Boat Trip on the Thames

Last night, I (along with probably everyone else in the BU program) went to the Welcome Party at Bunker Bar. I went with Diana, Katie, and Meg. We got lost getting there because there was a map on our ticket, and we headed to the X on the map, not the arrow. The X apparently marked a church lol. Once we found the place, it was extremely crowded. It was kind of weird at first because I didn't know anyone, except the girls I went with. But soon we all ran into people we knew and made new friends, so it was a good time. We were all given vouchers for 3 drinks of either wine or beer, but some of us were cheated out of our last drink. The sign on the bar said they stopped serving BU drinks at 11:30pm, but when I went up at 11:15pm, the bartender told me it was over. So that was kind of annoying, but whatever. I left the bar with Meg, Katie and some of our new friends, and we all went to club nearby, The Gardening Club. Girls got in for free, which was nice. It was a fun night.

I, of course, blinked in the one picture I have from last night. Boo.

Today, I had to get up at 9am today because I had to meet with the EUSA representative who is setting up an interview for my internship. It was a completely pointless meeting: she hadn't set up the time yet, so she gave me a paper telling me how to act at the interview (ie dress nicely, have a firm handshake, etc.) and told me she was working on the interview and she'd email me when she worked it out.

I came back to my room and slept for a little bit and then I went to a program they were having downstairs in my dorm. There were tables set up for different things to do this semester: volunteer work, traveling, clubs from a nearby college, etc. I got some travel brochures and then got ready for the boat cruise on the Thames.

The boat trip was great! It was my first time in the City of London (not in a borough) and we had great views of all the sites. The weather was nice, too -- comfortable and partly sunny.


Big Ben! It was so exciting to see this in person. I remember in second grade computer class, we had to write something about our favorite monument and I picked Big Ben. Yay!
The Thames. The water looks so gross. The tour guide (aka one of the BU professors) said that Londoners pull 40 - 50 dead bodies out of the River per year. Yuck.
Meg, Katie, and Katie. So far, I've met at least 6 Kates/Katies here.
Parliament. This is attached to Big Ben and the structure is breathtaking.

Big Ben again.Tate Museum of Modern Art
Nate and Katie.


Canary Wharf. The center of journalism!

Cool building.

The London Eye!

London's City Hall
Tower Bridge (I think?)
A sideways shot from underneath Tower Bridge

(I tried to take a picture of London Bridge, but people's head's got in the way. :-( Also, it is not at all impressive. It's concrete and really boring and blah. And apparently, when the original London Bridge did fall down, it was a good event because another people were about to invade London, but because the bridge fell, they had no access to the city.)

After the boat trip, we walked around London some.
Big Ben/Parliament from land

Jason, Katie, Nate, me, and Meg

The London Eye behind some buildings.

A park in London. It was so pretty!
Pelicans on the rock in the park.

Typical red London telephone booth.
A museum
Another side of the museum.

So it was a fun day, and I'm planning to go to bed fairly early tonight because I'm going to Windsor Castle tomorrow. Good night!

Orientation

Here are some pictures of my room:


Above is my side of the room. There's also a window to the left of my computer.

This is Kate's side of the room.

The view out my window.

The view out my window from another angle.
The view out my window from yet another angle. I like our view.

A random picture of part of Heathrow that I took from the backseat of the taxi. I posted this rather belatedly; sorry.

Orientation's been OK. We had about 6 lectures (each an hour long) about the history, economy, government, culture, etc. of Great Britain (from now on known as GB). We also had a few talks about student life orientation and academic orientation and internship orientation. And our core class met for 4 hours yesterday. (My professor showed us "An Inconvenient Truth" for the last 1 1/2 hours of class, so that was a nice break.) All of our classes are 4 hours long; I think I might die. (Kidding.)

The night before last, I went out with Diana, Liz, Meg, Katie, and Becca to a club called The Zoo. It was fun. Tonight, I'm going to the BU Welcome Party at Bunker Bar. Tomorrow, I have a meeting with my internship advisor in the morning and I'm going on a mandatory boat tour in the afternoon (which I'm excited about). The boat tour will be my first time seeing downtown London. On Saturday, I'm going on a daytrip to Windsor Castle with the BU Social Programme. Sunday's plans are still up in the air, but I'm thinking of maybe going to a market and/or the Indian festival my journalism professor was talking about.

Settling In

So things seem like they are improving.

Last night I went to dinner with Meg and Diana. It was fun, but expensive. The dollar value needs to rise. I definitely cannot afford to go out to dinner often. That means I'll be eating lots of cereal and PB&J (actually strawberry jam instead of J because I couldn't find the jelly), which is fine with me because I like those options. But I figured I could treat myself on my first night.

Today, I woke up at 8, read for an hour, and then slept until 11. We had a flat meeting at 11:30. After the meeting, I went grocery shopping at Sainsbury's and then to the drugstore (Boot's) to run some errands. And afterwards, I walked down High Street (basically London's Newbury Street) and looked at the different shops. I didn't see anything I particularly loved, but I'll be keeping an eye out.

When I came back, I asked the security guard about our broken toilet and he said he'd take a look at it. He fiddled around with it for awhile, but I don't think he really fixed it. He said the maintenance person will be back tomorrow. And I filed an online report, so the maintenance guy should fix it tomorrow.

