Famous London Sights & Cambridge Trip!

            Well hey guys! I have lots to update you on so this is going to be a long one. Stay with me though and you’ll hear some awesome stories & see amazing pictures!

            Thursday 26^th: Today I had my world religions class again followed by the History of England: Sport & Society! This class is going to be awesome! The theme is about sports so we will be studying the history of sports such as “futbol,” rugby, cricket…and more.  We’ll get to tour some amphitheaters, the sites for the 2012 Olympic games and some colleges well-known for specific sports.  It should be a very interesting class- I love that my history classes actually take you to sites.  I have a feeling I will learn a lot more from traveling and seeing these places, then I would have if I stayed in the classroom.  I’m really excited to get out there.  After class, Emily, Elizabeth and I decided to go out and explore another shopping area.  We headed to King’s street which was a little more upscale area.  They had a few “London-type” stores but also common names such as Banana Republic and Laura Ashley (remember when this store was in LEX?? I loved it as a kid).  We walked around for about two hours before heading back for dinner and the bars.  We ate at the refectory and then headed to a bar called O’neils.  This bar was soooo much fun! It was right in the middle of Soho-China town. This place was three floors!  The first & third floor each had a live band, which was really neat, and a lot of fun.  It’s funny because at Transy everyone kind of goes their separate ways in the social group; however, here at Regent’s everyone that goes out…goes to the same bar! So it was great getting to know some new faces from school and people from London attending other universities. 

Soho- China Town

            Friday 27^th: Today we went everywhere! My feet were killing me by the end of the day.  We woke up around 9 and ate breakfast and left by 10.  We got on the tube and headed to the St. James area.  We started off strolling through the park where we saw pelicans! Then we headed to Buckingham Palace.  The gates to this palace were absolutely stunning.  Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the guard change because it was the “off day” but we did see a parade of horses walk by.  We didn’t figure out the significance of it but we saw them, so that was neat.  Also…it was a bummer because the palace was closed.  We knew this ahead of time but I wish we would’ve had the opportunity to go through because there is no doubt in my mind it wouldn’t be stunning.  But anyway, we got our picture taken together and then headed to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.  On the way we passed some other sights such as the Duke of York statue and Queen Victoria’s Memorial.  The walk in this area was beautiful with bright green grass and gorgeous buildings.  I wish we still had the knowledge to build like this because it is beautiful.

St. James Park

Pelicans

St. James Park-- River

Parade to Buckingham

Buckingham Palace

Gate outside Buckingham

            On the way to Big Ben we became tacky tourists and took pictures in the telephone booths.  I think the clock is so neat, so I took a million pictures of that; and then we headed to Westminster Abbey.  We didn’t go in because there was a long line but I think we will go back to tour the inside soon.  The outside was incredible though so at least we got to see that.  Right next to this church was the St. Margaret’s Church and we did go on there.  The stained glass was beautiful and they had old sketches of the church too which was neat.  That was a quick run through though so after that we headed out the back door and ran straight into the parliament.  Talk about a government building! I mean I keep saying everything was beautiful but the architecture here is just one of a kind.  The detail that the people put into the buildings is like nothing you’ve ever seen. I am absolutely in love with it! 

Telephone booth & Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

Parliament

            We started looking for a lunch place after this near Trafalgar square.  We ended up at a Sherlock Holmes restaurant.  I got a chicken bacon sandwich and it was pretty good.  The bacon is really weird here, its almost like a thick ham.  It’s different, but not too bad…except when you get a piece of fat then it’s gross haha.  After the restaurant we had warmed up and headed back out!  We went to the Eye of London, which is the Ferris wheel type thing- except we got about 15 people in one cart! Crazy! The view was amazing and luckily we hit it just as the sun was starting to set which made it even better.  We could see from miles and miles…so it was really neat.  That process took about 45 minutes and we were almost ready to head back but wanted to hit up the national portrait museum. I am really glad we did because 1^st we climbed up this huge lion statue and then saw the countdown for the Olympic games! I love the Olympics so it was really neat to see that.  We headed up the steps to the portrait museum and walked around for an hour or so; then headed back home.  

Olympic Countdown

Lions

View from the EYE OF LONDON!

            Dinner was nasty so we ordered in pizza from a delivery place.  Went to bed around 12 because we had to get up this morning and be ready by 830!

