Category Archives: England

Returning Home

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It is so crazy to think that my program is over, four weeks flew by. Thankfully my time in London is not over because as everyone leaves on Monday my mom and cousin will be arriving. I get to play tour guide for four days and then we are off to Italy, so I get to extend my trip for a while.

London turned out to be a lot like what I expected: busy, fast, fashion forward and the list goes on. Hampstead (where I’m staying) turned out to be better than I was expecting. Coming in I didn’t really know what to expect of Hampstead, or even how far away it was from London, but it turned out to be perfect. Hampstead is just far enough away from central London that I can take the tube and be there within 20 minutes, but it is far enough away that I feel removed from the city. Hampstead is much quieter and calmer, something I appreciate. The town is just very cute and quaint so I have honestly enjoyed my time more in Hampstead and getting familiar with that area, than being down in central London. Central London is just too busy for me. I enjoy it during the week day, but the weekends are packed! It’s great to experience for the day and see the sights, but I loved being able to come back to the calm of Hampstead at night.

I feel that this program length was the perfect amount of time. I was here long enough to see the big sites and get familiar with the city (I was able to give people directions even!), but I am definitely ready to return home. I am excited to see my family again, and since these were my last two undergrad classes I am excited to begin my next adventure in life-finding a job! Studying abroad has been amazing, and doing it as my last two classes made it even better. I’ve met some great people who I hope turn out to be lifetime friends and I’ve discovered places I want to come back to and see more of (Scotland!). I have been lucky to have had such a positive experience and I know I will treasure these memories and experiences for a lifetime.

I’m posting a few of my favorite photos from my trip:

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Last, but certainly not least, is getting Daniel Radcliffe’s autograph with my friend Molly

Week 3

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I cannot believe that I only have one week left! Time has flown by and I am amazed at how much I have seen and done. Taking two classes keeps me very busy with field trips and homework, but I don’t mind. Since I am taking two classes, I have been able to see double the field trips, and for my Downton Abbey class we usually do two field trips a week which is great. My all time favorite field trip has been to Highclere Castle where Downton Abbey is filmed. There was some anxiety surrounding this field trip because we didn’t actually have tickets. Group tickets have been sold out since last summer, and individual tickets have been sold out since February. That being said we were all very nervous as to whether or not they would have any tickets for sale at the gate. Our worries were for nothing though because they had plenty! We were able to walk through the gardens, go through the house and of course hit up the gift shop! Something fun that I’ve been doing with friends from my Downton class, is that we try and have tea and scones at every country house we visit. Now I can add Highclere to my list of places I’ve had tea at! My other favorite field trip so far was for my Harry Potter class. We went into Scotland to Alnwick Castle which is where they filmed parts of Hogwarts for the first and second films, and then they used it as their model for the set. We saw where they learn to fly in the first movie and then some general exterior shots. The castle itself was beautiful, but inside the state rooms and the countryside were just amazing.

This past weekend I went to Paris. I have been once before in High School on one of those spring break trips, so I was only in Paris for two or three nights. So I was very excited to go back and see it again, and see if what I remembered was the same. I remembered it being very dirty and it was. Compared to London, Paris is filthy. I don’t know if it is because the people just don’t care, or they just don’t have as good sanitation services that London has. The other thing that I really noticed was how different their metro and bus system is. London’s transportation system is very efficient, very well kept up, and very clean. Paris on the hand is very confusing. Some lines on the metro maps are really only train lines, but they are not marked so. Needless to say we got very lost and turned around the first night, but after that we had a somewhat better handle on it. But we tried to stay above ground as much as possible! One thing about Paris that I found wonderful was their youth discount. They have great discounts for anyone under the age of 24. Some places require you to show a student id, others just ask your age. Because of this discount we were able to go into the Louvre for free! We also go a discount on the Eiffelimageimage Tower and a boat tour.

Can it really be week three?!

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I can hardly believe I only have one week left in this amazing city. I have been trying to fit as much in as I can in the little time I have left in London. Week four is going to be a crazy week. I will be dealing with homework, field trips, seeing all the things I still want to see, and lastly, spending time with the amazing people I have met.

