The Bare Necessities

I haven't talked much about actually living an everyday life in London. As much fun and games as this trip has to offer I am also living here and of course have regular chores and cleaning to maintain.

Cooking is definitely more difficult. I have a gas stove which is much harder to cook on than an electric stove. I am slowly figuring out how it works. I managed to make apple crisp yesterday (I needed a little taste of fall) and my roommates and I cooked a real dinner last night that was delicious. Food is also slightly more expensive here. Prices might seem similar but when you change the British pound to American dollars you are spending more. Luckily my roommates and I are splitting the cost of food and cooking together saving us all some money. We also found a pound land really close to our building which is very similar to a dollar store but everything is actually a pound. We can get some of our easy cooked food and snacky stuff there. Markets are also very helpful for fresh fruits and vegetables at a reasonable price. I am so happy we are finally cooking real food and not just living off of canned soup.

Next is laundry. I have one laundry mat near my dorm. The prices are outrageous! It costs 4.65 pounds to put your laundry through the wash. That is about $7.50 just to wash my clothes and the an extra pound to dry them. That is a crazy price and I have decided that I have better things to spend my money on. I am now hand washing my clothes in the bath tub. We have cleaning people that clean our bathrooms every Tuesday. Lucky for me I don't have classes leaving me time that day to use the clean tub to wash clothes. Of course I have to give my jeans and things a good washing a few times while I am here but for the most part it will be going back old school and hand washing everything.

We have a cleaning crew that cleans our flat. The only place they don't clean is our room but I am perfectly okay with that. The only thing weird about this is they have weird rules about what we can and can not leave out. We could potentially get charged if we do not leave things in a certain way. Personally I feel like if you are going to provide us with a cleaning service don't charge me for leaving some dishes out to dry. If that's the case I can clean my own flat. My flatmates and I have done well so far keeping our area clean enough so I am sure we will be fine. I just thought that was kind of weird.

I started classes today. I had The Global Markets and The Role of a Manager. I like both classes so far. They do not seem to be to difficult and the course work should not be to strenuous. I have two more classes tomorrow so we will see how those go. It is weird having to take the tube to class. I am use to a 5 minute walk to class but now I have a half hour tube ride just to get to campus. My building is currently under construction making it so much more confusing to get around. Hopefully that will be done soon.

I have now planned five trips traveling to different countries. I leave for Ireland tomorrow and the I also have Scotland, Italy, and Porto booked. I am planning on heading to Plymouth, England to visit Kenny and we might head into France for a few days. I still am hoping to go to Germany and Prague but we will see how much money I have left. I also need to remember I have school work to do too. But I am usually on top of things and as long as I make deadlines for myself I don't think I will have to much of a problem. I have a crazy travel bug right now and will probably sleep for all of January with my next 2.5 month schedule but hey I'm only here for three months. I have to live out my dream while I can!

I will not have internet for the next few days seeing as I will be staying in a hostel but I will fill everyone in on my trip to Blarney and Cork, Ireland once I return.

Cheers,
Allie

Being a Tourist!

I have had such a crazy 4 days!! Orientation was done by Tuesday so I had the whole week to explore the city.

On Tuesday, my new group of friends and I went to The Tower of London. We had missed our tour the day before because of our course meetings but we got free tickets from API that were good for the week. The Tower was really cool. We did a "guided tour" with a "Beefeater." It was kinda funny because when I asked for a tour guide they didn't know what I was talking about but said they had guided tours. I would have thought they meant the same thing but I guess in England there are not "tour guides." The history of the Towers was really interesting and the Crown Jewels were beautiful! The Beefeater gave us a lot of different information about the towers such as the meaning behind the names of the Towers. I found it really interesting that the Beefeaters and their families still live at The Tower of London. After that we walked across Tower Bridge had an early dinner and then headed back to our dorms for the bar crawl our RA was putting on. It shocked me that in England it is very common for Resident Halls to have bar crawls. When we did one at Plymouth for my Event Marketing class we couldn't even say we were associated with the school. They are so common out here that they have groups that put on the bar crawls for you.

