Weekend in Scotland!

Our first weekend away from London! We left at 11 pm Friday night to get on our overnight bus to Scotland... It seemed like a good idea at the time. Tickets were extremely cheap, we wouldn't have to pay for a hostel that night... worst idea ever. Don't do it. None of us got like any sleep, Laura felt sick, and by the time we got there at 8 in the morning, we were all very cranky. But eventually we all perked up when it hit us that we were in SCOTLAND!!

We had to first find our hostel, which was a bit of a trip. But eventually, we found it (Thank GOD I still have my iPhone, it would have been impossible without the maps). We checked in and left our stuff at the hostel for the day. The hostel was run by people all our age and it had a hip cafe/bar area with games and a chill out room with a TV. After getting something to eat at a pub close by, we headed to Edinburgh Castle, which we could see up on the hill outside our hostel! It was  BEAUTIFUL day outside and the castle is up on a hill, so we could see Edinburgh all around us and all the mountains! The city is truly gorgeous. And the castle is AMAZING. Like most other castles, its like its own village inside the walls. Edinburgh Castle has tons of interesting history (including Mary Queen of Scots!) and also has the Scottish Crown Jewels. There's also a World War memorial and a Prisoner of War exhibit inside the castle. The day we went there was a whiskey tasting in the shop. One of them was really good, with a honeycomb flavor to it. The other one was NASTY and I thought I was going to die. My throat burned for like 10 minutes. And all I had was a little sip. NO THANK YOU.

Once we left the castle, we walked along the Royal Mile (once you leave the castle, it leads straight into it). Its a really famous street, with tons of touristy shops along it and tons of things to do! A few shops will tell you your "clan name" and they have giant books with long lists of names. They can look up your name and tell where your family is from and tell you all of your family's history. Rollins is in all the books, pretty exciting :-) Theres always a guy dressed up as William Wallace in Braveheart, so you can take your picture with him. At this point, we were all starving and made our way to The Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling began writing the Harry Potter series. From the back room, you have an amazing view of the castle and they have the most amazing food! Afterwards, we headed back to the hostel and decided a nap was a necessity. We could barely function. We had a 6 bed mixed dorm and there were 5 of us. So, we did have a random Spanish guy as our other roommate. But he was very friendly and made an effort to talk to us and invited us to go out that night with his Spanish friends. We politely declined, since we couldn't understand a word any of them were saying. Then we went to find some dinner and explored the nightlife/pubs around the area. Our hostel was located in an amazing area, with tons of things to do around it.

The second day, we got up and walked the rest of the Royal Mile down to Holyrood Palace. Along the way, I got a 100% Cashmere scarf! And a few postcards and souvenirs. Holyrood Palace is where the Queen stays for one week every year and several past queens and kings have stayed there. One of its most famous inhabitants, Mary Queen of Scots, lived there and one of her husbands was murdered there. It was really beautiful inside and in the back, there was a really old, ruined Abbey. Once we were finished at the Palace, we walked back along the Royal Mile and made our way to the Elephant House again (yes, it was THAT good!). Then, we hung out at the hostel for a bit and played some games until it was time to go to our bus. We had to do another overnight bus on the way back. It was even worse the second time. I got barely any sleep and I knew I'd have 3 classes the next day.

I can tell, it did not end well. I fell asleep in 2 of the 3 classes. In the first one, I literally kept falling asleep in the middle of writing sentences. Looking back at my notes, they make zero sense whatsoever. I was like a drunk person or something. BUT, the whole thing was totally worth it. I love Scotland!! Their accents are great and I've discovered they're actually much friendlier than British people. They love to joke around with you and they don't care about being proper and polite. Hopefully, we can make it back to visit other parts of Scotland at some point! Theres too many pictures to put up on here, so I made a whole new album on Facebook titled Land of Kilts and Bagpipes, check it out :-)

Day Full of Museums!

