20 things I have learned about London so far

I am really sorry I haven't posted in a while, I just get so caught up in everything and forget to post! But here is a list of 20 things a I have learned about London so far:

1. People do not wait their turn. People will push in front of you or just plain cut you in line. SUPER annoying.
2. Most mornings will start out with blue skies and not a cloud in sight, but by lunch time the sky will be completely gray.
3. EVERYONE owns Hunter's wellies (rain boots). And by everyone I mean everyone, not just girls.
4. You will get laughed at for using American terms...or should I say Texan terms; every time I let a "y'all" slip out I get laughed at, oops :)
5. Forty degrees is freaking warm. This weekend it was forty five and sunny and I wore a long sleeve shirt and no coat and I was completely fine. I will be the first to admit that I NEVER thought that would happen.
6. Never use the tube between 9am and 10am, 12pm and 1pm, and 5pm and 6pm. But, I have to.
7. People have no respect for personal space, especially on the tube. You will get squished between people and people, people and doors, people and poles, and sometimes you will even end up eating someone's fur coat.
8. The boys here are DEFINITELY cuter than American boys, sorry (actually no I'm not). An no, it is not the accent, even though it's an added bonus, but it is their haircuts (they all have the same haircut, and they are all brunette) and VERY prominent jaw lines ;)
9. If you talk on the tube, you will get glared at, especially if you have an American accent.
10. Contrary to popular belief the people here do not all have terrible teeth. Most Brits I have seen that are my age have very nice, straight, white teeth. But I have noticed that about half the people over the age of 30 have bad teeth. I guess they started to get good dental and orthodontic care for my generation. These are just my observations though.
11. Always carry your umbrella.
12. People do not use backpacks in London, especially not pink ones, they use totes.
13. Bathrooms are called the toilets, NOT THE LOO like everyone in America seems to think.
14. They have three different kinds of water at most restaurants: tap water, still water, and sparkling water. Whatever happened to just having one kind of water?
15. People here really do think that everyone from Texas wears cowboy hats, cowboy boots, belt buckles, jeans, and button downs everyday. Some even think we ride horses down the streets.
16. It is really hard to find regular salt in the grocery stores here. I have still yet to find some so I have settled for sea salt.
17. The letter Z is called "zed".
18. You will hear a siren at least every 5 minutes.
19. You can't walk a block without seeing some kind of construction.
20. They have different words/phrases for EVERYTHING. Here are a few: band aids = plasters, trashcan = bin, elevator = lift, exit = way out, watch your step = mind the gap, how are you? = you alright?, chips = crisps, french fries = chips, pants = trousers, underwear = pants, sweater = jumper. Those are the only ones I can think of at the moment!

So there are 20 things I have learned about London! I am having a great time over here, I have met a bunch of people from all over the world, it's crazy. I haven't met too many British people though because most of the people that go to this school are either in an exchange program for a semester or a year or study here all 3(?) years from outside the UK. But my classes are going alright...except my class that I had no idea about, which is the one hour credit class through TCU. I have 2 papers and a quiz every week. So we will see how that goes. Other than that it seems that my classes won't be too bad! And my internship is going very well, I was given a new project today. I am re-doing how we display our brochures throughout the office. So basically I online shopped for brochure stands/holders all day haha.

It snowed at last Friday-Tuesday so Amanda and I went to Oxford last Saturday which was great. We got to see a lot of things from the Harry Potter movies like one of the staircases,

along with the courtyard,

and the dining room that the great hall/dining room was modeled after.

It was fun to play in the snow for a bit but after a few days it got kind of annoying because the tubes were always delayed, and people become idiots whenever it snows, just like in Texas! But some of my friends and I had a snowball fight one night while we were walking home and it was really funny. We also found a huge statue of JFK in the middle of London which was really weird.

And I completely ate it right before this picture was taken. Slipped on the statue...oops. I'm okay though don't worry.

The second week of my internship class I had to give a mini presentation on my career aspirations, any internships I have had, jobs I've had, and hobbies and such, and my tutor (teacher/professor) said I was like a ray of sunshine that lit up the room because I smiled the whole time and sounded very cheery. So yay me.

So that's all that's really been going on right now. And I promise I will try to post more often!!

First Week of Class and Internship

Sorry I haven't posted in over a week!! I've been so busy!! So much to do so much to see...you know how it is. Anyways, on Saturday Amanda and I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was AMAZING. There was so much to see there, and all of it was truly breathtaking. My favorite parts were the jewelry and fashion exhibits, but not for the reasons you think...well maybe it is for the jewelry. There were so many beautiful rings and necklaces, but my favorite were the tiaras (shocking I know). All of the jewelry was just so intricate and very thought-out and well designed. But what I really loved was the fashion exhibit. There were clothes from the late 1800s-1970s. I really liked the dresses from the late 1800s and early 1900s. I wish people still dressed like that today. The clothes back then were so intricate and delicate. They were so beautiful. There was one dress that was next to a man's coat and it reminded me of the scene from Pride and Prejudice where Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth meet at the ball. The clothes were so sophisticated and I just really want a pretty dress like that. I really wish I could have taken pictures so you all could see as well. There were also a lot of ballerina tutus/costumes, like the kind you would see in Swan Lake or the Nutcracker that were gorgeous as well. Amanda and I decided that we wish everyone wore ballerina tuts by day and ball gowns from the 1800s by night. Everyone would look so pretty all the time. Another part of the museum that was my favorite was this room:

 It was amazing. The design on the walls was so beautiful and I decided that I am having a room like this in my future home. I don't know why we don't make things like this room or the dresses anymore. It seems like not as much thought goes into these things these days.

