The Parks

OMG I love the parks here. SO so so much. Last week we went to Hyde park on Wednesday and it was ridiculously nice out. We walked through the park and the Rose Garden a little bit, but it had been cold enough that none of the flowers were in full bloom, but it was ok because the nap made up for it. Hope brought her Beatles blanket and we all just spread out on it and took naps and basked in the sunshine. It was definitely one of my favorite London days so far, plus all these couples were all snuggly and it was just freaking adorable. But it made all of us want snuggle buddies, too lol. Still haven't found my British husband--I'm working on it :P
And today we went to Regent's park to nap and play football (soccer for you silly Americans), but we wound up not napping and just playing football, which was fun. We played with a couple British guys, so that was nifty. It was ridiculously nice out today, too, so I was a little bummed that the outside nap didn't happen, but that's ok. I'm sure there will be more naps in my future. Everyone says 'Don't nap, go out and do stuff,' but I feel like it's killing two birds with one stone--seeing a park AND napping. GENIUS.
Oh, something else about Hyde Park: THE SWANS ARE FREAKING HUGE. Seriously. I've never seen birds this big. But they're very nice about eating PB&J sandwiches that you don't want anymore. I'll upload some pictures soon so you can see how freakishly gargantuan these swans are. It's like Birdzilla.
Sorry for the short post, but at least you're GETTING a post :P
Oh! Tomorrow we're going to Canterbury and Leeds Castle, which I'm really excited about--moreso Leeds Castle than Canterbury. Have you ever read Chaucer in middle English? It would make you ambivalent towards Canterbury, too. But apparently Canterbury Cathedral is one of the most renowned in Great Britain, so I AM looking forward to that bit. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Anglican church, and he's the dude that crowns people, just fyi. See? I'm learning stuff. ;)

UK Border Agents go to Bitch School

One thing I forgot to mention in the last post: Getting back into the UK from France was significantly more difficult than getting into the UK from the States. What?!? Ok, let me preface this with it was like 2 in the morning. Or thereabouts. So no one was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I could maybe understand that making the agents cranky. But they were NOT cranky, they were straight up bitchy. While I was playing 20 questions with my border agent, the one next to her walks over with some poor soul's passport and goes, "Look at this! An Algerian passport, this visa's sideways, this one's upside down!" And then she shakes her head and scoffs, "Ridiculous!!!" Ok, hold up. It's not THIS guy's fault that people failed kindergarten and can't stamp passports. Also, you are a border agent on the graveyard shift. You are not a top Interpol spy, and you're probably not even a real blonde. And I bet your passport picture is ugly. Let's not make fun of other people's passports RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM. Talk about unprofessional. I hope to God US border agents don't pull stunts like that. We're already douchey enough, thank you.

Yeah, and my border agent was like, "What do you get from [studying abroad]? How will it help you when you go back [to the states]?" Uhhh...basically it's an excuse to not study (sorry mom and dad) and spend all my money. And it looks semi-decent on a resume. But as far as you're concerned, Miss Nice-Border-Agent-Lady, what I "get" from studying abroad is BROKE. From YOUR COUNTRY. So let me back in so I can continue stimulating your economy. Capisce?

Also, some guy had to do the walk of shame and get all his stuff out of the bus with a border agent looming behind him because he got denied entry to the UK. Sucks to be him.

Paris and other excitement

So. You've found me out. I am a shite blogger. Well guess what: I WARNED YOU. There. Now that that's out of the way (and no, I will not apologize for not blogging for forever)...

Paris:

Dirty. Smelly. Seriously. Who knew an entire city could smell like piss? Well, I do now! I knew there was a reason we didn't go on the metro the first time we were there.

But Paris wasn't THAT bad. We went to the Louvre, the Eiffel Towel, Versailles, Notre Dame, Champs Elysees, the Opera House, and pet stores (don't ask). I think it was a good introduction to European travel because we kind of waded into it, and Paris is very similar to London--at least I thought so. The only difference is that Paris has trash cans (but no one uses them), whereas London is pretty immaculate but there are no trash cans. Probably because there are people who pick up trash on every single block. Seriously, if you walk for five minutes and don't see a trash-picker-upper, freaking call Guinness World Records immediately.

So, as some of you may know, we took the night bus to Paris, which worked out fine until we had to get on the ferry to cross the English Channel. First of all, some kid was puking and so they had to call the ambulance, and then ANOTHER kid started puking, and then they found a problem with the hydrolics or something so the doors wouldn't shut. Combined, this put us 2 hours behind schedule. Awesome, right? It actually turned out ok, we were just all super sleep drunk on the ferry. Like, all giggly. And someone made me laugh so hard that cookie crumbs wound up all over the table, so Mom (aka Lindsey) took them away and it was sad. Thank God Lauren brought cards. When we finally got to Paris, we made our way to the Metro (or the Paris underground/subway system), which is surprisingly similar to the tube, just, you know, DIRTY. And we found our hostel surprisingly easily, which made me very proud of us. Check in wasn't until later, but we could drop our bags off to store them in the luggage room, which was really nice. Carrying our ginormous backbacks on the Metro once made all the Parisians love us. NOT. We found food and got yelled at by an angry French baker because we were taking too long to decide what we wanted. That was a snazzy welcome to Paris for us lol. Then we went to the Louvre for a few hours and saw the big hits--Napolean's apartments, the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, etc. After the Louvre, naptime beckoned, big time. When we woke up, we decided to check out the Arc d'Triomphe and walk along the Champs Elyeeses. And it started snowing!!! It was super pretty, and made up for the semi-slow first day and sketchy travel experiences.

