I can't even begin to tell you how amazing this last week has been since we've landed in London. The way things are going, I really don't think I'm going to want to leave this place. All I know is that I came here to see if it felt right, and it does. Maybe I'll move here one day, wouldn't you love being able to visit me here?
With our schedule, our plans, and our utter exhaustion over the past few days, it's been really hard to get this blog organized. Since I hate breaking promises I should warn you that I'll probably rarely take the time to make any super long posts on here. If I do it's probably because I've turned into an insomniac here, I never sleep! Also, the pictures I post on facebook are totally overwhelming and hard to follow...I'm mainly posting them so that people who are here in London can look at the pictures we've taken together. I'll use this blog to post a COUPLE (very important) pictures and hopefully that way you'll understand what we have really been up to.
Ok, day 1:
I stayed with Meg in New Jersey for a week before I came to London to slowly adjust to the time change, and we did pretty much nothing except panic about packing and watch Criminal Minds. We thought space savers would work better if we stuffed all of our clothes into them, but it turns out that doesn't do anything for you. So my best tip would be to buy three hundred space savers and put 4 shirts in each bag...maybe you'll have better luck than we did because we still ended up checking two bags, carrying on a small suitcase and shoving the rest of our stuff into huge purses. The good news was that we took Tylenol PM before the flight so we knocked out. Sammi flew over here with us so it was definitely comforting to have two friends to travel with since we don't have a clue where we are going. When we got to our residence at the Schaefer House we laughed when we realized Sammi and I are sharing a flat together. She and I live with three other girls who are all really sweet and we're loving getting to know them better. We share a kitchen and two bathrooms and it's pretty nice for a dorm. Meg lives two floors up and shares a flat with two other girls. One, her name is Fei (pronounced FAY for all of you who don't understand Asian spelling haha) and she goes to Duke. She's the SHIT we LOVE her. It's honestly like we've known her forever. I actually can't wait to go back to AU in the Spring just to have her visit and for us to visit her in NC. You'll get to know her better over the semester haha.
So the first day we really just tried to unpack and settle in as much as possible. We didn't even bother trying to cook so we walked down to this cute coffee shop called Cilantro where we had lunch and dinner. Other than that we just ran some errands at Argos, a catalog store a few blocks down Tottenham Court, and waited impatiently for our roommates.
Day 2:
I'm convinced that day 2 was as blah as day 1 minus that the weather both days was beautiful, that I loved everything I saw, that the accents are really as great as I wanted them to be, etc. But we had so much stuff to organize still that we spent all day walking around getting more hangers, bedding, kitchen stuff...so on and so on. But at this point we had met Fei so everything was like freshmen year again trying to catch each other up on our lives before this moment and I think that's why it has felt like we've known each other forever. What's weird is Meg and Sammi just met the day we flew to London and already they are getting really close. And it shouldn't be a shock to anyone that every time we joke about "what if we only get THREE tickets..." I'm the one that gets thrown under the bus. Ohhh, they all love each other :).
The great part of the day was when Beeg, Emily and Rebs came to visit. We only met Rebs that day, but just like everything else, it was awesome and she's officially the coolest person I never knew at AU. Thank God for this trip, I'm meeting a lot of kids from AU that I'd never hung out with before including one of my roommates, Shannon, who is a doll and has friends doing the enclave with Emily and Beeg so hopefully we will all hang out once we get a schedule going.
Speaking of schedules...
Day 3- present
UCL does not believe in schedules. I actually had a nervous breakdown (ask Meg, Sammi and Fei) because I am having a practically impossible time getting into the classes I need. Where AU is being stingy on which classes will give me credit, UCL is being lazy and not telling me which classes I can get into. Anyway, I think as of today I have three out of four classes set and my fourth class is just going to be random. In fact, Fei and I might take Transylvania: Vampires, Culture, and Society. Whatevs. Although, I'm taking an internship class and it looks like I MAYYYY (fingers crossed) get to intern with Amnesty International or another human rights NGO, so this is pretty much a dream come true.
Also on day 3 we decided to explore the night-life scene. We don't have Oyster Cards yet (DC people--imagine Smart trips but for the underground; people from San Diego, I don't know how else to explain these cards except they allow me access to transportation with a car) so we wanted to go somewhere within walking distance. Well around here, and as you will read in day 6, sometimes you can't help but to just KEEP walking so we ended up around Oxford circus.
