and Thursday marked our second orientation, this time with City University. Thankfully there was not too much to be learned here as well. We had a tour of the school and a history tour of the surrounding areas of Islington, Finsbury, and Clerkenwell. City has about 5 main buildings and they are all connected which is SO convenient for rainy or cold days. Its very weird how it seems the campus is so small, but there are 21,000 students. With few buildings and large class sizes, the classroom will always have at least 50 people. The one thing completely different from Bucknell? About 40% of students are international. It is definitely a unique environment.

Even though there are many similarities between the US and UK, there are quite a number of differences with the education system. For starters you are only in college for 3 years because they do not require you to take additional electives outside your course (what they call a major). All of your modules are within the course and their schedules are selected for them. Thankfully I had some freedom in selecting my modules. I am taking Personal Finance, International Business Environment, and Advanced Strategic Management (which actually goes towards my major at Bucknell!). The last two classes are only 2 credits each and they are Arts in London and History in London. For Arts in London, we will be learning about different plays, operas, and ballets within London and we will also be seeing 5 shows. I am most excited to see the new ballet Alice in Wonderland. For History in London, we meet at a different location each week for walks around and in the historic sights of London. Some of the places we will visit include. Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, and the British Museum.  As many know, I am not a history buff whatsoever. However, being able to experience the history first hand rather than from a text book will be much more interesting.

On top of the differences with classes, they way they are taught is much different. Classes meet once a week for about 2 hours and some meet for an additional hour for a tutorial. Here, they expect more reading outside of class and your mark (not called grades here)for the class is determined about 60-80% on your final and 20-40% on other work. That seems crazy but here, you earn marks starting at 0 rather than loose them from 100. A 70% here is actually an A on the US grading scale. Too bad it is not like that at home, otherwise I would have a 4.0. Only in my dreams I suppose.

Sorry this is boring. But I guess it is important as well.

Extreme Shopping: Morrisons Edition

The one sometimes simple way to save money? Buy your own food. In Central London, there are about three supermarket chains that I have found: Tesco, Sainsbury's, and M&S. These are great for having your basics but considering, they are in central London, they are quite small. On a whim, we decided to wander a little bit outside of central London after our trip to Portobello Market. As I mentioned in my last post, we ended up finding a shopping mall and inside was a HUGE grocery store called Morrisons. It was so exciting because so far, everything has been so tiny and all we had to do was wander down the isles and get everything we need. The store was at least 5-10 times bigger than all of the grocery shops nearby our residence and bigger than most in the states most likely since all forms of alcohol are sold within the supermarkets adding isles. Since we were fairly far from Kings Cross, we only got a few things that we would need now and we planned on going to a location closer to home.

On Tuesday, we all went to the closest Morrisons in Camden about 2 miles away. For starters, in order to get a shopping cart, you need to put a pound into the cart in order to unlock it, when I initially saw it, I thought we had to pay, but thankfully you get it back once you lock the cart back up again. Maybe cart stealing is an issue here? Who knows. Ally and I got there before everyone else so we just started looking around produce which was surprisingly not to expensive. Without leaving one isle, we had a full cart and need a reality of check. Additionally, food expires much sooner so we had to put that into consideration with selecting our food. Once the rest of the group arrived, we were able to see what our roommates got and figure out what we were going to share and what we were buying for ourselves. Surprisingly enough with all of the food I bought, I spent no more than £40 pounds on food for myself and my half of everything we were going to share.

Here's the real struggle, we now had all of this GREAT food, but we now had to get back to our residence... during peak travel. And we had to walk a bit to the station as well. That was the first struggle and it didn't help that Morrisa and I got diet coke on sale. Whoops. Once we were on the tube, it was super crowded and we still had to hold everything and manage to hold onto a bar so we didn't die when we stopped and started at each station. By the time we got there, we sat for a few just to rest our arms. At that point, we still forgot we had a long way to go. Kings Cross is a MASSIVE tube station with 6 lines (the most of any station) as well as all of the traffic from Kings Cross and St. Pancras national and international rail. Once we finally got back, we were cold, everyones hands were purple from loosing circulation, and we just wanted to make our dinner so we felt like there was some reward for this. On the other hand, we at least have enough to last 1-2 weeks and all of the other essentials that we did not bring when we first landed.

