Stonehenge

I went to Stonehenge and it was awesome, although it was freeeezing.  It's not quite the pyramids, but it still has a really cool historical story and mystery about them, given that they were built thousands of years ago.  After that we went to the little, quaint town of Salisbury and toured a church or cathedral (I'm not sure what it was).  The architecture and intricate detail is beautiful.  I wish we had prettier buildings in the U.S.

Classes are not too bad.  We take field trips in most of them which is great.  This week we are going to the British Museum, which I am looking forward too.  My forensic psych class and professor are pretty awesome and my sociology of sport class is pretty cool too.  I also am taking an America: A foreign perspective class which hopefully will be interetsting and we get to do tons of field trips (including Paris) in my historical architecture class.  Even the classes in London are better.

Yesterday I booked my first trip.  We are going to Amsterdam and Brussels in two weeks.  Booking it ended up being really stressful, but luckily mom was there to help me.  We are also working on planning our spring break trips as well as a few others.  I decided not to go to Istanbul, but to save that money for elsewhere.  I also am going to Bath in a couple weeks, which should be pretty interesting. 

As far as London, I feel like I am pretty settled in although I don't believe I will ever not feel intimidated by the city; there is just so much to it. 

London Lessons:

1. The people at McDonalds are friendlier and more helpful in the UK.

2. European bathtubs suck, they have really high sides and are super slippery.

3. My supersweet sixteen UK addition is even worse than the US addition.

4. Londoners really like prawns

5. London clubs are different than American ones

6. London gets more expensive each week

Sorry

I can't figure out how to upload pictures.  I posted most of the Ireland ones on facebook and will work on trying to figure out how to post them on here.

Weather Online UK - current weather and weather forecast worldwide

Weather Online UK - current weather and weather forecast worldwide

The Center of Time

I went to Greenwich, which is the place where time is based off.  As in GMT is the starting point and the US's east coast is 5 hours behind.  It was a neat little town, with beautiful views, although at this point, I feel like everywhere in Europe has a charm and beauty to it. We went on a tour while were there and got to see where the 2012 (I think) olympics are going to be held as well as old historic buildings, one of which used to be the queen's house.  We had lunch in a pub,which is becoming fairly common, but which I always enjoy.  I will post pictures soon.

I am pretty used to finding my way around London now, its still very intimidating, but I think I have the underground figured out and can now go around by myself without a problem.  I love the location of our apartment, as there are a 1000 stores and restaurants right outside our flat.  There is this amazing waffle place a block over which is delicious. It took us 3 days to clean our apartment, it was nasty, apparently standards of cleanliness in the US is different than Europe.  Whoever lived in our apartment before us clearly was not English because the tv is in some Indian or Middle Eastern language and we have not been able to get it out yet.  The landlord is supposed to be sending someone over today, we can only hope.

We have a travel seminar tonight which I am super excited about because it will allow me to start planning trips outside of London. I already plan on signing up for a trip to Istanbul. So excited.


London Lessons Learned:

1.  if you are waiting in line, the line is called a que
2. you MUST stand on the right side of escalators or will get run over by Londoners
3. Washing machines are often in the kitchen
4. holding your cell phone in your hand while talking to someone, even if you are not on it is rude
5. apparently americans can be identified by their northface jackets and boat shoes
6. there are more than 20,000 americans studying in london this semester
7.wait service at restaurants is normally slow
8. their internet is slower than ours
9. london is expensive!

In the Beginning

I'm in LONDON!!!!

Wow, there are so many more students here than Ireland, it is a little overwhelming. 

We got into London a day before rest of the students, so we met up with some Scotland students and went out to the bar next to the hotel.  Being able to legally drink is nice, but it is also becoming a money pit.  I met some cool people from the Scotland trip and then the next morning met some other cool people as well.  The other night we went to a karoake bar.  Me and two of my friends split a fishbowl of rasberry alcohol.  It was amazing so we got another one.  It was a great night :)  We learned to ride the tube (the underground) and the double decker buses.  This city is very intimidating, but I am in love with it already.

Kate (my Syracuse roommate) and two other girls (Brittney and Jin) decided to live together so we started apartment hunting.  The first day we found a place we liked but it got taken by another group of girls before we had the chance to claim it, although in the long run I am happy about that.   The second day of looking, we decided to get a SUL (Syracuse London) tour guide to help us.  Joel is an 18 year old Londoner who proved to be extremely helpful.  The first realtor we went to ended up being too expensive so we met up with another guy.  The first place we went to look at had a women living in it, who supposedly would be out by the end of the week, but she wouldn't let us in because her husband wasn't home.  She was speaking some language that I didn't recognize.  We felt awkward so we asked to move on to the next one.  We ended up looking at an apartment building that had 3 flats available, but our group as well as two other groups  were being shown at the same time.  Naturally, all three groups liked the same one, eventually we flipped a coin and lost so we took a different one.  The flat is pretty nice (I will add pictures when I can), it is above a shoe store, on a large, main street, and 30 seconds from the tube stop.  We are happy with it and its nice to have a place.  The rent is about $1000 a month, each. Yeah, its that expensive, and this was a good deal.  We move in today. 