The most exciting thing about this night was meeting Ray Quon, Meg's black boo. He told her she was BUFFIN...which may or may not be the term he used, we really couldn't tell. Anyway, this is the part of the city we realized we should never go near because there is to much shopping....meaning I really need to avoid it.
Day 4:
This is when we started our over-anxious touristy lifestyle. Sitting here, writing this, I realize I should probably be napping before we go out again tonight. Unfortunately, if I wait any longer to do this I'll probably forget what we've done the last week. The is the day we walked all the way down to Hyde Park and took a lot of pictures of grass and trees. This is the park where there is a statue of Peter Pan and a memorial to Princess Diana. The Diana memorial was beautiful, but really small-- especially when we saw the Prince Albert memorial five minutes later that was literally a thirty foot statue dipped in gold. The park was really peaceful, and this was the place where Meg began her sleep-rankings. She is going to take a nap everywhere until she figures out the best spot. I'm pretty sure Hyde park is winning the grass-surface category, but for some reason the Underground just really knocks her out. The weather was perfect the entire day, we really took advantage of it and just appreciated where we were.
We walked to the other side of the park where we met up with the Enclave kids (Emily, Beeg, Melissa and my new friend Jeff). The Enclave group is literally my favorite I am SO glad to be here with them! Emily made us pasta for dinner and we talked and laughed and DIED at Melissa's accent. They told us a lot about London, this explains why the next day Fei had purchased gummies because apparently they are to die for here. When we were ready to go we all headed down to Imperial College which is where the Enclave kids have their student ID's from. We got drinks for 2 pounds, so I couldn't complain. AND there is this BOMB drink called a snakebite...whatever it is, I love it and I don't think any of us didn't like it actually. After we all drank a bit at the university we ended up at a Jazz club with Dan Dan the Irish man. It was a really fun day and a really chill night, we finally started to get the hang of things.
Day 5:
Every summer the Palace is open for visitors because the Queen is out of the country. We got to London the week the Queen was moving back in so we made sure that the first thing we did was get a tour inside of Buckingham Palace. While we were there we decided to get a tour of the Royal mews and it was honestly a lot of money well spent.
One thing we've decided is that NOTHING in London is overrated. If someone tells you it's worth to go see something, it's absolutely worth it. We started with the Royal Mews which is the grounds where the Royal cars, carriages and horses are kept. Of course my camera died right as we bought tickets, but I will never forget what anything looked like because they were just so amazing. Essentially, the Queen has four really nice cars-- 2 bentleys and 2 rolls royces. They are obviously stunning and even cooler when you here about the details of the interior. I'm just saying, no one has cars like that in America.
The carriages were actually my favorite part. They had all been modernized and now had interior heating, automatic windows and locks, comfy couch type things instead of wood for the Queen to sit on and the best part was when we were told that the carriages are actually made high enough so that the Queen can STAND inside of it before the doors are opened for her to get out. We saw the carriage used at weddings and the carriage used for Coronation. I've never seen anything more stunning...
Until we got into the Palace.
Again, nothing was overrated. All of my ideas about the Palace were confirmed, especially when they mentioned and showed us where there were secret passageways. I think I'm going to try and move in soon. We saw about 20 of the royal rooms including an exhibit of the Queen's clothing from special occasions in different countries (so you know that I was in THAT room for extra long). We got to walk up the grand staircase, saw the dining room, walked around a sort of board-room and saw her official meeting/office room. There were also a few different drawing rooms we got to look around and in each of these rooms there were extravagant paintings that remind you of how old this Palace really is. There were portraits of past kings and queens for centuries and the rooms facing the grounds area were probably at their best since the weather was perfect that day. At the end of the tour you walk outside to the grounds and there is a cafe were we ordered snackage and tea and we ate at Buckingham Palace. Even if the Queen wasn't there, it was pretty sweet.
