British Museum

Today, Kevin and I went down to the British Museum. The number of artifacts and exhibits this museum had to offer were uncountable! Similar to last week's adventure at the National Gallery, it took us close to 3 hours to cover a little more than half of the museum. Its funny because when we first arrived here, everyone kept saying "you can't see London in a life time" and I have come to the conclusion that it is because you can hardly see a museum in a day! The British Museum inlcuded more than just british artifacts, it went through some of the ancient european empires, ancient egypt, and all the other continents  as well! We also got to hold old forms of currency, including a spainish coin made over 1,000 years ago! Other neat things on exhibit here were The Rosetta Stone, Mummys, and Roman Statues!

The Rosetta Stone

The Great Emperior, Cesear

Ancient Egyptian Mummy

In other news, Kevin and I have booked our trip to Dublin, Ireland for late February! 

Sicky.

It appears as though everyone is catching a slight bug that has been going around here lately. Thankfully, all it is sore throats and a little cough here and there. Kevin & I have both appeared to come down with it as well, but we stopped by the pharmacy today (typically called a chemist here) where the pharmacist recommend us to dissolve aspirin in water and gargle & drink it. We've also been taking some throat throat lozenges (they actually call them that here!! it made me so happy because no one at school knew what I was talking about when I called them that!!) Yesterday seemed to be the peak point for me as far as soreness, so hopefully it all gets better soon.

On top of that, one of the girls that is also studying abroad here from my home university (and is in my sorority) found out she had bed bugs from her bed in the dorm, which makes me very thankful for being in the homestay right about now. The university here didn't seem to really know what to do at first, but they are putting her somewhere else for the week to give them time to get a new mattress, headboard and & box spring along with cleaning everything in the room.

Things like this really make me appreciate how awesome of a school High Point really is and all the measures they take to keep the students safe & healthy!

On other news, as requested by my mom, below is my address here in my homestay!

30 Grange Ave

Twickenham

Greater London, England

TW2 5TW

I'm not entirely sure how you write out an address over here, but thats what was on my paper when I moved in, so hopefully its laid out in the correct format!

Little Things

So, I thought I would do a little post about random things that I have noticed throughout the last 2 weeks:

1. Cats here are much bigger then cats at home. Like what is considered a "fat cat" at home is a normal size cat here.

2. The word pants means underwear here, and the word trousers means pants. Its confusing.

3. Fries = chips, but curly fries are just called curly fries ???

3b. American Chips = Crisp

4. English food is awful. period.

5. Baked beans belong in the breakfast category

6. There is way too many coins in their currency system

7. Everything comes in smaller sizes: food portions, shampoo size bottles, tissue boxes, etc.

8. All their sandwiches (at least in the cafeteria) have mayo on them

9. English coke isn't like American Coke

10. They make pizzas with hot dogs in the crust

10b. Hot dogs come in cans here.

11. They do wear deodorant, Matt Rolfes was wrong.

First Week of School

I've officially completed my first week of college in Britain. Actually, I finished my first week yesterday. Here at St. Mary's classes only meet once a week for about 2 hours each (totally different than college back in America). I have somehow managed my schedule so that I only have classes Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday giving myself a 4 day weekend... every weekend. My first class was suppose to be on Monday, however, after waiting for the teacher and students to show up to class that morning I found out that my teacher forgot to e-mail the international students saying his classes were canceled. 

The rest of my scheduled classes did go through as planned. I only have one class on Tuesday, which is a religion class, and it is fairly awkward since I am the only international student in the class. My Wednesday is a little packed with my last two classes (but I can't really complain since this time last year my Wednesdays consisted on 3 lectures & 2 labs). I have a philosophy class in the morning and a history class in the afternoon. My philosophy class gave me my second "reality shock" because during a class discussion all the students were talking so fast that I couldn't understand them! I felt as if I was in Germany or France and they were speaking another language! 

Along with the start of classes this week, Kevin and I have decided that Thursdays will be our "tourist-y" days since neither of us have classes that day. Today was our first tourist day on our own, and we spent it by taking the train down to Central London and visiting the National Gallery. One of the craziest things about the cities over here is that many of their museums are free, including this one! I was unfortunately not allowed to take any pictures in the gallery, but words cannot describe how many pictures there were in this museums. Kevin and I were there for over 2 hours and only got through 1/2 of the museum! But in that 2 hours, the number of famous paintings we saw is uncountable. We got to personally see the art work of Leonardo Di Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, etc. After a few hours of exploring the gallery our tummys started to rumble. Just a 5 minute walk from the Gallery was London's Chinatown! We stopped in one of the restaurants there to grab an early dinner (don't ask how Kevin got me to eat there, I don't even know how it happened.) After dinner we went into M&M World and headed back to Twickenham. 

