Trafalgar Square/ National Museum

I spy with my little eye ;)

We were so excited to try some butterbeer (sooo good!!)

Old Bank of England

I have a few moments of down time so I thought I'd try and catch you up about my adventures so far.
First of all, London is a beautiful city. The people here appreciate the history that comes with the city so they try and maintain the buildings in the same architecture as it was in the 1600's. The buildings here are incredible. I cannot even describe how gorgeous they are.

Day 1: Meeting at London Heathrow Airport

Flying into Heathrow was incredible. Seeing Parliament and the London Eye and Westminster Abby and all these other well known buildings from bird's eye view was surreal. But after 12 hours of traveling, me and my traveling companion, Emily, were exhausted. Apparently it's nearly impossible sleeping on the plane when you're in a middle seat. I didn't sleep at all on our longest flight of 7 hours so we got to Heathrow and I wanted to crash. But I couldn't. (By the way, the immigration people at the airport are mean. Just fyi.)

We rounded up the other people who arrived at the airport and headed towards our housing which are some flats on Farringdon Road. I have 4 other roommates who I'm so blessed to be housed with. We had a few hours to get settled before we had to meet for a orientation dinner. My roommate, Phoebe, and my flatmate, Amy, and I took a stroll along Farringdon road and discovered some coffee shops and a few boutiques. It's interesting, here if you ask for a "small coffee", the English don't know what you're talking about. So the coffee experience here is different coming from a coffee city.

The group met at 6 to go to our orientation dinner which was held at the Old Bank of England located on Fleet street, next to Sweeney Todd's barber shop. (If you don't know the story, Sweeney Todd is a barber who made meat pies but the meat were humans).

The next day we had plans of sight-seeing on a tour bus while doing a scavenger hunt. We met at St. Paul's Cathedral and the way we had to do so was through, what the English call, "The tube". It's an underground train system which is incredible in its set up. It was our first time trying to navigate our way in the middle of rush hour. There were hundreds of people. The English are always in a rush. They blew past us and there are rules of etiquette on the tube. It's weird. In a good way.
Anyways, we eventually made it to the cathedral and when we got there, we were split up into teams and my team didn't exactly do the scavenger hunt. Instead we just rode the tour bus twice which was 3 hours of sight-seeing. It was raining and my group was sitting on the top with an open roof. Our motto was "We're Seattlites, this is nothing". It was a blast.
Then we had to regroup with everybody to do "high tea". A waiter came around our conference-sized table and put napkins in each of our laps. There were about 30 of us. The food was great. The tea was amazing. I'm not even a tea person but I had about 4 cups.
Being here without the ability to use my phone has been rough. I'm so used to a culture where we are so absorbed with ourselves and what's going on somewhere else, coming here with no form of communication has been a transition. I hope to come back with the habit of not needing my phone. People here are technologically behind so there are actual conversations and more face-to-face interaction. You won't see many people with phones in their hands or that much texting. I REALLY appreciate that. It's great to see an outside perspective.

Yesterday was a free day. Phoebe and I took a trip to Trafalgar Square which is a tourist attraction. We were supposed to meet our friend, Aly, who is attending Oxford to have lunch but we couldn't find each other. Here at Trafalgar Square is located the National Museum. Almost like downtown Seattle, people bring their instruments and play and there are "gypsies" performing shows.
I've noticed that people here seem more accustomed to someone of my stature and there aren't many people who have stared at me. There is also a fascination with the american accent. I went to a coffee shop and when I was ordering the waiter kept complimenting "my beautiful accent" and continuously asked me questions about my homeland.

After Trafalgar Square, Phoebe, Becky, Amy, and I were scheduled to do a Harry Potter Studio Tour. Funy story: we had train tickets but we got on the wrong train. It was still planned to go to our ending destination but it wasn't the fast train that we paid for. It stopped 30 times before our stop. The ticket said it was supposed to arrive 20 minutes after our boarding time but after a half an hour, we started to get nervous. We made the tour just on time. We were all panicking because we were so excited to do it. To see where they filmed and all the props used.

We got back from the Harry Potter tour and our flat went to dinner at an italian restaurant down the road. Then we met the rest of the group at a pub.

And here today, we're scheduled to go to St. Paul's Cathedral once again to witness a recital. I'm excited!

So, I'll try and keep everyone updated! I hope you enjoy these posts!