Drama on the Double Decker Bus

After my dinner with Elizabeth I walked back to the bus station to catch the 25 to Mile End.  At IES orientation the leaders had told us not to sit on top at night because it can be a little sketchy but I figured 7pm wasn't too late and I would be fine -- WRONG. The top of the bus was not crowded at all and I picked a lovely seat by the window. Two stops later this guy got on the bus and sat right next to me.  I was in lala land and didn't realize how weird it was that he sat next to me with so many open seats until a few stops later.  I wasn't too bothered and just continued to look out the window.  THEN THINGS GOT WEIRD. He started a conversation with me which is out of the ordinary here because no one talks on public transportation.  I went along with his small talk because I didn't want to seem mean or stuck up.  I answered his questions but was very short just in case.  He told me a lot about himself for example, he is from New Delhi and has been living in London for 5 years.  He doesn't like the hot weather they have in India and couldn't understand the difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius -- at one point he told me that if Minnesota had 50 degree weather our skin would melt off. I gave up trying to explain the different temperature scales.  He has family that lives in New Hampshire but he has never been there.  He sometimes rides the 25 bus route but really needs to get to East Ham -- never heard of it.  After his life story he said, "And you?" And I was so confused...apparently he expected me to then give him my life story -- ain't gonna happen.  He then got out his phone and asked for my name to request me on facebook.  I told him that I wasn't easy to find and we had probably a ten minute conversation about how he WOULD be able to find me.  When it was clear that I wasn't going to give him my information he said "I understand you don't want to be my friend." Awkward silence followed.  And then he asked me if I was single.  BEING THE DINGUS THAT I AM I said yes. (stupid mistake never to be made again I'm making a fake boyfriend up as I type) and he wanted to know why.  I flat out told him this was something I would not talk about.  When I was two blocks away from my stop he asked if I had weekends off of school.  I was confused and said "yeahhh?"Just as we pulled up to my stop he asked if we could go out sometime and I ran past him down the stairs to the doors and bolted off the bus.  I ran the entire way back to my room checking over my shoulder just to make sure he wasn't following me.

Prior to this freaky encounter, I went out to dinner at a pizza express with one of my best friends from high school who is studying abroad here in London too! I'm trying to save more money and I decided to take the bus to meet up with her.  Because I only know one bus route I took it as far as it could take me and then walked for fifteen minutes to meet up with her.  I'm so glad I did because it was an adventure! I saw the cutest shopping areas and loved the short walk to meet up with her.  Here are some pictures.

Ready, Set, BE A TOURIST!

I kept meaning to write this week but nothing too exciting happened.  The biggest accomplishment of the week was that I made guacamole from scratch.  I picked up two avacados from a street vendor and found some salsa (THANKGOD) at the grocery store.  I was a little stuck when I realized that they don't have tortilla chips here in London.  In place of tortilla chips I used pita bread which worked nicely -- better than pretzels.

This weekend was very exciting! Two friends from Gustavus, Maggie and Jenni visited us in London. It was a jam packed weekend trying to hit the best places in London in 3 days.  Sorry in advance for such a long blog post...

On Friday, we went to Tower Hill where the armory is and the crown jewels are kept.  The jewels were GORGEOUS.  The exhibition had a moving walkway to prevent any gawkers and it was so cool to see the generations of jewels on display.  Then we moved on to the tower bridge and shakespeare's globe.  It was fun to see them but definitely not my favorite tourist destinations in London.  While trying to make our way back to the tube station we ran into Bourough Market.  It was such a fun area where street vendors were selling a variety of foods.  We all had a pasty while walking around admiring the many foods on sale.

Crown Jewels!! 

Tower Bridge

 We made our way to Kings Cross Station where we visited Platform 9 and 3/4.  It was AMAZING.   There were a ton of people waiting in line at the station and they had a professional photographer.  Luckily, they allowed you to take your own photo.  They had all the house scarves available for people to wear while taking the picture and a set of Harry Potter glasses.  Next door to the platform was a "Platform 9 and 3/4 Harry Potter Shop."  They had special edition books, wands and sweaters on sale.  I was tempted to buy a sweater because I have been so cold lately!! 