Oh, then Meg, Sammi, Fei and I grabbed dinner at some place that we will never go to again because people here need to learn a couple things. 1) ice in water. 2) ketchup with fries. 3) menus, order, serve...in a timely fashion. 4) turn ON the air conditioner. 5) rougher accents=SPEAK SLOWER. 6) safely and tightly screw on the cap of the salt shaker. Yeah, so we're not going back, but it was fine since we'd packed lunch before the Palace and ate it...at least we weren't starving.
Day 6:
The River Thames is the best part about London. We took the underground to Westminster planning on walking a little but around the River and ended up spending eight hours walking ten miles. This might be the one photo album on facebook you check out because we saw so many things. When you get off at Westminster you have an instant view of Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye and the River Thames. Since it was yet another sunny day outside, the view was breathtaking. We started our walk after we decided to sit down at eat. When we got up, someone suggested we walk a little further, and at a certain point...we realized we'd made it ten miles.
One of the first things we stumbled on was a sort of entertainment sidewalk with people who were doing random things for tips, like a guy in a gorilla outfit, and a woman who could stand on wine glasses while hula-hooping. But the best was a group of guys who were street performing. They were so impressive, I keep trying to upload the video but it doesn't seem to work. Super legit though.
After, went to Gabriel's Wharf which reminds me a lot of Seaport Village in San Diego. It was a chic little area with shops, cafes and restaurants that were nicely priced and looked over the water.
We walked a little further down past the Millennium bridge and some other bridges until we got to the London Bridge. We walked down it and took some pictures. On our walk back to the Queen's walk parallel to the River Thames we sang Fergie's "London Bridges" song. People stared, as has been pretty typical throughout our times here.
Getting back on track down the Queen's walk we made it to some kind of festival that we walked around. There was a stand selling pretty cupcakes which I was tempted to get but then I realized I'll wait to pay lots of money for cupcakes when I get back to Georgetown. Next to the fair was a weird larger-than-life sized living room made out of grass...we took a little break and played with the little kids around it while we sat on the big couch. Again, people stared.
We did a lot more walking past Hay's Galleria where the four of us purchased matching boxer shorts with the Underground map on them. Can't wait for THAT sleepover. And I'm sure I'm leaving out a lot of other cool stuff that we walked past, the problem is that after so much walking all we knew was that we loved it so much and would probably be going back every week. A little further on we ran into the Clink which is a historical point in London. It's the first prison cell and it's right next to the River so I assumed it was for capture pirates. We're going back to take a tour of that as well as to explore the Design Museum which Meg and Sammi refused to let me and Fei go into because we were "losing daylight".
It was probably a good call because if we had gone it we probably never would have realized how close we were to the Tower Bridge. This is the bridge you see in all the movies about London. We decided that we would end our day by walking across this bridge and catching the Tube on the other side. Little did we know we were going to stumble upon ANOTHER palace, take a lot of pictures, walk a little more, and find the world's best fish and chips stand. And this is where we ate dinner. AND this is where I want to go to dinner tonight if the girls ever wake up. OH MY GOD. Delicious. Not to mention, it was the best day ever.
Day 7:
Because we were so tired from the day before I think the four of us slept in and when we were good and ready we walked a few blocks down to the British Library. This place is free and open to the public. It's also perfect because it's a great place for us to go study. It's four floor and really big, but the best part about it is there is an exhibit on historical literature and important documents that they display. You can't take pictures but I really want to sneak a photo of the Jane Austen section. They have her copy of Persuasion, the desk she used to write it on, her glasses, and her last diary. Next to this they have Lewis Carroll's original work on Alice in Wonderland. You could see his sketches of Alice and when you look close enough you can read the page they have it opened to. There was an entire section on other British authors in this glass case and next to it they had music and composers. Included in that section was the copy of Mozart's marriage license and his notes to some of his most famous music. They also had a special display case dedicated to The Beatles. I was so intrigued by this that I saved it for last knowing it would be something I'd spend most of my time looking at and I wanted to do everything else first. When I got to it I was amazed-- they had the lyrics to Yesterday and Yeah! and a few other songs that were written (mainly by John Lennon) on napkins and scraps of paper. Seeing Lennon's hand writing was really shocking because, as they describe to you, you can almost see and feel him slipping away in what he wrote and the way he wrote, it was incredible.