Its been a good, busy week! I'm getting more and more used to life here... its funny I get off the Tube at Mile End Station and its starting to feel a little bit like home. People asked me for help on the Tube the other day and I totally knew what I was talking about! Yesterday, Angela and I went back to the Victoria and Albert Museum to get tickets to see the Hollywood Costume exhibit. We got there right when they opened and they were already almost sold out of tickets for the day. We got tickets for 4:15, so we had about 6 hours to kill. Of course, not a problem in London! Theres a million things to see around the V&A, so we spent some time there. Theres a theatre exhibit that is really cool! They had original costumes, playbills, scripts, etc from past plays, musicals, and concerts. My favorite was of course an original design of one of the Phantom's costumes :-)

After we had lunch, we still had several more hours to kill, so we went to the Science Museum right around the corner. It was really cool! We started with the section on space, where we saw a spacesuit from the first Brit in space and a rock from the Moon. Then, we went up to the Flight exhibit, which was kind of cool. It would've been cooler if I knew what any of it was (Daddy, you would've loved it!). Next, we went up to the Medicine exhibits (there were 2 floors full of Medicine History!). Yes, I'm kind of a nerd, but it was amazing! It showed the progression of medicine through medieval times up until now.

When 4:15 finally rolled around, we went back to the V&A to see the Hollywood Costume exhibit. It was unbelievable!! Any movie you can think of, they had a costume from it. Bourne Legacy, Oceans 11, Braveheart, Gladiator, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare in Love, Marie Antoinette, Harry Potter, Wizard of Oz, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Mamma Mia, Star Wars, Spiderman, Superman, James Bond, Pirates, Addams Family, Twilight, Marilyn Monroe, Breakfast at Tiffanys, Titanic, Terminator, Black Swan, Indiana Jones, and so many more I can't even remember right now! Definitely worth the all day wait.

Last night, we went to the New Globe, which is a pub right on the edge of campus. On Thursdays, they push all the tables back and turn it into more of a bar with DJs and dancing. You had to have a Queen Mary ID to get in, so it was really fun! This morning, I went to the gym. It was my first time on the treadmill here and at first I was like wow, I'm going really fast, this is great! And then I realized it was in kilometers... not miles... Duh. Whatever, I still ran 5K. Later tonight, our group of 5 is taking an overnight bus to Edinburgh, Scotland for the weekend! We will get there at about 7 am tomorrow morning!

Parliament Tour!

Friday, there was a blizzard. I took one look outside and was like guess I'm not going outside today. If you don't know this about me, I absolutely HATE the snow. It can be pretty for about two seconds until you go outside and realize how freezing it is. Wind chill below zero, frostbite, etc etc. Its especially bad in London when it ruins all your fun touristy plans. (Jen, I really tried to be excited for you, but I couldn't do it). So, later that night a few of us planned a dinner. Kelsey made us green bean casserole, which Sophie decided tasted like America haha. I guess they don't really do casseroles here, the British flatmates took one look and were like ew what IS that. Whatever, I thought it was delicious. After a while, we decided to trek over to a pub close by. We got big pitchers of drinks to share, it was fun! 

Yesterday, we went on a tour of the Houses of Parliament! It was UNBELIEVABLE!! By far, my favorite thing I've done so far here in London. I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life. There is an incredible amount of history and tradition. There's been a palace on that site since William the Conquerer in the 1000's. This king also built the first part of the Tower and decided he wanted a separate palace away from the city (For those of you who don't know, there are technically two cities in London. Theres the city of London, which is the financial district. And then theres the city of Westminster.) This is when he built Westminster Palace along the Thames. It was used as a palace by the monarchy until Henry VIII (of course, he ruined everything). From Henry on, the palace was only used as a place for government. In the mid-1800's, the entire palace burned down except for Westminster Hall, which still stands today (so the entrance when you first walk in is 1,000 years old!!!!). It actually turned out to be a good opportunity because now they could build a building purpose built for running a government, instead of for a palace. Victoria was queen at the time, so most of it was built for her, so there are little VR's all over the place. Her husband, Prince Albert was in charge of the art and every room has its own theme. Theres even a Tudor-themed room (which I almost started hyperventilating in, I was so excited!). During WW2, part of the building was bombed and completely destroyed. Winston Churchill was Prime Minister at the time and decided to use some of the bomb-damaged remains in the new building. Kinda cool!