            Saturday 28^th: TODAY! We went on a 2 hour bus ride to Cambridge! Of course I slept the whole way, so the ride wasn’t bad.  However, once we got there, I completely regretted my outfit choice…it was FREEZING!  The wind was blowing and it was just miserable…definitely needed gloves & a hat.  We started off with an hour walking guided tour.  We saw Queens College, King’s College and Trinity College.  We also walked down some really neat alleyways and ate lunch at a local restaurant called the Bath House.  After lunch we headed down to the docks to take a punting boat ride!  Although I absolutely loved it, it was freezing on the water! We saw some gorgeous sites and luckily we got a really informative (and cute) tour guide.  That tour lasted about 45 minutes and then we got back on the bus.  We drove about 15 minutes to a local British English Cream Tea room.  Unfortunately since there were 77 of us…we had to eat OUTSIDE at tables.  I’m not a tea person but I did try it (I didn’t like it) but we also had a scone & those were delicious.  We stayed here for another 45 minutes and then got on the bus to head home! They played the King’s Speech but I fell asleep again…it was a long day.

Ceiling in the Chapel

Out back of the Chapel

Punting Boat! 

Mathematical Bridge- my favorite one, made of wood.

            Tonight I just took a shower and uploaded all my pictures…skyped a few friends from home and now I’m writing you! Hope I was able to keep you updated with everything! Miss & love you guys!

"These are the days of the endless summer; these are the days. The time is now. There is no past, there’s only future, there’s only here, there’s only now." - Van Morrison

y.o.l.o -- court

Classes & Tamers' 21st BIRTHDAY!

Classes have started and we are trying to get back in the school gear.  It’s not too hard to get used to it here though because we haven’t had any homework, I’ve already been on a field trip and most of the books are cheap or we don’t even need to buy one! I definitely acted like an American trying to understand their system.  My teacher told us the book we needed was in the library, so I went and there were 2 biology books. Our advisor said sometimes the teacher reserves them and you can make copies of what you need or other times you may have to go ahead and buy the book, depending on the teacher (also known as “tutor” here). So I emailed my teacher asking if we needed to buy it and he said if it wasn’t in the library on reserve for someone else, then yes. So I went back to the library and of course the books were already gone. [You can check them out for 2 weeks at a time up to 5 times unless someone needs it then you have to bring it back.]  So I decided the safest thing was to order one…but what a difficult & confusing process. The bookstore doesn’t have all the class books- weird.

I’ve only been to 3 out of my 4 classes so far, my last one is tomorrow but biology is definitely the worst so far. It’s boring and feels like I’m in there forever and my teacher is just one of those geeky science guru’s so it’s not fun.  But my other classes are awesome! My world religion class will take 4-5 field trips to different worship services here in London, which will be really cool.  We are going to study Chinese, Daoism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. So it should be really interesting and different. 

The other class I went to was called Social History: the Making of London and this is the history of London duh. But we are going on a field trip almost every class period which is awesome! Yesterday we went and checked out the Roman, British-Roman and Anglo-Saxon rooms at the British museum, and next week we are going to visit London City Churches, London Guildhall and the Roman Amphitheatre! My teacher is really cool and young so I have a feeling it will be a fun class! My class tomorrow is the History of England so I have a feeling this class will also be traveling around and studying the entire British Isles.  So yeah..

Last night was Emily & Elizabeth’s birthday so we went out to celebrate! We ate at a restaurant called the Metropolitan and got 2 steaks and a bottle of wine for 15.99! I mean seriously, isn’t that the best deal? You couldn’t do that anywhere in Lex!  After that we jumped on the tube and headed to a Sports bar.  This is apparently a huge American hotspot because lots of students from our school were there and the British students told us we would like it there because there was lots of dancing.  We had a great time and met two guys that work for the United Manchester team that said they would get us in a game & maybe even get us jerseys! So that would be awesome, I hope we get the chance to go! We’ll be calling them soon J

Tamer's 21st!

Chi O Love :)

Out at the Bar

Tomorrow is my last day of class for the week and Friday a big group of us are going to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, an art gallery, the Parliament and the eye of London. Then Saturday we are going on a day trip with the school to Camden where we will get a walking tour, boat tour and have tea at some great place there.  So hopefully I will have another weekend with lots of stories for my followers!  Talk to ya then!

“You have four years to be irresponsible here. Relax. Work is for people with jobs. You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So, stay out late. Go out on a Tuesday with your friends when you have a paper due Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does..." -Tom Petty

- y.o.l.o  court  :)

weekend update!

January 21^st:

            Today we got up around 10 and traveled to the Oxford district.  As we were walking we got lost (no surprise) and ran into the US embassy.  It was actually a good thing that we found it so that if we have any problems, we know where to go.  After we took some pictures here, we were in this amazing circle of buildings with a memorial in the middle.  This place had a statue of President Roosevelt and had a nice memorial dedicated to a group that passed away.  We were really blessed to have run into such a beautiful area.  After we left here, we realized we were close to Hyde Park. So we went ahead and walked to the park and walked around inside.  The park is a little over 3.5 miles so obviously we didn’t walk the entire thing; but it was gorgeous and a nice area to visit. 

