Whitechapel and Cambridge

Yesterday for class we went to an art museum in a part of London called Whitechapel, and also visited the Spital Fields Market. We stopped for coffee and tea before we went to see an exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The place we got tea was called Giraffe and it was so delicious. Sidenote: I got tea instead of coffee! I'm trying new things :-)

This is a picture of part of the market place we went to.

This is a picture of me and Sam, one of the other girls on the program! Please note the cute tea pot :-)

Then today we went on a trip to Cambridge, it was so much fun! However I didn't go to bed last night until around 3:30 so waking up at 6:30 to catch a train was not super fun. But we did take the tube to catch our train from Kings Cross Station (Where platform 9 3/4 is for all you Harry Potter fans, but i didn't have time for a picture, don't worry though, I'll make sure to get one before I leave!). The train ride was about an hour from London to Cambridge and we took a bus into the city once we were there.

This is a picture of the train station from our platform!

We toured the Fitzwilliam Museum, which is by far the most beautiful museum I have ever seen in my life. It was so cool because they had so many famous paintings, by people like Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh and drawings by Leonardo Di Vinci, it was amazing!

This is a picture of the outside of the museum

This is the lobby of the museum (You weren't supposed to take pictures so I only have this one haha)

I don't know if any of you like art or not but I have had a much greater appreciation for it since I've been in London and it was seriously so cool. I sound like a nerd. Haha anyway, trust me, it was awesome. The lady who gave us the tour was actually the assistant director of the museum, which was cool, and after the tour was over we got lunch at the cafe with her husband who is a former Dean at Cambridge (Clare College). So after we ate lunch, he took us on a tour around part of Cambridge, including Clare College and it was absolutely beautiful. It literally looked like something out of a movie.

This is a picture of one of the other colleges close to Clare.

He showed us the chapel and the dining hall which looked like the one from Harry Potter.

I accidentally got the waiter in the picture haha, but this is part of the dining hall.

He also showed us how the recently changed the previous crypt of the chapel into a bar and student lounge haha. Kind of creepy because there is still an actual tomb down there still.

This is a picture of the old crypt, now bar and student lounge haha

After that we just walked around Cambridge for a little while and went inside some of the old churches and looked at all of the other colleges. (Cambridge University is basically made up of 31 smaller "colleges") Cambridge is such a beautiful town, I loved every minute of it! It was established in 1209 if that gives you any idea of how old it is and how much history there was there.

This is just one of the streets at Cambridge near Kings College

This is a picture on the campus at Clare College

Picture off of one of the bridges around campus

We took the train back to London and apparently the train is basically like a school bus in England because there were hundreds of kids coming home from school on the train. The train went through a little bit of countryside on the way back and the sun was setting and it was really pretty.

View out of my window on the way back to London

It was definitely a really long day but it was so much fun, needless to say I am exhausted! Hopefully I'll catch up on rest this weekend, I hope ya'll had a great week! I hear that Chapel Hill (and Charlotte too I think) are supposed to be getting a lot of snow! I'm sad I'm gonna miss it so take some pictures for me! Love you all very much!

"I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints." Philemon 1: 4-7

Baby It's Cold Outside! (And Inside)

You would think that since I've been here for a little over two weeks that I would be used to the cold weather, but today felt like the coldest day since I've been here! Also, our heat is still broken and last night our space heater broke while we were asleep and so we woke up freezing cold this morning! I think that they are bringing over a new space heater, so hopefully that won't be an issue too much longer. Yesterday I did a lot of homework and made dinner with my roommates (Chicken and pasta mmmm) and we watched Aladdin afterwards, which was a lot of fun, it was really nice to relax all day.

I had class this morning and we went to another concert after our lecture at a local church that had tea and cookies, which was really fun. Then we had a walking tour of the Inns of Court, which is kind of like England's version of Law School, except it's completely different haha. They're called Inns because students who were training to be barristers (aka: Lawyers) would live there while they were in "training" instead of being at a "law school" but now they are mostly just used for offices

This is a picture of part of one of the Inns of Court, apparently its used in a lot of movies!

This is one of the largest squares in London, Lincolns Inn Fields

However I didn't wear enough layers for our 2 hour walking tour around London and my hands were numb when we finished. We saw a lot of really old buildings on our tour including a church that was built in 1150 and another that was built in the 1400's which is crazy because they existed before our country was even discovered!

