Tag Archives: London adventures

Life in London

I’ve made it to London in one piece and with no complications, no sleep, and a wonderfully fortuitous upgrade to business class on my flight. It’s been five days and I am already completely enamored by this city.

My flight was quiet and comfortable, and I was even lucky enough to be seated next to an intriguing British man who resembled Chris Martin and drank lots of gin and tonics. And they gave us such fancy food!

When I landed in London at 7am on the 5th, Ariel and I (a girl from PSU who was on my flight) found the man who was driving us to the hotel pretty easily, and from there we were out on the streets of the city we were to be spending the next five months exploring. Thank goodness for the driver, because my overweight suitcases and massive duffle bag were NOT easy to maneuver, and I don’t think I would have been able to pull them through the underground stations alone. As soon as we reached the hotel, we dropped our ridiculously heavy bags down and passed out… for 6 hours. Not the best idea, because jetlag is a REAL thing and since then and it’s been hard falling asleep at night. I’m sure that’ll go away soon, though.

I’ve been spending the last few days getting to know the people on my program- they’re from all across America and I’m living with lots of them in my “flat”! We’re all getting along so well so far, I’m so happy!! There are 16 people total- 4 boys and 12 girls, and all of the boys have significant others. How coincidental is that?! PLUS, two of the boys on the program are dating two of the girls on the program! So much love.

We’ve been slammed with lots of information about transportation, classes, and other cultural stuff for the past few days of orientation, and now it feels like we’re actually settling into our own spaces in London. Since Thursday, we’ve eaten at lots of great restaurants (paid for by our study abroad program ), ridden on a tourist-y bus tour around the city and boat cruise down the River Thames, shopped at the British version of Walmart, laughed at an improv-style comedy club, drank cider and beer at pubs, and discovered a lot in general about London and how things work over here.

Today was a big independent day for me: I took the tube into central London alone! The tube is a lot easier than the map makes it look, and I was able to get on, transfer trains, and get to where I needed to be for an advising appointment on time. My classes for the semester are so wonderfully British and interesting that now I’m even kind of excited for school to start next week! One class I’m taking, called “Art and Society”, is all about the art and history of London, and each Thursday we’ll go out on little excursions to see secret parts of the city that many people miss out on. AND my classes only meet once a week and I don’t have any class on Wednesday or Friday! Life is good.

I feel so fortunate to be able to study and live in this amazing city. This post was just a general catch up entry, and hopefully I’ll be writing a lot more in the next few weeks. Cheers!

Location: London

Trying to find Neverland

“But Peter… how do we get to Neverland?”
“Fly, of course!

“Fly?”
“Yeah, it’s easy!”

Peter Pan is a classic that is usually remembered for the Disney classic of the 3 Darling Children flying over London with the boy who didn’t want to grow up. Or, it’s also remembered for the movie that saw him actually grow up Hook. Or possibly the musical also called Peter Pan. Either way, Peter Pan is a classic English story and he is immortalized here for eternity.

London is usually known for the cold, damp weather. People hide under their coats and umbrellas, not bothering to see what is around and just trying to get to where they are going. But, Spring has arrived in all its majesty and brought a new life to London this past week.

I live right on the corner of the King’s Road in London. It’s a pretty famous street for its window shopping (or actual shopping if you can afford the designer boutiques). King’s Road now has people everywhere in bright colors showing their faces and carrying huge bags of new clothes to brighten up the season. I adored London before, but seeing this new weather makes me want to never leave!

Because the weather was so warm and the sun was out, I couldn’t stay inside being tied up with Finals. I knew I wasn’t going to start work until the end of the weekend anyways. So, why not go to one of the parks?

I wanted to go to the park that had the Peter Pan statue. I had seen it in so many films and it was one of my favorite movies growing up. I looked up in my tour book and saw it was in Hyde Park. So off I went with my friend Becca to find Peter Pan.

In the background is a Ferris Wheel. I believe it is known as the mini- London Eye. I went to Hyde Park not long after Christmastime and there was a winter festival to liven the place up. But, in the spring, it’s just beautiful. The flowers are bloomed, people are out lying in the sun, and the Serpentine is a method of traveling for anyone.