They also had a section dedicated to Stephen Johnson, the man who was ordered to write the first English dictionary. They had the address of the place he lived in for eleven years while completing the commission of the dictionary and it has now been turned into a museum. We are definitely planning on going there to see it. There was also a ton of religious documents, it's such a shame I couldn't read 98% of it but the illustrations were beautiful and some of them were dated so early AD that it kinda scares a person because it puts into context the reality of religion and I loved the entire section that was dedicated to it.
Another part, and this is for Carson, was all about William Shakespeare. On display where some of his earliest published plays that were so new that they have lines that have been changed since their debut on the stage. The British Library has such a prominent historical collection that it became obvious that descendants to all these famous figures are more than willing to give up things like that knowing they will be kept in good condition and preserved for people to enjoy forever.
The last thing that I looked at before The Beatles was the Magna Carta. I'm sure you know all about it and after this exhibit I do too, including that it was written on parchment, not paper and that only 3 of the articles in the Magna Carta are still relevant today, blah blah blah. Anyway it was mainly important because of its effect on the United States and the more I learn about British history the more I can understand the reason behind American history. I should have done this years ago.
Later that night Sammie, Fei and I decided to force ourselves to go out and be social which is how we ended up meeting other kids from Duke. Fei had just met them when she got to London and they invited us to hang out with them and some "freshers" (word for "freshmen") that they met at UCL. British kids outdrink and outsmoke Americans. So where this "bad image" of American teenagers comes from, I have no idea. Regardless, the Duke kids were cool and I'm sure we'll see more of them if classes ever start?
Day 8:
I'm sure you're wondering when, if ever, I do things related to school. Well, other than going to campus for a welcome event the first day we got here (free alcohol) and another day when we went to get our user names for the internet, we've rarely been on campus. We did go once to talk to our departments and advisors to make sure we were set for classes. But, since the day we got here we've joked that the "U" in "UCL" stands for "unorganized" and we're pretty much avoiding all of our concerns with scheduling until classes start on Monday.
Til then we're trying to hold off on sightseeing things further than walking distance so on Day 8 we went to Regent's Park which is a five minute walk from where we live. Outside of the park's gates was this apartment thing that I decided I'm going to move into when I come back her after college. That way I can live near the park which is totally my favorite out of all of the parks we have visited. Inside of the park is a section of roses in different colors that all have funny names. Between that and the waterfall/bridge area we spent our whole day there. Meg took a nap, obviously. I think she said it was better than St. James but not as good as Hyde.
After the park and dinner we met up at the Sporta Cafe with the Enclave and Jon & Suz from LSE came too. Long night, short story--we're going back every Tuesday.
Day 9 (Today):
I just got back from a tour of Westminster Abbey and Parliament. I pretty much already knew Westminster Abbey was my favorite thing in London and it still is but Parliament was great. And I took a break in between typing this out to go to dinner and I am too tired to talk more about WM Abbey and Parliament so come back soon. Like I said, I will NEVER post an entry this long again. It's just too complicated.
It seems like we're all starting to feel a little bit under the weather. I don't know if it's because we've been doing a lot or if it's just a climate change, either way Sammi got us medicine today and I just hope we get better soon. Meg and Fei seem to be fine, so hopefully they don't get whatever we have. It's not the swine though haha, don't worry. I think the last time I posted I stopped before explaining the tour of Parliament and Westminster...so I'll start there.
glad we're hanging out with other people. Anyway so Westminster Abbey was constructed by Edward the Confessor. He pretty much seems to have gotten England moving on this historical-location stuff because he is responsible for a lot of buildings. Sometimes on these tours I get him confused with William the Conqueror, and seeing as how there are too many people with the same name who are repeated on all of these tours, you really can't blame me if I get them confused. Anyway whoever it was got the Abbey up and running and it is the place of burial for every king and queen of the UK since then. It is also a church and it's beautiful. You really can't walk in and out without feeling a little more religious because it's just so mystifying in there.
Other cool stuff we saw was Britain's oldest door which you COULD take a picture of. I don't know who is in charge of deciding what you can and can't take pictures of but it's always worth a try to snap a picture, even if someone tells you not to do it you can probably still get away with it haha.
We also got to go outside into the gardens which I didn't get to do the last time I went into Westminster Abbey and it was a pretty perfect day which just made it all so much nicer.
