SORRY I have been missing!

Dear followers,

I wanted to sincerely apologize for not keeping you up to date on all my daily adventures here in the UK.  I am back, hopefully for good this time; and I will do my best to catch you up on everything that has happened.  I don't even know where to begin! So much has happened in just a little under 2 months that I have been here.  I feel that I am a different person, more confident in myself, I feel that I have gained a life-time of experiences over here in London, leaving my ordinary, American and a little bit sheltered life in New Hampshire; I feel that here I am a new person who is more fun-loving, adventurous, independent, and mature.  Deciding to leave Durham was an easy decision, but the weeks and days that led up to me actually leaving were very hard, and when I finally arrived in London, those first few weeks were very hard for me.  I felt very homesick, I mourned the loss of a beloved family pet, alone over here (my friends here were very supportive) and I generally just missed home, and it wasn't until talking to a friend that I realized I wasn't the only feeling homesick, in fact everyone around me was going through the same stages as myself.  Anyway I think to sum up my feelings, I am VERY glad that I am here; London is absolutely the best place to study.  There are always so many things going on here, whether I spend the afternoon eating lunch in Trafalgar Square people watching, or walking along the Thames in a light misty rain and fog.  The classes here are great, as since we are in the city there are so many field-trips to go on, and places to explore and learn about!

The friends I made here, are extremely important to me.  I hope that our friendships will maintain once we arrive back on our home-shore.  I have had so many adventures with these people, and I won't name names, but there is a group of probably 6 of us and we have just been having the time of our lives.  I went to Ireland, Cork with a few of these people and I have a trust in them that I don't have with other people, I feel safe traveling with them and there is never a dull moment.  I also have been meeting a lot of non-UNH people here, and I really look forward to hanging out with my roommate and her friends, they are all just so much fun to be around, and I am truly happy that I have such a great roommate.

Two weekends ago I was in Cork, Ireland just visiting and being all touristy and stuff.  Ireland is such a beautiful country; rolling hills, rocky coast, green fields of grass, and sheep, sheep, sheep and more sheep, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  We stayed in a small hostel (right across from the train station for those who have been to Cork) it was pretty nice, and the only beds they had were bunk-beds so it was fun all sleeping in the same room on these really squeaky and unstable bunk beds, it felt like a big sleepover every-single night.  The second day we went on a tour of the Cliffs of Moher, it was so beautiful but also very windy on the cliffs.  I really enjoyed that day, because it was a long drive to the cliffs we were able to see much of the country side, plus our bus driver drove us on the rocky coast of Ireland and it was such an unbelievably cool experience.  At one point we stopped to check out a cemetery, and we were literally in the middle of nowhere, in Ireland!  That trip was also really enjoyable because my friend from UNH who is studying in Spain flew out to Ireland to meet us there, so I had so much fun seeing her.

The Guinness in Ireland was amazing.  I didn't get the chance to visit the Guinness factory in Dublin, but I swear the Guinness that you drink in Ireland is better than any Guinness that you drink anywhere else, it was delicious (and that's not something that you would say about a beer).  Luckily my friend and I visited the Jameson Whiskey Factory in Middleton Ireland, and that was a really fun adventure. We got there and we were walking towards the factory and it starts to rain lightly, we continue to walk, it starts to pour and of course we were not prepared for this little freak storm, the next thing we know it starts to hail, taking shelter we hoped to wait out the storm.  Continues to rain and hail, we decide to run for it (more like she runs for it, I stand there shivering for a few minutes realizing that it isn't going to stop anytime soon and then regrettably running in the rain to catch up to her).  Finally we make it to the factory and the tour was really cool, any Jameson Whiskey that you drink comes from the factory that we were at, which I found to be really interesting.  I am not a huge whiskey drinker so I was excited and nervous when I was chosen to be one of the 6 people in our group to be the whiskey tasters.  We sampled Scotch Whiskey, and Jack Daniels and Jameson.  I didn't like the Scotch Whiskey at all, it had too much of a smokey taste, and the Jack Daniels was alright, and honestly I voted that the Jameson Whiskey was my favorite (I wasn't pressured!).  Afterwards I received a "Professional Whiskey Taster" diploma and I proudly took a picture of it! 

