Only 7 more weeks!

Fall break was the official mid way point through my semester here in London. As it dwindles down to its last day tomorrow, I'm sitting here wondering where the time has gone, how it has flown by, and how I know these next 7 weeks are going to fly by even faster. Its so crazy, time is a valuable thing. It literally feels like I blinked and half of my semester went by. I know I've done a lot, but the constant rhythm of getting up for work, class, class, work, work, work, home, sleep, repeat thing really takes it out of you. It's a bit disheartening to realize how quickly time's passing. I'm excited to go home for the holidays, but I'm not opposed to my time in London slowing down.

So, I know everyone has been wondering what exactly life has been like in London for two months, well, I'll tell you...

It's overwhelming ... and it's not.

London is huge. It's also extremely diverse, and interestingly enough it works for it. We live in Kensington, which is suppose to be this "posh" area, so it always amazes me when I walk down High Street and hear 5 different languages on the same block. I've also made quite a few life realizations ... or at least I'm attempting to use this joke of a semester to figure my life out. For some reason in my bored state today I decided to creep my facebook wall... all that did was make me miss everyone. My friends, you are the greatest people in the world. <3


On to London life...

Couples here are REALLY affectionate and passionate. I've seen everything from people looking like they're two seconds away from ripping each others clothes off, to an extremely melodramatic teenage couple that broke up on a platform while waiting for the Tube. Let's go into detail on this story because it was insane. So, I'm casually standing on the Westbound Glouster Road platform waiting during rush hour for my train to come. This teenage couple decides to be the entertainment for the croweded platform by breaking up. It all started at the top of the stairs, they were arguing, had tense body language, and after a while the girl storms down the stairs. She makes it about half way down the staircase, then stops, pauses and contemplates her decision, then turns around to look at the boy who is still at the top of the staircase. About this time, I assume she's pissed off because he's not chasing her, and I think he picks up on it because he hesitates, then starts walking down. He gets to her, grabs her, she pushes him off, they argue a bit more, and then she storms down rest of the stairs onto the platform. When she gets to the platform, she begins to bawl her eyes out, slumps onto the wall and sinks down to the floor with her face buried in her hands. She hits the floor and is in a fetal position crying her eyes out. I turned back to look at her [ex]boyfriend, and he stood there, on the stairs, until maybe mid-sink to the ground by his girlfriend before turning around and marching back up the stairs and out of the station. Mind you I witnessed this after a long day of work and class, so I had no sympathy for this reckless display of public emotion. It really was too dramatic, a good laugh, but that girl needs to lay off reality TV.


Despite the teenage love affair drama that I saw unfold before my eyes, and the creeper ass guys that I've literally had to elbow in the face to leave Gaby, Erika, and me alone at clubs, I've learned that chivalry isn't dead. With my Parisian bike episode, I felt so cared for, or looked out for... I mean, I'm sure it would have reflected poorly on my tour guide if I had died, but it was really cool because Derek, who was on the tour with us, and Malcolm, who was tagging along on the tour made it their own little mission to hang around me and make sure I didn't die. Other people on the tour would ask Sarah how I was doing, and it was just nice to feel this general sense of concern for my well-being from people that had absolutely no attachment or investment in my life. I feel like other people I know would have just gotten mad at me for detracting from their bike riding experience, or something like that. It was nice. Also, I've seen one of Isaac's non-SU roommates totally look out for Marlys. We all went out one night, and when we were waiting to catch the bus home a guy came up and started talking to Marlys and trying to hit on her, John went up to him and said Marlys was his sister and got her out of the situation. Maybe it's because SU is so small of a school that we don't get creeped on that I was surprised to see this. I know I'm definitely use to Isaac twirling me out of awkward situations and being able to use him as my scapegoat from everything, but it's nice to see other people go up to help when there's no obligation. The first night we went out in London, one of the guys waited at the back of the line to make sure all of the girls got into the club fine. It's refreshing to see these things .... and even more impressive when it comes from the guys even when they're drunk, haha!


I've also learned how to really stop and smell the roses, which is ironic because in a city this big you think it be hard to do. I'm pretty sure its because we have to walk everywhere, and I have an hour to myself both ways while traveling to work, so you get a lot of time to sit and think. People in London are also to themselves, so it also gives you time to sit and people watch...you can learn a lot. Haha, that's the past psych major in me coming out...Anyways, pub life is fun, working environments are much more relaxed, yet still productive, and it is always a challenge to narrowly escape getting run over when crossing the street.