Thursday was a semi relaxing day. We stayed in our part of town during the day but we got a boat cruise down the Thames River sponsored by my University at night. The city was gorgeous from the water. It was a three hour ride and by the end the whole city was lite up. I honestly had never been so happy or seen anything so beautiful but I explained all that in my last post. It was such a mesmerizing night and definitely one of my favorite nights of my trip so far.

Friday was our "tourist" day. We started out at Kensington Gardens and saw Kensington Palace. We then walked through Hyde Park and made our way to Buckingham Palace. We went up close this time rather than just staying more on the outskirts like we did during our original tour. We walked down to Big Ben and Parliament. We originally had planned on walking through Westminster Abbey but decided we wanted more time to do that and are going to go back on another day. We found a pub on the opposite side of the Thames. I got fish and chips. Not going lie it was the best fish and chips I have had. On the boat cruise a few nights before we had seen flying swings so we decided to head towards the London Eye and see if we could find them. There was a carnival there that had the swings. It is only in London for another week so we were so excited. The swings went up 200 feet in the air!! They were so much fun and all I could think about was how when Jackie and I were little we always had to do the flying swings. The view of the city was beautiful from so high up. We bought our tickets for the London Eye but we wanted to wait for it to get darker. We got drinks and around 7:00 we made our way to the Eye. The views were amazing! It was slightly disappointing because it was raining a little but once we were up there it wasn't bad. Plus it made it seem a little more "London" with the rain. On our way back to the tube we walked over Westminster Bridge. The view was beautiful with the bridge in front of Big Ben. I was excited because I always see pictures like that and had wanted one of my own. I can't wait to go back during the day to get a few more. I definitely was a little camera happy that day but  we were being tourists so it was acceptable.

Kensington Palace

Buckingham Palace

Parliament

Flying swings!

London Eye

On the London Eye

On Saturday, API was bringing us to tour the Harry Potter Studio. My inner geek definitely came out when we got there. Being part of the Harry Potter generation, I found the whole thing fascinating. The work that went into making these movies was incredible! The sets and costumes were so cool and knowing that I was on the actual sets where things were filmed not just a replica was awesome. It gave a lot of insight on the ins and outs of film making too, not just the Harry Potter films. It was a pretty great day.

I am getting to know the girls I have become friends with really well. We have spent basically the whole week together and we are all getting a long great. There are four of us from Massachusetts which will be fun because we can see each other once we are home. I am really happy I have found a group of girls out here that I get a long with so well. That was definitely one of my fears of studying abroad alone, not finding friends. But I have and they are great! We already have a trip to Ireland planned for this coming weekend!!

This morning I got up early to tour the Gherkin which is one of the big financial buildings in London but when we got there there was at least a 5 hour wait. We decided it was not worth it and ended up walking through some of the markets around where I live. I finally found my white lace dress! I can't wait to wear it to the theater. The market had some really cool things. I'm excited to go back another time and really look through everything.

It is raining today now though and I am very tired from such a busy week so I will be taking is easy today and staying in. Today is the first really rainy day we have had so I can't complain to much. Classes start this week but I don't actually start till Wednesday. I am actually excited for classes. I think they will be good and hopefully I will learn a lot. Sorry this post is so long. I have had such a busy, amazing week that it was hard for me to post but I didn't want to miss anything. I am sure things will slow down once I start school. I love London and am so excited to see what else the city has to offer me! Until next time.

Cheerio,
Allie

Fallen in Love

I have literally fallen in love with the city of London. I have never been so happy in my entire life as I was tonight on the boat cruise. London is the most beautiful city I have ever been to and when all the lights go on at night it becomes so breathtaking that the only thing I wanted to do was stare at Big Ben, The Tower Bridge, The London Eye, and the rest of the city. I took so many pictures of the same thing tonight but a picture simply does not capture the pure beauty of just staring. I honestly think I could have stayed on that boat for hours just looking off into the city. I wanted to soak up every moment that I was on that boat. This is the third time I have "pinched" myself as my mom would say. But tonight I pinched myself hard. I cannot believe I am living in London for the next three months. The past week has been crazy but I can honestly say I have never been happier. I want to bottle up this feeling forever because it is honestly the best feeling anyone can experience. 

