Thanksgiving & Host

Happy last day of November!!

While you at home were all enjoying your breaks off from school and work, gathering with family for a large feast, us here in London had a little Thanksgiving celebration of our own. After Contemporary Britain class, we gathered in a festively decorated Vandon House kitchen for a meal that was prepared by us students. The menu was that of the traditional Thanksgiving meal we all know and love: turkey, 3 kinds of potatoes, green bean casserole, cream corn, salads, and of course, pumpkin pie and other lovely desserts. There was quite a lot of food, and like at home, there were leftovers for the next day. After stuffing ourselves with food and wine, most of us collapsed into slumber, but some stayed around and played card games. While it looked much like Thanksgiving would at home, it still wasn't the same. I became a bit homesick this weekend in light of the holiday. But, there are only 2 weeks left now, and still much to soak up in London!

On Friday morning, I was up with the sun and left on a 4 and a half hour bus ride up north to Leeds for my Host UK weekend stay. I was greeted with rain and Eric and Marie (pronounced Mary) Songhurst, a retired couple living in Leeds, the third largest city in the UK. I was joined for the weekend by another American student who was studying in Leeds. I knew from the drive from the bus stop to their house that it would be a long weekend. The other student was extremely quiet; I was talkative and outgoing compared to Christina. But our amount of talking did not make any difference as Eric talked nonstop the entire weekend. He would go on and on telling stories with little point or interest from me. So, I was stuck nodding and "mmhmm"-ing all weekend, pretending to listen. I realize how bitter this sounds, but it's the truth. I was really hoping for a really cool experience staying with a British family for a weekend but was quite disappointed, as a few others in our program have also been. Some students have had awesome Host stays while others have been similar to mine.

Anyway, Friday afternoon we went to a place called Tropical World were we walked around an indoor rain-forest essentially. It was kinda cool, took some pictures of animals you would see in a zoo. That night we had a casserole with fish and mince pies for dessert (not my favorite), and then they showed us pictures of their son's wedding. They also told us about all the previous students they have had stay with them over the years and how they have kept in contact with most of them and even visited some of them in their many travels to the States. Eric talked about how he didn't realize how big of an affect they had on the students they had stay for a weekend over holidays. During this entire time, I kept wondering, well then this couple must be pretty great to have students invite them to come stay at their homes years later. I thought then that my weekend had to get better. But it never really did.

Saturday, we began a car ride out to the countryside, but I ended up feeling sick halfway there, and we had to go back to their house so I could rest. It was quite miserable (I won't go into details here). I took a nap and was feeling better by dinner time that night. Eric and Marie were making a Thanksgiving meal for us, their son and daughter-in-law, and two other older couples that were also friends of the family. The visitors were all quite chatty, but mostly talked to each other about things going on in their lives, and little to me or Christina, something Eric actually later mentioned might have been a mistake (they usually just invite their son and daughter-in-law). The meal was fairly similar to what we have for Thanksgiving, but with a British flavor; about a third of the dishes were more common to Britain, like gooey parsnip and Christmas pudding.

Sunday morning, Eric took Christina and I to York for a 2 hour walking tour. It was quite windy out which made it quite cold at first. We walked at a brisk pace, stopping to hear Eric talk about a building or street or something he did as a teenager. We did see some cool churches, even the one Guy Fawkes was baptized in. It was a charming town, kind of like Pella is, only bigger. There was a lot of places for shopping around and I had wished we could have spent some time exploring the shops on the streets we breezed through. Oh well. Afterwards we drove back to Leeds, had lunch, and I packed up to head back to London. The bus ride took an extra hour or so due to an accident, so I was quite hungry and restless by the time I finally arrived to Victoria station later that evening.

Don't worry, I am better now that I am back in London! I am happy to be staying in the city for the remainder of my time, and have lots planned! This Friday, our program will be going on a day trip to Canterbury and Leeds Castle (not in Leeds). Then for the rest of the weekend I plan on going to some museums and other parts of the city I haven't yet ventured to. I will have to do a bit of homework though as well, since we have a load of assignments due on Monday. In other news, I have submitted my first application to graduate school today to a PhD program at the University of Minnesota in Educational Psychology! Quite exciting! I will be busy working on more when I get home for break.