Yesterday was my first experience with Harrods and I can honestly say it will probably be my last, although it was a lot of fun it was also insane! I spent at least three hours walking around looking at all the wonderful things housed there. It was chaos!They seriously have EVERYTHING you could possibly thinking of… Watches, including a $4,000,000 watch, food, furniture, pets, restaurants, and clothing. It was awesome walking through all the different restaurants and smelling all the wonderful smells of pizzas cooking, or bread being made.  There wasn’t a quite minute during my time in Harrods. I probably can’t afford anything on any of six stories of the building, but it was still fun to look at all the over priced idioms.

Also, yesterday I went to The Natural History Museum. It was one of the coolest museums I have ever been into. Most of the museums in London have free admission making them even more enjoyable. The Natural History Museum is a museum you can take your time and read about the different things, or just look around at the different things and cruse through. It was pretty crowded in some of the rooms, but overall not to bad. Even just the inside of the building is beautiful and not something you can easily see back in the states.

 

Preparing to return home!

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I can’t believe the time has come where I am getting ready to leave. My experience here has been absolutely nothing like what I imagined! The people in my host culture were reserved but almost more than I expected. While taking the tube around people rarely talked to you which was fine but where I didn’t expect it was when trying to get places if you were in someone’s way nobody would ever say excuse me to get by they would just push by. Also, when walking on the streets I felt like I stood out in the sense that I had to always be weaving through the people that would just walk in a straight line. They wouldn’t move so if I didn’t weave around people I would be running into people. Lastly, this observation was more funny but because they are so reserved they don’t say bless you to each other when someone sneezes.

My food accusation was also not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I enjoyed the food actually! The differences between their food and our food aren’t bad ones and they actually eat healthier than we do in my opinion even though the locals don’t notice that. They don’t use salt as heavily as we do and no high fructose corn syrup! I noticed there food doesn’t have as long of a shelf life as ours does because they don’t process there food nearly as much as we do. I thought it was amazing that they didn’t use high fructose corn syrup and even just looking at the ingredients of things, the ingredients are so much simpler than ours. I did hear they had great fish and chips and I am not to crazy about fish and chips in America but I did try them one time and they were delicious! I tried them in Brighton, located along the coast, so I knew they would be really fresh there and I was happy that I waited to try them there! Also, the whole baked beans and toast experience I didn’t end up trying. However, I didn’t eat true breakfast there in general because I would eat breakfast in my room and I just bought cereal and bagels from the grocery store. My favorite food experience in London and one of the things I’ll miss the most is the Real Food Market which was located by the eye. It was a tiny market but full of high quality authentic diversified food. I tried there was delicious but my favorite would probably be the hummus and falafel Mediterranean wrap.

The residence halls living experience was nothing that I imagined. Everybody participating in the summer program were scattered throughout the hall. I never actually really knew the people on the floor I lived on. On the ground floor though they had a common room and we would at all often hang out there.

My interactions with my host culture was also not as expected but I stay open minded in having conversations with people when they opened up to me. Since the people there are so reserved, I never initiated conversation with them really. When I first arrived I struggled with home sickness and was really overwhelmed by the city end everything going on with it. After the first week though I began feeling better about it and slowly became a lot more comfortable with my surroundings.

Now that my time is coming to an end I am very excited to go home. It took a long time for it to become real to me though that I actually was going home. It truly amazed me how comfortable I became there. My last day running my final errands I realized that I will indeed miss it there. I’ll miss the adventure but I am especially going to miss all of the amazing people I have met here! I have formed some great friendships and those people truly had a great influence on the my time here as well!

Above everybody there were three people I grew the closest too! Kyla, Angelica, and Chelsea. We made a lot of great memories together and I can’t wait to go visit them in their home states. My time abroad would have been a lot different without them and I am truly blessed to have met them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am most excited to see my boyfriend when I get home. I really feel like if I didn’t have a boyfriend the moments of it being really hard wouldn’t have been as big of a struggle and I would of been able to study abroad for longer than six weeks. However, because that’s not the case and I am in a relationship I think the six weeks turned out being the absolute perfect amount of time! I really enjoyed my time there and definitely don’t regret a thing!