Westminster Hall

The Queen goes to Parliament every year, once a year, to open the new session for Parliament. She reads out "The Queen's Speech" which basically states everything the Parliament plans to do that year. She has to read it exactly as they give it to her, since she technically has no governmental power. (And yet, nothing can happen without her opening the Parliament session each year... interesting). There is this AMAZINGGGGG throne and altar for her in the House of Lords. I have never seen anything like it, I think my mouth dropped open and I couldn't take my eyes away for several minutes. This is also the one occasion every year when they take the Crown Jewels from the Tower and bring them to Parliament for the Queen to wear. We couldn't take pictures inside and no pictures do it justice, but heres what it looks like and more info on it:

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/occasions/stateopening/

The State Opening of Parliament happens every year in May, I can't wait to watch it on TV, now that I've been there! Theres two major halls, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The House of Lords is for all the Lords who were born with their title (theres over 800 in the UK). The House of Commons is for the elected officials, so thats where the majority of things happen. They come up with the laws and write them, send them to the House of Commons, who edits them, and sends them back to the House of Commons. I could go on all day about how cool it was. There was just so much history and tradition there and at the same time, it is still used on a daily basis to run the government of the UK. Another amazing story they told is of King Charles I, but I'm guessing not everyone wants to hear about it, so if you do, ask me and I'd love to tell you about it! Basically, he thought he was above the law, so didn't work with Parliament and eventually they tried him with treason and he was executed.

They only do tours on Saturdays for most of the year (obviously during the week its crazy busy), but if you ever come to London it is a MUST do. I think they do more tours in the summer. Sorry this post was so long! You can tell how much I liked it :-) Tons more I could say on it too, let me know if you have any questions! Theres yet another blizzard outside today (I thought it was never supposed to snow here?!!), but I'm braving it later today to make it to church. We are for sure going to Scotland this Friday. We're doing an overnight bus to arrive Saturday morning, staying one night in a hostel, and returning Sunday night on another overnight bus.

Update!

Hi all :-)
Its been a busy couple of days! Yesterday, I went on a field trip for my Architecture class to the Royal Courts of Justice. The building was BEAUTIFUL!! It was dreadfully cold though and we had to stand outside and take notes for like an hour. Uggg I thought my hands and toes were gonna fall off! But the building and the courts really were amazing.

Today, Angela (American from the flat across the hall) and I went to the Victoria and Albert museum. I really liked it! It was pretty different from the British museum. They had designs and clothes from several different centuries, which was pretty cool. Andja, from SU, would have LOVED it. I had to go see the Portrait Gallery for my Performance in History class, so we made sure to do that. Before my next class on Tuesday, I have to memorize a few lines and be able to pose like some of the statues from the 18th century. When I am ever going to need to know how to do that as a PA?! Whatever, its kind of cool. The V&A had a special exhibition called Hollywood Costumes, which looked SO cool. They have designs and costumes from over 100 major films. Like Titanic, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Twilight, Harry Potter, Dreamgirls, Wizard of Oz, pretty much anything you can think of. Unfortunately, we decided sleeping in would be a good idea, so they were sold out for the day. We'll be going back next week! Instead, we explored the collection on Britain from 1500-1760, so of course I loved it. They had stuff from Henry VIII's reign and the Elizabethan era. So cool! Kaitlyn, you would have died. You HAVE to come see it when you get here. The medieval Britain exhibit was pretty amazing too!

