I've been busy, I'm sorry!

This week has gone by extremely slow…yet very fast at the same time. Monday and Tuesday I didn’t have class due to the snow, but I was also sick so the days off were not taken advantage of in an ideal way. They mostly consisted of sleeping and sniffling (as I may have mentioned in my earlier post). Wednesday was class as usual- no snow, just a lot of ice everywhere. Ice in my opinion is very annoying. You have to walk like a crippled turtle (slow and goofy…) in order not to fall. I only learned this after I had in fact slipped on my way to class. It was a very smooth fall though, if I do say so myself. It probably just looked like I decided to go down on one knee suddenly…at least that’s what I’m telling myself. While it was only my knee that hit the ground, it was still very very not fun. I have a MASSIVE bruise on the top of my kneecap and a tiny bloody spot. I think I bruised the bone. It hurt a lot. But I’m thinking that it’s likely I will survive, so no worries there.

Wednesday night we all decided to go to the Union (Imperial College pub). We (Melissa, Jenna, Mary, Danni, and I (all of the SCU girls) ) all hung out in my room for about an hour chatting and listening to music and what not before heading over to the Union. Wednesday night is usually very crowded because all pints are only 1.50 a pound (which is a NICE deal compared to how much they are at other places i.e. 4 pounds…. which is A LOT). Anyways, my point is it was very crowded, but fun. All of the football players (soccer players…you get yelled at if you say soccer here) are obsessed with this game called matchbox. It is a very confusing game with lots yelling and seemingly never-ending amounts of rules. Basically, as simply as I can put it with my limited understanding of the game, it consists of tossing a matchbox over the top of your drink in an attempt to have it land on one of its sides or making it into someone else’s drink. It is extremely entertaining to watch…but I refuse to play due to my hypersensitive gag reflex. Yes, I am allergic to chugging and that does not go over well if you play the game. All in all, the night was very amusing.

(Melissa, Jenna, Me, Mary, and Danni)


Thursday was a long day. We were all very tired from staying out late the night before so sleeping in was a necessity. At 1, we had our Design class which I HATE. Again, I’m going to say that if it were taught any other way by any other professor it would be immensely interesting. But no, it is taught by a woman who looks (and talks) like Professor Trelawney from Harry Potter. She pretty much thinks that her class is the most important thing we will be experiencing while we are in this country. … I do not even know how to respond to that. Because we missed class for the snow day, she is trying to convince us all that it is necessary to stay an extra hour after all of the remaining classes we have. This would make the already painful three-hour class into a death sentence of four. I will refuse. To make matters worse, I went and got a coffee during the break and brought it back to class in hopes of making the remaining hour somewhat bearable. I had also not yet had my caffeine for the day. As soon as I sat down… she (the soul-sucking professor) walked over to me and said I could not drink my coffee because nothing besides water is permitted in the building. !!!! . While technically this is true, it is not enforced by any other person in the entire building. One of my other professors is the co-director of the entire program, and he brings coffee with him every day and encourages us to do the same. I was not happy. This could possibly be part of the reason why I dislike that professor so much. This, and the fact the she’s evil.

On a lighter note, Thursday night was the Shakespeare play. My whole class went to see Twelfth Night and it was amazing. I am so glad that I was able to go! Apparently one of the leading actors is pretty famous, and is actually winning the highest British award possible for a stage actor. It was pretty cool. The theatre was very beautiful also. It was old fashioned and tiered, with narrow rows of seating. There was no legroom at all, so I felt bad for anyone taller than me…but it was still definitely worth going.

Friday, almost everyone in our end of the hall (and pretty much everyone else in the entire building) went away for the weekend. Jenna went to the north end of England to visit some family friends. It was just me, Melissa, and Josh (another SCU student) left. Melissa and I went shopping Friday afternoon. We found a mall. I have no money left. Just kidding! Kind of… But yes, we found a mall and it was huge! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mall that big before- it was a bit overwhelming. The architecture was very modern as well- all of the maps were touch screens and the ceiling was made out of wavy blue glass. It felt like we were in some sort of mix between a huge airport and a fish tank. It was cool. Friday night, we tried to go to a movie, but unfortunately it was sold out =( However, the night did not end on a sad note due to the arrival of a GIANT heart shaped box full of See’s Candy, compliments of my mommy =) I have been enjoying them immensely and even shared a little bit.

Saturday Melissa, Josh, and I went to the London Eye which is definitely a must do thing. It is one of those, you HAVE to do it at least once, but you will probably never do it again. It is a giant ferris wheel type thing that has viewing pods that can fit about fifteen people. From the top, you have an amazing view of London. It is right on the River Thames directly across from the House of Parliament and Big Ben. You can even see St. Paul’s Cathedral and Buckingham Palace in the distance. We went right as the sun was going down so the view was spectacular. After The Eye we followed the river down to St. Paul’s Cathedral. It is a massive church- it’s dome is the second largest in the world after Saint Peters in Rome. A less historical reason to recognize the Cathedral is known to those who watch Marry Poppins. Yes, this is the church where the “Feed the Bird’s” song takes place. I didn’t see any birds though…=) We stayed for a little bit to hear the choir sing which was very beautiful.

(At the top of the London Eye. Big Ben in background as wells as Westminster Bridge and the River Thames)

(The viewing pods...)