Bonjour Paris!

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            My last weekend abroad I took the train under the channel to Paris, France! I went with two girls I met in the summer program and it was absolutely amazing! I have to say though, as much as I loved Paris I do like London more and wouldn’t of wanted to study abroad in Paris. It was definetly interesting trying to adapt to a new culture after getting comfortable around London. The most obvious challenge would be the language barrier in Paris however that wasn’t even the most challenging part of the new culture. I downloaded a speak easy french app onto my phone and practiced before I went some simple phrases. I’d have to say the phrase I used the most while there was, “parlez-vous anglais?”! Most people could speak english, there was only one gal who couldn’t in a small bagguette place we went for lunch and we would just point to what we would like. The most challenging part of Paris was nagivating around. They also have an underground train like London but called the Metropolitan. The metropolitan however stinks and was very confusing! We obviously still had to use it to get around but London’s tube is much better! So once we arrived and found our hostel we took a map from reception, sat down at there restaurant and ordered some food, and planned our weekend there! Exciting, and we even met some friends who were from California! Our first day we bought tickets for a hop on hop off boat that went in a circle along the canal and that day we visited Notre Dame, Champs-Elysees, the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower. The second day we explored a little bit, went to a cute little creperie, the love lock bridge, Versailles, and back to the Eiffel Tower. We spent

close to four hours at the Eiffel tower the second day just relaxing and we bought food at a close grocery store for dinner. Then after the sun sets the Eiffel Tower glitters for the first five minutes at the top of every hour.

Although two very busy days in Paris and I was beyond exhausted traveling back to London, I am so thankful that I was able to take advantage of this opportunity. My one hope while abroad was to travel outside of the UK and I did it! I can’t believe I have less than a week left in London now before I fly back home. I have seriously had an amazing time here but I am also very excited to go back home!

Two Weeks!

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I cannot believe I’ve only been in London for two weeks, it feels like much more time! I have really gotten in a rhythm here which has been nice. Classes are all going great and the field trips have been really fun. I’ve definitely had to learn some patience when traveling with such large groups, but we’ve seen some great sights so it is worth it. The big trips I’ve taken so far are to Stonehenge and Scotland. I’m in Scotland right now for the weekend and it is amazing. Beautiful country and I wish I could spend more than a weekend here! London is great, but very very busy and Scotland is much more relaxed which is right up my alley. I think that’s why I have enjoyed my Downton Abbey class field trips so much, because we go see these county homes that are miles out in the country and we have to walk to them and it is just so peaceful to be surrounded with nature.

There is a nice balance with the city and the country though so it’s nice to see both sides. Somethings that I’ve learned about the city that surprised me were that the street performers, and the performers in the tube, have to audition and then are licensed to perform in certian spots and at certian times. This just surprised me because at home we have people downtown who just play what and whenever they want, but I like it this way. The players in the tube are not playing during rush hour traffic which is smart because during rush hour the amount of traffic is crazy! And they would just be in the way, plus people would be stopping all the time. Instead they play at night and it is so much fun to hear them and their music floating through the tube. The other crazy thing here are all the motorcyclists who have these clipboards and paper set up on their handle bars while they are driving. Turns out they are studying for the test to become a taxi driver. The tests here to become a taxi driver are very intensive and it takes years before you can be an official taxi driver! Just a few interesting things I’ve learned about the city so far!

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Penshurst out in Kent. Very beautiful house and land!

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Stonehenge

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The tube

First Week in London

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After a very rough start in the airport with a nine hour delay I finally made it to London. My first impressions were a bit skewed because I was sleep deprived and all I could think about was changing my clothes that felt covered in airport grime. We didn’t actually get to our dorm until four in the afternoon so the first day was really spent unpacking and sleeping. The second day though was fantastic. We took a bus tour of London and two great things happened. First we got caught on the bus right in front of Buckinham Palace during the changing of the guard which was amazing to see, and then when they let us off the bus at Camden market we caught the tail end of a flash mob proposal!