Afterwards, I came back and went to the Christian Union meeting, which was VERY similar to Phi Lamb chapter! We started out with worship... then some people talked kind of like a devo, and then we went over the events happening next week and prayed over them. Kind of made me feel a little bit at home! Until one of the guys made a reference to being a lad and everyone laughed and us Americans just sat there not having any idea what was going on. At the end of the meeting a few of them approached and immediately knew we were Americans. We asked what a lad was and they said to them its like a jock or a guy that goes to pubs all the time. They also called a grilled cheese a "toastie." They can all tell we're Americans right away, I'm not sure whats so obvious about the way we dress or look. I haven't quite figured that out yet but they always know. Everyone was really nice and I definitely plan on going back!

Later tonight, I met up with some of my friends from my Arcadia program and went to the pub. We've all been so busy, it's been a while since we'd been able to hang out. It was a fun night catching up with all of them! Tomorrow there's supposed to be a "huge" snowstorm (meaning like 2-4 inches, kind of pathetic), but apparently everything shuts down, so we might be kind of stuck on campus tomorrow. Which is probably good, I'm not completely caught up on all my reading. We're planning on going to Edinburgh, Scotland a week from tomorrow for the weekend, so I'm really excited about that!

Dreamboats and Petticoats

Last night Chandler (my flatmate) and I went to see Dreamboats and Petticoats in the West End (West End is similar to Broadway in America). We got tickets for only 13 pounds, but you can see our seats weren't that great. Especially when the people came and sat in front of us. And then we were surrounded by a giant Chinese family... They were talking in Chinese and passing food around the entire time. And the lady next to me slept through the entire thing. Anyway, it was really cute!! The songs were all from the 50s and 60s, so I didn't recognize most of them, but in several parts of the show I could hear the audience singing along!

Afterwards, we went to meet some of Chandler's friends from USC at a bar close by. It was really cool! It was like a tiki bar/ Hawaiian themed. We apparently met the guy who will be the Bachelor in the next season! I have a picture with him... we'll see in March if he was actually telling the truth! We left a little before midnight to make sure we caught the last Tube train back to campus (I wish they ran just a little later...) Who ever knew a Monday night could be so fun?!

Popcorn

Interesting fact... apparently buttered/salted popcorn is an American thing. When I went to the cinema last night I had to specifically say I wanted salt popcorn (instead of sweet). Then, I proceeded to search for the butter and salt and there wasn't any! So I just had to eat my plain untasteful popcorn. Most people here eat the sweet popcorn. Guess the buttery salty popcorn is for us fat Americans... Then tonight we saw this salted popcorn at the store, clearly labeled "American style." Very weird!

British Museum

Yesterday Kelsey and I went to the British Museum! It was beautiful and it was giant! They have rooms filled with stuff from almost any place you can think of and from any time period. They had some hand-axes that were over a million years old! It was like a tour of the world in one museum. After a while, all the statues and pottery and everything kind of started to look the same because there was just SO MUCH of everything.

After that, I met some people from the Christian Union of Queen Mary to see the Les Mis movie. The movie theater here (or cinema as they call it) was quite an interesting experience. First of all, the movies come out here several months after they come out in America. They were still showing Lincoln and Wreck it Ralph commercials (they've been out in America now for several months!). The movies (films as they call them) are only in the cinemas for a week or two. Everyone showed up late and it wasn't a big deal, we just missed some of the commercials. Bailey (my flatmate that goes to Baylor) and I were like we need to go, theres going to be no seats left! And they were like no its fine. I guess it didn't matter that it was a Saturday night and the movie had just come out... Weird! Anyway, the movie was of course really good :-) Afterwards, we went to a pub nearby, which was a little weird being with a Christian group, but thats just how the culture is. EVERYONE goes to pubs, thats just how you socialize and get to know people. The people I met from the group were all super nice and told me some churches in the area I should try out.

Its Here!