We got a little lost on the way to finding Peter Pan, but we still saw more interesting and popular sites in Hyde Park. One of the most prominent figures in modern history was Diana, Princess of Wales. And Hyde Park was where she resided in Kensington Palace. There are other memorials devoted to her- the Diana Memorial Playground (which is set up to look like Neverland) and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain. I wished I could join all the people in the fountain. Never had I seen such an intimate fountain before. Diana would have enjoyed it.

After an hour of searching down winding paths and chasing puppies around, we finally found Neverland and Peter once and for all.

I was so relieved and happy that I finally found Peter and he wasn’t trying to fly off to Neverland without me. It makes me though never want to leave London. But, it’s only a week away that I’m going back home and I do have to leave. But maybe I’ll try to take one more trip around Neverland and do some things in London I have yet to do before I go back to Pennsylvania.

Location: Hyde Park, London, UK

Flat Stanley Goes to London

Ever hear the story of Flat Stanley?

Apparently I’m the only person who hasn’t. But, if you’re like me and don’t know, Stanley was a young boy who was sadly flattened. Although he was sad at first, he found out he could easily be mailed to cool places for a flat USPS rate rather than paying $700 on Continental Airlines.

My 8-year old cousin, Lea, is reading the story for her class and they all had to send Stanley somewhere, so she decided to send him to me in London. I was excited at the chance to rediscover what makes London great (hey, after living here for a while, it’s easy to lose track of the majesty of the city that a tourist enjoys) while educating her class. See, England and the USA may have the common language but London is very different from what I expected. It is foreign to someone used to living life large in America (like me). So, although Stanley mainly saw the landmarks of London, he did gain some history of London (from what I’ve learned from my classes and experiences living in London for 3.5 months). Here it goes…

Stanley learned about the Tower of London. First major fortress in London built by “William the Conqueror” during the early years of the Middle Ages. Many kings and queens have lived here, and although it’s more famous for its prisoners, is still a residence today. It also holds the Crown Jewels. Stanley loved the bling the current Queen dons. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures of the Jewels (lame rules here).

Stanley is sitting on the Tube in this picture above (the District line to be specific). It was here that Stanley learned some of the discrepancies in words between British English and American English. See, the Tube in the Underground would be known as the Subway back somewhere like New York (or the Metro to be specific). But, a Subway in London is either the restaurant (of course) and an underground walkway to get easily from one side of the street to the other. Over 2 million people travel through Central London on the Tube everyday. He loved the Tube rides.

Stanley visited one of the most famous streets in the world: Oxford Street. Oxford Street is comparable to Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles and 5th Avenue in New York City. Lots of famous shopping. There are a lot of awesome department stores on Oxford Street, and Regent Street (right off of Oxford Circus) has some fantastic shopping too. Although I’m more interested in going to an awesome department store like Debenham’s, Stanley was more interested in checking out the Nike Store (which was filled with official Olympic merchandise, since the 2012 Summer Olympics will be in London!).

Of course, Big Ben and the House of Parliament was number one on the list to see. Mainly because it’s the most famous landmark in London. Interesting fact: Big Ben is actually the bell inside the clock tower; the tower is called St. Christopher’s. The House of Parliament is attached to Big Ben and it’s where Parliament gathers to create important legislation. Parliament comprises of two houses: The House of Commons (who are elected by the people) and The House of Lords (who are appointed in various ways).

Although London has the Olympics next year, something else big is happening next month that Stanley is upset to miss (but hopes to check it out on TV, or “telly” as the English call it) the “Wedding of the Century” between HRH Prince William and Catherine “Kate” Middleton (second picture above) at Westminster Abbey (first picture above) on April 29, 2011. Westminster Abbey has been the place for coronations and royal weddings and the city will be completely shut down to accommodate the Royal Family. Unlike in America where the President is the all mighty ruler, the Queen rules all, making England a monarchy. Though the Queen is nowhere near as powerful as the royal family used to be (the Prime Minister exercises her power to run the government), the Queen still signs laws into power and lives in quite a few castles, but her main residence is in London’s Buckingham Palace (third picture above). Stanley thinks the royal family is cool and wishes he could be around, but he has other places to see. Off to Paris- hopefully he doesn’t need to know too much French.