National Gallery at Night

had to take this classic picture

M & M World!

Central London & Birthday

Its been a very busy day here as you could imagine. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this big day with being in a different country and all, but it all played out.

On Friday, Kevin & I wandered through the halls of the university trying to find our classrooms for the semester. It was very difficult because (like there streets here) the school does not work like a grid system. It is probably more similar to Harry Potter's Hogwarts then a regular school structure. Stairs pretty much appear randomly. There is no logic in the ordering of the numbers in some cases. The building itself which holds the classroom is actually multiple buildings that were attached at random points. Or your classroom could in fact be above the campus bar (yes, the campus here has its own bar right in the center of campus). It was easy to say that we were very confused.We did find the "famous" Waldegrave Drawing room which belong a very wealthy Madame Waldegrave.

waldegrave drawing room

That evening, a group of the girls in the study abroad program went out to the next town over Kingston and shop around, plus get a feel for the train system here. Kingston was a lot of fun but very very cold. We all were introduced to the store PrimMart, which is similar to a forever 21, but even cheaper. It was quite dangerous for the large group of girls going in there! But we did manage to take some groups shots for everyone as a tradition!

most of us in front of the telephone booth structure in Kingston!

That night we all hung out at the dorms in anticipation for midnight. There are a few year-round students here currently because Education majors have to come back before the rest of the school, and they have been an amazing time to hang out with and have answered so many of our (silly) questions. They were all excited to be apart of my 21st birthday, one even gave me her old sash from her 21st and even popped off some streamers when it hit midnight! Before midnight though, we all headed into Twickenham and headed into one of the local bars  Spoons. Unfortunately, the bars in town stop selling at midnight (odd, right?). But Kevin got my drink for the celebration right before and we had a nice toast to the start of the 21st birthday!

First Drink!

I spent my 21st Birthday on a walking tour of London that was apart of our program. We got to walk all round Central London seeing various sights such as the Buckingham Palace, the Trafalgar Square, the Westminister Abbey, etc. However, it was the coldest experience I have ever felt. I have never ever recalled being so cold in my life. The tour was very nice, but I do wish the tour would have had nicer weather! There were lots of pictures taken throughout the tour, unfortunately through my batteries in my nice camera died 4 pictures in! Bad Luck! After the tour we ate a local american-ized pub and made our way back to the university. It was quite an experience, since we read the sign wrong and were convinced we had 2 minutes to run across the station & put money on our ticket cards when we actually had 20.

Horse Guards

Buckingham Palace

The rest of my birthday was mostly spent resting, regaining heat, and hanging out in the dorms with everyone followed by a call home. More pictures from Central London and all other events can be found in my Facebook page under the album "London!" 

Classes here start Monday which will be another culture shock for all of the study abroad-ers here, but we are all looking forward to it!

xoxo

The First Few Days

Hello from London! Its approximately 4:30 over here, while most of my family and friends at home are just approaching lunch time. Its been an interesting and packed first few days here in London! And there wasn't much time to share it until now! 

Monday - Tuesday:

My first part of my adventure began at the Louisville Airport for my first flight to Atlanta around 2:00pm. It was an easy 1 hour flight, but a lot of turbulence to start off my trip. I also sat next to a gentlemen that was from Nigeria and spoke no English. He was very confused most of the flight it seemed like, but then again I don't really know since he didn't speak English.

I landed in Atlanta to find that I had to get onto train (yes, a train in the airport) inorder to get to the terminal of my second flight. Luckily I had a 2 hour layover and had plenty of time to sit, relax, and get some food before the big flight.