London is just so big and pretty. Here's a few of the things that have made it amazing:

The People!

Bree, Me, Martin, Maddie, John, Isaac, Nick

Nick and Maddie with Nicole and John photo bombing

SU ;)

BFFs

The Nights Out ;)

Klaaaaaassy

Classy

Classy-ish

Happy Classy

Sassy Classy

Crazy Classy

The "Quintessential" London Things...

Professor Fosdal

Double Deckers!

London Eye

It's all only 1 pound...

The Amazing Trips and Sights...

Notre Dame

Stonehenge

Scotland

Arc de Triumph

Paris!

Northern Lights in Iceland

And the Memories...

The most important thing I've learned in London though.....

One simple statement, so many meanings. Mind the gap. Mind the gap between cultures, languages, beliefs, custms, ideas, social consciousness, people, distance, everything. You have to be open to life and new experiences, and that's definitely something I'm working on. You don't want to alienate people just because they're not on "your level". Bhahaha, it's a nice sentiment.



That's my London life in a few pictures, there's around 7 photo albums worth on my computer so...it was hard to narrow it down. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed me spicing this up by doing a quasi-photo blog...After one amazing first half of my semester in London, I'm excited to see what the next half of it holds! I'll leave you with this:




"What Benjamin Franklin meant, that knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and that even the biggest failure, even the worst, most entrappable mistake beats the hell out of never even trying."



Con Mucho Amor, (or more appropriately...)



Cheers!

Lizette

Fall Break

Since we don't get all the fancy days off and Thanksgiving Break that we would normally get in the States, they compiled all the days off and give us a week off of school for Fall Break instead of two days. I decided to go to Reykjavik, Iceland the first weekend of Fall Break with Isaac, Sarah, Marlys, Jackie, Bree, and Veronica. There's this really big inside joke running with us about "RayRay" because the night we were all trying to book this deal to go see the Northern Lights, everything was a mess. Veronica and my credit cards were capped so we couldn't book the trip when we tried, Sarah and Jackie ended up buying the last 2 tickets on a particular flight, and we were all on the fence wondering why in the world we were choosing to go to Iceland for Fall Break...what exactly was there to do in Iceland, and why were we choosing to freeze to death? Also, we had looked up the wrong city in Iceland so it was coming back with "Things to do" such as visit the local pub owned by the one hotel in the city, and visit the forest ... At this point, our perception of Iceland was something like 3 people who spoke only Icelandic and we had booked a trip there.


Needless to say everything worked out, Sarah and Jackie caught a flight out at 1ish from London and the rest of us were booked on a flight out of London at 9pm.  So, let's kick this trip off right. Isaac, Vero, and I were heading to the airport around 5 because travelling on the Tube during rush hour sucks and we needed to get to the airport with enough time to check in, figure out what we were doing, and go through security/customs. I don't know what the hell Tube engineers were thinking when they decided that the Picadilly line would be the one that ran to Heathrow (the airport) the Tube/train whatever is so narrow and it is ALWAYS packed solid with business people commuting to/from work and people with luggage trying to get to the airport. HORRIBLE DECISION. Vero ended up forcing her way onto a tube that was too crowded, and she had a giant suitcase, so Isaac and I stayed back  and waited for the next train which luckily took a few minutes and then we barreled onto the tube. It was so hot and there was too many people in my personal bubble. At one point something got into my contact so my eye started crying, I looked like a hot mess and I'm pretty sure people were looking at me and making up stories as to why I was crying and had luggage ...  Isaac made a few stories of his own up, which I imagine were spot on with everyone else.

Eventually, we got to the airport, met up with everyone else, and boarded the plane for Iceland! I had a lot of mixed emotions about this trip, namely, what I got myself into. The same feelings of anticipation, anxiety, and wonder surged back from when I boarded the plane out of Laredo for London. This had to be a good sign that RayRay was going to be fun. Too bad our plane was delayed around 40 minutes, which caused us to land in Iceland at about midnight, then we had to take a bus to the hotel, and we didn't end up getting to check in until 2:30am. Iceland or bust, right?

When we stepped out of the airport I hated my life at that moment. The wind gust was so strong I felt like I was fighting just to take a step forward, mind you this is 2:30am and my contacts are already glued to my eyes because I'm so tired and don't have the will power to suck it up and not find any reason to complain. Things worked out and we all had our own rooms, luckily Vero and I were neighbors.