16 days!!

And Germany!

Hello, hello!

So, my travels this weekend were to Germany! I went to stay with a friend, Anna, who was a foreign exchange student when I was in high school. She lives with her parents in a small town called Gladbeck, a 2 hour train ride from Cologne. I flew early on Friday morning, landing around 9:30am. Anna was to meet me and we were to take the one-hour train ride to Gladbeck, however, there was a little mix-up. She had told me to fly to Dusseldorf, so I booked a RyanAir flight there but found out when I arrived that it really wasn't Dusseldorf. It was Dusseldorf, but in parenthesis on my ticket it says Weeze, which is a small airport about a 2 hour train ride from Dusseldorf. Anna had gone to the main airport in Dusseldorf, and so after she realized where I really was and hopped on the train, it was about 2 and a half hours after I had landed that we were finally reunited. I almost did not recognize her as her hair had been dyed bleach blonde and was much thinner than I remembered. We then rode 3 hours on the train to her hometown. It was a pretty town with streets lined with trees all orange and yellow in the late fall afternoon.

That night we met up with her boyfriend Ahmed and went to the Christmas market in Dusseldorf. We took her car which suddenly made me feel back at home, riding in the front seat of a car (even on the right side!) on highways through fields to get there; it has been constant public transportation in London! She had the radio on which was playing popular American songs, and we discussed how it was interesting how popular America music and movies are everywhere; what is so great about American music and movies that they are so globalized and not those of other countries?? Anyway, we went to the market which was a pretty cool experience. There were Christmas lights and music all around, and there was plenty of food and people. We just walked up and down the stalls of various crafts and Christmas decorations.

On Saturday we left for Cologne where we explored the Cologne Cathedral and the many shops. Anna and Ahmed had me try the typical German street sandwich (actually Turkish), döner, which was a large sandwich of beef strips with veggies and a special sauce on bread. I quite enjoyed it! We headed back late afternoon and then met up with Anna's friend Ramona to go to a Latin American cocktail bar to have some drinks. Sunday we slept in and just hung out, taking a short walk through Gladbeck's downtown area, which was dead since it was Sunday and nothing was open. That night we went to another Christmas market in Oberhausen, which was even bigger and more crowded than the one in Dusseldorf. My favorite part of these markets was finding Pofferjes stands!! Early Monday morning (as in 3am), Anna drove me to the airport (the correct one this time!) and I flew back to London. It was a foggy morning and my bus from Stansted airport to Vandon house took an extra hour and I missed my yoga class. Oh well, I simply went back to bed!

I have gained a new job at my internship, something I wish I would have started earlier: helping teach the English as a second language class on Tuesday mornings. It has been a very good experience; you forget how difficult English is to learn until you have to try and explain why you put "an" instead of "a" in front of a vowel! The students are at the moment all women; most speak Arabic as their first language, one speaks Turkish, one Italian, one French. I have also continued helping with the family learning course on Wednesday afternoons which is also a lot of working on speaking and writing English.

This week is Thanksgiving, and we are having a family meal on Thursday afternoon, and then I will head to Leeds on Friday morning to stay with my Host UK family. I was to go with Rachel, another girl in our program, but she had to leave London last week due to a family emergency. So, I will be going alone, but there apparently is a new American student from another UK university who will be there with me. This will be the last of my travels, and I will only have 2 more weekends left after this one! So much left to do and see!

Amongst all of this, I have assignments and graduate school application deadlines creeping up on me....eek!

Paris!

Hello there! So, as you probably gathered from the title of this post, I went to Paris this past weekend.

Shannon, Jacque and I left on Eurostar at 8pm Thursday evening and arrived in Paris 2 hours later. After about 45 minutes of attempting to navigate the confusing streets of an unfamiliar European city, we finally made it to our hotel and crashed. Friday morning, we made our way to Notre Dame Cathedral. We toured inside the beautiful church then got in line to climb the 387 steps to the top of the tower where we could get a panoramic view of the city and say hello to those famous gargoyles. :)

It was a cold, foggy day so photos were not the most beautiful; only the bottom third of the Eiffel Tower could be seen from the top of the cathedral towers! After lunch, we did some souvenir shopping and walked to tour another big and gorgeous church. Next on the agenda was the famous Louvre museum. We had been told by other students in our programme that the Louvre would be free after 6pm on Friday nights if you were under 26 years old, so we headed that way around 5pm, but discovered that it was a bank holiday and so the museum would be closing at 6. No free tour for us! :( Instead, we got some delicious coffee and went back to our hotel to re-plan.

