Hello everyone, so I know I'm pretty terrible at keeping things updated on here so here comes a monster post! So the last time I posted I had just gotten back from Bath, and it's been 2 weeks since then. Ok. So everything has still been awesome, I'm still having the time of my life and classes have been going great. I've been booking all of my travel plans and I'm going to Amsterdam next weekend!! I'm so excited, my friend Jim and I are going and we're going to meet up with a few other kids that we've been getting to be really good friends with. So that's going to be awesome, and then the weekend after that is my trip to Wales! (So Mom, make sure you send my sneakers and bathing suit soon... haha).
So in the past 2 weeks I've kind of been getting into my routine, but I've still been doing a lot of touristy things and working my way through all the places that I'm "supposed" to do. My International Marketing class is basically just a field trip every other week with the excuse of doing projects on all of these places, so we went to Piccadilly Circus and Hamley's (GIANT awesome toy store), and the school paid for us to go to the Tower of London (which is 14 pounds so it was going to be pretty expensive). Tomorrow we're taking a tour of the Chelsea football stadium, and with my British Life and Cultures class we took a tour of Parliament yesterday! We weren't allowed to take pictures inside there unfortunately but I'll put up pictures from the Tower and other places. Other than that, I still have to get to Westminster Abbey and Speaker's Corner, but I've pretty much gotten to all of the big stuff. Friday I went to Camden Town which was AWESOME, it was like the goth version of Adam's Morgan in DC, just absolutely crazy, everyone there was like under the age of 27 and had crazy dyed hair and piercings. It was just really sweet. And yesterday Dana and I went to the Portobello Market, although we got there kind of late because we got distracted by a bunch of old vintage shops on the way, so we only caught the end but we're definitely going back because what we saw of it was really really cool.
Other than touristy things, I've mostly been going out at night to a bunch of different places, we want to meet as many new people as possible and try as many places as possible so we've been trying a huge variety of different places. For Inauguration we went to this place in Piccadilly called the Sports Cafe, it's really really really American but that was kind of where we wanted to be for Inauguration so it worked out well. That's also where we went to see the AFC and NFC playoffs, even though with the time difference here that meant we were there until about 3:30-4 in the morning! But I've been getting sick of Piccadilly, it's really just for tourists and barely anyone there is even British to begin with so I think we're going to start going to university student union pubs instead, we went to the one at Imperial College last night and it was so fun!! So I think that's the new plan, for a while at least.
I haven't been going out to eat very much since it ends up adding up so quickly, even though it's not too expensive, but today I went to this awesome cafe right around the corner from where I live and it was SO CUTE! Definitely the kind of place that I would love to go to all the time and be like a morning regular, if I could afford to eat out every morning. Their bagels were only a pound each and you could get a full English breakfast plus coffee or tea for 4 pounds 70! And they have really good coffee and a few tables, so I think it's going to be a good place to go and do homework and stuff. But I really only mentioned this cafe because we went there on our way out to go to the Chinese New Year celebration in Trafalgar Square! Apparently it's a tradition in London to celebrate the Chinese New Year on the Sunday after it actually happens, so we went today and it was interesting. They had a lot of speeches and not very much music or anything, which is what I was expecting and hoping to see, plus it was FREEZING out today and snowing!! So we didn't stay long but we saw them do the dragon dance thing and that was cool enough for me.
So other than that I've just been having an awesome time, I feel like I've figured things out pretty well and I can get around and not stick out too much when I want to, and I'm so excited to start traveling and going to less touristy parts of the city. I noticed I definitely feel comfortable now using the lingo, which is pretty cool, and I'm getting more used to the general sense of humor, which is definitely different but still funny. I miss things like ramen and Oreos and plumbing that works easily, but so many things make up for them so it all works out and I've really only been homesick like once in the 4 weeks I've been here. I just love it so much and I get so sad every time I think about leaving!
Alright, this is a ridiculously long post but the only other things I wanted to say is that I've been drinking (decaf) tea obsessively and I haven't had coffee the entire time I've been here!!! And I've had like... 1 can of coke. So my caffeine addiction is officially at bay.... for now... haha. Ok well enjoy the pictures and hopefully I'll update sooner than 2 weeks from now! Bye everyone!