I am dying to post pictures, I will asap.

Lessons Learned

1. The shower sides in Europe are really high and if you are not careful, you will fall and bruise your thigh.
2. Fries=chips, chips= crisps
3. Europe is really, really, really expensive.
4. European keyboards are set up slightly different.
5. The underground is crazy
6.  The signal light turns yellow again before it turns green
7. London is the most diverse city in the world with more than 300 languages being spoken, more than 400,000 international students studying each year, and more yearly visitors than NYC, LA, and Vegas combined.
8.  London is really, really, really expensive

Say Kase

That is how you say cheese in German. The a is accented but I don't know how to mark that on here.  Wolfgang, our professor and fearless leader would say that everytime we would get a group picture. The wierd thing is if you actually say it, your mouth is  open wide instead of in a smile.

Belfast was great too.  It's a completely different experience than Dublin because Belfast is part of the UK.  Again we toured the city (the architecture is gorgeous) and listened to speakers who talked about all the different aspects of Northern Ireland.  What I learned is that the Protestants are loyalists and want to stay a part of the UK while Catholics are nationalists who want to join the rest of Ireland in its independence and the two groups hate each other.  They hate each other so much that their are giant walls (peace walls) separating areas of the city.  Also the Titanic was built in Belfast which the city seems very proud of.  They say "the Irish built it and the English sank it." 

The one day we went to the coast and to s rope bridge.  This was amazing.  I cannot even describe how beautiful and breathtaking the whole thing was.  It was one of those experiences I will never forget.  We also got to see the ruins of an old castle, which I found to be really cool and had lunch in a cute little cottage.  The food was great and their home made scones were to die for.  Later we went to this cool looking rock formation which most people climbed, but given my severe lack of balance and coordination I opted out of.

Belfast was amazing and I was sad to leave Ireland.  I really enjoyed it and our small group was great.

I will post pictures when I can, but right now I don't have internet access on my computer.

Let's Boogie

That is what our german leader says to us every time we go somewhere.  Dublin is fabulous, Irish people are awesome.  Last night we met a few Irish guys and they are very interesting to talk too.  Two walked us home which was good because some crazy drugged lady and her male partner came up to us and got in our faces.  It was scary.  Especially because one tried to kick me, but Allen (one of the Irish guys we were with) grabbed her foot and she fell backwards.  She followed us the whole way back to the hotel...its like they say though, nothing good happens after midnight.  Besides that though, every other Irish person we met has been awesome, except the guy at the bar that kept trying to kiss us.  He had red hair though so maybe he was a leprechaun. 

We went to a local restaurant that had this great Irish food, traditional Irish dancers and a band.  It was great.  It was also the first time I was able to order drinks.  Yay me! We toured the Guiness store house and saw how Guiness was made and got a free sample...not a big fan but it was still really cool to see.  I talked to a girl there with a Pitt sweatshirt on which was kinda neat. Toured a old closed jail where a lot of important Irish prisioners were held in the past and where a lot of modern movies and tv shows are filmes.  I thought it was awesome, but you know me, love the crime.  We went on various tours of the city and heard multiple lectures, some interesting and some not, but its cool to learn more about Dublin than just where the bars are.  Although we went to a place called Temple Bar which of course was my first real bar. Also very cool, they had performers and a lot of people, we met some Norwegians there as well as other Americans.  We have had a lot of fun there.

My feet kill though from all the walking we have done and there are still four days left.  Tonight is our last night in Dublin and then tomorrow its off to Belfast where hopefully I can get a phone since it is the English part of the country. 

Dublin, day 1

Hey everybody I am in Dublin.  The flights weren't too bad, but its nice to finally be here.  It's really cold, go figure, I can never escape the cold and I am jetlagged and tired so probably will go to bed in the near future.  There is not much else to say.  Some of what I have seen so far is what I expected of Ireland, while other parts of it are really different.  We have a tour tomorrow of the city but I won't be able to post pictures til I get back to Ireland. 

23 hours and 23 minutes...

til my flight leaves, assuming the snow doesn't mess up the schedule.  I can't believe this thing I have been thinking about and planning for months is finally here.  I am kinda nervous.  My flight leaves at 9:15 pm and lands in London at 9:05 a.m. their time.  London is 5 hours ahead so the flight isn't too long, but I hate flying so it still might be rough, then I have to get on another plane to Dublin...so wish me luck!  I will be without a phone for a while so PLEASE DON"T CALL OR TEXT ME because it will cost me a fortune.  Eventually I will get a cell phone over there and then we will go from there.  I don't think I will be on the internet for a while either so I might take a while to get back to any emails.  I'm spending a few days in Dublin and then a few  days in Belfast before coming back to London for the semester.  I am so excited and can't wait to see what happens.

This wasn't a very exciting post, give me time.