Anyways, this week I started my internship and my classes. Internship day one was a little slow, but today was a lot better. They actually had things for me to do and I'm sure as it goes on it will get even better! Yesterday was just introductions to everyone who works there and learning about what they do at the company so not terribly exciting. Today, however, I got to type up a newsletter that is being sent out about one of their Management Fairs, and my boss let me put "my own spin" on it which was nice. So hopefully tomorrow I will get to do even more! Woo!

I just came back from my first class, which is the class that goes along with our internship. It's just syllabus week so we didn't do much in lecture, but in seminar we took a survey to find out what kind of learner we are. I am a pragmatist. Who knew? It was pretty accurate I guess. Next week we already have to give a mini presentation. Good thing our seminar class is really small, so hopefully I don't choke...I should really work on my public speaking. Our presentation has to be on our career aspirations though...I have NO IDEA what I'm going to say since I haven't a clue what I want to do after I graduate. So we will see what I come up with!

Well I have to head to my second class of the day, Principles of Marketing. I'll let y'all know how it goes!

Pictures

Okay so I know I've been talking a lot about what I've been doing but haven't uploaded any pictures...but I just downloaded the pictures off my camera yay! 

The Tower of London from the outside. This place is HUGE. I kept thinking it was going to end but it just kept going and going, it was really cool though. It's full of history of London. There's suits of armor, huge swords, guns, the Crown Jewels, really anything you could ever think of. It's mostly the history of Kings and Queens and such. I really wish I had gotten more pictures, especially of the crown jewels, but of course we couldn't take pictures of any of them, even the ones worn 300 years ago, but they are all amazing, especially Queen Elizabeth's current crown.

And here is Tower Bridge. It is so much cooler in person. We haven't been on/across it yet this is just the picture I took from the Tower of London, but it's pretty amazing.

Big Ben. It is so pretty at night, and pictures really don't do it justice. The first picture I took standing right in front of it, and the second one is from the London Eye. These are really crappy iPhone pictures that I instagrammed, but it really is something.

And of course the London Eye. It's actually kind of terrifying when you get all the way to the top and look down, but it's really pretty looking out over the city from the top.

These are the only worth while pictures I have taken so far, I'm going to try to take more from now on so I can post them!!

First Few Days

The plane ride was pretty long. The first few hours went by so slow, but then then last half went by pretty fast. I couldn't sleep very well though which was a bummer. When I arrived it was about 11:30am in London. Getting through immigration was a breeze, but getting my bags was another story. I had 3 bags: my huge 60lb checked bag, my red carry-on (that I later had to check), and my huge "purse". It was a but of a struggle getting them on the express and then into the cab, but I managed. I have bruises on my hands from pulling them around though haha. I checked into the hotel and of course Amanda and I had been put into the same room even though we said it was fine if we were separated and thenl it was already time to go to lunch and then the phone store. We went to a place called the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, I didn't get anything though because I wasn't hungry. After that we went to the phone store and I got a dinky little samsung phone for £4 and a pay as you go plan for £10 a month, which isn't that bad. We then went back to the hotel and I took a 30 minute nap. Fastest thirty minutes of my life. I swear as soon as I closed my eyes Amanda was already waking me up. We went to see Big Ben and went on the London Eye that night. Pictures of Big Ben really don't do it justice. It is so beautiful, especially at night when it's all lit up. The London Eye was a lot of fun too, it was cool to see the city from so high up. After that we ate at this cool place called Waggamama. It's like an Asian noodle place I guess, I just had plain noodles and edamame. After that I was so tired. Most people went to the pub around the corner from our hotel but Amanda, Alex, and I went back to the hotel and went to bed. I was out cold by 10, but then I woke up from 4am-6am which wasn't fun. The next day we went to the tower of London. That place is HUGE. From the outside it doesn't look that big, but there are so many rooms in each little tower, it's ridiculous. It was really cool there, lots of history. My favorite part was seeing all the crown jewels though. So many diamonds and huge gems. I want to be Queen. Anyways, after that we all went back to the hotel for a nice nap. That night we ate at Pizza Express, which was really good, but it was A LOT of food, I couldn't finish it all. After dinner a bunch of us went to a bar called the Metropolitan, which sucked. No one under the age of 40 was there. We literally walked in and walked out. We tried to find other bars around the area, but we had no luck. So we ended up at the Globe (the bar right next to our hotel) and stayed until it closed...at midnight...lame. We weren't ready to go home yet so we went to explore a little bit. Most fun night of my life. I didn't stop laughing the whole time. We just walked around London and talked and laughed it was a blast. We stayed out until about 1:30 and then headed back to the hotel. 

Today was move-in day. It was super stressful. The line to check in was long, Amanda's key didn't work. We had to take 2 trips from the hotel to the dorm. It was just a lot. But I am all checked in. I haven't unpacked though, but I'll get to that later. 


Soooo that's all for now! Byeee

Up Up and Away

I am sitting in the DFW airport waiting to board my nine and a half hour flight to London. I don't think it's actually going to hit me that I'm going to London for FIVE MONTHS until I get on the plane. I was getting a little nervous on my flight from Austin to DFW because I almost had to check my carry-on because it didn't fit in the overhead bin, but of course I made it work. I really hope I can sleep most of this flight. I've never been on a flight this long so we will see how it goes!