Off to Hogwarts! 

The tube doesn't run 24/7 here so it shuts down every night at midnight and starts up again at 7 in the morning.  Friday night we decided to head back home at around 11pm.  HOLY PEOPLE.  The tube stations were packed with loads of people trying to get to their final destination before the tube closed.  It was a crazy experience of being pressed up against random strangers and each time the tube stopped it got more and more crowed as people shoved their way onto the train.

Saturday was another full day.  We saw Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace and the London Eye.  We got to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace which was really interesting.  The queen has a multitude of regiments who serve and protect her palace from different countries.  Every 48 hours the regiments change completely.  On Saturday, the red coat guards (don't know where they were from so I'm going to classify them by color) were leaving duty and the gray coats were taking their place.  My favorite part was the marching bands that came with both regiments it really reminded me how much I love band!

So many tourists! 

All the police were on horses! 

MARCHING BAND #bandnerd4lyfe

Bye Red Coats! 

HI Gray coats! 

We headed to the London Eye because it was SUNNY outside....BEST DAY EVER. And we were about to cross a street when Elizabeth Harris just popped up out of no where!!!! It was so so so much fun to see her and we probably looked like crazy Americans jumping up and down yelling of excitement. Hanna, Jenni and I went on the London Eye which was beautiful and very interesting to see how huuuuuuge London is.

Look how many cranes there are! Construction is a big thing here....

Random run in with Elizabeth!!!

We went to Portobello Market near Notting Hill.  At that point in the day all I wanted was to sit down and have my personal space since there is always a billion people around you here in London.  That night we went to China town for dinner and it was delicious. I literally ate my entire bowl of fried rice and sweet and sour chicken.  It was soooo good.

Today we went to church at Westminster Abbey! It was a long service but my favorite part was the choir which was composed of young boys who had the most adorable voices.  It was really amazing to go to church in such a gorgeous building.  

This weekend Hanna and I head out on our first adventure to Belgium to visit family friends of mine and Eric and Nick! I'm so excited to experience traveling outside of London and I can't wait to see familiar faces.  AND I CANT WAIT FOR BELGIAN WAFFLES AND CHOCOLATE. Bring on the sweets please :)

Two pieces of exciting news:
1. Caitlin is officially coming to visit me in March YAY!
2. My Grandpa and Aunt Marie are also coming to visit me in March!!

March is going to be the best month ever.....

I.went.to.McDonalds.last.night.WHAT.

It's true. I went to McDonalds last night.  The photo is proof that I ACTUALLY ate food there -- Chicken McBites and fries.  Looking back on it, I'm grossed out and I'm going to go run for about 15 days but last night it was delicious! I had a moment of "It really IS my birthday!" while eating -- For those of you who know about Cullen exclaiming "It really IS christmas!" when receiving Ritz Crackers...

Now that I've written on probably the most shocking event of the night I will continue to share some of the crazy things that happened last night.  They are all kind of random...

• We went on the Camden Pub Crawl which happens every night except Sundays.  After paying 12 pounds we got a wrist band to get us into the pubs on the pub crawl and we received a free shot at each pub.  
• The free shot was so nasty because it was always black licorice flavored (YUCK) -- probably the pubs way to get rid of the liquor no body wants. 
• The second "pub" we went to was actually a club.  There was a guy rapping on the stage and turns out he is Ed Sheeran's cousin! He was awful. His songs sounded like a string of random words put together.  
• His stage name was Lone Star....(I don't even know what to say about this) 
• One of my favorite songs Ed Sheeran's cousin sang was titled "This is my song." Most creative song title EVER.  
• It was weird to have my birthday here in Europe.  Most people didn't understand what a big deal it was until I would say "I'm legal in America!" and then people understood.  
• At the next pub I chatted it up with two guys from Australia and when I told them it was my birthday (and that I was legal) they sang to me! It was SO awesome.  
• A girl who found out that it was my 21st tried to get me to chew and I adamantly refused but then we bonded over pictures of our dogs! 
• At McDonalds, while I was standing in line I complimented some guy wearing a patagonia sweatshirt.  Turns out, he's from Edina! AND he's been to Antarctica (Ryan thought of you!) It was a crazy small world moment. Who would've thought I would run into someone from Edina in London?!?!

