My Time Abroad

Chillin’ in London

2009-01-04T09:06:00.002-05:00

On the train back from Paris, I made a calendar of my last few days in the ancient city. With things ranging from things that I have done multiple times to things that I have never seen, the last few days were a time of reflection of my time in London and on the city itself.

I went back to my my favourite eateries (Double Js) and pubs (Fitzroy Tavern) and the best market of them all (Borough Market). I even finished up my Xmas shopping there getting things for my cousins and other family members. Although I thought I was going to be there by myself for three or so days, I was wrong. Dale got back from his ski trip in the Italian Alps and a few other people got back from their trips through Europe.

On our last Saturday in London, we all went out one more time, first to a proper Indian restaurant then the local pub hangout (the court). Event though I ate too much ate the restaurant to only have two pints, I enjoyed the last few hours of socializing in a pub. It was a fun day and night.

The last two days consisted of packing, walking and going to museums one more time. It was a time of reflection for me taking in everything I could before I went home.

Paris, Round 2

2009-01-04T08:48:00.002-05:00

Ed. Note: Sorry for the lack of pictures. I am busy moving in to my new place and did not have time to add them in. If you have any requests, just let me know.

With more than a week between my flight home and the end of my classes, I decided to go back to Paris. Why Paris you may ask. You went there already; there is the rest of Europe to go see! Well, going to a city as lively and as famous as Paris again I figured was worth it. I mean I didn’t even go see the Louvre. So I said what the hell, why not, I speak French, or at least try to. Unlike my last few trips to the continent, I would be traveling and staying by myself. It would be a little rough, but I thought I could manage and I did. Although I said I was not traveling with anyone or staying with anyone I knew, I did know of two people who would be in the City of Love for the two days I would be there: Laura (Rachel’s friend from home) and Phillipe (my friend from Penn who was visiting his family while he was there).

Day One

Unfortunately, the first day wasn’t too fun as I was not feeling to well and could not enjoy my first meal in the greatness of French food. When I arrived at Gare du Nord I met up with Laura at her program’s centre/center a few stops away on the metro. I made it there safely and without any difficulty while successfully using my French to navigate around. After meeting her we went to the Champs Elysee were we go grab some lunch. However, I did not each too much as I said previously, I was not feeling too well. After “eating,” Laura went back to her centre/center to study while she left me to explore. I would end up climbing the 150+ stairs of the Arc de Triumph then walk down the Champs d’Elysee to Musee d’Orsay. It was quite a long walk but I made it.

Once I finished with the Musee d’Orsay, it was time to check into my hostel up in Montmartre. I took the metro up there and eventually found the place after about 20 minutes of searching. Also, Phillipe ended up calling me at the museum and we decided to meet up near me once I checked in. We ended up getting dinner at Painter’s Square and then walking down to the Moulin Rouge to see what all the hub-bub was about. Nothing special, just a wind mill. I don’t see the big deal, atleast from the outside it didn’t look too exciting.

Once checking out the neighbourhood and observing all the other shops, I went to go meet up with Laura at some bar near the Bastille while Phillipe went to go meet up with his cousins with which he was staying with. At this point, I was feeling much better, but rather tired as I had to wake up at 5:30 to catch my 6:50 flight. Around midnight I decided to call it a night and head back.

Day 2

The next day I was off to the check out the Sacre Coeur, which was just a few minutes walk from my hostel. Once I was done checking out the pretty famous church I made my way down the hill and into the heart of the city. Unfortunately, the days that I choose to be in Paris were not the best; it was a miserable 45 degrees and slight, but annoying drizzle. Besides that fact, I pushed through and walked. And when I say walk, I mean I walked. I probably ended up walking 4 or 5 miles that day in total, but back towards day 2.

After the hill, I made my way back towards the Moulin Rouge to see it during the day. On my way, I saw the Chat Noir, a pretty famous café where the bohemians, e.g. Henri de Toulouse Lautrec during the 19^th Century made popular. Since I hadn’t eaten yet that day, I decided to have breakfast at the famous café. This is where my French was truly tested. I ordered a cappuccino (easy) and a croissant (not so easy). Apparently, its cr-wa-sont, not cr-ois-ant. Anyway, I got what I wanted and walked some more, now towards the opera district and Seine. I should also point out that my phone was not working that day, since I was unable to receive calls and/or dial out. This put a little damper on me meeting up with Phillippe at the Louvre as we did not make any pre-arranged plans before I left him the day before. I decided to just to make the best of it and walk around the city while avoiding the gypses and homeless. I made a little loop around the Musee d’Orsay and Notre Dame, while ending up at the Louvre.

I spent the rest of my time there (4 hours) seeing all the things that I would not have seen if I did not make the trip.

After the Louvre, I decided to just go to go to Laura’s centre/center to see if she was there and if not use there phone to call her. Luckily, she was there and we ended up having dinner out at this bistro where I got steak frites. Then, I was off to Gard du Nord and back to London for the last few days of my study abroad.

Times Higher Education

2008-12-19T17:21:00.010-05:00

Not this summer but the last I worked at Van Pelt Library and every morning I was charge of collecting the periodicals that needed to be cataloged for the library. One of these magazines was Times Higher Education. Anyway, one day, I decided to look up the magazine since we got often and wanted to see what they are all about. So I looked them up online and noticed that they ranked the best universities in the world. Currently, the University of Pennsylvania is #11, but the school that I am at as I type this (University College of London) is #7. However, the school that I visited Monday (Cambridge) is #3, right behind Harvard then Yale.

Getting to the main topic of the post, Cambridge was pretty cool. I enjoyed it a lot. The previous week and up to that point (and even a little now) I was coming over a cold and pretty nasty cough. I decided to go anyway, especially since I had nothing better to do and I just finished up with classes the week before. Here are some of the pictures from the trip:

All the bikes at the train station, it definitely rivals Amsterdam for bike capital of the world.

I went Vincent, better known as Tiger. Another Penn person. Here he is here holding the nose of a bear that we found.

King's College.

The inside.

Trinity College.

Trinity College's chapel. It should be noted that every college there had its own chapel. Trinity College is where Newton did his thing.

Cambridge was a pretty quant town.

Well those were the pictures from my Cambridge trip. I hoped you enjoyed. Coming up next: Paris, Round 2.

An American Thanksgiving in London & Winter Wonderland

2008-12-04T15:12:00.012-05:00

Luckily there was good food and no werewolves.