When I was going back to my room I heard noises down the hall, so I stopped into a room where a bunch of girls were and they invited me in. We introduced ourselves and talked for awhile. Some of them were going out to dinner, and I didn't want to, so I went back to my room. My roommate talked to me and invited me out with her friends, but I decided to spend the night in. We have a fire drill tomorrow morning at 8:45, and I'm still not sure if I've recovered from jet lag.

So I had some PB&J and talked to Jess, Molly, Maureen, Dianne, Steven, Aisha, and Ashwini. But don't worry; I'm not going to spend every night online. I'll start experiencing London night life soon.

I'm considering signing up for the London bike tour on Saturday. It might be fun, but it might be tiring. At least I'd get good exercise and see the sites. We'll see how I feel about it on Friday.

Tomorrow my orientation begins. We have to go to different lectures all day-- I hope it's not boring! Good night!

I'm Here

I made it. I'm alive. And I'm actually almost moved in. I'm kinda proud of myself for figuring out where to go. Granted, half the time I followed the crowd... but still. Considering that I hadn't been on an airplane in over 4 years and I'd never traveled alone before, I think I did pretty well. I didn't cry too much, either.

The flight was good. Virgin Atlantic is a sweet airline. They had On-Demand movies and TV shows and radio stations and books (but the books were lame). I slept for about two hours and I talked to the girl next to me, Becca. She was nice. I hope I run into her again. I watched an episode of Arrested Development and an episode of 30 Rock, and I read the book Lisa gave me. For dinner, I had chicken, rice, green beans, a roll, a salad, a piece of cheesecake, water, and white wine. For breakfast (3 hours later lol), I had a packaged muffin and some tea. The food was surprisingly tasty.

Getting through customs took awhile, but luckily I was in the front 1/5 of the BU line. I got the stamp I needed without any trouble. The officer was quite friendly, too. Then I split a cab with a girl whom I met in line, Rose. I originally had discussed splitting a cab on facebook with Margaret, so after Rose and I got our luggage, we waited for Margaret so we could all share a cab. But Margaret had found her own friend with whom to share a cab, and 4 people would not fit into one cab. So Rose and I went in one cab and Margaret and her friend went in another.

We paid 55 pounds total for the cab ride. We gave the guy a nice tip because he lifted all our luggage -- probably over 200 pounds-- and he did a good job getting us here.

My room is nice. The windows face the street, so I have a nice view of the buildings across the street, which are pretty. There are no screens in the windows, which is kinda weird. It was blazing hot when I walked into the room, so I opened the windows and (fortunately) found a fan in the wardrobe. I also found an extra power strip. And there's one power strip already by my bed. We have a fridge in our room and we have a private bathroom. And my cell phone was waiting for me on my bed. It is tiny and cute and has tons of features -- conversion, calculator, games, alarm. I'm very happy with my choice. Nokia has come a long way since the giant, heavy blue phones.

I'm in the process of unpacking. I kinda freaked when I saw the lack of a bureau, but there is a wardrobe with two shelves and two drawers and my bed has two drawers and two shelves as well. So my clothes fit perfectly. I wish I had some sort of nightstand for the odds and ends I have, but I will survive without it. I can't find my nail clipper, though, and that's kind of annoying me.

I also need to shop for food. Like probably today. If I want to eat.

OK I'm going to finish unpacking. Bye.

Last Night in the USA

Tonight is my last night in the USA for over three months. I'm nervous to travel to England, but excited at the same time.

The passport agency gave me a great and extended good-bye party. Some of my coworkers took me and my dad out to dinner on Wednesday. We went to my supervisor's favorite Mexican restaurant and a mariachi band serenaded me. It was fun and the food was delicious.

Today, Ashley brought in bagels, Sarah baked brownies, and Kathleen provided fruit, cookies, and a cake that said "Good Luck, Valerie!" How sweet! I ate sooo much and it was delicious. I was sad to leave; there were a lot of hugs and everyone wished me well. It wasn't too sad though, because I will probably be returning to work there in December. But still, I will miss everyone and they said they'd miss me, too. I had a lot of fun with my coworkers.

Here are some pictures from the restaurant (I hope this works!):



The Mariachi band (Kathleen liked the guitarist hahah!)


The whole group: Pat, me, Dad, Kathleen, Magda, Melody, Ashley, Rachel. I miss them already!

Now that I'm sharing pictures, I may as well post some from the day we went to get a family picture. Even though we were getting professional pictures done, my mother still wanted some pictures with our digital camera. My brother and I were kind of annoyed because posing for pictures gets tedious after awhile and we knew we'd be sitting in the studio attempting to hold a smile for a half hour. Also, my dad takes forever to take a picture; he always waits until the exact moment when you ask him what's wrong with the camera or tell him to hurry up already, and then you get a lovely picture like this:


Or this:



But then you finally get a halfway decent one; unfortunately, it's only HALFWAY decent because by that time you are so fed up with pictures that you can't even force yourself to smile nicely:


Oh and did I mention that the sun was blinding? Especially for me and my gigantic pupils.

The professional ones came out much better.

Anyway, I'm almost done packing. These space bags are marvelous; they even allow me room for a good amount of toiletries. Maureen and Dianne came over tonight and helped me pack. They kept me in line and gave me good advice. Then we had pizza and cake, except I was so full that I couldn't eat any cake.

I still can't believe I'm leaving tomorrow. It seems surreal. I'm going to go get a good night's sleep and then wake up, finish packing, run some last minute errands, and just chill out (as best as I can) until it's time to head to the airport.

Happy weekend, everyone!