Week One and Two in London

After departing Paris at 11:00pm in the evening, going through UK/France border control (it was intense, drug dogs and everything) boarding a ferry and crossing over, I finally landed in London at 7:30 in the morning on September 29th.  I walked to my hotel to pick up the luggage I had left and meandered my way over to the Hampden house, my residence for the next three months.

I don't have pictures....but I'm sure I'll take some eventually.  The girls got the flat in the basement, fully furnished with four bedrooms and three and a half baths for seven girls.  The first day I used to settle in, so I didn't do too much.  It's weird because moving to London didn't feel like I was in a different country, it just felt like I was in a new city.

The next day we had lunch with the entire FSP.  I found out we actually don't have class till Thursday, which left the entire week to do whatever we wanted.

On Tuesday the FSP went to the Shakespeare Globe Theater and watched Taming of the Shrew.

On Wednesday we took a campus tour

On Thursday we had our first class

On Saturday we went to Tate Modern and the London Eye and watched the sunset

Week 2:

We had our first week of class, and our first paper due.  Yay!!!! I'm taking War in the 21st Century, The European Union, and a class about Memory, War, and Nationalism.  

On Monday I got to go to Westminster Abby for free!! I watched the evening choir and got to tour the Abby without other tourists, just a group of LSE students.  It was amazing!

On the weekend we went on a scavenger hunt...and we won tickets to Selfridges Fashion Show + goodie bag.  Yay!

Versailles Pictures

As promised

Stirling, Edinburgh, London, Rome, and Paris...In 3that order (Part 2)

LONDON/ROME Day 4

The next morning was mostly us trying to get to the airport. By the end of the day, we were in Rome.  We spent the evening wandering around Trevi Fountain, and eating gelato.

Trevi fountain a night.  We found it, I thought it wasn't Trevi (for some reason I thought Trevi was the four rivers) so we went around looking for it only to come back. lol

ROME Day 5

We spent most of the day at Vatican City.  We went to St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museums.

The Pieta!!! Apparently some crazy Australian in the late 1990's attacked it and broke parts of it.  Now it's behind glass.

School of Athens!  My favourite Raphael!  

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the Sistine Chapel, but that didn't stop some people. -_-  People need to learn to respect sacred places.  Needless to say, the Sistine Chapel was amazing, and I wish I could have spent all day looking at the paintings (though my neck would probably hurt afterwards).

In the evening we went to the Piazza Venezia,Piazza del Popolo, and the Spanish steps.

 Piazza Venezia

 Spanish Steps

ROME Day 6

We woke up early so we could beat the line at to see the Roman Forum, the Palatino, and the Colosseum.  We even got to go on the lower floor of the Colosseum.  We also went to the Pantheon and Piazza Novona.  At night we wandered around Trevi Fountain again.

Arch of Titus at the Roman Forum!!

Colosseum!  We got to go to the lower levels and the third levels. 

Pantheon

The Four Rivers fountain.  For some reason I always thought it was bigger than in real life.  Still amazing though.

Rome was so amazing, because I finally got to put all my AP art history to use.  Seeing all of the ancient architecture and the amazing art was truly a once in a lifetime experience (that is unless I come back).

ROME/PARIS Day 7

Alas, it was time to leave Rome and head to Paris.  We woke up at 4 in the morning to go catch a bus to the airport. By 1pm, we were settled in Paris and off to the museum Rodin.  His most famous art is the thinker.  (He made many different copies of the thinker)

It started to rain, and we got soaked, so we headed back to where we were staying.

At 6pm it was still raining, but we headed off to the Eiffel tower because I had already booked tickets.  It was raining when we made it to the top, but it stopped after 30 minutes, giving us a chance to take some pictures. :)

We're at the tippy top.  Ah!  The beautiful Paris sunset.

Eiffel Tower all lit up

PARIS Day 8

The Louvre!!! One of the days I was most looking forward to. We spent the majority of the day there.  However afterwards we visited Saint Chapelle (one of my favorite cathedrals) and Notre Dame. 

The Famous Louvre Pyramid.  Designed by a Chinese-American artist, I. M. Pei.

 Victory of Samothrace! My favorite statue.  (I seem to have a lot of favorites.)

 Hmm...what's that behind us?  Let's get a closer look...

 Why, it's the Mona Lisa.  

 Saint Chapelle.  The beautiful blue ceilings with the little golden patterns make it look like the night sky, contrasting with the breathtakingly intricate stain glass.

Notre Dame. Unfortunately, we did not see the Hunchback. 

PARIS Day 9

It was the last day of our European adventure.  We decided to take it slow and relax for a bit, especially since we've been so busy for the past week.  We had a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower and just wandered around our area before Eric had to catch his plane back to the US.  I had lots of time before my night bus to London, so I went off to Versailles for one last tourist stop. 

Versailles pictures coming later...blogger doesn't want to load them.

Stirling, Edinburgh, London, Rome, and Paris...in that order (Part 1)

I'm finally settling into London (still having phone problems, but I'll iron it out by tomorrow night.  Phones are dumb).  

So I thought I'd share you some stories and highlights of the past two weeks:

Before I even arrived in Scotland, I had a very strange encounter.  I was at the Newark airport, waiting for my flight when I noticed a women who looked curiously like my friend's (the one I was visiting in Scotland) mother.  She didn't seem to recognize me, and I thought that Alex would have told me if she was on the same flight as me, but she looked JUST like her.

Well, it turns out it was her.  It's a small world.

SCOTLAND Day 1

When I (and Alex's Mom) arrived in Edinburgh, it was 7:30 am the next day and unusually rainy. *sarcasm*.  I was then whisked away to Sterling by Alex's Grandparents, who drove Alex to meet me.  

I hadn't had much sleep on the plane, but I wanted to see the town, so Alex and I took off in the dreary rain for some coffee, and a trip to the historical jail. (A very cheery start).  

We also visited the graveyard near Stirling Castle, but it became too rainy, so we retired to the flat to have a lovely afternoon of being bums.  

SCOTLAND Day 2

The next day I went off to Stirling Castle by myself while Alex filled the empty space in his head with knowledge, and when I mean that I mean he went to class.  Afterwards, we took the train to Edinburgh, where we visited Edinburgh Castle, Mary King's Close, which is the underground foundation of Edinburgh.

Stirling Castle 

Yes, a women's place was certainly not in the kitchen.  Found this on a informational sign in Stirling Castle.  :)

Some of my pictures seemed to have disappeared.  I had a lot of Edinburgh Castle and Mary King's Close, but they must have accidentally been erased.

At eleven I took the night bus to London, where I would meet up with Eric.

LONDON Day 3

I arrived at the hotel early in the morning, while Eric arrived about an hour later.  We had a relaxing first day and went to Buckingham Palace's Mews (where they keep the royal coaches and cars) and the Queen's Gallery (where there was an exhibit on Leonardo DaVinci).  We unfortunately missed the changing of the guards, and tickets for the actual Buckingham palace sold out.  We were able to visit one of the smaller churches though and Westminster Abby (we didn't go inside.) 

A beautiful carriage, fit for royalty

 Da Vinci's pictures

Westminster

I'm still missing a lot of photos.  No good. :(

In the evening we wandered around Chinatown.  

Continued in the next post....eventually