So a week ago, we went to visit Windsor Castle. It's located right outside London and is the preferred residence of the Queen. And I really can't blame her. Eton is right next door and has a fantastic boys college, aka high school to americans. They wore the most abfab (absolutely fabulous) uniforms that we all had to get pictures of. It was a cute little village too.
Windsor is almost 1000 years old (give it about 50 more years) and is stunning. We only got to see the State rooms and that was just a tiny, tiny portion of it.
I'm sure the Queen's private residence is even more amazing cause they are her private chambers. The real question of the day though was "Does the Queen ever just look around and go 'Damn I'm loaded?!'" We also believe her to be dancing to her iPod, but that's just an opinion. haha
Then, my favorite picture of that day:
Monday -
We went out on Monday night to meet some local students. Kind of fail on meeting locals, but we got to know each other in the group better. So far, everybody gets along which is a great thing. Cause we take classes together and these are not huge lecture hall classes. But more on that later.
Anyway, we were making an epic adventure to get home. Some of the guys we were walking with wanted McDonalds so we stopped at the Leicester Square McDonalds. I got some medium fries off the 99 pence menu. Possibly better than the fries from home?? Anyway, my favorite quote from that point was Matt going "This is the best ketchup eveerrrrrrr."
After we ate, we had to find a bus stop that a bus going to our dorm went. Not an easy task. We wandered the wrong way, slowly getting more annoyed and cold. Finally, we found the bus stop and saw that we had to wait 20 minutes until it arrived. So we did what any sane group of people would do....we played charades. Theme was movies. It was great! We were having a blast just acting like complete fools. So much fun, that locals were joining in!! These two british guys were getting SO into the game. They would get a money and run around the bus stop area like they just scored a football (soccer) goal. Another girl was silent until she got the movie "Good Burger" correct. Then she walked away calmly to get on her bus. My best guessing came through when Matt did Breaking Away. 2 words and "bicycling" motion was all I needed. It was a great night that can probably and should never be duplicated.
Tuesday was my day of rest before classes. Others finally started classes while I got to lay around a little. I explored Kings Road, which runs right outside our dorm, and got myself a notebook for classes. It really is a great area. The pubs are fantastic. Trafalgar has amazing fish and chips. But get this....the fish aren't all deskinned!!! Ewwwwwww. So I had to like peel the skin off the bottom of the fish, but it was still good. Definitely recommend trying it if you ever visit.
Wednesday I finally started classes. It took until September 15 for me to go to a fall semester class. Totally epic in my books. I had my 19th century British Woman's Literature, Architecture, and Internship seminar classes that day. Literature should be interesting cause I haven't read novels for a class since freshman year of college. It's also forcing me to read novels I probably wouldn't have which can be good or bad. We'll find out. But it's a novel a week which is definitely a lot to me with the rest of this reading assigned. Architecture is going to be fun. It's not all sightseeing, but there's definitely that element to it. We go around to various places around London for class. Definitely glad I signed up cause it will get me out into London. Internship Seminar is required for my internship and honestly, pointless. He was getting everybody pumped up for their internships, but he had never heard of mine. Whatever, cause the video professor had and she thought they were an excellent company. Great place to learn so I am very excited.
Thursday I had my final 2 classes. The first of the day was Youth Culture. I am REALLY excited about this class. It's right up my alley for classes I enjoy. The professor came in really intense and kind of scared us at first, but he softened up a little. He stressed it was a serious class, but we will still have fun. And of course, we will! We listened to a Beatle's song (Day in the Life) and watched part of Ali G in the first class. He introduced us to this cool, upcoming artist in London called Plan B. Check him out on Youtube. Particularly "She Says." I love the mix of 60's soul and Cockney rap! It's the same guy too... you won't believe it until you see/hear it. Then was my video production class. I should be excited for this class, but it's another beginners course. They are 3 of us.....3. That's soooo small to me and two of us are on the same level (Brandy and I) and then Alex is new to production. And she is from Spain so she has a language barrier as well. So we have to take it slow for Alex which is maddeningly boring for Brandy and I. It could be fun and I'll have more for my Vimeo site. Finally.
The class sizes at IES are soooo different from IU. The biggest class I have is probably 20, tops. Maybe only 15. So take a discussion class size and make that your lecture class. It's weird, but I like it. You get to talk and know people better. I'm decently still excited for classes, but they have SO much reading. That you have to do cause if you don't it is VERY obvious with classes that small.
Thursday night we went out to a place called O'Neills. We had a great time just chilling downstairs until we started exploring upwards and discovered a live, cover band. Great cover band, btw. I think they were called the Australians, but who knows, they could have just been Australian. We all had a great time, especially Steve.
Friday was another free day cause none of us have classes. We had our final orientation meeting (It was about traveling, woo woo). Then a group of us headed over to Camden Town for the day. We split up cause groups that large are awkward. Kori, Taylor and myself just wandered from stall to stall in this giant market place. It had every souvenir, cute dress/coat, shoes, jackets, and posters that you could want. We saw quite a few things we wanted, but we decided to head back later. Especially for this little wall decorations that I want.
Saturday we went to Buckingham Palace.
Quite impressive as well, but I think I prefer Windsor. Buckingham was, of course, impressive and a cool place to check out. It's only open in the summer when the Queen travels to Scotland to stay there. There were no pictures allowed inside which is upsetting cause everything was beautiful. We saw thrones, ball rooms, portraits of various royal people. The portrait gallery was cool until we actually looked at the paintings. Half were of pub fights (awesome) and the other half included weirder aspects like snakes and beheaded people. Kind of strange. Kori and I had fun nevertheless as we wandered through and even sat down in the ballroom. Cause, if you can sit down in an official ballroom, you sit down in an official ballroom. We'll have to go back for changing of the guard someday.
And that is basically my life. I'm getting use to riding the tube and busses everywhere. I paid about 70 pounds to go anywhere I want in zone 1 or 2 in London. And those are HUGE zones. We haven't left them yet, so I think I'm good.
I hope to update more often. Shout out to Andie for making me realize I have been slacking. I hope I haven't forgotten anything from this past week. I'll try to update more often. Hopefully, I'll get a travel post soon!
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