This is the church from the 1400's

We also passed by the shop where all of the barristers/judges get their robes and wigs (YES they still wear wigs in court here, so weird, I had no idea they still used them) and the shop was established in 1689. Sorry for the history lesson, but it was really cool! I guess it's cooler when you are actually here haha. And I promise I will start to put pictures up that I am actually in, instead of just pictures of buildings and scenery :-)

And this is a picture of their Royal Courts of Justice (aka. the court house, everything has a fancier name here haha)

After the walking tour I defrosted by going grocery shopping where I met this lady who was also grocery shopping come up to me and ask me if I would like to model for a hair cut and that she would do it for free. She said she worked at a nearby salon and I guess she felt the need to stop her grocery shopping to ask if she could cut my hair haha. Not exactly sure how to take that but she gave me her phone number, so I guess if I need a haircut maybe I'll call her, but I don't want her to chop all my hair off!

Tonight we sat in on a class in Chapel Hill that was held by telecast from London with the guest speaker Sir Christopher Meyer, who served as Ambassador of the UK to the United States from 1997 to 2003, and he wrote a book called "D.C Confidential" about being the ambassador during the time of 9/11, and he was also the former press secretary and chief spokesman for the former Prim Minister John Major. So he's a pretty big deal. And he was a really great speaker, he had some cool stories to tell. It was a long day but I had fun, hopefully our heat works tonight! Say a prayer!! Hope ya'll are having a great week so far!

P.S GO TAR HEELS! BEAT STATE

Chinatown!

So last night we went to Chinatown for dinner, and I definitely felt like I was in China in the middle of London, dinner was pretty good, I got chicken with cashew nuts and fried rice. (Shoutout: lizzy rhew!)

This just looks like a normal picture, but we are in Chinatown, I promise

Afterwards we went to see Sherlock Holmes at the Empire Theater in Leicester Square which was so cool! The movie theater was amazing and huge and the movie was really great. I jumped at a few scary parts but it was a really good movie, I highly suggest it!

London was incredibly busy last night, there were more people out then I have seen since I've been here, but I guess it was a Saturday night. Today I didn't do a whole lot, I went for a run for the first time since I've been here. It was definitely needed, it felt good to clear my head and London is a pretty place to run around, I ran through a couple of different squares (parks). I spent a long time in Starbucks today, which was really nice to just kind of be by myself and then we had dinner at our professors flat. And it was amazingggg, we had Chicken Kiev (which is like stuffed chicken) and some pasta and salad. We also had apple pie for dessert, which was really delicious! Update on mickey mouse: he is still on the loose, he was last spotted running out from underneath the couch. Needless to say, I've been sitting in my room a lot this weekend. I've been pretty homesick the past few days, I miss ya'll very much! I hope everyone is doing great :-)

Rainy Day in London

So it's back to being rainy weather again here in London, which is kind of a bummer but I'm getting used to it now. Sorry I haven't updated in the past couple of days, I haven't been feeling very well. I was really sick all day yesterday and didn't eat at all and slept half of today, but I'm starting to feel better so that's good news. When I got up today I went with one of my roommates to Harrods, which is a huge, famous department store in London for anyone who doesn't know haha. But it was really cool, but way too big to see all of it in one day. They had a really cool egyptian escalator, Me and Ellie took a picture in front of it, but it's on her camera so I will have to update it later! I did some laundry tonight and the european washer and dryer were definitely interesting, I'm hoping all of my clothes aren't 2 sizes smaller now! We have a new pet in our flat, a little mouse that is living in our kitchen. I haven't seen Mickey Mouse but if I do, there will be a lot of screaming involved. The apartment people said that they will have pest control come over soon to "take care of it". As long as he doesn't creep into my room, I think I'll be ok. I'm not sure what we're doing tomorrow yet, I still don't feel very good, so I might just rest and try and get some school work done, it's easy to forget I actually have class and homework since I'm in London. I feel like I'm learning a lot in class and I also feel like God has already taught me so much since I've been here, about how I need to trust Him and seek him as my only source of life. After having been here for a full two weeks, I can tell it's going to be a challenging semester, but I'm really excited to see what all is going to happen! I miss you all very much, I hope you had a great week at work/school and that you have a restful weekend. Love ya'll :-)

P.s sorry there haven't been any recent pictures! I promise I'll start putting more up!