Breakfast was from 7-10, which meant we were meeting at 9:30. I'm really beginning to believe that no one knows how to do breakfast like America. Of all the places I've gone so far, they have the weirdest things and no protein for breakfast, also they always only serve Corn Flakes for cereal. I love corn flakes, but I feel like there needs to be more substance to my morning, like fruit, that would be great. Conveniently, there was a Subway across the street from our hotel, so we ended up going there for lunch. The coast line was just beyond the subway, and we explored the area a little before we were scheduled to get picked up for horseback ridding!

View from the 5th floor

Horseback riding was so much fun, you know, when it wasn't raining. We rode Icelandic Horses, which a a bit shorter, and have these very thick manes on them.  Since the weather was so unpredictable that day, they offered wellies (rain boots), rain coats, and these super sexy bright orange rain pants to wear if you wanted. We opted for the rain boots and decided that our jackets were all heavy duty enough. No one was prepared for what was about to happen. We each get our horses, I renamed mine "Conchita" or should I say, "Konchita", Isaac named his horse "Hector" and Sarah named hers "Hommie". We were all waiting to saddle up and bonding with our horses, I got up on Konchita and she started doing some weird rebellious things, which triggered Isaac's comment, "Look, you got a horse that has your attitude, taking two steps in the other direction and doing what she wants." It turns out, Konchita was a bit hot an bothered because she had business to attend to. She needed to do her business. She ended up turning around so that she was facing the other horses instead of being in a line, and like a very classy horse lifted her tail and took care of her business. She stopped being so rambunctious after this, and we were off on our 2 hour ride through the elements.  The ride wasn't bad at all and it was so much fun when we got past a trot and into a little gallop, but the weather was not our friend. It would go between drizzle, to rain, to sun, and back to pouring rain. Some other guy on our tour ended up falling off his horse because his saddle wasn't tight enough, other people were just really frightened of their horses, and then everyone else seemed fine. We ended up seeing a double rainbow on the way back to the stables, and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. It was a good experience, minus the soaking wet jeans that we were all wearing.

Hommie and Hector

Conchita

Double Rainbows :)

We got back, showered, and set out on an adventure to find food. There was this delicious hamburger place about a 5 minute walk down the road that we fell in love with. So much in love, that we never bothered to look for another place to eat, and we went there 3 days in a row, haha. They seriously had the best hamburgers and milkshakes that I have ever eaten. It's pretty cool that everyone in Iceland is pretty much bilingual. When first approached, they will speak to you in Icelandic, but once you pull out that "Confused American Face," and awkwardly say "Hi" they smile and speak English to you. There's this American guy that we met who was in the army and met this Icelandic girl and fell in love, they got married, she moved to America, then wanted to move home to be with her family, so now he lives in Iceland with her and speaks Icelandic! Such a cute story. I guess chivalry isn't dead. RayRay was a nice town, with a chill vibe. It was a good break from the bustling London life with compact cars and people quietly hustling about their business. Something that bothers me about London is the choice of car, they're all compact, or either a BMW or Mercedes. RayRay had a nice variety, it was like being home, we even saw some dodge ram trucks and a ford mustang! :) Icelandic people are also EXTREMELY FRIENDLY. Everyone just needs to go experience Iceland.

They also had an official count of the population and would ring the bell and change the number for every birth. (What about death? We didn't ask...)

(but to continue about this trip...)

We were booked for a tour to go see the Northern Lights later that night. The bus picked us up around 9:30 or so, and we were driven about 40 minutes our of town to get away from the city lights to try and see the Lights. Since the weather was so terrible that day, it was cloudy and we didn't have much luck. It was ridiculously windy and late, and our tour guide loved the phrase "we'll be here 30 more minutes". I don't think we got back home until 2:30, again. It was annoying and he was getting excited because he had this high quality camera that would take pictures and come back with pictures of the Lights that you could not even see with your eyes. When he pointed them out, they seemed like 3 streaks of clouds, it was not at all what anyone expected. The tour has a deal where if you don't get to see the Lights one night, they'll take you out the next night for free, because Mother Nature doesn't always guarantee good weather. Since we "saw" the Lights, we did not have the next night for the tour, but Veronica called, gave them a piece of her mind and booked us again for the next night.