(Our pod. Melissa, Josh, and I are standing on the bench in the back.)

(Waterloo Bridge and St. Paul's right along the Thames)

(What is special about this sign??)

(They love me so much here... they've even named a wharf after me!)

(The London Eye and Big Ben)

(St. Paul's Cathedral)


Saturday night, we attempted to branch out of the Kensington bubble to find a pub a bit farther away. We looked up a place called “The Palm Tree” online and which was supposedly a cool place to hang out—live music, good atmosphere, cool building. Unfortunately, we had a difficult time finding it. We walked down the road it was on with no luck and finally asked a girl if she knew where it was. She said yes, she did but she had no idea why we wanted to go there, as it was not very lively. She invited us to go with her, to a place called the Angel Arms. Unfortunately, when we got there, there were only about two other people in the entire place. It was actually kind of funny. We ordered a pint, played a game of pool, and went back out to find the other place. We had to ask for directions again because we STILL could not find it. Eventually, after being directed to walk through a dark and empty park, we saw it. It is an old old building situated in the middle of the park off the main road. How they ever expect people to fin this place is beyond me… but I have to admit it was pretty cool looking. At this point it was about eleven. It had taken us too long to find the pub so all we did was walk in and walk out because we had to make it back home before the tube closed at 12 (it was definitely a necessity to take the tube as this place was far away and Melissa and I are notoriously bad at navigating ourselves through the bus system). All in all… the night did not go as originally planned, but was entertaining and was definitely and adventure.

Sunday was a lazy day. I slept in, went to the grocery store to buy food, cooked a GIANT pot of spaghetti which was amazing if I do say so myself, went to church at 7, did homework, and then went to bed. Nothing too exciting there.

Monday I was basically in class all day. And had a lot of work to do when I got out at 8. It is really annoying that the professors actually give us a lot of homework… you know, its not like we have anything better to do right? Hehe anyways, Monday night I could not fall asleep, I have no idea why. It was horrible. I work up this morning feeling like a train had run me over. Seriously. But I had class at nine, so I had to be a good student and wake up. After class I was beautifully able to take a nap before heading over to the Student Travel Center to get my International Student ID (which gives me discounts on planes tickets, hotels, food at some places, etc). I then booked my trip to Paris! I’ll go into more detail about that in a minute.

After the STATravel arrangements, Melissa, Jenna, Josh, Mary and I all cooked a giant feast together. We made burritos, like hard core burritos—meat, rice, beans, homemade salsa, soured cream (yeah…weird, but they don’t have regular sour cream here), green and red peppers and onions cooked with taco seasoning and cilantro. Mmm it was very tasty. But now I smell like onions and peppers. Anyways, that’s about it now for the updates on the past week or so.

Soooo, the next few weeks are going to be insanely busy. Pretty much every free minute of time is booked up. Here is a general rundown of what it supposed to be happening:

‡ Feb 11:
o Morning: Geffrye Museum for class. (The Geffrye Museum is one of London's best-loved museums. It shows the changing style of the English domestic interior in a series of period rooms from 1600 to the present day blah blah blah or as the English say, waffle waffle waffle)
o Evening: All you can eat/drink for 5pounds at the Union.

‡ Feb 12:
o Morning: Class field trip to Tate Britain (museum; home of British art from 1500 to the present)
o Evening: Jack the Ripper walking night tour. Yes I know, this sounds horrible…but apparently it is supposed to be very interesting. I probably won’t be sleeping too much Thursday night…

‡ Feb 13-15 (Fri-Sun):
o Wales: Adventure Weekend (will consist of Kayaking, Coasteering, Bike Riding, Hiking, and trying not to freeze to death)

‡ Feb 19-22 (Thurs-Sun):
o Was supossed to be the Paris weekend… however, we did not book things soon enough and all the good deals were taken, we are going to go later instead. Which leaves this weekend open. I’m thinking I am going to do my best to either go to Cambridge or Oxford. That’s my goal for the weekend. I also think that we are going to try to get the last few London touristy things out of the way…as this is really our last chance to do so.

‡ Feb 26- 1st (Thurs-Sun):
o Sweden to visit Nina.

‡ March 2-13:
o Study Tour with British Life and Culture Class. Details have not yet been given to us, but we are going to be touring through the Northern parts of England and part of Scotland.

‡ March 14-16 (Sat-Mon):
o Paris! And all of the things to do around that area that can be done in two days…

‡ March 16-18 (Mon-Wed):
o Last three days of BLC class.

‡ March 18-24 (Wed-Tues):
o Ireland. Visiting Irish friend Grainne and Melissa’s Irish relatives. Will be going to multiple locations of which I’m not yet sure—but Dublin is definitely one. We fly back to London on the 24th and will have to either get a hotel room or go to a hostel…I am not sure what we are going to do with all of our stuff during that week, as the dorms are closed… We will probably try to find a cheap place to store them.

‡ March 25 (Wed):
o FLYING HOME!!!


So yeah, there you have it. A brief outline of what is going to happen over the next few weeks. Most of these are already booked so there will not be too much change. There is plenty of stuff going on during the week over our remaining three weeks of classes…so I am pretty much going to be go go going for the rest of my time here!