My Oyster card is officially here :-) Now I can really call myself a Londoner. An Oyster card can be used for the Tube, buses, and trains. So basically its what everyone here uses to get anywhere. Mine is a special student card, so I get a 30% discount!

I had no class yesterday or today, so its been a nice break (even though I've been doing a lot of reading...)! This afternoon we went to Sir John Soane's Museum, which was beautiful (and to Mother Teresa and Sir Lynn, it was free!)! Sir John Soane was a famous English architect in the early 1800s and he had an unbelievable collection of art and antiquities (over 55,000!). It was all crammed into his house, which was no bigger than my house at home. Pretty cool!

Tonight, we're planning on going to Brick Lane which has famous shops and markets. Then we'll explore the Shoreditch area which is supposed to have bars with cool and unique atmospheres!

Thursdays!

There's cute little food markets in the Student Village every Thursday! Smells delicious!

On a side note...

I have just learned that neither Netflix nor Pandora works here :-( So sad. I also can't go on ABC's website and watch episodes. Guess I won't be watching those anytime soon...

Done with classes! Wait its only Wednesday.....

I am officially done with classes for this week. And its only Wednesday!!! My class today was Architecture in London, which seems REALLY cool. Its mostly Americans and the reason for that is because we go on FIVE FIELD TRIPS!! We basically get to explore different buildings in London and marvel at the architecture. Pretty excited about that class :-) I met a guy in that class that goes to Trinity! After I got over the initial "ohhhh Trinity... thats too bad..." (of course mostly in my head) he was pretty nice! (For those non-SU people reading... Southwestern and Trinity are NOT friends.)

Last night I finally got to spend some time with the people in my flat and some of the girls in the flat across the hall. It was actually about half Brits and half Americans. It turned out to be a really fun night! And not too different from America when we decided to go get fried chicken at 1 in the morning...

Thats about it for now! I have a lot of reading to do for my classes even though there aren't any assignments due. Like ever. Until the one exam or essay that counts for your entire grade. So I'm gonna get on that...

I've started making a list of all the phrases and words they say here (it really is like a foreign language sometimes!), so thought I'd share what I have with you so far. If you say some of these wrong, they really do make fun of you (like the pants/trousers thing)!

Mind the gap = Watch your step

Tube = Subway

Quid = Money (like I paid 5 quid)

Take away = To go

Chips = fries

Crisps = chips

Queue = Line (they often say queue up)

Toilets = Bathroom/ Restroom

Shopping centre = Mall

Film = Movie

Cinema = Theater

Football = Soccer (VERY IMPORTANT)

Uni work = Homework

On holiday = On vacation

Cheers = Thank you

Are you alright? = Do you need anything?

Lift = Elevator

Posh = Fancy

Pissed = Drunk

Mobile phone = Cell phone

Top up = Put more money on something/ Increase a plan

Ring them = Call them

Cotton floss = Cotton candy

GP’s = Doctor

A & E (Accident and Emergency) = Emergency Room

Pants = Underwear (you have to say trousers!)

Ground floor = first floor

Class with the Brits

I FINALLY have wifi!!!!!!!
All of the international students got here last Thursday and we had to wait to get wifi until we enrolled today. Its nice to be back :-)

On Saturday, we went to Central London and saw Big Ben and Parliament and then toured Westminster Abbey. I absolutely LOVE Westminster Abbey, it is gorgeous. It seems like anyone British even remotely important was buried there. All the kings and queens have been crowned there since the 1000's and several have been married and buried there. Its the resting place of Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles Dickens, and kings dating as far back as the 12th century! And last but not least, its where Will and Kate were married just a few years ago :-) Saturday night we explored Piccadilly and went to a club/bar called Piccadilly Institute. It was super expensive!! But I love the area :-)

On Sunday, Queen Mary took a lot of the study abroad students on a bus tour of London. We were able to get off at Buckingham Palace and made it just in time for the end of the changing of the guards! Later on, we got off the bus again and walked around the Tower and drove over the Tower Bridge. After we got back to Queen Mary, several of us decided to venture to the big grocery store (where we learned you have to pay to use the shopping carts...) I searched for crackers for FOREVER until I realized they don't really have crackers... they have biscuits. For dinner, we ate at a place close to campus called the Greedy Cow, which was a really good burger place (who would've thought London had a good burger place?!).