Random Things I've Learned in London

1. Everyone drives on the opposite side of the road. (You may laugh because it's obvious but it's a lot harder to remember! I have to look both ways about 4 times before I cross the road)
2. They don't have ice here, they rarely put it in any of their drinks (and for anyone who knows me well, you know that this is a big problem for me)
3. At the grocery store you have to bag your own groceries. This was awkward the first time because after I had paid, I realized all of my groceries were just sitting on the counter in front of me and I had to stand there and bag all of them for about 5 minutes haha.
4. There is no such thing as a refill, you have to buy another drink. (Also for anyone who knows me and knows how I love to get a to-go cup)
5. Also they don't say "to-go" here, they say "Is this for here or take-away"
6. You aren't supposed to tip at restaurants or the cabs, it's normally already added on. (I found this out after I gave a generous tip my first night at dinner)
7. Generally they just put a pound sign instead of a dollar sign on a lot of American food/drinks, but that actually makes it much more expensive then it is in America.
8. You have to turn on the electrical outlets with a switch
9. People in London normally go grocery shopping every day, so the grocery store is always crowded and they only sell things in small amounts, there are only half gallons or pints of milk.
10. Also they have a lot higher fat content in their milk (4%) and they don't refrigerate their eggs in the grocery stores (found that out by looking around the grocery store about 10 times before I realized the eggs were on a shelf)
Alright that's about all I got right now but just thought all of these things were interesting haha.

Anyway today I had class and we went to see a Piano concert afterwards, which was really fun. Yesterday we toured the Bush House, which houses the BBC World Service, and got to see how BBC radio works and how they recieve all of their reports/information, it was really cool. It's supposed to rain/sleet tomorrow, which is a bummer, I wish it would be sunny more then once every week and a half! I hope everyone's doing great! You're all in my prayers and I miss you very much!

"For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have no stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you,the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe." Ephesians 1:15-18

First Full Weekend in Europe

This weekend has been so much fun. I actually feel like I'm getting the hang of getting around London now, I know how to get to most of the main roads and I took the tube for the first time this weekend and I know how to get around the different tube lines. We took a double decker bus tour this weekend both Saturday and today, our tickets were for 48 hours and they were "hop-on, hop off", so you could get off at different stops around London. We got off at a couple of different stops, the first one was at Covent Garden Market, which was so much fun, I bought some hot tea for 80pence and we watched this street entertainer that was hilarious and was really good on a unicycle haha. Covent Garden was really pretty.

Picture of the inside of Covent Garden Market

This is a picture of the street performer, he was hilarious!

After Covent Garden we got back off and had lunch and went inside St. Paul's Cathedral which was absolutely beautiful, I'm definitely going back at some point while I'm here.

St. Paul's Cathedral

After that, we walked over the Millenium Bridge (aka: the bridge from Harry Potter) towards the Tate Modern Art Museum (We didn't go inside, we're going there for class on thursday) and we walked over to the Globe Theater which was pretty cool and then we walked along the Thames River and caught the bus back to the flat.

Me and my roommate Ellie on the Millenium Bridge

The Globe Theater

We went to a sports pub to watch the Carolina/Georgia Tech game, which was a stressful game to watch (For anyone who didn't watch we lost by 1 point). It was one of my roommates 21st birthdays, so after we came back to the flat we had birthday cake and then we went out to a club for her birthday. It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life to say the least. The club was called "Fabric" and it was huge. There were 4 floors and at least 5 different dance floors and they played really intense techno music. I definitely felt like I was in Europe. It ended up being a lot of fun though, even though we didn't get home until really late.

Today we did the bus tour again, We got to see a lot of the parks in London including Hyde Park and Green Park and the other side of London that I haven't actually gotten to see yet.

Hyde Park :-)

Our 48 hour bus tour tickets also included a cruise on the Thames, so we did that when it started to get dark which was really cool because everything was all lit up. We went past the London Eye and Under the London Bridge and towards the Tower Bridge. We also got to go by Big Ben and Parliament as the sun was setting which was cool.

The London Eye and the Aquarium

Big Ben and Parliament, when the sun was setting.

After that we took the tube back home and had some dinner and now I need to try and get some homework done. I don't have class tomorrow but we are going on a tour of the BBC in the morning so I need to get some rest! Hope everyone had a great weekend :-)

Busy, Busy, Busy

Wow, so I feel like the past 3 days have flown by! I feel like the last time I updated was 2 weeks ago but it was actually only a few days ago. Ok so lets start with what I did Wednesday, I had 2 classes, but our classes are about 2.5 hrs each so it was a pretty long day. I had my London as a Global City class at 9:30, the professor was really nice but I'm pretty sure it's going to be a hard class and I already have a lot of reading for it. I think for some reason I forgot that I would still have homework while I'm here in London haha. And then we had about an hour and a half break and I went back to my flat and made lunch (trying to save money!) and then I went back to the Winston House for my Shakespeare class at 1:30. I wish so badly that I could video tape my class, because my professor is hilarious! She is this tiny old british lady named Ruth. And she is so entertaining and excited about Shakespeare and I think that her class is going to be a lot of fun! However, she does have trouble speaking in coherent sentences because she switches subjects about every 3 sentences, haha but I think she will be a lot of fun. She was telling us about how she normally drinks a glass of white wine everyday but since it has been so cold she needed something to warm her up so now she's been drinking whiskey so she can have a little "fire in her belly". Please keep in mind she is probably about 75 years old haha.