For the most holiest of holy food days, a bunch of us from UCL went over to Goldsmith's College to eat a lovely meal. Although no turkey, the day was still a blast, especially because of the corn. The day was not the same without the family and the fact that I had class earlier in the day was quite odd.

--

Another large ferris wheel in London, man try a new idea....

That weekend, a bunch of us went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. It was reminscint of Oktoberfest (German Beer & Sausage, roller coasters and cheap souvenirs, less drunk people though), but it had its own twist; in the fact there was a ice rink! We went skating (11 pounds! for the hour) in the great weather of London (on-n-off showers/drizzle).

Here is the rink (with blue lights, obviously).

The group who went from left to right: Rachel, Me, Laura (Rachel's friend from home who is studying in Paris), Sami, and Dale.

Its harder than it looks to take a picture when you are skating.

Sami and I were the expert skaters of the group (we both play hockey). Here is us showing off our "skills."

The Haunted House of Christmas.

Sami posing in front of the Haunted House of Christmas with Scrooge.

Rachel with Frosty.

So this will be my last post until I do something really exciting. Unfortunately, I am not really traveling after classes are done (December 12), except for a few day trips and two days in Paris. So expect a post within the coming weeks.

Edinburgh, etc.

2008-11-24T18:34:00.018-05:00

Although my dad was here for only a few days, we still "had time" to travel. And since all of my friends told me great things about Edinburgh, I thought this was the place to go. With less than a week before he came, I booked train tickets and a hotel and the day after he arrived we were off to the land of the Scots (aka Scotland).

NOTE: the day before we went, we went to Maze Grill (a Gordon Ramsey restaurant) and it was a great dinner. I just thought I should make some sort of mention of such a great dinner.

After a little runaround about passports and train stations, we made it on to the train on time and found two seats next to each other. I was reading for one of my classes while my father was working on a Christmas present. I would say it was a pretty productive train ride. Once we got to the hotel, which was a stone throws away from the train station, and checked in, we decided to get some food. We decided to walk to Old Town which was across the valley for lunch.

Here is the Scottish memorial, which was right across the street from our hotel. There was also a Ferris wheel right next to it since they were setting up for their Winter wonder Land, a carnival thing for Christmas. London's is in Hyde Park.

Castle of Edinburgh, which ended up visiting the next day.

Here is the street we ate lunch at.

After eating a good meal at the Arcade Bar we decided to take a Bus tour of the town to see which things we should visit the next day. Little did we know that the temperature would get very cold and uncomfortable.

Me enjoying the bus ride. Also, my dad took his very Nikon so most of the really good pictures are on there.

Here is a picture of the Castle from our Bus tour.

Once we got off the terribly cold bus tour and defrosted in our room, we made a pit stop at H&M so my dad who did not compensate for the cold weather could make some much necessary purchases to make up for his lack of layers. After the pit stop, we walked across to the Old Town again for dinner. We ended up getting dinner at this really good Italian restaurant. Afterwards we back to the pub where we went for lunch for some drinks (some aged Scottish whiskey and pints). Sticking to tradition, we played Rummy 500 where he beat me multiple times. Once I got tired of losing we went back to the hotel for some rest.

After waking up at 10am the next morning and getting breakfast at this chocolate shop, we headed off to the castle.

Here is the castle from the end of the Royal Mile.

My dad in front of the Castle.

View from the base of the Castle.

After waiting for about a half an hour for tickets, we made our journey to the top. Here a some of the pictures that we took:

View from one side of the Castle.

View from the steep climb up.

Me trying to pick up a huge cannon ball (unsuccessful).

War Memorial (I think).

View from outside one of the canons near the top.

A lion in front of the memorial.

After making our way down from the Castle and getting some souvenirs, we ate at this place called Deacon Brodie's, which is named after the inspiration for Dr. Jekyll. Here is the wiki link: Deacon Brodie. Lunch was done and so was our short trip.

Once getting our luggage and getting to our train, I finished my reading and we had a little rematch of Rummy 500 (I won both games). Although short, Edinburgh was a great and beautiful.

The next day we went to the Tower of London and then ended up doing a bus tour of London since it was raining. I didn't take any pictures with my camera so it will not be too exciting, therefore I will keep it short and sweet.

Lunch @ Harrods: Great!
Dinner @ the Sports bar: Great!
Watching the Eagles at the sports bar with my dad while having a drink: Great!
Watching the Eagles suck: Terrible!
Spending time with my dad for a few short days in London & Edinburgh: Priceless...

Straphangers and Tubes

2008-11-24T18:20:00.008-05:00

Two days before my Dad came, Rachel and I decided to do something that we always wanted to do, go to the London Transport Museum. Being Urban Studies majors, with an interest in city planning, a museum like this was a great experience. Here are some photos from our trip:

The first public transport systems in London were these carriages pulled by horses. This is one of the earliest "double deckers."

At the start of "our trip through time," they gave us a "ticket" which we "had" to get it stamped at these "stations."

Me hanging onto a straphanger (the offical name of those things that hang down from buses, trains, etc.) in a old tube car.

Some cool map showing the Piccadilly line, northern and Bakerloo (I think).

A sweet tube advertisement that I will probably get a poster of.

Attempting to drive a underground train (its harder than it looks!).

Well, that was a quick summary of our URBS museum trip. Next, Edinburgh!

Arsenal

2008-11-17T16:01:00.009-05:00

Last Tuesday, me and two other Penn people (Dale and Tiger) went to our first official football game, Arsenal vs. Wigen Athletic. It was really cool and fun, even though our seats were the third from last row of the stadium. The stadium was beautiful and only a few years old. Here are some of the pictures from the night:

Here is the outside of the new stadium where Arsenal plays (obvi).

Here is Dale with his Arsenal scarf. BTW, we all ended up getting different ones as souvenirs.

The two teams lining up before they shook hands.

Right after the second goal.

A sweet picture of the roof/rest of the stadium.

Another.

The three of us.

So Arsenal ended up winning the game 3-nil. On the tube ride back everyone was singing. Good times.

This weekend my father is coming to visit and we are going to Edinburgh, look out for a post sometime next week.

Ye Auld Dub

2008-11-08T20:11:00.015-05:00

On the same day that my mom left, me and Sami went on our own little trip to our neighbor next door, Ireland. After talking with our friends that already went, we heard that Dublin didn't seem too special, but we were still determined to make it great trip. Once we got to our hostel, we decided to go explore the city centre and see what the town truly had to offer. Here is Sami near the river Liffey:
After checking out the O'Connell Bridge and O'Connell Street, we headed to our first Irish pub, where I tried some famous Irish Whiskey:

After a drink or two, we left and we went down to Trinity College (1592) via the Ha'Penny Bridge. Although it was dark by this point, the campus was still pretty. Here are a few that I took on the last day during the daytime:
Another shot:Later that night, we headed down to the Temple Bar area, the nightlife area of Dublin. It was pretty fun, nothing special though. Actually, the only thing special was the price. It turns out that Dublin is a VERY expensive city, the same as London pretty much, maybe even more.