I always dreamed of studying abroad but I never expected it to be this amazing. I know it's very cliche to say that study abroad changed my life and to say how amazing it is but until you actually experience it, no one will understand. Tonight was definitely the most amazing night so far. It was like a dream come true. I now understand why people study abroad and never come home. I am totally and completely in love with this city. It has stolen my heart.
 

"Remember this is an Academic Program"

Today we figured out our class schedules. I only have to go to class on Wednesday's and Thursday's! I am super excited!! I have five days that I can travel and whatnot which is half the reason I studied abroad. I had drop my International Business class which probably would have been really interesting but I picked up a class called "The Role of a Manager" my adviser said that its a really popular class at the school which made me feel better because that must mean its a good class.

The class I am most excited for is my theater class. I get to go to the Theater and watch productions and get credits for it. That in itself is awesome but I will also get tours of some of the majors theaters, meet the casts, talk to critiques and learn how to write a critique for the papers. This class literally has nothing to do with marketing but I could not be more excited! I get to dress up for the theater and do all these amazing things that I love. I know my whole family will be jealous of this one.

So in my last post I forgot to talk about Argos. Its the weirdest little store here. I came across it on my first day walking around my section of the city. It is basically like sears on steroids. I was so confused the first time I walked in. When you go into the store you look through a catalog. You then write down the order number and check to see if its in stock. once you have picked all your items you go to check out where they place your order and pay. You wait in another line while they pull the items out of storage and then you pick them up when your number is called. Its so weird and personally I think that taking your own items off the shelf and being able to inspect them goes much faster. At least the store has everything!

Well that's all for now!

Cheerio,
Allie

I am in a Dream!

The past four days have been crazy and absolutely amazing! I love London! At first I was slightly disappointed at how far away my dorm was from my campus but I don't think it will be bad and our area seems to have a lot going on at night which will make it really fun!

The first day and a half I was by myself. It wasn't as bad as I thought, I did some exploring and found different places to buy things that we need for our flat. It was actually really helpful for when people started moving in because I was able to lead them around.  I didn't experience the night life at full force until my third night. The first two nights, I and everyone else that moved in early were so tired that we didn't stay out late. When we did go out we went into the main part of the city and went to two different bars. Both of them were really fun. One of them had a live band that was playing music I danced to at middle school dances. It made it so much more fun to be dancing to some oldies.

I have met so many new people the past two days as everyone is beginning to move in. Many of the girls in my program are from Massachusetts or the New England area which is really cool. Everyone seems super nice and I can't wait to get to know them better. Once we get our class schedules figured out this week we are going to start planning trips to other countries and whatnot. I have awesome roommates too! I think i got lucky because a lot of people don't like some if theirs. We are all so excited to be here and are having so much fun already.

Today API took us on a walking tour of London. We saw so many different sites. I cant wait to go back and take more pictures with me in them. I can't believe I have only been here for 4 days! I still have 3 months to live here. I feel like I still have so much to see and do and I can't wait!


London has been amazing so far. I can't even imagine how great the rest of the semester is going to be. I have orientation at school tomorrow and some more fun tours and things going on this week before classes. More pictures are on my Facebook. Until next time...

Cheerio,
Allie

Packing Up and Heading Out

It is crazy to think that in an hour I am leaving for the airport. I have dreamed of studying abroad since Junior year of high school after I traveled to France and Spain. I am finally all packed and ready to go. I have said my goodbye's to all my friends and most of my family. It all seems so surreal. 

The past week has been crazier than I thought it would be. I have gone through all the up's and down's of leaving. The amount of times I repacked my suitcase or realized I forgot something and made another trip to Walmart was unreal. But I managed to fit all of my stuff into one suite case which is crazy considering what I usually bring to school. 

The goodbye's have been the hardest. I have said goodbye to everyone important to me. I went up to school to visit my roommates. It's so weird thinking I won't be living with them this semester or even taking classes with all my friends. I said goodbye to my home friends before they went to school. It is weird to think I wont see them for three months and we thought going off to college was hard. I have seen most of my cousins and my grandma and will say bye to my immediate family tonight. 

I am so anxious to board the plan and begin this journey that I have been saving for and planning for over a year. My study abroad dream is finally coming true!

I hope you enjoy my blog as I update everyone on my trip. I will post again soon but for now I need to finish getting ready. I'm off to London!

Cheerio!

Allie