The three of us decided to get up early Saturday morning to go back to the Louvre and explore the galleries even though we had to pay the 10 Euro charge. It was still very much worth it--I mean, it is the Louvre! We spent about an hour or so looking around the Ancient Egyptian gallery, which was my favourite. We of course saw the Mona Lisa, and many other paintings and sculptures, then saw how Napoleon's apartments looked--not to shabby! We finished about 3 hours later so that we could head to the Catacombs, which required standing in line for 2 hours before we could make our way down deep into the earth, below the metro trains, and walk through the tunnels of old stone mines where the remains of about 6 million people have been buried. The bones of all these people have been stacked and arranged into walls in a sort of decorative way. It was interesting to see, but still creepy. After this tour, plus a stop for some Nutella crepes, we went over to the Eiffel Tower and took all our wonderful touristy photos like the one I have added to this post. We had dinner nearby so that when we finished, it was dark and the tower was lit up all beautifully. Before heading back to our hotel on our final night in Paris, we stopped at the Arc de Triomphe which was also all lit up and magical.

Paris was much more beautiful on a nice day like Saturday, but I still can't believe how dirty other European cities seem compared to London. There is so much more trash and the metro stations reek of urine!! It made me happy that I chose London to be the city to stay for three and half months! Three and a half months which are coming to an end quite quickly! Only 4 and a half weeks left! I have made a short list of all the things I need to see and do in London before I leave, and I will be gone the next two weekends with more travelling (Germany and my Host UK stay) so hopefully I can accomplish it all with the time I have left. Today, I went to yoga and then explored Covent Garden a bit in all its Christmas splendor. I also walked through Green Park this afternoon which is no longer very green. :) The ground is blanketed with leaves which I thoroughly enjoyed walking through. Back to my internship tomorrow which will hopefully go better this week; last week I was told by one of the social workers there that I need to talk more because it makes her think I don't like it there. She is one of those people who has a loud and shrill voice, so it is usually hard to determine whether she is angry or if it is just how she always talks. I tried not to let the comment get to me, as I do enjoy it there for the most part, when they give me decent work to do, and I do talk more when I am one-on-one with people, I am just a quiet person otherwise. Anyways, it just made me think about how I behave there and how I come across to other people I work with.

But anyway, I hope all is well back in the States. I will be back before we all know it! Then I will need to do more thinking about where to go after graduation! I just wish it was more clear what I wanted to do. But that is a discussion for another time...

Quiet week

Hello! So break has been over for a week, and I have done absolutely nothing! Okay, that is not true, but compared to my day-packed adventures of break, it sure feels like it.

Monday, I slept in and went to yoga class, which was especially relaxing and I came back to Vandon quite refreshed. The rest of the day I spent retrieving photos from Margaret from our times in Italy so I could post them for ya'll to see. I also tried to write a paper for Contemporary Britain but was not doing so well (it did not get written until the night before, of course!).

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at my internship, which is undergoing a lot of transition. We have about 4 new people coming in to work, so there is a lot of moving stuff around. Within the slight increase of chaos, I was able to get a little more work to do. Two of the new employees have definitely pulled me into helping them with their projects. One organizes a mentoring program for youth and is having me research for programs and activities for the mentors to do with the kids. I will also probably be able to go with her to some meetings with the high school mentors. Another is trying to start some Arabic language courses for local businesses, residents, and community practitioners. We offer English as a second language classes at the centre for the many non-English speaking families that we serve, but he wants to flip it around to help those of foreign tongues share their language and culture in the community. I think it is a great idea, and am helping him find and recruit Arabic teachers for the course. On Wednesday afternoons, I am also observing an adult education course we are offering for parents in the area. It's meant to help parents learn how to help their children in school, helping them to improve their communication skills. It was kind of fun; we made toys out of ordinary objects and kind of talked about our backgrounds. It was pretty cool to watch the mothers as they had started the class very shy and uncomfortable and after 2 hours leave smiling and having a good time, confident in themselves. I am looking forward to going again this Wednesday.