On Sunday we spent the day getting to know the area we are in which is great because it is less touristy and way more residentail so it’s not an area that I would have known otherwise. There are some very beautiful parks and garderns here that we explored and also the main village of Hampstead which is very cute and upscale. Discovered a crepe stand that is delicious! The food here is nothing extremely different. A lot less fast food and more quick cafe type places. I personally love the food here and have a moto of eating my way through London. Many different ethnic food places here. I am not an adventurous eater, but I would love to try some ethnic food while I’m here. The sweets here are to die for, and so far my favorite has been a macaroon that I got from Harrods. image

 

I’ve enjoyed being surronded by the culture and there is a definite difference between here and America. First the transportation system is great! The buses and tube runs so efficiently. But what I have noticed that stricks me as different from home is that there is no chatting going on. No one chats on the bus or the tube. People are usually reading, either a book or the newspaper, or they are listening to music. This seems to be their time to relax between work and going home or even between a quick stop. This way they are not always engaged with their phone and constantly chatting with everyone, but they are getting to enjoy some “alone” time. image

 

St. Pancrus train station, the first train station in London.

Traveling up North!

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This past weekend I went on an overnight trip to York in northern England through the social program. York is a small town that is surrounded by medieval city walls which was

very interesting to see. Our group went to see the York Minster which was an absolute gorgeous building. I love how when our group goes on bus tours places they will take us to historic places and then we get a lot of free time as well to explore on our own. The York Minster was greatly known for their collection of stained glass. They had a choir singing songs in the main part of the Minster. I also had the opportunity to light a candle and next to all of the candles lit by visitors there was a sign that read, “Lighting a candle is a prayer. Response to beauty and goodness. Thought for others. Offering of oneself. Your candle burns as a sign to those who pass by.” I loved the meaning behind it and that I got to be apart of that there. After wandering around and taking photos myself and a few other girls explored the town a bit before we had to meet back at the coach. The next day we went to see Fountains Abbey which is Britain’s largest ruin and most complete abbey. It

was beautiful and I enjoyed exploring the abbey at our own pace. It was located in a national park so there was also a royal water garden which was nice to go walk around on a beautiful day. Our last stop was to Hardwick hall where we got to walk through the Elizabethan home of Bess of Hardwick. The house was surrounded by gardens and acres of green so we walked around outside as well. I ended my visit with a delicious scone with clotted cream and jam which was a something I had been looking forward to my whole trip there so I was glad I got to try one!

On Tuesday the social program took us to see Wicked which was a wonderful show. However, I did come to the realization that day thought that very few places in England or maybe just abroad have air conditioning. It’s going really hot here in London the past couple weeks to so that’s been an adjustment. Inside that theatre was so hot and I probably would have been able to enjoy the play more if I wasn’t distracted by that. My mom says I’m spoiled in the US with our air conditioning, but I’m okay with that! I don’t know how they do it here. I did learn in my photography class today though that Britain is obsessed with the weather because it is impossible to predict the weather here. It is unpredictable, but this July has been the hottest July here in 275 years. I don’t know how true that statement is exactly but one of my professors told me that and I was shocked. The weather has been in it’s high 80’s but there is hardly any wind here so that makes it worse.

Wednesday, my photography class took us on a class visit to the V&A museum and National History Museum to see photography exhibits. Each one was fascinated to see other photographers works and look deeper into their meaning. In the National History Museum exhibit there were photos taken in America of the Grand Canyon and such so it was kind of exciting to see pictures taking in the U.S. part of an exhibit here.

I had a good week in my photography class! I started my second project and I chose to focus on the history of tea throughout London. So I am photographing different aspects of tea in different tea rooms. There is a lot of history behind it here and I am excited to learn about all of its background so I can pair that with my photos. I began taking some photos this week and a couple have them turned out well so I am looking forward to completing my series next week!

I can’t believe I’m approaching only 1 more week left in London. I am going on a very exciting trip this weekend, my train actually leaves in 2 hours but I am going to leave where I am going a surprise! I look forward to telling you all about my adventure in a completely different culture when I get back!

