Just another day.......in London!

Hello friends!
Back from another day trip to London.  This time we went to the Tate Modern Museum which is right along the Thames River.  One really cool exhibit was of thousands of hand-made porcelain  sunflower seeds made by a Chinese artist I believe.  They also had a lot of paintings from Picasso and Monet which were super cool to see in picture.  If you are ever in London I would recommend taking some time to stop by Tate Modern.  Right next to the museum was the Millennium Bridge (aka bridge in the beginning of HP and the Half Blood Prince!  I am loving seeing all the things in the Harry Potter movies! ha) So of course we went and took pictures on the bridge.  After that we headed down the Thames a little further to the Borough Market, which was cool in itself.  By the time we got there most of the shops were closed (everything closes early here, like nothing but pubs and restaurants are open past 6) but they had fresh fish and bread so my friends and I plan to go back when everything is in full swing!  To finish of the night we ate at GBK or Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which I would recommend to anyone who comes to London.  That's all for now, I am on my way to Ireland this upcoming week so look for some pictures!!!!

Sunflower seeds exhibit at the Tate Modern Museum

Picture of People looking at a picture of people looking at a picture ha

Me on the Millennium Bridge

Camden and the London Eye!

I just got back from another little day trip to London and I am so excited I cannot wait one more minute to talk about it!  If I wasn't in love with London before today, I am officially now.  To start off our day, we went down to Camden Street to see all of the markets.  SOOOOOOO COOOOOLLLL!!!!!!  There were soo many cute little vendors and I got a little experience with bartering for prices on clothing and such.  Not only were there clothing vendors but so many food vendors.  You walk through the market and it smells so good.  My friends and I made two trips to a little donut stand that made the donuts right in front of you!  We also tried crepes, I shared a nutella and strawberry one (amazing combination and I am not the biggest fan of nutella) and I also tried a little bit of lemon and sugar which was tasty as well.  I promise to take more pictures of it when it is not so cold out.  After we had our fill of that for the day we headed over to the London Eye.  The best time to go is at night because the city looks pretty neat all lit up.

Hooray for the London Eye!

Bridget, Kristin, and Myself on our way up to the top of the London Eye

Pretty London lights

The little bubble thing that we rode to the top of the eye in

The Beautiful Town of St. Albans!

This past Saturday, my friends and I took a small little weekend trip back to St. Albans.  This time we agreed to avoid the shops (because seriously, I could spend my life savings at H&M and River Island... check them out if you get the chance) and tour the beautiful St. Albans Cathedral and Abbey.  You wouldn't think that for such a smallish town there would be a massive cathedral but this thing is huge!  Construction on the Cathedral itself started in 1077 and you can see it along the walls where the building materials have changed.

This is a side view of the cathedral as we were walking towards it.
P.S. Look at the huge whomping willow..Harry Potter is everywhere
in this country!

A close up of the mixed materials used to build the exterior

Right as you walk in the front door

A mural on the wall of the whole process of building the Cathedral.

 After we were through with our tour, we went to the most delicious Italian place called Zizzi.  The food was insanely good and I cannot wait to try the food when I am actually in Italy.

Chicago! in London!

Last night I had the amazing opportunity to see Chicago on stage in London!  I have actually never seen the musical before or even the movie so I had no idea what to expect.  I loved it!  All the actors were great and the theater was an experience all in itself.  It was quite old and had the typical red velvet chairs, gold paint, etc.  Last night was also my first experience on the train and using the tubes (subways) in the city.  Our first stop was Kings Cross station and what did you know....

.
We stumbled upon platform 9 3/4! Soooo cool!

Lessons Learned!

This post is all about what I have learned so far while at the University, or the Uni as most of the British call it.
1. Hertfordshire is really disorganized compared to KSU.  You are expected to stay on top of things yourself and when you get here it feels like you have all this stuff to do that should have already been done.  It does get better though!
2. European debit cards have micro chips in them.  In saying that, some places won't take your swiped card (at the movie theater (aka cinema) and at the grocery store).  Last night I forgot to bring cash and without my friends (who had cash) I would have been denied a movie ticket and the candy I bought for it
3. There is not a whole lot to do in Hatfield itself.  The school here is good, which is why students come, but without the mall and the theater there is nothing really to do.  I regret not bringing movies with me (because of course, their dvds don't work in our computers) and none of our movie watching sites work here :(.  Oh well, I will survive.

London Town!

Since I have been here, all I have heard my British roommates talk about is how much they love London.  After today, I can see where they are coming from!  All of the internationally students had the opportunity to take a trip to London today and it was super fun.  We saw Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, etc etc etc.  Needless to say, I got my exercise today.  My favorite part was Piccadilly Circus.  Its filled with tons of really cool shops, even though some of them sell things worth more than my house (okay, maybe only a few things were worth that much but we did walk past Mikimoto, Dolce and Gabbana, and we walked into DKNY just to see all of the pretty things).  It was super cold today too, so for a while we sat and sipped coffee at Costa.  Its like a Starbucks but way cooler and they had delicious cupcakes!  My friends and I are already planning our next trip back because there is no such thing as seeing London in one day.  In other news, it has been an interesting change going from a country that has more restrictions on drinking to one that does not.  I haven't seen a lot of liquor stores, which is probably because you could get all the alcohol you ever wanted at the grocery store.  Everybody always has at least one bottle of something in their cart and our student union has a little shop that sells food, candy, and any sort of alcohol you would want.  The food has also been an adjustment.  For those of you who know me, I am not a fan of mayo.  Well guess what....they put mayo on everything!  This has made me venture out quite a bit and try all of the mayo-less things.  Hopefully, I will find some things I really like so I don't have to keep guessing on food.  Thats all for now, I start school tomorrow (bleh) so hopefully the enrollment process goes smoothly!

Here at last!

Hello Americans!  I am officially here in the UK!  These past few days have been quite interesting to say the least.  After being picked up at the airport, we were taken to get our rooms.  But since none of the Americans had received their housing contracts, we had to walk across campus by ourselves to go find the office to get the contracts and then pay our bill.  Then, when I went to pay my bill my card didn't work! So I spent the night in emergency accommodation (ha) and a half inflated air mattress.  Positive about all of this? I met another American from Cali, who had met some other girls the day before and we all became fast friends!  Well, that is all for now.  Get ready for some good blogging coming up... I have an adventure planned for Sunday!