The next day we had booked the Blue Lagoon, which is one of the top 10 best natural spas in the world. It did not fall short of any expectations. It was an outdoor spa, which at first seemed like a good way to get pneumonia since it was like 30 degrees out and we were all in bathing suits, but the water was well worth it. There was a swim up bar, exfoliation masks, and we even got to see the Northern Lights from the Blue Lagoon! It definitely turned out to be the best night in Iceland. Isaac bought a water proof camera, so the photos still need to be developed, but one day they'll end up on Facebook, I'm sure.

Shadow "RAYRAY." Can you see it?

The rest of this week I have off from work! Gaby is coming up to London tonight for a few days, and I had originally planned to get a bunch of the touristy stuff that we have left out of the way, but we'll see what happens, because so far I've enjoyed this sleeping in thing. We got back Monday night from Iceland, and Tuesday we went to see Wicked! Okay, we went to happy hour at The Texas Embassy, which is this restaurant that is a place where a whole bunch of homesick Americans end up at looking for good Tex Mex, and end up leaving upset. You can't have expectations, the food isn't bad and the margaritas are delicious, so we like to go there every now and then, not to mention they have chips and salsa! It's this interesting 2 story building that you walk into and expect to see it decked out in Texas/cowboy related items, but instead ... you walk into Mexico. There's a "Cantina" and Corona, Sol, and Tecate posters/slogans everywhere. It's also semi styled like an old town in Mexico, or so I think. The upstairs is more Texan, and they have a bunch of different state school flags up, and there is a wall that you can sign! We all dressed up, went to the embassy, and then went to see Wicked. It was definitely worth it. Wicked just left me speechless. I came out of there feeling exceptionally inspired, so lets hope that momentum carries on into next semester. We wanted to go see the Lion King Wednesday night, but the tickets were just too expensive. We did end up going to China town for lunch and then to Camden Market. I love Camden, it has everything, but every time I go there I end up buying things...and then I wonder where my money goes. Oh well, it's a market, haggling is fun, I guess, and I did walk away with 2 dresses, a shirt, and some souvenirs for you lucky people. I'm going to "Curry Night" on Brick Lane tonight, and well...Thursday is student night! ;)

Dolled up for Happy Hour and Wicked!

Signing the wall of Texans...and other Americans...

WICKED!

This seems like it's been the longest blog ever, haha thanks if you're that invested in my life and have made it this far! (Or were you really bored?) I woke up to 23 emails today, so, I need to go be productive now. Miss you all!


Con Mucho Amor,

Lizette

A Weekend in Paris

I started writing this blog while I was sitting at Famous Three Kings (local pub that we frequent too much) because I was absolutely elated while watching the Rangers beat the Rays with Sarah McCausland.  There's something about baseball, boys taking baseball (Nick, anyone?), and the atmosphere that makes me miss and feel at home all at once.  I want to say I grew up around baseball.  I watched my dad and brother yelling at the TV and calling plays that were about to happen.. and then I got to college and watched it happen all over again with the guys. There's something that made me appreciate the irony that Andy taught me how to appropriately use Gamecast, and the fact that I was reading articles on ESPN made me chuckle. Who knew I'd miss hearing stats that much?  Watching baseball also really made me miss playing softball. It almost saddens me that I know I'm not going to get close to it again, although Sarah practically forced me to promise her that I'd walk on the team next year... 

Digressing, London is a huge place. I love it here. We had this beautiful "Indian Summer" week of weather where it was around 80 degrees. I was on my Paris trip for that weekend, so it was amazing to be in one of the most beautiful cities with beautiful weather. Sarah and I had this "GO BIG OR GO HOME" mentality for the trip. Naturally, we made it awesome.

 

Be jealous, I attempted to nom on it.

We did so much in Paris! Sarah and I took the chunnel in Thursday night, got to the hostel around midnight, passed out in our tiny ass room and had a Frat-daddy wake up call around 7am. Some guys decided to BLAST Rihanna dub-step out their window and shout at each other ... I was about to cut someone. It was not okay. The morning progressed and we went downstairs, met our group (there was 6 of us, total) and our tour guides.  Our tour guide was this guy named Andy, and he's an American who's probably about 24, a recent college graduate and now has his own tour guide business around Europe. Pretty awesome. Kevi, our tour guide in training, was a local Parisian, and all around a blast.  We began the day by walking through Notre Dame, we climbed up the Eiffel Tower (700 steps?! Thank God for the stairmaster..), then we had a bit of free time and I casually sun bathed next to the Eiffel Tower (yeah, NBD). We also toured the Latin Quarter, had an evening bike ride through Paris and finished the night off with a boat ride down the river. I also had a wonderful dinner dish of duck and tried Escargot...it is surprisingly garlic-flavored and salty.