Long story short, her are a few lessons we learned:
1. If you plan on grocery shopping without a car and more than 2 bags, get a cab. They fit up to 5 people and can be cheap when the cost is split amongst passengers.
2. Do not be that annoying person on the tube with a ton of things during peak hours. You will be ready to kill yourself as others around you will want to as well, or at least they will be able to laugh.
3. A hungry shopper + walking = a broken shopper

And if you really cannot figure that out, you will probably just end up looking like this...

So. Much. Walking.

I cannot believe my journey began nearly a week ago! It has been flying by so quickly and I have not even started classes yet! Since I have arrived in London, I have definitely been very busy. On the 12th and 13th, we had orientation with Arcadia. It was fairly short and mainly consisted of introducing us to the UK, the education system here, and bits and pieces of London. Our last activity on Friday was a scavenger hunt through London where we got to ride the tube with our free travel passes (thank god considering I did not have my oyster card yet), see St. Paul's Cathedral, see performers in Covent Garden, attempt to climb statues in Trafalgar Square outside the National Gallery, and then freak out once we saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey in the distance. We also had a sighting of London bridge and the London Eye but unfortunately it is closed for a few weeks. To mark the end of our journey, we explored around the Kings Cross St. Pancras tube/train station to find Platform 9 3/4. We then met with our huge group again and had dinner at the "Wine Bar" next door to Nido where I had one of my soon to be many margharita pizzas. I think I have had more italian food than anything here... and believe me, I am not trying to. After that, we had our first night out at a British pub. Don't worry, we were all very good :)

Outside St. Paul's Cathedral

O'neill's in Angel, Islington

My first 2 days were fairly overwhelming suffering from jet lag, getting used to being picked out as American based on our accents, and nearly getting hit by buses.... a number of times. Cars, bikes, and buses are not afraid to hit you. When that light is green, they go. There are also tons of islands in the middle of the road, so you may be standing in a large group with cars flying by on either side.... yet another occasion where you feel like you are going to get hit by a double decker bus.

Saturday was quite fun as we went to the famous Portobello Market in Notting Hill. It was so cute seeing all of the colorful shops lined up along the road and the vendors along the street. I ended up buying a scarf  for £3 and THE BEST CREPE EVER!!! It was only with nutella, but it definitely hit the spot. I also bought some vegetables and strawberries to make my own meals, plus they were so much cheaper. We will be returning again of sure.

The array of colors!

Making our delicious crepes!
So much nutella!

After the market, we took an adventure on the tube (pronounced chube by the Brits) to Shepard's Bush in search for some necessities for our rooms. We ended up finding Poundland (the British dollar store hahaha) a much nicer Boots (drugstore) and Morrisons (a grocery store 10 times bigger than all of the ones by us). We were beginning to notice, the further out of central London you got, the larger, nicer, and cleaner the stores get. Morrisons was a life saver because we all needed hangers since we did not bring them with us. I think it was also bigger than Pennsylvania grocery stores, but that can be easily be from 3 full isles of alcohol... clearly the Brits are not as strict as the states. We then ended our day at a pub when I tried my first fish and chips :)

Sunday was fairly calm as we only went to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We didn't go inside (don't worry, we will eventually) because it is a bit pricey so we are waiting to get the discount London Pass. However, the big event of the day was our Lunch. We decided to go to a pub and try some more authentic British food and it was... interesting. I got a chicken and pork terrine thinking it was just a fancy name for chicken and pork... not at all. To be honest, it was like tons of mystery meats were blended together into a slab and served cold. My friend Michelle thought she was ordering fish and chips except it was really tons of tiny fish fried... heads, eyes, and all. The best part of that meal was my salad, bread, and the chips I stole from Morrisa. I plan on investigating into my orders more in-depth from now on.