            After about 20 minutes of pictures and exploring, we left the park and headed to a restaurant called Pret.  This is like the US version of Panera bread and they are all over the place.  We bought a brie, tomato and basil baguette that was absolutely delicious! After resting here for a little bit and hiding from the brief rain shower, we headed towards our original destination—oxford street! The street was full of both American and British shopping so we just explored for a while.  After the shopping we decided to hit up one more “hotspot” and headed towards the British museum.  On the way we ran into the cutest store with lots of owl stuff! The tamers bought something for Nora and then we headed towards the museum.  I’m not kidding you- this is the biggest museum I’ve ever been to. I could have spent all day looking at the incredible artifacts from Egypt, Greece and North America.  Since we only had an hour or two, we chose the rooms that fascinated us meaning…Egyptian mummies, artifacts, jewelry, life after death (for em) and the North American section including a section on the modernization of pills [pictures to come].  It was a great time but at this point we had walked over 7 miles and were absolutely exhausted, so we decided to head back. 

            Obviously we didn’t want to walk the 3 miles back home so we decided to purchase an Oyster card!  This card will allow you to take the tube at a cheaper rate than if you were to buy individual tickets each time.  So we experienced our first tube ride and headed towards home.  Once we reached our stop we hopped out and began to search for a place to eat dinner.  We decided on “The Globe” and sat down to order drinks…much needed after a long day.  We ordered a bottle of Monte Verde Chardonnay wine and just relaxed. 30 minutes later we ordered food and it was delicious!! I had something called “hunter’s chicken” and it was two chicken breasts with mozzarella cheese, bacon and bbq sauce—it’s been the best meal I’ve had so far.

            So after that we headed back to our dorm to shower and get ready for the big boat party! We had charter buses take us to the Thames River where we had a double decker boat with a bar.  We circled around the river a couple of times looking at the gorgeous views, dancing and drinking with our new classmates.  Big Ben and other bridges near by were all lit up and absolutely gorgeous! It was a great time and we met a lot of new people.  But this ride ended our day and we headed back to Regent’s and went to sleep around 2am.  It was a great third night!

           

January 22^nd:

            Today was another great adventure! We woke up around 12pm and ate lunch with some new friends.  Then at 1, we went on a tour with some other classmates to Camden.  This part of London is so unique! There were a lot of markets and cute little stores that you could shop in and easily barter with the owners.  We only had an hour and a half there with the tour, so we decided we definitely want to go back and shop around some more, especially since it’s an easy 20 minute walk.  Emily, Liz & I are slowly getting used to walking everywhere! There are a lot of towns really close and if you can’t walk, you can easily jump on the tube and ride the train.  We have walked at least 20 miles around the city and haven’t come close to seeing everything, so it’s been a great adventure so far.

            We took the scenic route back from Camden, which was along a canal and through a park.  It was absolutely gorgeous!  Luckily we had Jonathon with us who showed us around and told us about some great nightlife (since the tamers turn 21 Tuesday we needed a good place!)  He knows so much about London and absolutely loves it here and loves his job.  We told him he has to come out with us one day and be our tour guide since he’s so knowledgeable and enthusiastic!

Once we got back to campus we headed to the IT room to print our timetables (aka schedules) because class starts tomorrow!  Some girls and I looked around to find our classes before we headed to dinner in the Refectory.  After we ate, we ran upstairs to change before heading out to the bars for the Patriot’s football game.  After some “futbol” game was over we had them change the channel to reallll football and the Europeans weren’t too happy.  They said football wasn’t a sport because the guys wore helmets haha.  But anyways…Liz and I ordered another bottle of wine and met a few more people from our school, including….CHI OMEGAS! So that was super exciting and nice to meet some more people before school starts tomorrow.

            So for now we are back in our room and getting everything ready for our first day.  It’s been a great weekend and first start to our semester in London.  We are all so happy to be here and already making plans for future trips abroad.  Hope that brings you up to date with what’s going on here; i’m heading to bed so I’ll talk to you soon!

we're here, we're here!