The plane that was taking me to London was the biggest thing I had ever seen. You entered the plane in the middle of it, rather than the very front. There were 7 chairs in a row broken into 3 columns. I was lucky enough to have a window seat to enjoy the view... which ended up being mostly nothing but black since my flight was overnight. Even though the ride was about 8 hours, it was still decent. Each person had their own little screen that was built into the back of the chair in front of you. I was able to watch any movie or tv show I wanted or  I could track the plane's flight path. We were also provided with a decent dinner and then most of the passengers fell asleep... expect me of course. In the morning we were served a little breakfast and some orange juice. It was a beautiful sight coming into London (at 6:30 in the morning that is) when it was still pitch black and there were lights glowing from below.

plane to London

After we landed I had the lovely opportunity of going through the customs and having my passport checked and asked numerous questions on why I was entering the country (quite intimidating actually). After that I was finally allowed to collect my bag, which thankfully also made its way to London and wasn't lost. I then had to journey around the Heathrow Airport (which is the second biggest airport in the world, right behind the Atlanta Airport). I had to hop on ANOTHER TRAIN and venture around this airport just to find the meeting spot for the group. By this point it was going on 8:00am London time (3 am Louisville time), and it took 4 employees, 3 Britians, and 30 minutes for me to reach my spot. Shortly after I arrived, the other students from my school (Kevin, Abigial, and Emily) arrived and we eventually meet loads of other students that would be attending the school as well. We all chated and waited till the coach bus picked us up at noon.
Once we got to our new school we went over a few things then got to go to our new homes/dorms for the next few months. I am in a homestay program so I am living about 10 minutes walking distance from campus with a local family. I am enjoying the stay, it is giving me the true British lifestyle. Kevin is also in the program and is in a residence that is about 5 minutes from my place and it is on my way to campus as well. We all got settled in the new living arrangements and then met up as a group and ate dinner in their cafeteria (called a refectory here). Its a bit different than the way universities at home distribute their food. It works as a point system, where you get 7 points per dinner and each food item is worth a specific point. It is something we are all trying to get use to, especially since they are not American size portions). After we ate our peer mentor for the program took us around the town and showed us a few places.

Wednesday:
We spent almost the entire day in orientations, with a few breaks. The orientations mostly consisted of how things work at school here and how they are different then back home. At this point though, the jet leg had hit most of us and we were all very tired and worn out from being up for so long from being up so long between Monday and Tuesday. However that did not stop a group of us girls from walking downtown during one of our breaks and getting some essentials. We also stopped into a local Starbucks (it was a surprise to us too!), but unfortunately it tasted nothing like the ones at home. We continued on with orientations for the rest of the day. Later during the night, we all meet up in the dorms and hung out and got to meet some of the British students that also attended the university. We all sat around and made fun of each others accents and had a good time. We then went out to a local hang-out that was hosting an themed event and got to dance around and laugh and have a good time. All the study abroad-ers pretty much stuck together because it was little intimidating, and we all agreed thats when the culture shock kicked in.


downtown twickenham

Today!
Today has mostly been free time. We got a tour of the campus, which is very confusing for such a small campus.  But it amazing the history of it. It use to be the home of Horace Walpole, the first English Gothic Writer. The campus is also home to the Gold Medalist of the Long distance running, Mo Farah (I think that is his name) and he frequently trains at the facility. Along with that Pope Benedict has visited the campus and held special meetings in the facility and McJagger celebrated his birthday here once! Other than touring the campus, a large group of us went exploring along the Thames River and some more in the Downtown Twickenham.

chapel on the campus


Heres to the new adventures heading my way!
xoxo

Packed Bags

My bags are all packed!  With the use of some muscles and vacuum bags I have managed to make one semesters worth of clothes fit into one suitcase under 50 lb. I also couldn't have managed without the pretty new luggage Santa got me for Christmas! Having to pack for basically 5 months through a mixture of weather was not an easy task, especially since you never know what you're going to want to wear!  

The beautiful Chaps Central Park Luggage piece I got,
with fancy spinning wheels (!!!)

Now, with only 3 full days left to go until the big voyage its time to see a few friends (and when I say a few, I literally mean like 2 friends) and enjoy American food. 

xoxo.

admissions test.

T-7 days till the PCAT.

countless hours put in, countless more to go.

xoxo

2013.

With the start of a new year, comes new adventures. And lucky for me those adventures start off within the first two weeks of the year: Taking the Pharmacy College Admissions Test (PCAT) in just a week, spending my spring semester in London, and hitting the big 21. With this new year and new adventures, I want to push myself to try new things and really work on the cliche "new year resolution." The opportunities I have the year are too many too count, and I am hoping to share most of them with you.

xoxo. Samee