5 Days of Adventure

Dear Everyone,

(Forgive me if this is not up to par when it comes to what a blog post should be or could be, but it is my first one so hopefully I won’t bore anyone too much. Haha, that sounded very proper. Anywho, back to the post.) (Also I thought it would be cool if each of my headings were a British song title or lyrics, but then I ran out of lyrics to go along with my paragraph, hence that stopping after paragraph 2)

For the First Time-The Script

For the first time in my life I left the United States of America! Last Monday, I flew out on Air New Zealand and arrived in London on Tuesday. The flight was great, I didn’t get much sleep, but that was because I didn’t know about all the cool things you could do with your seat. A couple from Germany was sitting to my right and a very lovely lady who was from London, but now lives in the valley was to my left. The lady from Germany had to show me how to tilt my seat back and the lady from the US showed me how to put my pillow on the cool adjustable head rest thing. Before I knew it I had watch 3 movies, slept 2 hours, ate 2 meals and had landed in London.

The Crown! on an UK red telephone booth.

Lost Her Behind the Station- The Kills

Heathrow is huge! I kept getting lost and by the time I found the Heathrow Express I was exhausted. Luckily, I had a pre-printed ticket (first-class, Thank you Dad!) and I just caught the train just in time. I arrived in Paddington, found a taxi and arrived at my house. A wonderful lady checked me in and I went to my house, but I could not for the life of me find my room! My paper said I was in Flat C, floor 1, but Flat C was on floor two and I was in room C1, but the rooms along the corridor in flat C started with C2. After rampant exploring, going up and down stairs, lugging my suitcase upstairs, counting and recounting the numbers along my hall I found a door that I could open, which wasn’t a bathroom or a locked electrical cupboard. This door led to a stair case, and what! Another door! (which did not lead to a shower [subtle Clue reference for David]). This final door led to rooms C1 and C7, which still makes absolutely no sense to me, but there we have it. I have a huge twin room facing the street with lovely Victorian molding, huge windows and a non-working marble fireplace, which I found out the other night is home to a little dark grey mouse. I named him Johnny Town-Mouse, after the Beatrix Potter story. My getting lost didn’t stop there. I got lost trying to buy groceries and a phone, but everything worked out in the end. I slept from 6:00PM to 7:40AM, minus an hour from 1-2am when I woke up and worked on making up US country phone codes until my call to home finally went through. (The country code for calling the US from the UK is 001 if you are interested).

This is about a third of the room. A bit messy from all the handouts I got at orientation. 

A room with a view.

I Don’t Think They Like Affiliate Students that Much

On Wednesday, I attend a very lovely orientation session. I met a couple of people studying abroad from US and a couple of people studying here for all three years from Malaysia and the US all of whom were really sweet. I registered, got my ID and internet!!! All the sessions were funny, uplifting and kind of cheesy, but really encouraging. I left feeling very happy and ready to start a good semester. When I came back the next day I found out I had attended the whole wrong set of sessions and that the previous day was actually meant for full time undergraduate international students (which is strange, because they specifically had affiliate students raise their hand in the session). I re-attended the first two sessions from the previous day, only to come away a depressed and tired. The sessions were boring and daunting and can be summarized as: Hello, you are here, this is going to be hard, here’s how hard, goodbye. The one good thing was that I was able to meet a wonderful master’s student who went to Cal Baptist and I actually knew where and what that was because of Fall Discipleship Conference. Later we went on basically a private library tour (because no one else showed up) and I tried a custard tart! They are delicious and I have a feeling once I find them in the grocery store I won’t stop eating them. Finally in the afternoon I went to meet my department and select my classes, but unfortunately my tutor (advisor) was at a conference so I couldn’t make my schedule and I found out that course listing is entirely different from even the packet of course listings I had received just the day before. I have a meeting with my tutor on Monday and if all goes well I might be taking the equivalent of a Masters Course here. We shall see… Also the downside to the UK registration process is that it is really hard to find the schedule of classes or “timetables” and for registering for classes outside of your department and it seems that all Art History classes are either early Monday or late Friday which is going to make traveling on the weekends very difficult. Later on I went to Primark, which is like an awesome Forever 21 and Home Store combination and I found Boots, which is like a very nice CVS with super helpful employees. I then checked out Sainsbury’s which is the competing grocery store to Tesco (aka the original Fresh and Easy).

The UCL Quad and Main Building and Library.

Custard Tart!

I am officially an international student. I didn't like the picture, so I am a cat!

To the Continent!

Thursday night I stayed up late and figured out how to fly to Geneva to see Michelle. If I end up taking/ getting into the masters-like class, then I am going to have 2 hours and twenty minutes to get from the door of my classroom to the door of my plane. I booked my tickets Friday morning and I am already trying to figure out how to make the trip to the airport as quick as possible. Friday, I attended a Living in London session, learned about how to get around and safety and saw my first police officers on the streets since my arrival. Then I went to Christian Union International welcome luncheon and made plans to go to church on Sunday and then I went on a tour of campus.

Rain is Lovely

The weather so far has been really lovely, cool, but mostly sunny. There are always lots of little storm looking clouds in the sky, but the wind moves them right through. Yesterday evening though I had my first rain and it was beautiful. There are so many lights, people and colors and you just want to keep walking. And I got my first copy of the Evening Standard.

Colorful restaurant near Russell Square.

The Evening Standard I got by the tube.

Euston Station: Like an Awesome Dream Airport, Except it’s Not

I went out at dusk and I found my way to Euston station which is a tube and a national rail station. The first thing I noticed was all of the food. Indoors and right doors there is probably upwards of 30 different places to eat. Inside the station were tunnels leading in every direction to different platforms and hundreds and hundreds of people bustling through. There were information kiosks and hundreds of people waiting in the main hall looking up at arrival screens getting ready to take their train. I ventured downstairs and got my oyster card. It was raining when I came out so I walked home and got my raincoat and headed to Russell Square to find STA travel to get a railcard. Turns out they don’t have railcards, but it was a lovely walk and I popped into the four story bookstore on my corner and never wanted to leave.

The very, very left side of the station. It goes on and on to the right. 

Waterstone's bookstore on my corner. It is like Vrooms, only with giant wood staircases. 

Tourist Moment! [I will take pictures for you Olivia]

The first day I was walking on my street I thought in passing that my street looked out of Sherlock (the news Sherlock Holmes BBC TV series). I especially thought the houses looked like where Sherlock and Watson’s flat, but I just assumed that was how a lot of places in London looked which I just happily found out is NOT true. My street looks straight out of Sherlock Holmes because…it is! The house used as 221b Bakers Street is on my street! and if anyone looks through my window while I am typing this, they will probably think I am crazy because I am smiling and laughing way too much. Unfortunately, they are not going to start shooting Series 3 until January! But, I am here for two days in January, so guess where I will be…

Walking By History

There are bunch of these random little tidbits, historic or contemporary, like that around the streets here. Today, when I went and got my rail card and went looking for the post office, I found a couple more things like that: I passed the home of the founder of the YMCA and a square where Virginia Woolfe would walk through near her house. Previously, I found out that Charles Darwin lived in the building across from mine and a suffrage movement leader lived down the block. I can’t wait to find out what else is in the neighborhood!

There are beautiful parks everywhere. This one is just down the street.

From in the square. 

The End

This has been a very long post. I promise the rest will be shorter and more interesting!

Right now there is a line of Mercedes/BMW’s parked along the street dropping students and their stuff off for move-in. Hopefully, I will get to meet my roommate soon!

I miss everyone back home and hope your semesters are going well!

Amy