Overall it was a wonderful 21st birthday and I had such a good time! I'm sure I will always remember it :) 

On a more serious note, yesterday I went to Proper British Tea.  My Grandma and I had always talked about going to high tea but couldn't find places to go in Minneapolis.  It felt really special to go on my birthday to something that my Grandma had always wanted to take me to.  I wish she could have been there -- she would have loved it! 

Tea selection

We got chai tea and the whole package of afternoon tea which included finger sandwiches, scones, and little cakes.  

____________________________________

On a completely unrelated note and nothing to do with my birthday I wanted to share two facts that I keep forgetting to write about. 

1.  I actually live in the ghetto of London. It's a really shady area and I don't feel safe venturing outside of campus.  

2. These shoes are really popular here....I think they are the most ugly things in the world. 

You Get What You Pay For...

For one of my classes, I have to attend or visit four performances or art museums in London.  After visiting either of these options I have to write a paragraph on how text art and performance connect to one another.

Hanna and I decided to go to see Wicked for one of our performances.  We took the tube to Leicester Square -- where all the cheap ticket sellers are and we found tickets for Wicked that were each around $30.  Last night, when we got to the show we realized you get what you pay for...Our seats were in the very last row at the very top of the auditorium.  As we walked up the endless stairs we started to get the giggles about how far up we were from the actual stage.  Once we found our seats we settled in and noticed that the theater company had provided little binoculars for rent at each seat in our row! HA. Talk about nosebleed seats!! The show was wonderful even though sometimes the actors looked like little blobs.  I definitely learned a lesson about picking the cheapest option all the time.  I would probably pay more next time so I wasn't just looking at blobs of color.

The picture didn't turn out to well but these are the binoculars! They say "FOR HIRE 1 POUND"

Selfie in our seats!

Really tiny stage...

On our way to the performance we saw some interesting things! The first was a man who was begging for money by playing a construction cone.  He was using it like an instrument buzzing into the top to make sounds.  It was hilarious! What a creative idea. I also saw a man in a kilt which was really exciting for me.  I'm sure we'll see more of them when we go to Scotland.

Today I am doing laundry which is the longest process ever.  You have to go to the laundry machines and buy a laundry card for 2 pounds.  Then you have to go back to your room and register your laundry card and pay for a top up number.  After that is completed you can top up your card with the desired amount.  Once you have money on your card THEN you can go do laundry which costs about 2.50 pounds for wash and 1.50 pounds to dry.  EVERYTHING IS SO EXPENSIVE HERE! I miss Gustavus where laundry is free and you don't even need a laundry card...

It's snowing today and its so funny to walk outside because there is a tiny layer of snow on the ground but Queen Mary workers have come around and put down TONS of salt and sand.  From a minnesotan's point of view it's a little excessive.  I do have to ride the tube today so we'll see if there are complications because of the weather.

RAGU for the win!

I thought I'd write a quick post about everything that has occurred to me so far about the culture here...

• Ragu Pasta Sauce has saved Hanna and my life over and over again! We probably use it at every meal for different reasons.
• Queen Mary has tons of signs around campus that claim they are a smoke free campus.  NO ONE pays attention to it.  
• In order to get into and out of some buildings here you have to swipe your ID card but until today my card did not work so we were literally stuck outside a building until someone let us AND stuck inside the building until someone let us out.  Not being able to leave a building feels like a fire hazard to me...
• Because they drive on the opposite side of the street here they also walk on the opposite side of the sidewalk.  If I don't remember fast enough I run into almost everyone walking the opposite direction. 
• In relation to the past bullet point...I still haven't figured out how the stairways work here...I just walk down the middle or follow someone.
• Europeans have a different idea of personal space. I feel so claustrophobic ALL THE TIME! 
• There are no public trash cans here but it stays relatively clean.  I'm impressed!

