Weeks 3-4

Its been a while since I posted, but after suffering from suspected swine flu and slowly recovering, and being in and out of town for the past two weeks, I finally have time to update. England is still wonderful (despite the swine flu, feeling like death, and quarantines) and in our third week we spent a weekend in Stratford upon Avon (Shakespeares home). It sits in the countryside and was beyond beautiful. We saw two performances at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and walked around the town and down by the canals. I actually spent most of that trip sleeping in the sun in the parks trying to recover, but overall we had a good time.

This past weekend I went to Scotland (Edinburgh) with some friends. We shacked up in a slightly grimy hostel and spent two days bumming around the city. Scotland is unbelievably beautiful and freezing cold. We went into Endiburgh castle, took a 4 hour tour, ate some Haggis and tried some Scottish whiskey, and overall really enjoyed ourselves. Also, important side note, deep frying is really big in Edinburgh and you can take anything you want into a restaurant and they will deep fry it for you. We bought a deep fried mars bar (really delicious chocolate bar) and it was awesome. We also went to the Elephant Cafe (see the picture of me with the elephant stool) where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter on napkins and had some delicious deserts and beverages. :)

We've only got two weeks (one full weekend) left in the city so we're all scrambling to do everything we havent done yet. On Friday a couple of us are taking a bus tour to Stonehenge and Bath and then we're going to attempt to go to the changing of the guard and Oxford. Plus theres the usual stuff of playing in the park while drinking wine and eating cheese, so we will all be extremely busy.

Thats it for now, I cant believe my trip is almost over. But Anna comes over soon to travel with me and my friend Matty and I cant wait :) Hopefully Ill be able to supply one or two more updates before my program ends and we set out to backpack across Europe like gyspies!

With love from England,

Kelsey

Week 2

Im currently writing an essay that is due tomorrow but needed a quick break. So, heres what has been happening in the past few days. Our RA Sarah took us on a walking tour of London along the Thames on Saturday, and althought it rained the whole entire time (and I happened to forget my umbrella that day) it was still an awesome walk from start to finish. We walked up one bank of the river, saw Tower Bridge (which they are currently repainting for the Olympics), tons of awesome architecture, and then wound down around the other side and ended at the London Eye (thats the giant terrifying ferris wheel). It was quite the walk however, so we stopped at this chicken restaraunt (like a Noodes or Chipolte with all things chicken) and ate a quick bite.

The next day was Sunday so the Greenwich Market was in full swing, as was the Fair Trade Market down by the river. A few of us stopped by both of those and looked around for a while, there was more stuff there than we could have ever seen in one day. Luckily the Greenwich market is every weekend. This coming weeken is the Food Festival so I can garauntee that several of us will be back down by the river this weekend.

As for class, we've got a new professor this week, Susan Rowland, and she's fairly interesting. She's no John Williams (our professor last week who several of us fell in love with) but she's teaching us all about mysticism and mystery writing this week so that should be interesting.

Other than that, theres not too much going on right now. Tomorrow we have a 300 word paper, a 1500 word paper, and a 500 word mystery story due so most of us have confined ourselves to the dorms for the night. Wednesday were going to the O2 (big entertainment arena--MJ was supposed to do his shows here before he died) to see the Harry Potter movie and grab dinner so of course that will be fun. This weekend we're going to do Tower London and the Dungeons so Ill have plenty of scary pictures to post from that. Off to finish my paper!

With love from London,

Kelsey

Week 1

----The Meridian Line aka center of my campus----

I have officially been in England for about two and a half days and have realized several important things already. Adapters and converters are extremely important. I finally bought an adapter at around one today (I think thats 8-ish Ohio time) and was therefore able to turn on my computer and pay the 35 pounds (70 DOLLARS) for internet. It also important to know however that even with adaters and converters, most blow driers and straighteners (american) still wont work. The girl across the hall from me sufficiently smoked up her room trying to use an american blow drier. Needless to say, I went out and bought a british straightener, which leads me to my next important lesson. There is no point to straightening ones hair when it rains at least once a day.

Despite the lessons I've learned, and the hellish 3.5 hours it took myself and some others to get from the airport to campus (which supposedly shouldve take 15 minutes tops), I absolutely love it here. Our "student ambassadors (RAs) are two fantastic girls, Lisa and Sarah, and our campus is beautiful.

Yesterday, after lecture of course, we went on an "amphibean tour" which evidentally means a car/boat and not something to do with frogs like I thought. We went into the heart of london and took a road tour and then our car drove right down into the Thames river and we took a tour that way. Our tour guide was your typical opinionated and hysterical londoner and I completely enjoyed him.

Tonight is the Harry Potter premier and we're leaving here in about ten minutes. Evidentally people camped out last night so we probably wont get too close but being in that environment will be enough for us. We probably wont last long in the rain anyways and will head to a pub.

The rest of the week consists of class and a few museum (gallery) tours and then shopping and a jazz and beer festival on campus this weekend. All in all its an eventful first week.

With love from England,

Kelsey