The next day we went to Blarney Castle and I was able to kiss the Irish Blarney Stone! Kissing the stone was such a unique and cool experience; first of all you have to climb the castle steps (because the stone is at the top of the castle) and the steps in the castle were very, very steep and circular.  After reaching the top, about 500 feet up or so I learned what the "procedure" was to kiss the stone; you lie on your back and hold on to two metal bars behind your head and a little Irish old man (with no teeth) holds on to your legs and lowers you through the whole in the wall of the castle and lowers you 3 or 4 feet down while you are holding on to the metal bar upside down with your LIFE, and you kiss the stone, everyone claps and you are lifted up and done!  I was shaking so much when my turn was over, I was so happy afterwards to be on solid ground.  I will try and add pictures of us kissing the stone. 

More to come soon, especially about my trip last weekend to Amsterdam!

Finally been here 1 week! Update!

Sorry avid-blog readers, I've been MIA lately, but no need to be sad because I am here to give you another exciting update! ...


So... Been here for a little over a week and what a week it has been, what a blur!  Moved in last Thursday, and met my lovely roommate Samantha, who is from Maine but goes to school in PA, she's so nice, I got very lucky!  We have a great little room, not a bad set-up at all, the desk and bureau are attached we we have a nice big windowsill that has a great view of the green gardens and lawn below.  It really feels like we are in England.  We are smack-dab in the middle of London, which is amazing.  We have the quietness of the park, but a five minute walk and you are by Madame Tussous (the world famous wax-museum) and the famous Baker Street tube station, it is quite lovely.  I was also surprised to find a small Beatles fan shop, I was estatic (being a HUGE beatles fan).  Friday was fun, we had orientation for our classes all day.  I wish I would have been MORE warned about the night-life and money-spending I would be required to do, the money gets burned through very quickly, and I have a lot of things that I have been having to cut back on, I would recommend coming to London planning on burning through a lot of cash, since the drinking age is only 18 here a lot of money is wasted on drinks.  I try to be as social as I can be, and I'm disappointed because I have to cut back on my spending, but besides the money issues what a GREAT city!  Everything is at our finger-tips, free museums, great food and drinks, British accents, and lots and lots of walking to be done.  On Saturday (I splurged, because it seemed like a once-in a lifetime experience) and dropped some valuable pounds on doing a night-boat cruise on the river Thames (pronounced "Tames") on the cruise we were offered free drinks and had a chance to socialize with other students who are doing our program.  I met some really nice girls who go to school in Kentucky (1-set of twins, and one of their friends) they were really, really nice and we had fun chatting with them.  We got to see a lot of great sites that night, including great nighttime views of Big Ben, London's famous "Eye", and the Parliament.  It was really, really fantastic and fun to do. We started classes on Monday, I am taking six-classes over here; including Contemporary London Theatre (where we get to go and see 8 PLAYS! and get a backstage tour of the National Theatre and the famous Globe Theatre), The Social-History-the making of London (we went to the British Museum for our class, and will go to more historical sites), Current Issues in Human Rights (which is really interesting), World Religions (followed by weekly trips to Mosques and Temples, god I really do love being in the city) And Introduction to Music Appreciation (we get to see Operas, and classical music shows which I am really looking forward to.). 

So classes have been great so far, I mean it's only the first week.  The college is interesting, it consists of 6 schools, all in one huge connected building (So if you chose to, you never have to go outside, but it is a huge confusing maze).  Also the weekend starts Friday, since we go to a mostly "American" and foreign school we have no Friday classes which is perfect for traveling.  This weekend for instance the school is sponsoring (for about 35 pounds, which is roughly around 50 US dollars) a trip to Cambridge.  I have posted photos to facebook, so feel free to friend me or ask me to send you photos, as I would be happy too.  I also had a really fun experience in a Pub, with my friend Jenni from home, where we were able to socialize with two chaps from Liverpool, and a very drunk older-lady (hah!) that was definitely an experience.  More to come soon!

I made it! ...Finally in London!