There are three Chipotles in London and tonight four of us went to have dinner at the Piccadilly Circus Chipotle.  It was SO good to have familiar food.  Hanna and I are going to have "Proper British Tea" on my birthday at a grocery store where the Queen's chefs shop! That reminds me about the bus tour on Sunday.  We didn't get to walk around much but it was fun to hear about all the stories that add to London's diverse history.  Plus our tour guide was a hilarious sassy old lady! 

I'll try to write again after my birthday. I've been recruiting Americans to help me celebrate because they understand how big this day is! :) 

In front of Buckingham Palace 

Westminster Abbey

Buckingham Palace! 

PURE GOLD UP THERE. (Tax payers had to fund this...our tour guide had some interesting thoughts/words on this...) 

Can't believe it's been 10 days...

I have been here in London for only 10 days although it feels like so much longer! This week was pretty eventful as Hanna and I continued to try to find our way around campus, classes and still make time to adventure out to the city.

On Tuesday, we went to our Geography class which is the last required course have to fulfill to graduate on time at Gustavus.  When we got there we noticed that we were the only associate students aka study abroad students.  We sat down in the lecture hall and prepared ourselves for what we assumed would be a standard geography course.  We were sadly mistaken.  The professor began on lecture 3 and would constantly make references to the past semester course.  Halfway through the two hour course we had a break and I went up to ask the professor how to find the first two lectures.  She wasn't really sure how to find them but she said she would try to figure it out.  After the class Hanna and I left the lecture hall with eyes as big as saucers FREAKING out because the class was so difficult.  That night we did research and tried to find other courses to switch into.  We ran to the geography department the next morning to try to figure out other possible options.  While talking to the head of the geography department we found out that the course we were enrolled in was a full year course and she wasn't sure how we had managed to get placed there.  We dropped the geography course and went on to the english department to sign up for a Narrative class.  Our plan C was to take a summer course to complete our NWEST credit so that night we spent three hours searching online for a geography course that would satisfy Gustavus requirements in any of the colleges around the Twin Cities.  After hours of searching we found an online course at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.  We applied for acceptance to the summer program and are currently waiting to hear back.  Fingers crossed we get in so we can graduate on time!!

On Wednesday a group of friends went to Covent Gardens in London.  It's a neighborhood that has a ton of shops.  We were looking for Ben's Cookies -- a cookie shop recommended to me.  We had fun riding the double decker buses to Covent Garden and wandering around.  We successfully found the cookie shop and it was delicious! They had big fluffy warm cookies in a variety of flavors. YUMMY.

Ben's Cookies! 

Covent Garden Square

YUM.  I'm going back ASAP,

Yesterday, we met up with a friend from Gustavus who lives in London.  He showed us around the West side of London.  We went to Camden Loch which is a really fun market area for people our age and we went to Primrose Hill.  From the hill you can see the entire London skyline which was so cool, however, my pictures didn't turn out because it was so dark.  After our adventures we went out to dinner at a nice restaurant that was SO DELICIOUS (probably because we didn't have to cook) and the restaurants building was established in the 1100's.  It's so crazy how old the buildings are here!! It makes all the buildings founded in America in the 1700's seem really new.

Attack of the birds -- they are literally everywhere...

A Marble Arch! (Probably historical...)

A lot of the streets in London have directions on which way to look when crossing the street for tourists -- pretty sure it's already saved my life multiple times! 

Today, we went to the Windsor castle and Eton College.  Windsor is the Queen's favorite castle and it is massive.  Eton college is a school for boys ages 13-18 and it is very prestigious.  Prince William and Henry both went there! It was a fun field trip except it was freezing.  I feel like a lame Minnesotan because I'm always cold here when it's only 40ish degrees.  I think the cold here is more wet than Minnesota and it gets into your bones.  BRRR, I'm cold just thinking about it. We are actually supposed to get snow soon which will be really interesting to see! After we got a tour of the castle, we were free to roam the city and get lunch.  I had a Pasty which is a classic food here in England.  It is basically a chicken pot pie in a calzone.  It was SUPER good and helped me warm up.