Both Tuesday and Wednesday night I spent trying to work on that paper, a review of a topic in British media...not too exciting. I ended up staying up late on Wednesday night to finish it before class on Thursday, but I was actually fairly awake in class. The topics last week and the next 2 weeks are interesting, dealing with British identity and multiculturalism.

So besides all this, my week has been pretty boring. I've had a very relaxing and kind of lazy weekend. Yesterday was Guy Fawkes day, which is celebrated by fireworks all over London. I did not get to see any however, as it was too cloudy/hazy and did not venture out to wherever they were being shot off at. I did a lot of sleeping this weekend, which while I feel like I should be doing something outside of Vandon as my time here in London is starting to dwindle, I still felt like it was needed, especially after break. Next weekend though, I will be in Paris!!! Then Germany the weekend after that! Then soon enough, I will be back in the States with you all again.

Cheers!

Fall Break = Really long post!

In case you were wondering what has happened to me since it has been nearly 2 weeks since I last posted in my blog, I will remind you that I was on fall break!! I was traveling to Ireland and Italy for my ten day break from my internship and classes (not that any of it is something that one needs a long break from!). There is much to cover in this one post, so bear with me! Let's start with 2 Thursdays ago...

Back on the morning of Thursday, October 20th, our Contemporary Britain class went to the Churchill War Rooms for a fieldtrip. It was really interesting, but a LOT of information to take in, especially right before all of us were about to head off for break. I don't think many students stayed and actually took much of it in. That evening, Sarah, Dan, Chelsea, Margaret and I left on a train at 11:30 to begin our long journey to Ireland. We took 2 trains (with a not-so-fun 4 hour lay-over in a freezing train station in the middle of the night) to get to Holyhead, Wales, where we waited a few hours till a ferry took us over to Dublin. The ferry was a very cool experience; a lot more fun than I had anticipated. It was almost like a cruise! When we arrived in Dublin, it was Friday afternoon, and we had planned on renting a car to take us to our cottage about an hour outside of the city. However, we had some trouble, even though we had booked the car online ahead of time, and it ended up costing us a lot more money than it was supposed to. It all had to do with the age you have to be to rent a car, which is 23, even though we were told ahead of time by the car rental company that it was fine. Needless to say, we were all quite upset and frustrated. We finally got a car, and Sarah drove us to our cottage. It was quite nerve-wracking driving in Ireland, where the non-main roads are extremely narrow, and of course it is on the other side of the road. She got used to it eventually though. Our cottage was so adorable and very nice. It had 4 bedrooms and a decent sized bathroom, a living room with a fireplace, full kitchen, and an outdoor patio area. Unfortunately, it rained the entire weekend I was in Ireland. The scenery there was still beautiful; we were staying close to Wicklow Mountain National Park, which we visited one afternoon, along with the nearby beach. It was a great time with my new friends (well one old friend ;)). We had a lot of good quality time hanging out in the cozy cottage. Monday morning, they drove me to the Dublin airport and I flew back to London to meet Margaret who went back the day before. Sarah, Dan, and Chelsea stayed in Ireland for the entire fall break; I went back because Margaret had to go back for classes on Monday, and we traveled together to Italy for the remainder of break.

Italia!!! So, at 3:30am, last Tuesday morning, Margaret and I left Vandon house on a bus towards Stansted airport, where we left for Rome at 6:10. We landed in the ancient city by mid-morning and headed to the hostel we would be staying at for the next 3 nights. That afternoon, we explored the ancient ruins, including Palentine Hill, the Roman Forum, and of course, the Colosseum. We had supper then went back to see the ruins all lit up in the dark. So cool!

