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
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