The next few days were spent exploring Paris and doing lots of tourist-y stuff, with the exception of two things: we went ice skating (well, Hope, Lauren, and Shelby did; Lindsey and I looked like hobos and bag ladies, holding everyone's purses) and then stopped into a bunch of pet shops. Fun times lol. We wanted to go take pictures of the outside of the Louvre since we skipped that the first time around, and on our way there there were all these pet shops. Ask 5 girls to walk by puppies without even looking. Go on, ask. I dare you.

We also saw Moulin Rouge (the actual club, not the movie) that night, all lit up, so that was fun, then there was a live band back at the hostel. It was three Argentinian boys who just decided to go on a European tour from the sound of it. They were pretty good, but we just heard their acoustic stuff. Apparently they're more techno/electronica. We did buy a CD, but I'm not sure if anyone has listened to it yet lol.

The last day in Paris was dedicated to Versailles. I was a little heartbroken to find out that the gardens weren't open in the winter, since that was something I missed last time I was in Paris, but c'est la vie, I suppose.

Whilst in Paris, I bought a lot of hats. But one of them is not for me, so I'll have to send that off soon. I blame the weather. Guess what? Paris in January is FREAKING COLD. So. Thanks to Lindsey for letting me borrow her gloves. Pretty sure if I hadn't had them I wouldn't be typing this right now. Because my fingers would have fallen off.

Mostly, though, Paris made me miss choir a lot. Since I'd been there before, the Notre Dame was even more amazing but bittersweet becuase I stood in front of where we sang, and it just reminded me of high school choir tour. It was really surreal to look at the choir loft and know that I had been there nearly three years before. So much time has passed that it seems like both forever ago and yesterday at the same time. How does that happen?

I'm definitely looking forward to going new places soon. I think either Scotland or Ireland might be next up. I'll blog about Bath soon, I promise. Sort of. Just don't hold me to it :P

Hiya from Eleanor and Anna

After some gentle prodding by a couple readers (well, actually before this gentle prodding), I've decided to do another post. Now, I'm just warning you: I suck at blogging. I'm terrible with frequency; anything that requires regular updates? NOT MY FORTE. Ok. Now that we've gotten that out of the way (that being, for those of you who didn't realize, a blanket apology for my bad blogging skills for the entirety of the semester)...

Internship update: I'm interning at a not-for-profit company called 4Children in their publications department. 4Children works to better the lives of families and children through numerous campaigns as well as via policy. They've got connections in parliament to make sure that any policy passed is "family-friendly." Their main goal is providing resources for parents and children such as information and accessible childcare, and making sure that childcare stays well maintained. What do I actually do, you ask? So far, I've done some website updating and some copyediting. As that copyediting included proofing an eighty-page document and I hadn'tt slept well the night before (who actually sleeps before the first day of work or school or whatever anyway?), I kind of almost fell asleep several times. One of the graphic designers told me I could look for pictures for one of the new campaigns they're launching under their "Give Me Strength" campaign. On my first day, I wound up getting through 46 pages of proofreading and I'd found 46 pictures. The matching numbers were completely coincidental and quite freaky, to be honest.
Also, I've made tea. My first go at tea was apparently acceptable because I was told "that was a lovely cup of tea!" by one of the graphic designers. SUCCESS.

I feel like I know what some of you unfamiliar with British culture are thinking. You make tea? They make you make tea?? You're the TEA GIRL??? No, it's not like that. Here, it's customary to offer to get something if you get up to make yourself tea and whatnot. And I've learned that tea-making can be quite a nice break from staring at a computer screen for a bazillon hours.

And the people at my internship are super nice. Like, I just want to give them hugs. I actually was sad that I didn't get to go back on Thursday lol. I think I would've rather done that than go to class. One thing I like about my internship is I feel productive with whatever I'm doing. Like, I can visually see what I've done. When I was updating websites, what I was doing was adding a yellow box on the right hand side of the screen and putting in hyperlinks to other websites people might want to visit. So I can pull up the pages and look at it and say "I put that there!!!" It's quite nifty. If you want to see what I've done, check here: http://www.4children.org.uk/Services/Detail/Featherbank-Out-of-School-Club, There's a bunch more just like this one that I've done, too, and I'll hopefully finish them next week. 4Children is making webpages for all the children's centres or day cares that parents can search for by location. Pretty nifty. And you can navigate the rest of the 4Children website from here, too, If you want a better look at what they're involved in.