The next day we went down to the shopping district around O'Connell Bridge and made a few purchases; Sami got boots and I got a nice sweater. After our shopping, we did a little sight seeing on our way to the Guinness Store House.

Here is Dublin Castle (1204).

The Spire (2003).

Christ's Church (1171).

After a lot of walking we made it to the Guinness Store House:

Once inside, we learned about how to make beer and why Guinness is so special. And at the end we both enjoyed a complimentary pint that we pulled from the tap ourselves:

Here is Sami with her's.

Also, at the end of the "tour" we saw the 9000 (nine thousand!!) year lease that Arthur Guinness has at St. James' Gate in Dublin. Only 8751 years to go!

The next day, we didn't have too much time before we had to go back to the airport for our flight so we decided to check out Trinity College in the daytime, get lunch near Grafton Street and check out St. Stephen's Green (1663). The park was very pretty. Here are some pictures:

After picking up our luggage from the Hostel, we caught the bus back to the airport. Luckily we got the front row seats on the top of the double decker. This is the last image that I have of Dub:
Well, I think I got you guys all caught up now with three blogs in the last three hours. Anyway, the next few weeks I have a lot of school to catch up on so I don't know how many more blogs I will be doing, since I will not be traveling that much. Although, now that I think about it, I am going an Arsenal Game Tuesday, so I will try to do one on that at some point during the week. Hope you enjoyed!

The City of (Brotherly) Love

2008-11-08T19:19:00.026-05:00

So on one of my days during my Reading Week, my mother and I went on a day trip (escorted) to Paris. And oh what a day it was. First, it started early. I woke up at 5:00 to get to my moms hotel where we would be picked up to go to the train station to catch the train to Gard du Nord through the chunnel. After a little delay we finally arrived.

Along with 9 other tourist of our tour we met up with Sami our tour guide at the front of "Gare du Nord." And while taking us to our tour bus we walked by the famous metro sign:

Once we got on the bus, we headed through the opera district and "la place de Louis XIV," which was recently renamed. Next, we headed down the Champs-Elysees towards the Arc de Triumph.

Another picture:

Staying on the bus, we continued with our tour and made our first official stop at the Eiffel Tower.

Continuing, we went on to the second-level.

Here is a view of Sacre-Coeur from the Tower:
And the Invades:
After having the best-most-boring lunch ever (Jambon et fromage [Ham and Cheese]), we went on a boat tour down the river Seine. Here is the Musee d'Orsay:
And Notre Dame:
A shot from behind, note the flying buttresses:
Once we finished withe boat tour, we had the opportunity to tour the Cathedral up close:
Although, it doesn't look overwhelming large from the outside, once you step in Notre Dame, you just feel so insignificant. Taking over 250 years to build, the cathedral is truly a work of art and structural engineering. A shot from inside:
Me and my mom thought that this was weird:
Here is a beheaded St. Denis:
After finishing the tour of Notre Dame and getting a true crepe (avec sucre), we headed over to the Louvre, which unfortunately closed on Tuesdays. Although I did get a few good shots, including this one:
After wishing we could be inside, Sami took us to the Opera District (A pied) for dinner. Here is what it looked like on the way to the area:
Eating metres away from the Opera House, a bunch of us enjoyed a classic french meal. My mom even got escargot. Here is proof:
After dinner and before Sami took us back to the bus to go back to the train station, he took us to a department store which was already for Noel. Here is the outside:
And the inside:
I would say that this pretty much out does Wanamaker's. After that, our trip to Paris was pretty much over. It was a great, long day.

The [Queen] Mum Comes to Visit

2008-11-08T18:49:00.019-05:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging, but I have been busy for the last two weekends and have not done anything too exciting. But this past week, I had the whole week off because of reading week (basically a fall break) and my mom came to visit. And since I had not done some of the very touristy things in London. We decided to do some of them. Here is a little photo journal of our time together in London:

The first stop of our first full day was a trip to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. Although it was a rainy day, it was packed and we were in the second row behind the gates.
Here is a picture of the guards in action.
The next stop was the Natural History Museum. This is the outside of the building.

One of the exhibits was on dinosaurs. Here is an animatronic T-Rex.
A stuffed Dodo.
Here is the grand lobby of the Museum.
The next day we had a walking tour of around the River Thames. We started at the Tower of London, walked across the Tower Bridge, through Borough Market, stopped at the Tate Modern and did the London Eye. It was a long walk to say the least. Above is a picture of me and mum in front of Tower Bridge.
Tower of London.
Tate Modern.
View of Green Park and Hyde Park from the Eye.
View of Parliament and Big Ben.
The Eye.
Also, one of the stops was at the British Museum. Here is a cool mosaic mask from somewhere in Central America.
We also saw Mousetrap, the longest running play in London.
On the last day that she was there we stopped at the most famous department store in London, Harrods. It is full of upscale designer labels and great food halls.

Obama!
The other play that we also saw was Rain Man; both Josh Harnett and Adam Godley were in it.

Well that's the abridged version of my week off with my mom. It was a great time!

Big Guns and Chocolate Mountains

2008-10-19T15:55:00.018-04:00

I guess traveling for one weekend isn't so bad after all. This past weekend (Wednesday afternoon til now) was pretty exciting for the most part. I went to the Imperial War Museum and Brick Lane Friday and Saturday I went to Borough Market, Trafalgar Square and Covent Gardens. Here are some of the pictures from the weekend:

Here is me standing in front of the Imperial War Museum. These are two guns from what I am guessing is a pretty big boat.

Here is Mike and I standing with a piece of ammo for one of the big guns from above. Notice how its about the size of me.

Inside they had airplanes, tanks and rockets. It was really cool and amazing. And for the guys who went our testosterone was flowing to say the least.

Here is Sami in the Submarine section of the Museum. She had a pretty good time hanging out with the boys that day I think. Oh, there were four of us who went, Me, Sami, Mike and Dale. Dale is another Penn Student who also went with us the next day to Borough Market, while Mike sat out the market to do homework (what a sillyman).

A Luger.

Also at the Museum they had a section of the Berlin Wall.