So I’ve finally arrived to my destination.  All my worries and anxieties about traveling are gone.  I’m here, I’ve showered, I’ve eaten a couple of meals (have been here for about 24 hours) and I’ve slept.  I don’t have any internet at the moment, so I’m typing this up before hand and I’ll add it to the blog later.  Before we boarded the plane I was over hearing a conversation of two girls (whom I suspected) were students and a boy (whom I soon realized was another UNH student who was heading there early for Regents College as well!  The plane ride wasn’t bad at all, a little turbulence (what is turbulence anyway?!) which of course is annoying and at times makes me nervous, but I’ve finally arrived in London, England still in one piece.   We (Virgin Atlantic flight 12) landed at Heathrow airport yesterday morning about an hour before we were scheduled to arrive.  I met a really nice girl on the plane and she was from Plymouth State University (I was pleasantly surprised of how many other students studying abroad on my plane there was) the plane was very empty, I sat in the row of the middle section seats, and the two seats next to me were empty, as well as the seats in front of me.  I don’t know how many seats there were on the plane, but the captain announced that there were about 126 people on board.  So we took off (my adrenaline was still rushing, my cortisol levels must have been very high all day) within the first hour they started to serve our dinner!  I really wasn’t that hungry and plane food, is well plane food.  Not that good.  It was rice, with some kind of curried chicken (very hot temperature wise!) burned my entire mouth of course in the first bite, then had to be a bit more careful, as to not burn my entire mouth off!

I settled in quite nicely and after dinner, immediately fell asleep, woke up to find only 3.5 hours left (which was really nice) so after flipping between the virtual map, I found the movie selection section and began to thumb through and finally decided to watch “Water for Elephants” which is a movie that I’ve been dying to see all summer since I finished the book (amazing book, a must read!).  The movie was about 2 hours long, so by the time I finished there was about 55 minutes left and we had begun our long descent.  It seemed like we circled for a long time before we finally landed, I thought that maybe that was because we landed 45 minutes earlier than expected.  Of course I was glad to land, but still nervous because it was not yet 7am (almost 2am EST) so I was nervous that I would have to wait around customs before I called my cousins, who were planning on picking me up a couple of tube stops down.  We got off the plane and my (new) friend waited for me and we walked (very quickly) for about 10 minutes, following the crowd from our plane to border control.

When we got to border control we realized that we had to stand in the longer of the two lines (one for EU passport holders, and the longer line for the “other” passport holders) next thing we realized was that there were about 200+ people in the line ahead of us, and we figured that we were going to be standing in that line for a very long time (which was exhausting, not only because we had our heavy carryon baggage with us, but also because in our mind it was still 2am).  Luckily for us, the two girls behind us were very chatty and were also students studying abroad (in the same program as the girl that I met on the plane whom was standing with me…).  One of the girls was from Lesley University (she was my favorite, because she was just hilarious) and another girl who was from Maine!  So all four of us (my newly acquired friends) stood in that line for what seemed like forever,  to add to our negative experience it was also just about 100 degrees in that room so we were sweating standing there, with our luggage, waiting to be welcomed into the country by the 8am stern looking, grumpy British border control agents.  Finally after what seemed like forever, I was sent to border control book number 29, shaking I walked up to the agent, ready to explain why I was here, what I was studying, and where I was living.  It was easy, he asked me why I was here, which program I was studying at, and what I was studying, finally the stamp came down on my passport and he told me sternly that I was not allowed to work while I was here, and I joked to him about how many students there were and that I was just the first of my group of students from my university studying here and that they would all be arriving on Thursday.  He replied with a “thank god I’m not working Thursday” which made me laugh.   I walked on to the baggage area with my “friends from the plane” since it had taken us so long to get through to the border control they had already taken all of our baggage off the conveyor belt (or whatever you call it) and had placed all our luggage on the floor like a “free for all”.  I was so relieved to find both my bags sitting right next to each other, I quickly grabbed them preparing myself to face the tube. 

I knew I had to find a pay-phone to call my cousins to let them know that I had landed and that I was going to be heading to them shortly.   I was nervous about this phone call, because I only had bigger bills (pounds) and I would have had to break them to smaller coins in order to make the call.  However, when I arrived out in the arrivals part of the airport I saw a bunch of men holding signs (for their guests) and I immediately went up to them, I asked them if I could use one of their phones to call my cousins, they all stared at me blankly, finally one of them asked me if they lived in London and I told him yes and showed him the number, he regrettably handed me his phone, I was so grateful! 

Finally I had reached them and said goodbye to my “newly acquired” friends, promising to meet somewhere at a pub the next week, then we all went our separate ways.  I was so grateful to have found them, I was so nervous and so glad to meet others who were my same age and realized that they were nervous too!  I have traveled a lot… I have been to Israel, Spain, and Russia etc… but never some place completely alone.