The next day, we ventured to the Vatican. We had bought a Roma Pass for the trip, which got us into 2 museums/archaeological sites free as well as gave us free public transportation. It was quite a deal, especially since we got into more than 2 for free! So we took their version of the tube, the Metro, which is only 2 lines (compared to about a dozen here), and the trains were covered in graffiti. The stations were dirty and not many people use the system like they do in London. Anyway, on our way to Vatican City, we ran into "the Squad" aka 5 guys from the London programme, Greg, Johnny, Ryan, Jarred, and Zane. We knew they were going to be in Rome the same time as Margaret and I, but did not expect to actually see them! We went to the Vatican with them, but went on our own private tour of the museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. The Pope was speaking that day, so the crowds were never-ending, but we were able to skip the lines with our tour that we paid a little extra for. We actually had tickets to see the Pope but the line was extremely long to get in and we only had 20 minutes till our tour started so we had to instead watch from the large tv screens outside. Our tour guide was so knowledgeable about everything in the Vatican, we spent around 3 hours in the museums alone. It got to be a little overwhelming towards the end, especially since Margaret and I had not eaten much yet that day as the tour went over lunch. The Sistine Chapel was my favorite; I could have just sat in there for a while, if it weren't for the sea of people pushing you through. After our short walk through St. Peter's (again due to the crowds and hunger) we finally had a meal at a nearby restaurant and then met up with the boys again to go to Castle of Saint Angelo, which had spectacular views of Rome from the top. Later that evening, we went out to a bar with the boys as well. The drinks there were very strong, which made for an entertaining night (I limited myself, the boys may not have so much).

The next day, after much needed sleep, Margaret and I ventured over to Trevi fountain and tossed our coins in then continued walking to the Spanish steps where we sat and people-watched for quite a while. A band even showed up and started playing while we were there. From there we walked through a large park which was a very peaceful getaway from the tourists. There was even a very pretty pond with an old temple of some sort in the middle of the park. It was a nice, relaxing end to our time in Rome.

Friday morning, we left bright and early on a train to Pisa!! I was so excited to go to Tuscany and for the most part, it did not disappoint. I fell in love as soon as we began walking through town to the bed and breakfast we would be staying for the next 2 nights. I loved the colors of the buildings, all painted in yellows, oranges, reds, and browns, with vines spreading from the ground to their quint rooftop terraces. Why can't the U.S. look so beautiful? My heart was slightly broken however, when we had lunch at a cafe with outdoor seating where we were bombarded by the street vendors trying to sell you nothing you need or even want as well as a man who did not understand English begging for money and almost stealing Margaret's phone off the table! Yikes! If it weren't for the beautiful weather and an enjoyable afternoon climbing the Leaning Tower and exploring the nearby shops, our first day in Tuscany would not have been very fun.

The last day of our trip, Saturday, was the absolute best day ever! We began with an early train ride from Pisa to Florence, where we joined a tour that took us about 15 minutes out of the city to the countryside. We were joined by 4 other American students studying around Italy for a tour of a Tuscan vineyard!! We spent the first hour or so on horse back, riding through the hills of the vineyard on an astoundingly beautiful sunny day. After our horse riding tour, we got to see the cellars and get a little idea of how they make their wine and olive oils. It was so cool!! I have never been to a vineyard before! We got to see the villa and had a gorgeous view of the entire property. Then we were treated to a three course meal and 2 glasses of their wine. Our driver even took us out to a gelato shop on our way back into Florence. It was mid-afternoon when we got back into the city, and so we headed to the famous leather markets. What a neat experience! Margaret was able to get a leather backpack for a decent price after some haggling and I a watch. While walking up and down the streets, I got quite a bit of attention from the Italian men. They would call out, "What beautiful eyes!" "I fall in love with you, so pretty!". It was more entertaining than uncomfortable though; Margaret and I had quite a laugh about it all day. From there, we walked over and up to the Piazza de Michelangelo which has the best views of this Tuscan city. So many pictures were taken! We had one last Italian dinner at sunset on the Piazza before heading back to Pisa by train.

This morning we checked out of our bed and breakfast and began the what seemed to last forever journey back to London. Now we have to come back to laundry, classes, internships, and cooking all our own meals again. Upon landing at Luton airport, we were greeted with clouds and drizzle. Yuck. We already miss the sunshine and beauty of Italy, but are still happy to be back.