Ironically, the WAR museum had a rose garden in front. They smelled damn good too.

Borough Market.

A mound of chocolate brownies. It was pretty awesome there too. They had so many different kinds of food, ranging from jam and oil to beer and ostrich.

Colored cauliflower.

They also had some fish and octopus.

My delicious turkey sandwich. Thanks for the recomendation Liv and Jules!

Here is a street performer at Covent Gardens. Here actually escaped from a straight jacket in under 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

A big lion from Trafalgar Square.

The back side of the statue of Charles I with Big Ben in the background.

Nelson's column with a typical London sky.

Go Big or Go Home

2008-10-14T12:00:00.030-04:00

NOTE: the title of the blog doesn't have anything to do with my trip, although, it was the unofficial inside joke of the crowd with went. Therefore it was necessary to use such a phrase as my blog and clarify it has NOTHING to do with my trip.

Anyway, the past weekend I was in Amsterdam, aka the land of prostitutes, "soft-core" drugs and dozens of canals. We arrived a little later than planned Friday afternoon and once we put our stuff down in our pretty nice hostel, we were off to grab some grub for lunch/dinner downtown. On this trip there is a lot of people who shall take the place of the personal pronoun, we. We consists of myself, Rachel, Mike (a UCL student who goes to American University in D.C. but has a girlfriend who goes to friend), Dalila (Mike's girlfriend who is good friends with Rachel), Corey (UCL student who goes to Penn), Jennie (another UCL student who goes to Penn) and Michael (one of Rachel's travel buddies from her trip before school and who we met up with last weekend at Oketoberfest). Here is "we" (minus myself) when we are figuring out how to get somewhere:

Starting from the left: Corey, then Mike, then Rachel, then Dalila, and Jennie who is blocking Michael.

We were all starving so we pretty much sat a the first relatively cheap cafe to grab some food. I ended up getting a toastie, a small sandwich with meat that was "toasted" (obviously). Here is our view from the restaurant so you check out the picturesque view that we had while we ate:

As you can see the city is quite beautiful. The town is filled with trolleys, canals and many cyclists. And when I say many, I mean, a lot. They had more people riding bikes than cars, which I guess would make sense as it is the bicycle capital of the world. And to be a little dorky, the textures on the ground were so different and to use my knowledge of urban design, this is to enforce the separation of different ways of moving. For instance, the road would be one kind of brick if it was not meant to be used that much and it would be a different brick if more cars used the road.

Once we finished up eating, we started to walk around and check out the town. This is where things started to get tricky. Since Amsterdam is laid out in concentric circle with its canals and the Dutch language has numerous words that start with Leinds- and end in -plein, we got a little lost.

After walking around for about 2 hours we made it to the Palace. I really don't know why it was there or why it is important, but it is pretty big and I guess beautiful. Here are some pictures from our walk and of the palace:

Here is a picture of Mike and Dalila trying to figure out how to get the palace.

Here is a small street that was home to more pedestrians and shops than bicyclists.

Here is a strip of houses along one of the canals.

The top of the Palace.

The bottom of the Palace.

Across from the Palace, the had a phallic monument, again I do not know what for.

After the long journey, we ate again but this time a Argentinian steak house, which was right around the corner from the palace. It was very good and relatively cheap (3 courses from 13 euro or so). Here is my steak:

By the time we got out of dinner, the palace area was packed and people we sitting on the monument:

Once we got our direction, we made over to the Red-light district, which was appropriate marked by red lights:

In this area, there were live sex shows, porn shops and prostitutes. It was quite an experience as the prostitutes (wearing bikinis) were inside their doors and try and get people to come in by dancing. Just so everyone knows no one took part in any activities and/or visual experiences. Also, photos are strictly forbidden so the photo that I have above is the best one I have of the area. After walking some more, we decided we had enough and decided to take the 2 mile or so walk back home. Here are some pictures from the walk back:

The next day we woke up relatively early so we could get the free breakfast from our hostel. After that we walked to the Anne Frank Huis (House). Again we walked and I took more pictures of the pretty city:

I almost forgot to mention that boats were another popular choice of Amsterdamians. The used them both to travel and live on.

Once we got to the Anne Frank House, there was already a line wrapped around the corner. Like the Red Light District, the Anne Frank House did not allow any pictures to be taken. The house was very moving and it gets quite emotional. Here is a picture from the outside of the house:

After the house, we decided to walk some more around the city centre and look for some food. One great thing about the city is that there was such a great variety of food. Since the city is so international, there is numerous stands that serve food from all over the world. I ended up getting a sandwich from this Greek place. It was really good. We ended up eating on the edge of the channel. It was just so nice out and pretty much perfect.

Another great food that I think everyone loved there was these chocolate covered waffles. Every sort of pastry place served them, but in there own way. Some would serve it warm, others with ice cream and even others with whipped creme. Nevertheless, they were very good. Here is picture of me eating mine:

After getting a little lost (like 2 miles out of the way), we ended finding the place that we wanted to go to, a giant chess set. It wasn't all too exciting and it turns out that some of us actually saw it the day before. This one guy was there both days we walked by it:

Since we were so close to our hotel, some of us needed to take a nap (not me) while others played cards (Rummy 500). After everyone gained some energy, we decided to grab some dinner in this area of Amsterdam called Rembrandtsplein, or something similar. We ate at this Italian restaurant outside and it was pretty good. You just don't realize how "bad" the food in London is until you go to other places in Europe and see how good it is there.

After eating, we walked back to our hostel. At this point all of our legs were tired from walking so much and as soon as we got to our room we all pretty much passed out. By 11:00am the next day, everyone was ready to go and we decided to get breakfast at the Pancake Corner which is basically a crepe place which was pretty good, but the service sucked. Once our stomachs were full of more delicious food, we made our way to the Van Gogh Museum.

The museum is located in a big park and is really nice. Here is a picture of the area:

The museum behind it is the state museum, which holds the "Nightwatch" by Rembrandt. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to go check that out.

The Van Gogh Museum was pretty nice. Not all of his most famous pieces were on display though. The most famous pieces there were the Sunflower picture, his self portraits and the painting of his room. Once you are up close you can really appreciate his style and his brush stroke. It is pretty amazing as he was not a painter for that long (about 10 years), but he did so many paintings (around 800 or so). In case you were wondering, there was no picture taking here either.

By the time we left the museum we were all hungry again. Some people got waffles while others got these really good fries. I just picked off other people's snack choices. Eventually we ended up getting dinner and being the adventurous college students that we are, we ended up getting Indonesian food. It was really good.