Today was the first day of classes. I'm taking Abnormal Psychology, Neurobiology, Performance in History (for the theatre requirement at SU), and Architecture in London (for study abroad students because there's field trips!). Here in the UK, classes typically only meet once a week, so I only have class on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays! I had to take the Tube to my first class (the Tube is getting easier and easier!), which was Abnormal Psych. My professor was nice and I'm really excited about the class! Every week, a new expert is brought in to speak about a psychological disorder. My next class was Neurobiology, which was interesting! I'm really scared about my exams for all my classes because your entire grade depends on one huge final exam (WOAH).

After my last class at 6, I headed into London to go to another Arcadia orientation. They basically told us a lot of the same stuff the Queen Mary people told us... The UK is a foreign country and even though they speak English, its completely different from our English, so we basically have to learn a new language. We're supposed to sit in our rooms and practice our British accents and use their phrases......

Today was Laura's 21st birthday (friend from the Arcadia program), so we went to dinner and then to a pub for some drinks. Its sad, her 21st birthday doesn't really matter here since the drinking age is 18. But we still had a fun night :-) The culture of going out in the UK is completely different from America. People go out almost every night here, but the pubs close at midnight, so they go a lot earlier and usually its just sitting around and socializing. Its really fun and a good way to meet people! I'm really not into beer... or wine... but I've discovered a Strawberry and Lime hard cider thats pretty good.

So far, I'm loving Queen Mary and London! I haven't even been here a week and I'm already starting to make good friends. There will definitely be some struggles in the future (it really is a foreign country and its very different in several aspects!), but I'm really excited for the upcoming semester!

No wifi?!?!?!?!

It's been a few days! And that's because I won't have wifi on campus until Monday... It's KILLING me.

Last Wednesday, I saw phantom of the opera in Piccadilly Circus which was AMAZING! Loved it.

Thursday: went to Arcadia orientation and headed to Queen Mary campus and moved into my room. Still exhausted from jet lag...

Today: Queen Mary orientation ALL DAY. Then registered for classes (called modules here). That was extremely stressful, I was running all over campus. Then a few of us went to the giant shopping center close by! I am now sitting at a pub sipping my strawberry and lime hard cider (DELICIOUS!) and there's finally some wifi! After I ordered, the guy totally said cheers to me ;-)

Tomorrow, we are exploring Central London and Sunday we're going on a bus tour around London with all the Queen Mary international students (there's over 200 of us!).

So until I have wifi again...

First Day

I'm going off of about 3 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours... I'm exhausted! But the first day in London was a good one! It was a beautiful, sunny day (and still really cold)! My dad and I visited Hampton Court Palace, which was AMAZING. It was one of King Henry VIII's favorite palaces. I'm not sure how much y'all know about him, but he's the crazy one who had six wives (If you've ever seen The Other Boleyn Girl, its about King Henry VIII). All six of his wives lived at Hampton Court at one point. Jane Seymour, his third wife, had his only male heir and died at Hampton. Katherine Howard, his fifth wife (who was only a teenager when he was super old and fat!), was charged with treason while at Hampton and eventually beheaded at the Tower. Her ghost supposedly haunts a hallway where she ran screaming to try to plead with Henry for her life. Half of the palace was also rebuilt by a later king, so the Palace has several different time periods within it. There were 60 acres of gardens (OMGGG) and of course we were exhausted, so we only saw some of them.

Sorry if this whole post doesn't make much sense, I think I'll go to bed now :-) We're going to see the Queen Mary campus tomorrow and then Phantom of the Opera at night!