Trafalger Square ( London was a nice shade of grey yesterday)

Yesterday I had my Art in London class, and we walked to the National Portrait Museum which was really fun because we also stopped at Trafalger Square along the way and also a really beautiful church called St. Martin in the Fields

This is the outside of St. Martin's in the Fields

This is a picture inside of the church, it was absolutely beautiful!

We went to the the cafe inside of the Portrait Gallery, and then we went and looked at a collection that was all photography and it was really cool. I really like that all of our classes are going to be at different art museums, I felt like I learned a lot but it was still a lot of fun, especially because I don't actually know a whole lot about art.

After that we had class at the Winston House, it's a history class called Imperial Worlds and my professor is really sweet, it was a pretty short class since it was the first one but we already have a lot of reading (ewww). Then later that night we went to the British Museum for a tour and we had a personal tour from a former UNC student, Sam Moorhead, who is a genius, he is now the Finds Advisor at the British Museum and more specifically in the Iron Age and Roman Coins Department. But he showed us around and took us into a couple of his favorite galleries and it was so awesome because a lot of the stuff he was showing us, he knew everything about the exhibits and being an archeologist himself, it was so awesome to hear him talk about all of the different stories.

Gosh, sorry this is so long! I'll give you a brief idea of today. We had a walking tour this morning and we walked all around London and saw the Horse Guards and Westminster Abbey and Big Ben and Parliament! It was so much fun, I will have to put up more pictures later. We're going on a big red bus tour tomorrow! Which should be a lot of fun and I'll get some more really good pictures hopefully! And then after the walking tour we took the tube back to our flat and I took a nice long nap and then we went to this great Thai place for dinner. I feel like this blog entry wasn't very interesting haha, so I apologize, but thanks for pushing through, I promise to be more entertaining when I have more energy! :-)

First Day of Class

Today was our first real day of class, I only had one and it's called "The Art of Listening to Music" so we had class for a little while and then we went to a performance. Today was the first time I felt very British/English. It was held in St. George's Anglican Church which was really cool looking. We heard a string quartet play Mozart and Haydn, and they had hot tea for free, so I drank my tea while I listened to classical music haha (Lizzy, you would've loved it!)

Later today I went to the British Museum and walked around for a little while, it's so huge I'm not sure I"m gonna be able to see everything even in 3 months! I went through the Ancient Egypt and Egyptian sculpture displays. It's a really pretty building, the pictures below are of the Great Hall from when you first walk in.

And then this is a picture of the Rosetta Stone which was pretty cool to see!

I'm not sure what we're doing tonight yet, but I definitely feel a lot more rested today then then last couple of days!Something cool that happened today was that they were filming a moving on the street adjacent to our street and so there were a bunch of vans and buses parked on our street. The movie has Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush (Pirates of the Caribbean) and Helena Bonham Carter (Harry Potter) in it, I walked right past the set, but I didn't see anyone sadly haha. Also, this morning I went to Starbucks by myself and someone stopped me and asked me for directions, I must be starting to look like a real Londoner!

Jet Lagging

When I first got to London I definitely didn't think I was going to be affected by jet lag. I thought that I would be really tired the first day and get into the swing of things by the next day, however I discovered last night that I am not immune to the jet lag syndrome haha. It was about 4 in the morning and even after a really long day I still felt like it was only 10 or 11 at night. Needless to say, I was pretty exhausted when I woke up at 8:00 this morning in order to start orientation and touring more of London. But do not fret, it didn't take me very long to find a starbucks this morning to help aid me in dealing with the lack of sleep :-)

We had orientation for class this morning, and talked about all the rules and stuff and then took a tour of the building/classrooms/library. And then we went to the University of London Student Union (ULU) and took a tour because we have access to their union. It was so cool, they have a couple of bars in the union which is something that is definitely different from Carolina, and there is a swimming pool and gym. It was really cool to walk around their Union because even though Carolina is a diverse school, the University of London literally had so many different types of people from all parts of the world. I felt very plain standing in the middle of the cafeteria haha. After the Union we walked to the British Museum and had another tour. The British Library is HUGE, not only is it 4 floors, but there are 4 basements underneath and each basement is the equivalent of 2 stories of a building, so it extends 8 stories underground which is almost reaching the metro system. We saw a whole bunch of cool things like the biggest book in the World, and a bunch of originial manuscripts of things such as Shakespeares plays and religious texts, and even random things like the lyrics from the Beatles (The lyrics to A Hard Days Night are written on a little kids birthday card). I was exhausted from walking by the end of the day, but it was well worth it.

