The Weekend

Well this weekend was the first weekend that we were allowed to travel, but I wasn't that forward thinking and so we decided a weekend in England would be wonderful.  I spent Friday on my first shopping trip in London.  We went to Oxford Street and learned all about the stores of London.  My favorites were Dorothy Perkins, Topshop, and Primark.  The shopping at Primark was crazy though, it was like Black Friday in there.  Then today we took a day trip to Brighton.  It is a coastal city in England.  I took the train for the first time, it was about an hour and forty minute trip.  Once we got there we went to the pier, went to the shore, and ate fish and chips.  Although that was all fun, the most interesting part of the day was when we were walking back to the train station after a nice day in Brighton to see a woman running across the street and then get hit by a cab.  I believe it was her own fault because she was jaywalking and she ran out from behind a bus.  I am now also completely neurotic about crossing the street, yikes!

Brighton Pier (reminds me of Santa Monica only colder)

Yummy Donuts

Hahaha!

Field Trip

Stonehenge

Today was like a trip into my art history class days.  We got to go see Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral.  I loved Stonehenge, it is just so beautiful and green and I think I got some pretty decent pictures, being that I am not a great photographer.  The next stop was Salisbury Cathedral which is your ideal Gothic Cathedral.  In one area of the Cathedral there was a museum type area with chalices from past Popes and the original Magna Carta document.  It was incredible to see how well preserved this monumental document was kept.  Well the Pope just arrived in London this morning and it has been in the newspapers for the last few days.  It is interesting to see the British views on the Pope and Christianity in general.  Overall the articles made it sound as if he would not be well received which apparently is true.  Today they arrested 6 men who were suspected of planning a terrorist threat against the Pope.  The Pope is expected to be in Hyde Park tomorrow which is just a block or two away, may have crazy traffic tomorrow?  It should be interesting to see how his whole visit turns out. Well overall it was a great day, but I have homework to finish so I'll post again later on this week.

Salisbury Cathedral

One Week

So I have officially been in London for one week, and I absolutely love it.  We started with orientation, just getting to know the house and the neighborhood.  We also got to go on a photo scavenger hunt, and I will post some of those pictures at the bottom.  My group ended up winning the scavenger hunt and our prize was tea at Kensington Palace.  Apparently Princess Diana used to live there.  It was beautiful and had a lot of pretty gardens.  I have a new love for English tea and cream, oh delicious!  Classes have been good as well.  It is so cool to be in art and humanities classes here because we spend majority of our class time in the museums rather than the classroom.  We have already been to the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as the National Gallery.  I know we will also be visiting the Tate as well.  My English class sounds very interesting as well.  It is about modern British drama so we are reading a good amount of plays, which is actually a lot more interesting for me.  We are also going to the theater at least four times this semester.  Overall it has been a great start for an amazing year to come!

Piccadilly Circus

ON THE TUBE!

London Eye

Kensington Gardens