At first we were skeptical about going there as no one was eating in the restaurant, but then we figured we at least would get really good service unlike in the morning. They ended up serving the food pretty quickly and to keep it warm the kept it on these warmers in the middle of the table. Here is the group:

Michael ended up leaving early in the day, but Dalila's friend that is studying in Rotterdam came up to see her. Her friend, Kevin I think, is at the far left.

Here is the outside of the Indonesian Restaurant.

As we made our way back from dinner, we had to get one more waffle which turned out to be the best place. They made them fresh and you could get anything you wanted on them. It was sooooo good.

The next day, Rachel, Jennie and I had our flight at 8:45am so we had to get up pretty early. We got in on time and made it just in time for class. Although, it was hard to make the transition from traveling mode to studying mode, I think we did pretty good even though we were pretty tired. But I made up for my tiredness later as I fell asleep at 7:30pm and didn't wake up until 7:30 the next morning.

This weekend I am taking a break from traveling and probably starting my assignments that are due in a few weeks so I can get ahead. I am pretty excited NOT to travel and enjoy the city I am living in. Stay tuned as I will probably being writing about my weekend, sometime early next week. And by the way GO PHILLIES!

No naan?

2008-10-09T19:25:00.010-04:00

With a four day weekend, you have many options on what to do especially when you are in a city like London. Today, me and Rachel went down to Brick Lane, a street famous for their Indian restaurants and somewhat respectable prices. Here are some pictures of the area:

If you look closely you can see the Brick Lane road sign on the right.

Here are a bunch of the Indian restaurants.

So once we settled on a place that was cheap and/or a buffet, we sat down an began to think about the great Indian food that we were about to intake. However, there was one flaw with the place we choose. There was no naan. For all of those who do not know what that is, well its is possibly the best part about going to an Indian Restaurant. It is basically a flat bread that is uber good. Since we were already sat down and ready to eat whatever we got a tortilla shell thing instead. For my courses, I got chicken tikki and a chicken curry that was pretty spicy. Here is a picture:

After eating, we went somewhat back towards the city and ended up finding Spitalfields Market. This market was the nicest we have seen yet; it was basically a better, less crowded version of Portobello. In the market there were numerous restaurants and stalls with offices surrounding it (a great urban space). Here are some pictures for the rest of the day:

After admiring the positive outdoor space and lively sidewalks, we decided to go home so Rachel could work on her Art History Project. But first, I needed to pick up somethings on Oxford Street and we ran into this famous graffiti painting. Here it is:

I know its a little hard to tell, but the art work is of a kid painting on the wall "One nation under CCTV" and there is a cop yelling at them.

Well, I am off to Amsterdam in less than 12 hours. Look out for that blog sometime next week.

State Fair on Steriods

2008-10-07T18:21:00.034-04:00

So, I would say my first real trip this year was a "success"; aka I made it there and back in one peace, despite the fact that I was in a country where I did not speak a work of their language. Although there was a delayed return trip and long train ride from our hotel to the airport in Munich, my Oktoberfest fun was...well, quite fun.

To get to Munich, we (Rachel, Andy, Jennie and I) took easyBus to the airport and then easyJet to Munich. Although the company that runs both is not so fun or easy. The first easyBus that went by was too full to take all of us so we waited 20 minutes for the next one and luckily that one did have enough room. Fortunately, this would be the last of our travel problems, for that day anyway.

Late Friday night, after getting to the airport, flying to Munich, and checking into our glamorous Sheraton hotel (props Rachel), we had a late night snack at the hotel next door (which happened to be another Sheraton with a different name). We ate some traditional, German sausage plates and pizza, accompanied by some good ole German beer. By the time we ended up leaving the other Sheraton, we were ready to pass out since we traveled all day practically. This was a good thing though as we had to get a fresh start for the festivities the next day.

Saturday, we left the hotel by 7:25am and got to the "carnival" no later than 7:50am. Here is a picture of the crowd after we got on the escalator to go up from the U-bahn (subway):
Once we emerged on the surface, we saw an atmosphere like no other. I put carnival in quotes above as it is a carnival that is nearly impossible thing to imagine. Just try to picture a state fair on steroids, without the animals and blue ribbons for largest pumpkin, but having roller coasters and three-story haunted houses. Oh yeah, and lots of Beer. After talking to some friends the night before, we decided to go to the Hofbrau tent. Here is a picture:

When we got there, there was already a line waiting to get and they didn't open the doors for another hour. But, we waited patently and at 8:30 they opened the doors. This is when things got a little iffy. I would say at this time there were about 150 people in front of us and about 200 behind us. When the doors opened people started pushing. I never felt anything like it. They were pushing so hard and you had literally no control of where you wanted to walk. And we were so close to one another that you could lift up your feet and still be up right. To say the least you got up close and personal with the people around you.

As we got closer and closer to the main door, Andy began to become separated from us from the overwhelming current of the river of the crowd. He ended up getting in the tent, as the three of us were not as fortunate. Rachel, Jennie and I got to be about three people from the door before they stopped letting people in. After waiting about til about 10am, hoping that they would open the front door again, we gave up, however, little did we know about 100 feet away there was an outdoor table with people already drinking. The three of us got a table with a bunch of Italians and ordered a beer. And not just any beer, but an entire liter of beer (around 33 ounces or a little under 2 pints of beer from the UK) and for a bargain of 8.50 euros (around $12). It was great, especially, since you were served in a huge glass stein.

I was a little parched/hungry at this point in the day, so I downed my first one pretty quick. Here is a picture of when I ordered my second one and since I dont have a time stamp on with my camera, I "created" my own:

Yes, I know what you are thinking, it was 10:30 in the morning. Here a few other pictures from the day:

Here is a picture of the three of us (taken by an Italian at our table).

Here is a picture of Jennie posing with her big pretzel (and this is the smallest size). One of the things that they have there at all of their tents are these huge pretzels. They also serve other German foodstuffs including sausage and half chickens.

After the first group of Italians left. Along came another group of them (some of the notable ones/the ones I remember are Paulo, Massimo and Sergio). Supposedly it is customary for Italians to come during the third weekend of Oktoberfest. We learned much from them, including the phrase Pompino (ask me what it means in private).

Once we got bored of Hofbrau tent, we tried to meet one of Rachel's friends (Micheal) who was in the tent next door. After a bathroom break and a half-an-hour of trying to get in through the back and side entrances, we ended up just walking through the front door. After getting to Micheal's table, we ordered another beer, some food (a half of chicken) and took some photos:

Here are some traditionally dressed German's in their attire.