 

I have arrived in London!

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When I first arrived to the London Air Port I was greeted by the stress of figuring out where I needed to be, what I needed to do, and who I needed to find. To my surprise it was much easier than I had been planing for. As soon as my group found their luggage, we were off to find the CCSA members who awaited our arrival. Air ports are a funny thing, because there are such a diverse group of people in them, you could have no idea where you really are until you get outside. Once our bus arrived to the air port we took it to the Kings College campus where we would be staying for our mouth abroad. The drive to campus was amazing; so many new things to look at. The cars were different, the architecture was different, and all the greenery was amazing. Even though I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours, I was awaked by all the excitement that I knew awaited me!

I love brick buildings, and when I arrived on campus I saw that almost every building was brick. It is beautiful!

My home for the next month!

 

This is a building that is on the Kings College Campus in Hampstead. It is amazing! Most of the buildings have a similar look to the one on the left.

 

 

 

Another day, another week!

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I’ll begin this post with my day trip to Brighton! This was my first day trip that wasn’t through the social program, it was planned by some of the girls I live with and we went on our own! Brighton is on the South coast of England so we got to spend some time at the

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beach! However, this beach was different than most, it had no sand, it was a rock beach. We walked down the pier where there were rides, games, and lots of food. We did not decide to eat there though we asked some locals where a good place was to try some fish and chips and went there! They were delicious I will add too! We spent most of day shopping and exploring the town and it was interesting to learn that everything in this town closes pretty early. We had tell 8:40pm tell our coach bus would take us back to London and a lot of places close in Brighton between 5pm and 7pm.  That was okay though because we went

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and sat in the grass around the Royal Pavilion which was gorgeous as the sun began to set. This trip also made me realize that such a big part in getting to know different cultures, even if it’s only travelling within the country, is trying different kinds of food! I discovered during dinner that not everybody knows what ranch is because I asked for some and the waiter had no idea what I was talking about, he suggested sour cream but I told him no thank you.

On Sunday we had the session 2 meet and greet so that all the new students that just arrived could begin getting to know the students that have already been here for session 1. It’s been cool to meet some of the new people but I’m still missing some of those who left. The start of a new session also means the start of a new class though and I am really enjoying my class this session. I am taking photographing the city: London, it is a way more relaxed class compared to the class I took last session but I am really liking learning more about how to take better photos. We went on two walks this week during class where the teacher has a route mapped out for us and as a class we go on a walk with some stops so we have the opportunity to take lots of photos. Our first day we had a project assigned to take photos of a peer in the class, one portrait shot and one shot directed by them. Our second day we began our pilot project which is where we can takea series of photos of whatever we want in London. I chose to focus on women’s

accessories mainly on their hands, like their bracelets and rings. It’s been intimidating going up to strangers explaining how I am a photography student and asking if I take a picture of their accessories but I’m getting better at it! The picture to the left was the first photo I took and still stands as my favorite one. We have our review on Monday so I can hear some constructive criticism on the photos I have taken thus far. I  look forward to improving my photos during the course of this class.

Some new things I have learned culturally within this city is how reserved the people in London. Everybody I went up and asked to take their photo were all caught off guard that a stranger was coming up and talking to them. Once a conversation has begun they have always been really nice but they will usually never be the one to initiate the conversation. Also, they spell words here differently then we do like favorite is spelled favourite over here. I found that interesting as well!

On Tuesday I went on a East end art walking tour through the social program and this was  great because I was able to see more of London outside of the central part. I got to see

amazing pieces of artwork throughout the east end and I think it is great that it doesn’t get ruined by anybody. I took a lot of photos of all the artwork I got to see but this photo on the left was one of my favorite pieces throughout the tour. This piece was done just on the side of a building.

Anyways, this week was a good week! Although my time here is dwindling down I still got good things coming! I officially booked my trip this week for Paris! I’m going with two other girls in the program from July 18th-21st. I’m proud of myself for fully taking advantage of my time here and all amazing opportunities this trip has brought me.