Escargot

 

Lets talk about this bike riding business. First of all, if you know anything about me... I didn't learn to ride a bike until my freshman year of college, thank you Marlys and Emi, and I learned on a Pirate Bike and have really only practiced on them since. So, in typical fashion, we were in a group of about 25-30 people. Our bike tour guide was from none other than Austin, so you know this is going to be a crazy story. Matt, our bike tour guide, gave us a little pep-talk before take off. He told us our philosophy for the night was "total domination" -- that means we don't bow down to cars, buses, or taxis.  We are not to be intimidated by people honking or shouting, all we had to do was stay in a tight formation and dominate the right lane, cars would go around us. He also gave us this lovely speech about how we were going to be gazelles. What happens to the gazelle that gets left behind from the herd? That's right, they get hit by a bus. By this time, I'm figuring out that I'm about to bike ride on my shakey skills through Paris and its traffic ... guess who's freaking out? This girl! Needless to say I had lots of wonderful thoughts about getting hit by cars and what the damage would be. Luckily, after 3 hours of bike riding through every landmark in Paris, I survived without any major damage (I lost my shoe at one point, but that's about it). We ended the bike ride with our boat tour and unlimited wine. :) No better way to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle on the hour.

Game face. My bike was named "Lady Bug"

Day two of this lovely adventure. Saturday. It was definitely a less action packed day as we spent a few hours at the Louvre, where I got to see the Mona Lisa up close, along with "Winged Victory" and every other type of art imaginable.  There's some statistic that says if you spend 30 seconds in front of each work of art in the Louvre, you'd be there for 2 months before getting through the whole place. It is massive.  Afterwards, we went down the high end fashion/shopping street in Paris, and by the middle of the afternoon opted for nap time before our adventures for the night.  We had good timing with our Paris trip, that Saturday Night there was a festival that translated to "Sleepless Night", and museums would stay open all night, admission would be free, and there would be parties everywhere. We had a very nice night in which we had a picnic in a park, which entailed jumping over a pretty high fence. All I have to say is each time I jumped that fence it got klassier. :) We had baguettes and wine for dinner (totally Paris) and after stuffing ourselves, we wandered about for a while.

Winged Victory. KDX. I like the symbolism :)

My super gorgeous profile picture is from that night because technically, the park was locked, but everyone still hopped the fence and went in ... after dinner, we went on an excursion to find a bathroom. Picture this, 5 girls, wandering around Paris ... it was ridiculous. We eventually found one after about 30 minutes. Congratulations, you now know why I am so ridiculously happy in my profile picture. Although it definitely was not the night out in Paris that I expected it was still a lot of fun and will definitely be a great memory. I wouldn't mind going back and finding the real night life, though ..

Picnic!

My current profile pic...in case the mental image wasn't enough.

Fast forward through the chunnel ride home Sunday afternoon. Back to London! London has become my home. My flat is too familiar. It's nearly midnight and I'm waiting for my laundry because it takes around 2 hours here (whyyyy?!). I figured now would be as great of a time as any to blog. The weather is cooling back down again, and although I loved feeling the sun on my skin again, I don't mind this either. It's the perfect weather to take a nice stroll through the park. I'm going to Iceland this Friday. Excited? Yeah. Not for their weather though. It'll be between the 40s-30s. YAY! Freeze to death time.  More on that to come...

Nessie!

Scottish Antics..

Edinburgh Castle

In case you're one of the 100 people who has asked me about where I've gone/am planning to go here it is:

We've gone to Brighton beach, Scotland (the Highlands and Edinburgh), Paris, Stonehenge and Bath. I'm planning on going to Spain, we have a trip to Oxford planned, possibly Amsterdam, and I'm thinking maybe Italy. There's a little something called money that might be an issue, but, hopefully it will work out. I'm so excited to be traveling, three weekends in a row I've packed my bags and left Flat 6. It's exhilarating. Everyone needs to do this. 



I intern bright and early tomorrow and all day, so if you're lucky enough and I'm bored, I might just keep up this blog.  ... and, you know, update it with things about London ... Haha, oops.




Con Mucho Amor,

Lizette