Location: Central London, UK

Spring has Spring (“touch wood”)

Let me just start by saying, the English Countryside is absolutely gorgeous.

So, this past Friday I left really early in the morning to catch the Megabus from St. Pancras Station to York for my HOST stay. At first, I was confused when I got to the St. Pancras station because I didn’t know I had to take a train first. As it turns out, I had to take the train to a stop about 2 hours away and then switch to the Megabus. It was about a 2 hour ride on the train and then a 4 hour ride on the coach. As we were getting closer to York and further north, the sights around me became increasingly green and open. I was in such awe at all of the open green fields. With all of the rain they get here, things better be green!! About 2 minutes after I got there, Maggie (my host) showed up behind me! She was an older woman who has grown children; she lives in a quaint little market town of Kirkbymoorside. There was another girl, Quinyu, who was scheduled to stay at Maggie’s house too, so we headed to the train station to pick her up. Quinyu’s train was supposed to get in 15 minutes after mine, so we walked around looking for her. Maggie accidentally forgot Quinyu’s phone number at home and we couldn’t find her anywhere, so Maggie decided that we should sit down for tea as we wait. We waited until another train came in from Quinyu’s place of study, and then decided that we didn’t know what was happening and that we should just go back home. Funny thing is that as we were walking to the car, a girl rushed up to us and asked if we were the people from HOST! It was really good luck because we were about to leave. On our way to Kirkbymoorside, the sights were just breathtaking! We stopped once and Maggie let us get out of the car to take pictures. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!

Maggie’s house was about an hour away. One thing I noticed while in a car with a woman that’s in her 70’s – people drive SO fast here! Maggie was speeding like an American teenager; however, it was quite obvious that’s the driving culture here for the most part. There were still people passing us even though I thought we were going so fast, especially on little countryside roads.

Maggie’s house was so cute! It was smaller and decorated with a ton of art; I later found out that she drew most of it. The house was pretty freezing; thankfully, there was a little gas fireplace in the living room. Maggie also has a cat named Cassie who greeted us as we found the way to our room.

By the time we were situated, it was already past 4pm so we had tea and Maggie prepared dinner. Since she was aware of my eating habits, she bought me soya milk and prepared animal-free meals (for the most part)! It was so kind of her to buy me my own milk and cater to my dietary lifestyle. For dinner that night, Maggie made stuffed tomatoes with rice and vegetables – it was so yummy! We all sat down in her kitchen with tea and dinner and chatted about our lives. Quinyu was very interesting to talk to; she has lived in China all her life so I was having so much fun asking her all types of questions. She’s never been to America, so she had quite a few questions herself! After dinner, we had more tea and some chocolate (Maggie had a dark chocolate bar). We talked around the fire and watched a bit of TV. I was going on about 4 hours of sleep, but I thought that Maggie would be going to bed early. Well boy oh boy was I wrong because we didn’t end up going to bed until almost midnight! I was so exhausted. The next morning, we woke up and got ready for the day. When we were all downstairs we sat down in the kitchen and had tea, oatmeal with fresh fruit, and talked for a while. Maggie is a very interesting woman herself and has done a lot of traveling. I always love meeting other people with a passion for traveling, especially when they know more about it then I do because then I get to ask them all about their experiences. After breakfast, we left the house and walked around the market town of Kirkbymoorside and the surrounding villages.

I found out that a market town is a town that has a “market” and a few shops (one size smaller is a village). Kirkbymoorside is pretty much what I thought the English countryside would look like, except it’s about 94759873 times more gorgeous then I expected. As we were walking, we saw some sheep! There was also a lot of mud but it wasn’t rainy so I was happy.