Hi Friends! Here is blog #2! I am finally in London, safe and sound. The flight over was a little bumpy over the Atlantic Ocean, so I had my freak out moment, but other than that everything went really smoothly and I was able to meet Emily and Elizabeth in Atlanta. Once we got to London, we went through customs, got our luggage, exchanged our money and bought a train ticket to Paddington Station. As soon as we tried to board our first train, Liz’s handle to her suitcase came right off as she tried to lug it on the train.  Fortunately we were able to grab the suitcase in time, but it was a bit worrisome since we had to jump off this train and cross over to another paddock to board another train quickly! Once we got to Paddington Station we grabbed a taxi and arrived in front of Regent’s College.  We were told to go around back and take a left because we didn’t have our swipe cards yet.  As we started walking down the street of course there were like 3 lefts so which one should we take? After talking and lugging our suitcases down the wrong 2 lefts (of course...), we finally got to the right one and found our hall! Students welcomed us with open arms and we met Jonathan who lives in our dorm 24/7 and is absolutely wonderful! As we were checking in, to our surprise we ended up with a 3-person room! That was great news and we were all so excited!

So, some guys carried up our luggage for us and we went to our room.  We wanted to go to bed, butttt of course that was a bad idea. So we decided to try out the “refectory” which is the cafeteria.  We grabbed some salads, found a seat and relaxed until we had to go to a welcome meeting. All the students were falling asleep as the people in charge explained the social life and the do's/dont's here at Regents.  It was nice to see all of the study abroad students together and we begin to recognize some familiar faces.  Once this meeting was over, we came back to the room to unpack, went to a hall meeting and then went to the student's bar! This bar is located in our school and has burgers, and all the alcohol your heart could desire.  The bar began to fill up quickly but we were brave and sat down with some unfamiliar faces.  We met three girls that go to Univ. of South Carolina, boys from all over (mainly east US) and a guy from Hong Kong. This guy was a legit magician. He did a ton of really neat card tricks and then he took my watch, set a time, I took it in my left hand- switched it to my right, and the guy next to me guessed a time.  The time he set, was the time the guy had guessed.  It was absolutely insane, I guess you had to be there to believe this... but it was lots of fun!

We left the bar around 10:30 and made plans to see the girls tonight after dinner.  I came back and showered and went to bed.  It was extremely exhausting but a great first day.

Today we woke up around 830 and had a full schedule beginning at 930.  We were all starving so we went to the “refectory” to grab some bagels before the information session began.  Still exhausted, we listened to a 3-hour talk about the IT department, police and safety, bookstore, library, ways to get involved, etc.  It was long and boring, but very helpful in learning more about the school. Once this was over, Emily had to go to a meeting for a class, so Liz and I took the opportunity to take an hour nap before lunch at 1! (you know us, we had to get our daily nap in).  After lunch we got our meal cards fixed (they weren’t working) and bought tickets for the big boat party tomorrow night! We are supposed to "dress to impress" meaning formal, but it should be fun, so we are very excited! The boat leaves the dock at 8 and travels around showing us sights like big ben! There is a bar and a DJ and it doesn't come back until after 1 in the morning. So it should be a good time, and a good chance for everyone to mingle.

We also met our advisor today and talked about our schedules and her role in our semester.  It was supposed to last about two hours but luckily we were happy with our schedules and were only there for about an hour.  So…we took the opportunity to start exploring! If you walk out the back gate of Regents, you run into Baker’s Street and Marylabone which are two big streets with shopping, a tesco (mini-mart) and phones! So the girls and I went ahead and bought our cool Samsung E-10-80 phones, which took us all back to the good ole’ middle school days because it's T-9. We are struggling remembering how to use this haha.  I can literally call and text, so basically you have to be super up-to-date technology wise… NOT!

After we got our phones we walked through a neighborhood, went to a pharmacy to buy some shower stuff and went to a Sherlock Holmes museum! Very cool souvenirs, mysteries, books and stuff like that. It was a good neat. 

So that’s what I’ve been up to. Our grounds are absolutely gorgeous and back up to a park that is always busy (but not a place to be at night).  Our dorm building has old wooden stairs and red carpet- so it’s an old church-y feeling, but it’s nice.  Inside the room we have a fire place, mirror, 3 single beds, and 3 dressers and desks. Our room is bigger than the dorms at Transy, but…the bathrooms not so much. They are very nice with tile and beautiful faucets and such, however there are 2 showers & 2 toilets (we have 2 on our floor but the halls have at least 50 girls if not more so hopefully we'll figure out everyone's schedules- or maybe they'll take the european style and not have much hygiene, b/c you know the Tamers & I definitely won't).  I’ll try to post some pictures soon though, we took a few today but I have to figure out how to post them on this blog. I’ll update you again soon!

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

 ---Ralph Waldo Emerson

Y.O.L.O -- Court