Later tonight we went to dinner at tiny restaurant called Newman Arms, but also known as the Upstairs Pie Room, because its above a pub, and it was amazing!

I had a Chicken and Broccoli Pot Pie and then Chocolate Pudding (which is more like bread pudding, it tasted like a brownie) and ice cream.

Now I am extremely full and tired and we start class tomorrow so I will probably try to go to bed early since I didn't go to sleep until 4am last night! I hope everyone is doing great! I love you all :-)

Day Two

So I woke up today much more rested, and took a shower. I got a lot of productive things done today, we went to the grocery store and got a lot of food to stock up our fridge and I also got a european cell phone which has a really long phone number that I haven't memorized yet. I took a couple of pictures of my flat today...This is the outside of my flat on Bedford Place.

This is the my side of the bedroom! I'm still in the process of unpacking...

We had dinner at Professor Oehler's house which is actually an apartment above the Winston House (The UNC building where we have class). He and his wife made us chili for dinner and it was delicious. Today was one of my roommates birthday so we bought her a cake and had it for dessert. We tried to go to a Sports Bar near Piccadilly Circus tonight to watch the UNC game and we walked the entire way there only to find out that they were only showing the Green Bay game and they were closing early, so we hiked back in the snow and rain, we will definitely be sure to plan better next time! I have Orientation tomorrow at 9:30 so I should probably going to bed soon but I will update more later!

First Real Day in London!

Hello From London! I made it safely across the Atlantic yesterday, I arrived at Heathrow International Airport around 10:15am London Time, so about 5:15 Charlotte/Chapel Hill time, so I had been awake for about 35 hours or so, needless to say I was pretty tired and not completely coherent. When I tried to type this blog last night, my right eye was continuously twitching and so I gave up. I am so excited to finally be here, both of my flights went pretty smoothly, not literally because there was a lot of turbulance, but other then that there weren't any big problems. On my first flight from charlotte to DC, I sat next to a park ranger for the Shenandoah National Park,which was cool. One thing that was no cool was that my plane was so small that I felt like I was almost on a rollercoaster the entire time, but it made me appreciate the next plane that much more. When I got off the plane in DC I had to almost run to the shuttle because my gate was in a different building, so when I got to my next gate for Heathrow International, I was out of breath and sweaty, it was very obvious that I was not a well seasoned traveler. The next plane I was on seated over 250 people and luckily for me I got an aisle seat so there was no awkward moments of trying to ask to get out to use the bathroom. I met a nice guy that was on his way to Cairo, Egypt for work and the seat next to him was empty and so when the plane was about to descend he asked if I wanted to sit by the window, so that was pretty exciting. England looked snowy and beautiful as we flew into the airport.This is the first meal I ate in the UK, coffee and a prepackaged sandwich, apparently those are very popular here, they prepackage everything.

This is the train station we used to get around the different airport terminals, the first time we got on the wrong train and ended up at the wrong terminal.

So far I really like London, I feel like I've spent more time in the airport then I have in the actual city. After I arrived at the airport, I went through Immigration at UK border and I didn't have any problems getting through, and I found my luggage really easily at baggage claim. I met another girl from my program at the airport after her plane got in and we met one of her family friends who had a car take us to our apartment. I really like my flat! I have a kitchen and a little common area. Our room has heat which some of the other girls room does have heat right now, so I feel very lucky to have a warm place to sleep tonight.

I've gotta run to the grocery store but I'll update more in a little while!

Eurotrip!

So it's finally here! I leave for London in less then and hour and a half. I can't believe it. As I sit in the airport eating overpriced pizza I am excited and nervous about what all this semester has in store for me! I know for one thing it has in store for me for sure, and that is that it will be cold! Apparently it is the coldest winter England has seen in at least a decade, so I will definitely be getting a lot of use out of my boots and coat this semester.

My flight is at 7:49 and I have one connection in DC and then I'll be flying into London Heathrow Airport at 10:15am their time, but it's 4:15 am Charlotte time, so hopefully I will sleep on the plane, however I've already looked up the in flight movies and have decided Slumdog Millionaire is a good option if I can't fall asleep.

Well, since my trip hasn't actually started yet, I don't have a whole lot of exciting details but hopefully once I'm in London I can update this thing pretty often so I can keep all of my friends and family can know what I'm up to! I will miss you all and would love to hear from you and hear how things are going back here in America!