AHH!!! ok, so i havent blogged in a super long time because there hasn't been any time! I just got here (to london) on tuesday, and it's already friday. the first day was really surreal. i happened to meet a few people from minnesota on the plane ride who were going to study with AIFS, which is where I was going. it was super nice to have a group so I didn't feel so alone. we made it to the Heathrow airport just fine, and they took us back to the campus in kensington. on the way there, i noticed the insane billboards. they were like futuristic looking almost. not pictures on a big sign like we have in America. they were framed and changed electronically and were just huge! the city is amazing. once getting to the campus, we were given our orientation packets, and told where we could be living. i'm living in atlantic house. its the house that has the dining center, the library, and so much more. it's kind of the main building, so its really convenient. except i live on the fourth floor and there is no elevator, so i had to lug all my luggage up tons of uneven, winding stairs. it was fun. my room here is tiny. its a typical dorm style room, but the beds aren't lofted, so it makes the room a lot smaller. my roommate is super nice. we get along just fine. the cafeteria has terrible food. i really don't like the food, which is weird. i'm not usually a picky eater, but for some reason, the food here just is not appealing to me AT ALL. ick. once i got all my stuff unpacked, me and my roommate took a nap to try and compensate for the jetlag. i wouldnt say it had terrible jet lag, but it was def noticable. i still notice it because my eating schedule is all scewed up. i get hungry at the wrong times, like 1 am in the morning, when its dinner time at home. ugh i hope that changes. the first night here, they took us to a local pub. it's really interesting, because in London and the UK in general, pubs are like coffee shops. like in america, if u were to say to a friend "lets go get coffee" u would say "let's go to the pub" here. i mean, yes, there is a bar and the legal drinking age is 18, but it is a really chill atmosphere. people are sitting around, the music is mellow, and it is just like a cute lil coffee shop. in order to save money, i got tap water, cuz that's the only thing you can get for free around here. it was fun because we met some local londoners and talked to them about america and such. they were really fun and told us a lot about london. pretty much everything we would need to know. also, another interesting thing about london is that the pubs close around 11pm. to me, that is super early. but london is such a huge city with everything so close together, that they strictly inforce quiet laws. one of the locals told us that there is some sort of tax that a place has to pay in order to stay open past 11, so most places just close then.

the beds here are really bad, lol. they are small and the mattress sucks, but o well :) small price to pay for the gorgeous view that is right outside of my window. i tried to take a picture, but it just turned out looking like a window, haha. no view. so wednesday we went on a bus tour of the city. that was amazing! gosh, i can't even remember all of what we saw. we saw the london eye, buckingham palace, kensington palace, big ben, all the major shopping areas, and so much more! i have pictures on facebook, but not all of them are labeled cuz i couldnt remember!! haha. oh, small fun fact. the flat where T.S. Eliot lived is right around the corner from me :) pretty much on the same block :) haha. so after the bus tour, we went and got dinner. again, it was disgusting. on the orientation agenda for the night was something called a pub crawl. the resident directors of our buildings took us to local pubs so we could learn our way around, and get a taste of a bunch of different ones. it was really fun. the atmosphere at some of this pubs is so cool. we went to Glauster pub, which is a favorite of the twilight actor rob pattinson :) haha. we ended at the same pub we had gone to the first night. while there, a friend of mine and i talked with 2 local guys who lived in the area. it was fun to talk to them about europe and all the differences between here and the united states. small world, but the guy i was talking to told me one of his friends studied for a semeseter @ the university of iowa, haha, so i told him i was from iowa and he thought that was really cool, haha. since the pubs close at 11, they are serious about getting people out of there, so we had to leave. we ended up walking all around london and the guys who we were with showed us a bunch of cool places. tons of stuff that you can only learn from locals. we ended up walking for over 5 hours! it was amazing to see the city @ night. everything was light up and was so beautiful. not a ton of stuff was open, because most places close early because of the quiet laws, but the lights were on. there is this store here called harrads...idk if is spelled that right, but it is a super expensive store and no one really buys anything there (unless ur a billionare) people just go to look around. while, at night it is decked out with lights. i mean, wow. all lit up and it looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. i wish i would've gotten a picture of it, but my camera was not taking very good night shots. so after deciding we had seen enough of the city and that our feet were blistered from walking, we headed back to our dorms. i got back around 6am and def crashed on my bed without even getting changed. i was so tired. the next day was a pretty full day for me. i had to wake up and we went to this BBQ that the school had set up for us. we could sign up for events and see cool stuff. i signed up for an adventure weekend in whales :) i'm really excited!!! :D also we bought tickets for the play wicked, so me and a bunch of girls went together. we went with the group of students and we took the tube for our first time! honestly, the tube was not that intimidating. it's really cool because its underground and i really like it, but a lot of girls were like nervous or excited or whatever, but i've taken public transportation in minneapolis, like the light rail, or city buses, and it was a lot like that. not much difference really, except for its underground. its going to take me some time to learn the bus routes and such, but i'll get the hang of it. i bought what they call and oyster card. its like a public transportation card that gets u on and off the tube with out paying a fee every time. wicked was amazing and by the time we got home we were all so tired, we changed and went to bed right away. for some reason, we didnt wake up to our alarms today, so i had to rush because i had an interview i had to get to. i was meeting with my internship advisors. they were really nice and told me i would be interviewing at a place called operation smile. i looked it up and it seems like a really cool organization to work with. it's funny, because just the other day i had been thinking about how i might like to work with kids. i've had a few internships in the states already, but nothing with kids, so i'm pretty excited about this. now, tonight is the boat party. everyone from the college here is getting to ride a boat that goes along the thames river, so we're going to get to see the city at night :) even though i've done that once, it'll be so much fun because it'll be all the main sites along the thames, and i've heard its really pretty.

ok....so i'm done for now. such a long blog because i haven't had a chance to blog yet this week.. hopefully i'll keep up better and do it once a day or once every two days or something. i probably forgot a ton of stuff, but i'll post again if there is stuff i remember. :) oh man... i love this city!!!! :D