We walked in a really big circle and eventually got back to Maggie’s house. After our walk, we went back to Maggie’s house for some lunch; she made salad and bread and we had tea again. After we ate lunch and chatted a bit more, we went in the car and drove to a village that was on the way to the moors. It was an adorable little village that had a stream running through it and cute little strips of shops. There were glass makers, stained-glass makers, pottery makers, candle makers, and chocolate makers. After we walked around the village and the town for a bit, we left there and headed to the moors. From what Maggie told me, the moors is an area of land that isn’t good for anything other than feeding sheep because the soil is so poor. Farmers put dye on their sheep and then let them wander in the moors. I couldn’t believe how gorgeous the landscape was – we stopped two times on the way to get out of the car and take pictures. There were a ton of sheep roaming all around the grasslands grazing and walking around; so,me and Quinyu went to take pictures of the sheep. We ran over to the fence and 3 of the sheep looked at us and made a sheep-ish noise. All of a sudden the whole field of sheep was walking towards us!!

It was really funny (and kind of scary)! When we got to the moors, we went on a nature preserve walk. It was a mile and a half walk through the moors with a caf� at the end called the Daffy Caffy. The landscape was so so pretty and I couldn’t help myself from just standing and staring. The walk was gorgeous – I wish a camera could have done the landscape justice, but it’s impossible. Everything was just so pretty.

We all had a really good talk and we arrived at the caf�. It was really cute and apparently Maggie knew the man who owned it and his family. One really cool thing is that the caf� was the house of this family (they have 4 young children)! We had some tea and then headed back to Maggie’s house. We had some more tea and ate beans, potatoes, carrots, and squash with coconut and mushrooms for dinner! It was so yummy. Maggie asked us to write in her book that all her students write in. I wrote her a nice little message and told her to keep in touch. We put the TV on and looked for interesting shows when we came upon traveling programs on the Dave channel. Luckily, we went to bed around 11pm Saturday night.

When we woke up, we had cereal for breakfast and got ready to leave. We left Maggie’s house around 10:30am and stopped on the way at a castle to see the grounds. We saw a peacock with its tail open and then we continued on the journey back to York. When we got there, Maggie decided she wanted to walk half of the walls surrounding the original city of York.

It was actually really beautiful and I’m glad we got to go. After we walked the walls, we were just walking around the streets. We went to the York minster (church) and the Shambles, which is the oldest street in York.

After walking around for a bit, we stopped for lunch. Maggie packed us sandwiches and we sat in the sun and ate. At this point, we decided that it’d be a good move to head back to the car. On the way to the station, we stopped again to take pictures at a lake.

We got to the station, figured out where Quinyu’s train was getting her, and then had tea. Quinyu left and then Maggie took me to the bus stop. I waited there for about 20 minutes until the bus came. I was on a bus to Leeds for an hour and then I got off at the Leeds coach station to transfer to another bus. I got on the bus and was on it for about 4 hours (or so). It was a lovely feeling when I finally got home; I love traveling but I love London so much. Monday, I had to take a trip to the grocery store and then write 2 papers that were due Tuesday. Nothing like procrastination in another country! About halfway through, I took a break when for dinner. While I was trying to get out the pans I needed, there was one on the stove (that was turned off)! I touched the bottom of the pot for some reason and ended up burning the CRAP out of my. Obviously my mom never taught me to not touch hot objects. It was really painful but I think I will refrain from procrastinating papers from now on!!

Wednesday morning, I was in such a wonderful mood! It was sunny and pretty in London. We had our last trip for historic London class and it was at the British Museum. It was actually a great museum – we had a tour guide that was an archeologist from Greece! I definitely want to go back there.

I decided to walk home and I took the route so that I would go through all the parks nearby; I went past Green Park, Hyde Park and I walked through Kensington Gardens. The gardens were gorgeous – I can’t believe I’m living here. I walked through a Rose garden and the flowers were blooming and they smelled so wonderful. Spring in London = WONDERFUL<3

I found an amazing vegan (homemade) bakery that does “pop-up” stands all over. I went to one of the stands today and I bought some. They are the most amazing cupcakes ever.

Tomorrow I’m headed to Stonehenge and then a concert on Sunday so I’ll be blogging all about that next!

Location: Kirkbymoorside, England

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Tag Archives: London adventures

Life in London

Trying to find Neverland

Flat Stanley Goes to London

Spring has Spring (“touch wood”)