Also, boy update: It turns out that I'm not terribly attracted to British men. They're all so freaking skinny!!! So my wish to marry a British guy isn't so fervent, at the moment. Which means, Mom and Dad, that it looks like I'll be coming back after all :P There are, however, a few exceptions. I stood next to a guy that looked like Ryan Gosling on the tube the other day. It was beautiful.

Hmmm...what else...Oh! We went to the British Museum yesterday. Frickin amazing. But we only got through, like, four exhibits: Medieval Europe, Ancient Greece and Rome, Ancient Iran, and Egypt (which was where the Rosetta Stone is). Funny story about the Rosetta stone, actually. We were in Medieval Europe or something and I asked Lindsey where it was, because, hey, the British Museum is legit enough to actually have something like that, and lo and behold they did!! They did not, however, have any jackal statues. I was pissed. Like, you think Egypt, you think mummy and then you think jackal. Apparently not if you're British. Wankers.

WE SAW LES MISERABLES YESTERDAY NIGHT. Amazing. I didn't think I would like it as much as I did, but it was bloody fantastic. The cast was phenomenal, the set was stellar, gah! I loved it. Now I can't wait to see Wicked, which I think we may try for next week sometime.

As always, Eleanor says hello to you all! I have some pictures of her in various places (including my internship) that I'll try to upload in the nearish future.

Another addendum to my inconsistent blogging: I'll have to start updating regularly for a class (which is obnoxious, if you ask me), but some of them will be actually assignments. Which you're free to read depending on how bored you are, but I'm just warning you.

Cheers,

Anna and Eleanor

Hello, all! For those of you who've not yet met Eleanor, she is a beanie-elephant who hails from the St. Louis zoo. She protected me from the bug exhibit, and we bonded. So I figured I could take her to London and she could be my unofficial mascot! We are having a fabulous time in beautiful London! Pictures are up on FB, however there aren't any particularly fun/goofy ones as of yet, as I have forgotten to take Eleanor traveling around with me. But never fear, she'll go out soon, I promise.
We took our first walking tour the second day we were here, which was quite exciting, but also a bit exhausting, and last night we went bowling which was quite fun. The Brits are all typically a very quiet bunch--when they're not bowling. While pizza and bowling seems so iconically American to us, the Brits enjoy it as well, apparently. According to Mark, our programme director, it's actually a very "British" thing to do here. Go figure!
Another "British" thing to do is the pubs, let's be honest. I've been to two, Eleanor has been to none. We shall have to change that, I reckon. A popular drink is Strongbow cider, which is interesting. I also tried Foster's beer, which was kind of exciting. I felt very British, even if it is an Australian beer. Close enough.
THE TUBE. The Tube is crazy and very extensive and hot and crowded. It's ridiculous! There are lines under other lines and before you get on some you feel as though you've journeyed to the center of the earth! There's one line--the Jubilee line--that goes pretty far down there and you shouldn't be surprised if your ears pop. I get to take the Jubilee to my internship, and then I switch to the DLR, or the Dockland Lights Railroad or some such thing. Which is a driverless train. Nifty. Mark told me to get a seat in the front sometime. My internship is clear over in Greenwich, and it's about a 45 minute journey with three train changes. Hopefully I don't mess it up too bad. We did a trial run yesterday, and Lindsey and I can travel together for a little bit, but my internship's a little further than hers. She'll get off and take the overground, whereas I'll stay on the Jubilee line one stop farther, then switch to the DLR. It will be interesting for sure, but I must say, I'm kind of excited to take the train today!
For those of you who aren't familiar with Vandon House, it's a hotel-type thing in Victoria, which is a "posh" or upscale part of London. One interesting thing about London is there are no ghettos--Mark told us that because of social housing that was implemented earlier, very rich people live next to very poor people in the same neighbourhoods, so there really aren't any slums or particularly dodgy areas.
We also had a brief culture seminar yesterday, and something that the facilitator said was that we should embrace things that are different or outside our comfort zonese (unless our instincts tell us to cut and run, haha). She stressed the importance of saying things in the UK aren't wrong, just different. Particularly driving on the left side of the road. Who'd have thought crossing the street could throw you for such a loop! I'm quite proud, though. I've just about got myself trained to look right first, then left. It's not something you even think about until you have to do it differently. Anyway, the point I was getting to, Ms. Butters, a Scottish woman who spoke to us about culture and such, told us to stretch at the end of our exercise. She had us lock our hands together, palms out/facing away and bring our arms above our head. Then we brought our hands back to our center, still clasped together, and she told us to check which thumb was on top, and then switch and do the stretch again. At first it felt really awkward and uncomfortable, but when I did the stretch again, my back cracked and it felt a lot better. So just because something feels strange at first, eventually it will begin to feel "right." That's my goal whilst here in London--to make the different the new norm. And I shall leave you lovely readers with that to stew on for a bit. I'll try and upload some photos of Eleanor so you can meet her within the next few days!

Cheers,

Anna :)