Monday we became the typical tourists and went to Buckingham Palace stopping at many souvenir shops along the way. After taking many pictures, we walked to Hyde Park and.... took more pictures! haha It was definitely not the full Hyde Park experience since very few flowers were blooming but there were a ton of ducks and swans in the pond! After walking through the park, we went to Harrods, a MASSIVE department store. They have all of your typical designers plus mini restaurants, grocery stores, and best of all CHOCOLATE! I had a pink champagne and orange creme truffle. They were each amazing! I would have bought more if they weren't so expensive. But the best of all? The large longchamp totes are about £50 something, which is about $80 and $60 cheaper than what it is in the states. I will be going back for sure, especially since they had Princess Catharine dolls!

Buckingham Palace!

Being silly in Hyde Park

Sorry this is actually the longest post ever, but I have just done so much this past long weekend! I need to go rest my dead feet now...

Oh, the glories of packing and traveling!

If you haven’t figured out… FIRST POST IN LONDON!!!!

Before I talk about my travels, I need to start with every study abroad students’ struggle: packing. I had to figure out how to fit all of my belongings normally overflowing out of my crossover SUV into 2 checked bags each under 50 pounds and my carry-on. From my packing experience I can divide it into 4 stages:

Stage 1: Go through all of your closet and all drawers and decide what you will need

Stage 2: Realize there is no way in hell this can be within the weight limits let alone fit

Stage 3: Go through the pile and eliminate some more, it helps to fold as well

Stage 4: Squeeze everything that was once folded into your bags and pray to God that they are under 50 pounds

Story of my life.

And with 3 hours left until I had to leave for my 6:15 am flight to Newark, IT FIT and each bag was less than 50 lbs (23 and 45 pounds each to be exact).

The side effect of having a $360 flight to London? A 13 ½ hour layover. To help pass the time, I decided to visit my cousins in Bernardsville. To save them from the drive, I decided to go on a pre-London adventure and get there by means of public transportation. Since their train line does not go to the airport, I had to get a bus to the station and then take the train from there. It did not take long for me to struggle to find the correct bus stop. For my terminal, there are 2 locations to take buses. You guessed it, I went to the wrong one at first and found 1 single sign for the correct stop. Once I got there, my bus started pulling away before I could catch it… epic fail. After I waited around and caught the bus, I did not have too much trouble catching the train, just another 30 minute wait.

My return to Newark marked a very slow 5 hour wait for departure. However, I had a few spurts of excitement when a little boy started chasing a pigeon until it flew away… then he started crying (who knows how that got in there) and some pomegranate fro yo with strawberries.  The 7 hour flight was pretty bad too. Maybe 1 hour of sleep max.

Now I am so happy to be in London! Thankfully, I am already good friends will my roommate Morrisa so I do not even have to worry about that and the building I am living in is cool and so close to Kings Cross St. Pancras. Now, I am ready to pass out, but I am definitely excited to see what is in store!

ONE MORE WEEK!!!!!

I still cannot believe it that I will be leaving for the UK in a week! This break has flown by, but I couldn't be more excited. As the days pass by, I have gotten more and more things ready. So far I have accomplished:

• Unlocking an old iPhone to use a British sim card
• Getting a backpack, outlet adapters, and a chunk of £££ (Thanks Mom and Dad!)
• Buying a dual voltage/universal straightener, hair dryer, and surge protector
• Ordering my ISIC and Oyster Card

And what I have yet to do:

• Book my return flight
• Pack
• Get a Travelex card to load on uber amounts of £££ and €€€ (I know how to make those symbols thanks to Laina!)
• Pack, Pack, Pack

Figuring out how to pack is going to be a huge struggle. I have to be able to pack the next 3 1/2 months into 2 suitcases and still manage to have space/weight for everything I know I am going to buy. Before I leave, I will post some photos of my attempted packing process... I usually severely procrastinate. We will see how that goes.

As I mentioned in my first post, one of the reasons I chose the UK is that there would not be too much of a language barrier. Even though the US and UK are both English speaking countries, I have learned that at times, they can seem like two completely different languages. Here are a few examples:

• Bobby = policeman
• Mate = friend
• All right? = Hello, how are you?

And a few fun ones:

• Arseholed = drunk
• Blow me = said in a state of surprise... and not in that way
• Knock up = wake someone up

Some of them are definitely amusing. If you would like to know more, they can be found here.

I will post again next week before I leave with my packing process!