As you can see the inside of the tents are very decorative and many have a live bands. Also, about every 15 minutes people for no reason would stand on the tables and just start cheering, instigating a massive toast.

After our meal, we ended up meeting up with Andy and we all went back to the hotel to take a nap in hoping to recover so we could come back later that night.

Unfortunately/fortunately, we slept until about 8pm. After deciding that none of us wanted to drink that much beer ever again, we concluded to just go downtown and get some traditional German food at a pub. Here I got a variety sausage plate with potatoes and tried some of Micheal's weiner schnitzel (and of course we had a beer with our meal):

After eating, we decided to walk around a little and explore the city:

Supposedly this is one of the most famous churches/catherdrals in Munich.

And of course, there was a KFC down the road.

After exploring, we (excluding Michael) went back to our hotel. The next day we decided to play it easy, sleep in and just check out the state fair portion of the carnival. Here is a picture:

After doing that for an hour or so, we did what college kids do well, drink some more. We checked new tents but we just ended back at a table outside the Hofbrau tent. We had a beer each (that was all we could do after the day before) and played cards (Rummy 500). After that we ate lunch (more sausage and chicken, and a traditional German platter) and got our souvenirs (for me, a tee shirt and a few magnets).

By 2 or 3 we decided we had enough of Oktoberfest and decided to leave. We ended up going to a park near a University (we think) and played more cards. After a few hours of that, we went back to the hotel to pick up our stuff and headed off the airport. We got to the airport extra earlier, unfortunately our plane didn't and we were delayed for a hour. And once we got to London we had a forty minute wait in customs then a hour long bus ride back into the city and then we had to wait for a late night bus to get us back to the West End. After all the traveling, I ended up going to bed a 3:30am Sunday night/Monday morning.

It was a long day and weekend. However, I would say it was worth it and memorable experience to say the least.

Its the weekend!

2008-10-02T15:06:00.002-04:00

Well, my first week of class is over. It actually ended Wednesday at 12. It could be possibly the shortest full week of classes I ever had. My other two classes are slightly harder than the ones I described in my last post. The last two are both History courses that are pretty detailed. One of them is about slavery in the classical world (ancient Greece and Rome) and the other is about Britain and the Wider World (that is actual name of the class). In each class we have to two papers and an in-class presentation on some subject to "teach" the entire class. In my point of view, perhaps the one getting paid should do the teaching, but its whatevs.

Today, me and Corey (for those of you don't know Corey Winchester (went to my high school and who now goes to Northwestern)) went to the National Portrait Gallery. Although slightly boring, it was pretty fun and great to catch up.

Tomorrow, I am leaving for Oktoberfest. Should be awesome, expect my next post sometime next week for the "results" of my weekend in Munich...

First Day

2008-09-29T15:28:00.002-04:00

Well, I guess had to come sooner or later. Today, was finally the first day of class. My nearly two week vacation and UK travels without worrying about school work or opening a book (that I had to read) are now over. I guess five months was long enough for summer.

My first class, Urban Form and Formation, seems pretty simple and easy. Its 4 projects (2 group, 2 individual) that focus on a book called A Pattern Language. Its a "do-it-yourself" guide on the so-called proper way of aspects of city-planning, building and construction. The book, by Christopher Alexander (a prof at UC Berkley), gives 253 rules to follow. I will let you know how the class goes.

My next class (another city-planning course) is about politics and environmental issues. Today in class we had a little debate role-playing businesses, government and residents about the expansion of Heathrow Airport (London's main airport). This seems a little harder with one large paper (2,500 words) and a group presentation at the end of the term. We also picked our group for that end of the term presentation. Somehow, in our group of 5, we have two Americans (me and Rachel), a 3rd-year student from Sweden, another affiliate student from Australia and a girl from Italy. I only mention the composition of our rag-tag crew as we are learning/studying about the Politics of Britain, of which no one of us is truly familiar with the system here.

Since I mentioned her before I guess I should go into further detail about my study-buddy/park-sitter friend Rachel. Rachel, look below as she is the one pretending she is a lion, is in those two classes previously mentioned and another one that I have Wednesday (History- Britain and the Wider World). I thought I would give her a shout out as we are in 3/4 of the same classes and we are going on nearly all the trips together (including Oktoberfest this weekend and Amsterdam the following weekend). She is from the D.C. area and is basically on the same track as me (URBS Major and HIST minor at PENN). Although she is a quite better speller.

I shall mention other people as they naturally come up in my adventures. Until then, cheers.

Portobello Road Market

2008-09-28T05:56:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, another great London day, we decided to check out another market. This one up in Notting Hill, a few tube stops west of where we live in a very wealthy neighborhood of the city. The houses were huge and in great condition. I could see why they would base a film entirely on this neighborhood. The market was packed and full of stands beneath brightly colored houses.

The first few blocks of the market were primarily only antique, jewerly and vintage stores but further down there were also food stands. The food looked soo good that I decided to take a picture or two:
After shopping around, I ended up picking up my first souvenir (a 1843 replica map of London) and get some food. we stopped at S&M cafe (recommended by Rachel). Here I had Sausage and Mash, another famous English food. I ended getting the No. 1 (Traditional S&M) and it looked like this:
It was great and it was also the best sausage I ever had. Not too long after that, most of us left to go home, while the others continued to shop (they were girls). Once we got back, we met up again to lay out in Regent's Park. At first the goal was to read a book, but it was too nice to do that. I just wanted to relax and take it all in.

Are you ready to straddle two hemispheres??

2008-09-28T05:22:00.011-04:00

After picking up my two History classes (Britain & the Wider World and Slavery in the Classical World) Friday morning and attending the Freshers Fayre (student activities fair to encourage the first year students to join clubs), a group of us decided to go to Greenwich. And what a day we decided to go. It was sunny all day and hovered around a warm 70 the entire day.

To get there we either could have taken a bus or a boat. We opted for the boat and caught it right near the London Eye. Here are a few pictures:

Right in front of the eye there is a huge park around 6-7 acres. When we went it was filled with businessmen on their lunch break, tourists and street performers. Make sure you see Big Ben and Parliment in the background.

Greenwich is pretty far away it seems, but once we got there, it was awesome. The town was pretty small and cute, but the observatory was built on a huge hill overlooking the city of London. Once we struggled our way up the small mountain, we were taken away. It was really breathtaking and beautiful. You could see so much. Here is a picture:

In case you were wondering, right beyond the main field is the Old Royal Naval College.