The modern part of Windsor castle where the Queen stays when she comes to visit

Cutest little town ever

Tomorrow we go on a bus tour of London which will hopefully help our understanding of where things are in London.  The city is so large that I'm not sure I will ever have a handle on all the different places here.  We also have a ton of reading to do for homework so I'll have to fit that in soon...Its hard to do homework when I have a bustling city right outside my room.

So, we have been here about a week and a half and I'm already craving food from home! OOPZIEZ. Right now all I want is a doughnut or pancakes.  I've decided that I'm heading straight from the airport to Original Pancake House when I get home.  We also got some tips from our Gustavus friend of where to go if we need to buy some American food in London because apparently here they don't sell goldfish and pop tarts...good to know for when March rolls around.

I finally have found my address! I know some people have asked for it so here it is :

Kelsey Raasch
Flat 11D
Maynard House
Westfield Way
London
E1 4PD

Happy First Day of School!!

Happy first day of school!! Today begins second semester here at Queen Mary University.  After an aggravating registration I only had one class going into today so I was a bit apprehensive about what today would look like.

School is done differently here in the UK.  When students attend the University they focus on one subject and only that subject.  Because of that, departments schedule classes whenever they would like and do not offer multiple sections.  I'm taking four different courses from different departments and it took Hanna and I about a week to finally figure out how to schedule all the classes we wanted to take.  I am enrolled in: European culture & Society, Spaces of Uneven Development, Architecture of London and Text, Art & Performance in London.  I'm really excited about my classes because a lot of them have field trips around London which will be the perfect opportunity to experience more of the city.  Another interesting fact about schooling here is each class is only two hours a week so I have eight hours of class total and I do not have school on Mondays or Fridays.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with so much spare time but hopefully I can get lots of travelling in :)

Before I left for study abroad, I understood that I would have some culture shock but was pretty confident that going to an English speaking country it wouldn't be too difficult to transition.  I am constantly amazed at the cultural differences I am experiencing here! Everything here is super tiny.  We share a fridge and freezer in my flat with five girls and it is about a third the size of refrigerators in the US.  Last night, I realized that the fridge is considered an XXL refrigerator.  The sink in our bathroom is also tiny.  It is a little bigger than a grapefruit so that has been another size adjustment.  The buildings here in London have TONS of fire doors.  There are loads of fire doors in the hallways here.  Just to get to my flat I have to go through 6 fire doors.  I'm not sure why they have so many fire doors but I'll try to figure it out...I have also found it really hard to get used to how cloudy it is here.  I have seen the sun once since being here and other than that it is constantly overcast and dark outside.  I'm appreciating Minnesota weather SO MUCH MORE. Holy cow.  I would even take freezing cold weather with sun over this overcast weather.

Saturday Hanna and I ventured into central London and got to see Big Ben, the London Eye, Picadilly circus and the parliament building.  It was so fun to see all those beautiful places in London.  We felt a little at home with all the tourists too :)

We walked out of the tube station and looked up to see Big Ben! 

Yesterday, Hanna, Zach and I went to the Olympic Village. It is just a short bus ride away from our University and at night you can see the buildings from Queen Mary.  When we got there we were really disappointed because they do not allow visitors in the buildings and we realized that they are tearing down the buildings.  I'm not sure why they would destroy them so soon after the Olympics but we got to see from a viewing platform the track/opening ceremony, water polo and aquatic stadium.  Near the Olympic Village they have a huge indoor/outdoor mall that was PACKED! I don't think I've ever seen that many people in one place before.

Hanna and I have officially booked our first tickets to visit family friends in Belgium. I cannot wait to have a home cooked meal and see familiar faces. :) We are going to Ireland and Scotland later on in February to visit Jenni and Maggie.  It will be nice to have the month of January to get to know London really well and then begin our adventures in other countries.  This weekend we go on a field trip to Eton and Windsor (where Prince Harry and William went to school!).  I'll try to post after that!