Less than 7 weeks remain in my London adventure. But, much more is to be done!

Miss you all,

Cheers!

PS: Photos are slowly being uploaded to Facebook. Please be patient as there are quite a lot!!

Pictures

I realized that I haven't posted any pictures on here for those who don't have Facebook to see! Here are a few for your enjoyment!

Standing in 2 hemispheres!
White Cliffs of Dover

And the traveling begins!

Okay all, exciting things to talk about! :)

Let's start with Thursday; in class we talked about the media and the phone hacking scandal that has caused a great deal of anger from the public. I found this to be much more interesting than the discussion of British politics the week before, however we did get a bit off topic during my seminar. The rest of the day was spent just hanging out in Vandon. Thursday night our programme was able to go to a concert by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Cadogan Hall. I enjoyed the music as I am a fan of classical music, but would have enjoyed it more if it was choral. The violins were probably the most enjoyable to watch.

Friday was our day trip to Greenwich. We took a boat ride from Westminster Pier which was lovely but quite chilly. Luckily it was warmer on land and turned out to be a quite beautiful fall day. We went to the Royal Observatory where I was able to stand on the Prime Meridian with one foot in each hemisphere! Lots of fun touristy pictures were taken. We then explored the Maritime Museum a bit and ate lunch at Cafe Sol, a delicious Mexican restaurant with great tacos and margaritas! Before headed back to our part of London, we meandered around the Greenwich Market that had a lot of hand crafted clothes, jewelry, and art, as well as a lot of vintage items.

Saturday, Dan, Chelsea, Sarah and I went around to a few small nearby markets for some fruit and veggies. Since we have to join a club for British Experience Seminar, I decided to go to the University of London Sailing Club "fresher's meal" at Bella Italia for supper. I went, and despite the awkwardness of not knowing a single person, ended up having a good time with 23 of the club members. I had some good food and talked with a few Brits as well as a Psychology masters student from Boston. As kind of an initiation, they had us eat our dessert in a race without using silverware or hands! Not trying to win, I stuffed my face in my chocolate cake quite entertained by the situation. After dinner, they were going to head out to a few bars and clubs, but since it was already late, I headed back to Vandon because I was going to have a very early Sunday morning...

Sunday morning at 7:30am, Chelsea, Dan, and I boarded a bus that drove the 2 and a half hours to the English coastal town of Dover, where the White Cliffs are located. It was an absolutely gorgeous fall day, which we started at the rocky beach. Chelsea was like a little kid in a candy store when she saw the ocean. We found some sea glass to take as souvenirs! We had brunch at a pub in town that was so cheap and delicious! We headed to the Western Heights area first, walking up and around the fortification that was built to protect Dover from the French invasion during the 1860's. We were only able to access the moat, but it was still really cool. From the top of the hills, we had great views of the Dover Castle on the other side of town, the port, and part of the cliffs. We were trying to find the ruins of an old church somewhere in the area, but failed and just ended up walking back and forth for a long while. Chelsea and I then went to tour the Castle of Dover which was massive! One would need a full day to see everything there. We focused our tour on the Great Tower, were we got to see rooms in the castle as they would have looked back in King Henry II's time. We were able to climb to the castle rooftop which had spectacular views! Then we went to the Roman lighthouse, built over 2000 years ago, and the church of St. Mary-in-Castro. Much of the time I felt like I was in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Chelsea and I ended up quoting a bit of it. ;) We finally began our hike over to the White Cliffs, where Dan was exploring a bit on his own. We met up with Dan and sat and watched the sunset over the cliffs. The views were breathtaking!! Despite being in much pain from hiking somewhere between 25-30 miles total (yes, really) the trip was well worth it. I would love to go back and just spend more time on the cliffs, and go tour the lighthouse that we didn't quite make the trek to.

Today I was quite tired and sore, and after yoga, spent the day relaxing and working on a religion paper. It is now time for bed as I start another 2 days of my internship, and on Thursday we go to the Cabinet War Rooms for Contemporary Britain. Then Thursday night is the start of fall break!!!!!!! I am excited for more traveling!