Once we got to the top, we could see the line. As we cautiously approached it, we wondered the consquences of our mental state would be. This is the picture of me as I put my foot down:
And right after:

Turns out the West is the same as the Eastern Hemisphere. Who would have thunk that??

Besides straddling the line. Greenwich offered many great things such as a Ferris wheel, two great museums (one dedicated to figuring out Longitude & a Naval Museum) and a planetarium. At the planetarium they had a meteorite that is very old (4.5 billion years) and probably very dirty, check out this picture for proof:

After heading down the hill, we went into the Naval Museum for a few minutes but not that long (it was a long day). We eventually got on the boat and went home to grab some food. I did snap these pictures right after getting off the boat near the Ferris Wheel:

Queen Mum, Mineral Water & Big Stones

2008-09-26T05:07:00.015-04:00

I know I am starting to sound repetitive but I had another great day. Besides the down point of my day being the first five minutes after waking up at 7 in the morning for the first time since I stopped working about a month ago, the rest of the day was quite glorious (which is still an understatement).

The first stop of the day was Windsor Castle. Here is a little background (obtained from our great tour guide Debbie. With the British kingdom left without a proper heir to the thrown in during the medieval ages, a fight to be king was sure to be taken place between the kings brothers to try to take the thrown. After brothers battled it out, it was between Harold Godwinson, the final brother left standing, versus William of Normandy. With the help of hired mercenaries, William won the battle (Battle of Hastings), which eventually lead to him taking the crown of England. As King he was not to popular at first as he gave away their land to the mercenaries as payment. However, one of his main goals was to establish a state-of-the-art defense system for london. After building the Tower of London, he build a series of castles 25 miles away (the number of miles an army could march in one day) from the Tower with each castle being 25 miles between each castle, creating a network of defense for the city. One of the castles was Windsor Castle, the only one remaining of William's castle network as the rest were raised sometime around the English Civil War. Well enough of history of now. Let's get some visual pleasure:

Here is a somewhat normal view of the castle. The largest and first part of the castle is the round tower to the right of the picture. Depending on where the queen is, the flag with either fly the standard British flag or the European Union flag.As it once was a castle used for defense from rebellions, the castle still has its old walls (including this portion of the wall to allow archers to shoot arrows throw the narrow slots.At 11:00, the guards change. I have a video too but I couldn't upload it for some reason.

Besides these pictures, I have many more that will be posted to the right, along with the other pictures that I took yesterday. Also, the guards at Windsor did not allow pictures to be taken inside the actual castle and rooms, which is a shame as ALL of the room are soo ornate and beautiful. There was the dining room which was able to fit 160 people at a table and had shields on the wall with every knight that was ever crowned. Another room had all different kinds of guns and swords along with booty from military victories from the world (including a gold lion head with crystal teeth from India and a crown from Ethoipia). Well, I think it is time to move on.

Our next journey, over 2 hours away is Bath in the Western Part of the Kingdom. I took some great pictures of the English countryside, including this:

The countryside reminded me a little of Northern California, as the rolling hills were filled with livestock and endless greenfields. Before we got off the bus at Bath, we had a little tour of the town. Here we saw Bath's circus, which is comprised of dozens of rounded row homes facing a circular park (Jack Nicholson and Nicholas Cage have houses here). Also, all of the older building are made out of the same limestone facade meaning that they will have the same color exterior, which ends up making a very pretty town!

Anyway, back to the Roman Baths. Discovered by Celctic tribs and then the Romans once they conquered, the natural hot springs of Bath were used for its healing powers and eventually as a toursit trap for a small town of around 100,000. Here is a picture of the baths:

In the same complex, the museum had a lot of other cool things from the Romans for instance mosaics and curses left by people that told of stories written to Roman Gods. As we were getting on the bus I saw this statue, I thought it explained their obsession perfectly:

After Bath, we had one more stop and it was Stonehenge. And no it was not built by aliens, but real people (supposedly). Although it was in the middle of no where and surrounded by 3 highways, Stonehenge is incredably nice place. I took the most pictures here. Here are a couple:

Well, that was pretty much it for that day. I will post the rest of my pictures on the right hand side since I took so many. Enjoy and stay tuned for Greenwich and Portabello Road Market tomorrow!

A lot of walking...

2008-09-24T09:54:00.012-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, Rachel and I (a Penn Student who is also taking some of the same courses that I am taking) had a walking tour along the southern bank of the River Thames. To get the place that we needed to get to we decided to walk as it was sort of a nice day. However, that would change. First, we needed to get lunch and we ate at Trafalger Square on Nelson's column. Here is a picture for proof (NOTE: Big Ben in background):

And here is a funny picture of Rachel acting like a lion:

After lunch, we continued walking to the River Thames. Taking lovely pictures of cool buildings and of the historic government part of London. But it started to rain. At first, it wasn't too bad, but it was not fun walking a mile in it.

When we met up with the rest of the group who we were taking the tour with. We found out that we were going to be walking all the way to city hall. Making a one way trip around 4 miles! Whatever, it was fine. We would just feel it in the morning.

On the way there we saw a lot of cool buildings and bridges. This included the Tate Modern Museum (an old power plant turned museum), London Bridge (which we would later walk across) and OXO apartments (an old warehouse that got away with advertising there properties using windows at the top of the building, instead of a normal neon sign like in the states).

We also saw the Globe Theater and an old shipping wharf turned office complex. Eventually, we got to city hall which has a great view of Tower bridge.

And City Hall was also a modern work of art. It is a very eco-friendly building that does not have AC or heat (only at the front entrance because of the cool breeze from the River Thames).

At city hall, we had a boring (but informative) PowerPoint presentation of the structure of planning institutions of London. We decided to walk back to campus via a downtown route which would take us through the business district and past historic and architectually-interesting buildings. Here are a few pictures with captions:

I thought that this was a cool building with an awesome exterior.

Here is St. Paul's Catherdral. A huge building with soo many details and interesting forms.

Here is a circus that we ran into on the way back.

The place on the right reminded me a little bit of the restaurant Parc in Philadelphia.

Eventually, we got really hungry (about 8 out of 10) and after a very long day of walking Rachel and I ate a five pound ($9) all-you-can eat Chinese buffet right near Trafalgar Square.

It was a great day, but it just had a lot of walking (more than 8 miles total)...

Tomorrow, I am going to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath. So expect a rundown in the next few days.

