i'm in london!

Hello loves! I arrived safe and sound in the UK Tuesday morning around 10:30 my time (about 5:30 a.m. your time). It’s taken awhile to get settled and such… I still have no internet in my flat (I’m writing this at the computer lab in Faraday House, where all of my classes are), and my clothes are strung about as the teeny closets we were each given came with about six hangers. On the bright side, we have two bathrooms and a decently furnished kitchen which I WILL be using to cook (eeek!!!). I have four other flatmates: Lucy, Julie, Erica, and Christian- all very nice girls and we are all getting along quite well so far.

Since we’ve arrived, SU Abroad has kept us very busy with meetings, dinners, meet&greets, trips, orientations, and registrations. In between these little things we’ve done a fair amount of exploring and I’m starting to get the hang of my surroundings, but just barely. The streets here aren’t like at home where all of the streets run parallel and there are definitive neighborhood blocks. It’s very easy here to take a wrong turn and end up in a completely different part of town, not that I’m speaking from experience or anything…

The first night here we were fortunate enough to visit the London Eye and see the city from about 135m (443 ft) up. The Eye is directly above the River Thames in Central London and has a great view of Parliament and Buckingham Palace (among other sights). Later that night Julie and I walked to the London Pub down the street and enjoyed a drink with some Wake Forest boys Julie recognized from school. I’m not going to lie, I am fully taking advantage of being legal here and enjoying every minute of it :) Sorry mom and dad!!

Wednesday was a day of exploring… some of the flatmates and I headed a little father downtown and found a place to get cell phones and also found the grocery store, which was a relief because I have been starving since our arrival. Sainsbury’s is a very popular market here and also a popular place to grab lunch. I was pleased as the prices are not as expensive as I had anticipated, more similar to prices at home if anything. And they sell every kind of liquor you can think of in the grocery store, which is illegal in the States. I’ve found that the food here is very hearty, creamy, thick, breaded, starchy… basically everything I don’t like! I am not shying away, as I am willing to try most anything, but so far I’ve been surviving on cereal and fruit. We have yet to cook a “family dinner” as the flatmates and I are calling it, but I think I may give it a shot tonight.

Wednesday night was crazy… the flatmates and I had a toast together and then went down the street to hang out with a few more people Julie knows from school. We took the tube to Leicester Square to a club called Walkabout which was ridiculously fun. It was student night so drinks and cover were cheaper, and they played mostly American dance music so we enjoyed ourselves. I’d say probably half of the program was at this club that night so I met a bunch of new people.

On to Thursday…. Lucy and I are on a quest to find clothing hangers for our closets (which is not an easy task around here!!). We were advised by a woman in the Acorn office (Acorn is the group we are renting our flat from) to try this store called Argos, which is a catalog store, very different than anything we have at home. Basically you walk in and there’s a huge catalog of basically anything you can think of. You fill out a form for what you want, take it to the desk, and they retrieve it for you in the back. No shopping involved really. BUT, they didn’t have anything but wooden hangers…. So I’m still without. On the flip side, trying to get to Argos was a task in itself, as I already mentioned how you can get lost if you just take one wrong turn. We ended up in Oxford Circus, which is a bit of a hike from the flat. It’s basically a big downtown with shops and eateries and such… We came across my new favorite store, Paperchase (www.paperchase.co.uk), which is all stationary and journals and pens, craft supplies, markers, scrapbooking stuff, and it’s three floors, so basically I spent two hours of my life browsing through the store. Look for some pretty fabulous postcards from me once I figure out how to send mail to the US, haha.

Today is registration day and it’s staggered by last name so luckily I don’t have to be down to Faraday until about 3. I think I may have twisted my ankle the other day as it’s a little swollen and hurts to walk on it, so I’ve been trying to stay off it as much as possible which means I can’t really go anywhere as all people do in London is walk. I may go to the square (park) down the street and read a bit since the sun is shining today. We’ve been thoroughly lucking out with the weather since we got here. I believe we are also signing up for field trips today… SUA has a bunch of interesting things planned for us so I’m looking forward to what’s ahead.

It’s safe to say I am honestly having the time of my life out here and I anticipate the rest of the semester will be equally as exciting. This is going to be a semester of memories for sure. It’s such an amazing feeling to know that I am having so much fun and accomplishing my goals at the same time. I am very fortunate to be going to a school with such a respectable abroad program.

More stories to come. I miss you all and hope to hear from you soon. Cheers!