  Sighing I heaved my baggage and walked towards the signs with arrows that pointed towards the tube.  But my problems weren’t over yet, first of all I had a lot of luggage with me and heaving it (probably a quarter of a mile) through the tunnels underground that led towards the tube was no fun, I was sweating, my back was sore from carrying my heavy backpacking backpack and my computer bag, on top of that I now had to drag two different sized wheeling luggage bags.  Finally reaching the tube entrance I was squeezed in the rotating pedestal and took out my credit card to buy an oyster card (a tube pass).  I had done this before, buying subway passes in New York city, or T passes in Boston.  I followed the directions on the touch screen, and inserted my credit card, nothing happened.  Frustrated I tried again, no luck.  By now of course a small line had developed behind me.  Frustrated, I wiped my forehead and licked my lips determined that this last time it would work.  No such luck.  Dragging my bags I had to go to the ticket counter and purchased one there.  Of course when I got to the entrance I had to prepare my bags so I could quickly slip through the opened doors once my ticket was accepted.  I rode down the escalator, repeating in my head the directions my cousin had given me “take any line”.  The tube arrived just as I got to the platform and I half dragged myself and my bags in and took a seat, breathing a huge sigh of relief that I had made it at last to the tube.  The tube chugged on every minute about reminding us to “mind the gap”.  Everyone looked exhausted on the tube, presumably we were all travelers coming from the airport, and the girl across from me fell asleep on her bags.  Within ten minutes the train was PACKED, and stupid me had sat in the middle and had my bags blocking the way (I didn’t realize that the tube would be so packed, I mean it was already past 9:30 am (4:30am EST).  It was cool actually finally being out of the airport and I was most excited to see the cars driving on the other side of the street.  Other passengers started giving me weird looks and I felt extremely uncomfortable sitting there with all of my bags.  Begrudgingly I decided to get up and stand with my bags so that people could sit. 

Finally my stop (Acton Town) had arrived; I braced my body, not knowing for sure which of the doors would open.  I didn’t want to miss this stop because of my baggage.  I got off the train and it was cold!  I had forgotten what my cousins looked like, but thankfully my cousins’ wife (Gill) spotted me.  It was great to see them, I hadn’t seen them in about 10 years when we last had been in London and had stayed in their house when they vacationed in Cuba (which we Americans cannot, but the British are allowed to travel there).  It was off the car and we squeezed in elevator to get to the top of the street.  I found it weird in the elevator that the floors were listed as -1 (being the floor of the tube) and the street was 0.  Outside of the tube stop it was very busy, and I was confused and overwhelmed by all the cars that to me where driving on the WRONG side of the road.  Stuffing my bags into his saab we were off, I had forgotten (and this makes perfect sense) that not only do they drive on the wrong side of the road but the drivers side is on the right side of the car.  As mentioned before, I have traveled a lot, and been inside of a lot of foreign cars but never inside of a British car. 

We pulled up to their house and I had expected to remember the house (I’m usually good at remembering those types of details) but nothing seemed familiar to me.  I suppose now that I’ve been here for one day, things do seem more and more familiar.  Of course also everything is opposite in their house, even the turning the faucets on and off and the round door handles had to be turned counter-clock wise to open them. 

It was the biggest struggle staying up, I didn’t want to sleep I wanted to stay up as late as possible as to get accustomed more quickly to the time change.  By the time 10pm rolled around (5 pm EST) I was so tired  I could barely keep my eyes open.  I’m still tired it’s 2:12pm here and only 9:12am at home, and this is the second day I’m here.  I’m contemplating taking a nap.  My cousins have been very hospitable but at this point even though it’s the middle of the afternoon I’m still completely wiped out.  I presume I’ll feel even better tomorrow.

8 Things Americans Do When They Study Abroad in Europe

8 Things Americans Do When They Study Abroad in Europe

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2 Weeks Out.

Hello avid readers and welcome to my blog!  I am 2 weeks out from leaving my lovely hometown of Durham, NH and getting ready to go off on some big adventures.  I leave exactly two weeks from today, and right now I feel excited and anxious of all the traveling I have ahead.  I am sad to leave my friends, but excited to be in a new town, with new people, new places, new food!  I hope you all have a great semester and I hope to see you when I land back in the states in May.  Just packing and organizing now, still need to get a haircut, take out my passport, have my bags packed, say my goodbyes and I'm gone!  More to come soon!  Cheers!