In Da Club

2008-09-24T09:39:00.004-04:00

Two nights ago, I went to the club. Not just any club, a european club. There were three floors of dancing. I mainly was on the 3rd were they played hip-hop music nothing too new, but mainly the old stuff. My personal favorite was when they played the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme song ("West Philadelphia born and raised...). I was very excited as it made me feel at home.

After an hour or so on that floor we went to the first floor where they played the classic techno beats of Europe. Although it hurt my ears, I could see how they could find it fun. Anyway, here are a few pictures from the night:

The British Museum

2008-09-24T06:32:00.009-04:00

Wow! I don't know how to explain the great this place is, I could sit in there for a few days and still not be able to see everything that I would want to see. Even walking up to this palace of history is overwhelming, it is so large, but it is even larger in the inside. The great reading room and the glass dome are breath taking. Here are some of the highlights:

The Glass Dome

This glass dome was finished in 2000 and connects all of the museum together. It is so cool to look at.

Rosetta Stone

One of the most important discoveries of modern time is here and its pretty easy to find. It was great to see the real thing as opposed the replica in the Penn Museum.

Egyptian stuffHere is me giving my offering to the gods.

A big head.

Assyrian stuff

There were 2 of these, one on either side of the hall. They were about 25 feet tall and had so much detail.

This is just a detail of a 40 foot-long mural-esque wall. The seen depicites an Assyrian king hunting wild lions. They would be built to symbolize the protection provided by the king. [NOTE: information was obtained from overhearing a tour guide]

Mosaics

Going up one of the stairwells, there were these taken murals from the mediterrian sea countries (I forget if it was Greece, etc.). This one here is a dolphin. I thought it was pretty awesome and it puts to shame our modern ones (esspecially the ones done my senior year at Masterman).

Besides these highlights, there is still so much to see and left to photograph. I will upload them all to one album so check it out when there is a British Museum update!!!

2008-09-23T06:22:00.006-04:00

Here are some old pictures that should have been posted a while ago:

Trafalgar SquareIt was so awesome. The statue (Nelson's Column) was so tall while the fountains on either side were equally amazing.

Piccadilly Circus

This intersection was packed. There were so many people. It must have been from the nearby theater district and West End pubs.

Hyde Park
The rest are from our picnic in the park and knife protest concert.

Camden Markets

2008-09-23T05:55:00.003-04:00

The first market that a bunch of us decided to go to was Camden Markets, a collection of four separate markets about one and half miles north of our main campus in Bloomsbury. Obviously the markets were in the town of Camden Town, an area known for its unsafe neighborhoods at night. Luckily we were going on a quite Sunday mid-morning journey.

And oh what an experience it was. There huge numbers of stalls, mainly selling the same England tourist odds and ends (Football jerseys, I Heart London shirts, postcards, etc.), however, there mainly awesome vintage and art stores with a head shop thrown in here and there. It was a quite exciting place that was extremely crowded.

The most overwhelming feeling is when we entered the food court area. Here dozens and dozens of vendors would shout and yell trying to grab any ounce of attention to try and get us to purchase their food, which ranged from Chinese to Thai and Argentinian meat to Caribbean jerk chicken. This place was so international.

The best part about Camden however was the old turn of the century canal, which was still in use. It was awesome being near the water and just chilling out there from the bustling crowd of the market.

Unfortunately, the only purchase we made was on the way back at the 99 pence store.

Last Night and This Morning

2008-09-20T13:35:00.002-04:00

Last night was truly awesome and this morning wasn't half bad. Being in London for a few days now a few of us from Penn decided to leave the immediate surroundings and go explore around our neighborhood to check out the local touristy things. Last night we went through Covent Gardens and SoHo and through Chinatown. We ended up seeing Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, two great open plazas which are simply breath taking.

And this morning, we ended up walking down Oxford Street looking in department stores and other retailers. Although I only ended up getting a pillow and a pillow case just the experience of walking down this quite crowded avenue is a moment to remember. Not to mention Hyde Park, the other major park (the other being Regent Park) at the end of main Street, where the group of us had a picnic while listening to music from the pre-knife-protest-concert-area. Although roomy like Regent, Hyde a slightly different unexplainable feel to it.

Look for these photos in the coming days.

Regent Park

2008-09-18T18:40:00.006-04:00

About 20 minutes ago, I returned from my first visit to Regent Park and it was great! Its about 66 degrees F and sunny and what a day did I pick to go to one of the best and most famous parks in the world. With huge open spaces and quaint English gardens, Regent Park has so much to offer and its full of life. It is almost impossible to describe in words. Luckily, I took a bunch of pictures so hopefully they will do a much better job than me. These pictures will hopefully posted later tonight and are from only the most southern part of the park and the surrounding area.

I'm here!!

2008-09-18T18:40:00.005-04:00

Currently, I am standing in a McDonalds at the West End using their Wi-Fi to write this post. So far this trip is awesome! I am having a lot of fun and meeting some great people. Most of my hall is international students from all over the world, which allows for some interesting experiences to say the least including someone who is not to be named playing and singing drunken Russian songs with his acoustic guitar.

My flight over was fine, n0thing too bad except for the fact that I only slept 2 hours on the plane. Making my way from Heathrow to the West End was a bit of a challende

I am also trying to eat well while not spending too much, luckily there are many places to eat cheaply, including my favorite Tesco (a Wa-wa type store but bigger and more grocieries). The area that I am living at is also great as it is in the business corridor of the West End but it is filled with tons of shops and restaurants. I just love the neighborhood. Especially since I just found out that we are very close the buzzing Covent Gardens which makes up for our more residential West End/Camden neighborhood.

This city is great and I can't wait to share more when I have the internet in my room. That way I have the leisure of posting pictures in my room, but until then, enjoy.

Last Days

2008-09-12T11:10:00.003-04:00

So, I leave for London Monday. It is weird to say that because I never thought I would be doing this, you know going to a place I never been before all by myself while knowing nearly no one else there. The other day it just hit me that I was actually doing it; I really don't remember when I realized but now I am somewhat nervous and ready for an adventure. I have pretty much all the things I need for my trip, I just need to fit it all into my new luggage which will be sooooo much 'fun." Well, this will most likely be my last post before I head over "the pond" so wish me well!

1st Post

2008-08-25T10:20:00.003-04:00

So this is my first post. Right now I have exactly 21 more days before I fly off to London. There are still a few more things to do before I go away (figure out my financial aid, get cash money, pack), but there is not that more to do really. This is also my last week of work (finally) for the summer and then I am off to the life of relaxation and travel. So far I added a photo slideshow of my trip to Ocean City, Maryland earlier this summer. Only 3 more weeks...