Here's the basic rundown of how my time so far has gone.
Sunday, 18 January (British date system, eh?)
Fly from Akron-Canton to Charlotte, run from one terminal to the next, fly from Charlotte to Heathrow.
Monday, 19 Jan
Got to London Heathrow airport and met up with our tour group. Went to our hotel in East Croydon, an outlying part of greater London. Went into the city via train -> tube (what they call the underground trains/metro) -> BOAT. We came out of the train station and BAM! right in front of us was the London Eye. Then BAM to the right was Big Ben. Kinda surreal. After that, we got on a boat that took us down the Thames River and saw various sights from the river. We ended at the Tower of London, where we got a couple of hours for lunch. Had my first Pret A Manger, which is basically a sandwich chain - like a Starbucks or MacDonald's, there's one on almost every corner.
Post-lunch, we got an actual tour of the Tower of London, saw the Crown Jewels, and got to wander around a bit - saw some sweet architecture and armour! Then we headed back to the hotel, grabbed some food from the hotel restaurant/bar, and tried to stay up for as long as we could.
Tuesday (20 January) we got up at what felt like the crack of dawn, donned our warm clothing and headed back into the city via Train/Tube after our first British Breakfast experience - I was less than thrilled with the food, but hey, there were croissants, and what more could a girl ask for?
We started Tuesday morning with a trip to Westminster Abbey - we unfortunately lost a girl along the way, but she was fine and we got her back later in the day!
Westminster Abbey was AMAZING. I'm so sad that they don't allow photos or video to be taken inside, but it's kind of understandable. There's so much history and beauty inside. I was pretty much in awe the entire time!
After Westminster, we headed to Covent Gardens where I had my first Nandos and my first lunch with the people that I would now consider my closest friends here!
Nandos was delicious, and I would highly recommend it!
We then headed via the Tube to the British Museum where we saw The Rosetta Stone, Ancient Egyptian relics, parts of the Pantheon, and MANY other things! It was so cool. It’s free, and I would also highly recommend it to anyone who has a spare couple of hours while in London.
We then had a couple hours of free time, so I headed with some of the other girls to Oxford Street to do a bit of shopping and grab some dinner. We went to Primark, which is an incredible clothing store – similar to Forever21 in the states. SO much good clothing, super cute, fairly cheap – I’ll say it’s affordable. I might have to do a bit of a professional cloths shopping trip before I come back!
We stopped at Pret A Manger for snacks and coffee, and then went to actually find DINNER. We went to a cute place called The Diner that served breakfast all day, so I got pancakes – which were actually pretty similar to American pancakes and not like crepes. We then had a fairly short amount of time to get back to our meeting point for our Jack The Ripper walking tour, but we made it and had a couple of minutes to spare – enough minutes to stop at Costa and get a coffee! The man who made our drinks at Costa was chatting with me, and asked me where I was from. I said America/Ohio, and he was like, “Is that near Boston?” and… I struggled to not laugh, but held it in and said no. haha I have since taken a screenshot of a map of the eastern half of the United States so I can actually show people where I’m from because… well… no one really knows where Ohio is.
Like I said earlier, we were on our way to the Jack the Ripper Walking Tour, which was… gruesome. We actually got to see a couple of the places where he murdered women. Can’t say I particularly enjoyed it, but it was definitely an experience.
Our wonderful tour guide Susanna helped us get back to the train station, and we made it back to our hotel. I think I skyped with my family that night… but I can’t remember, as it has been a week and a half ago as I’m writing this (Sorry family!)
Wednesday 21 January!
British Breakfast yet again… I’m not sure what the appeal of eating beans for breakfast is… because I definitely can’t see it.
MOVING on. We put all of our luggage on the coach (bus) in (what we thought) was the order of how it needed to be removed (last stop went in first)… which was kind of a hassle, but we figured it out.
We then took the coach into London and walked to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, which was rebuilt a little ways from where the original Globe Theatre was. It was super cool to get to walk around it and go through the museum that is there to see the history of the theatre. The tour guide told us that after this season, all of Shakespeare’s plays will have been performed at this theatre, which is… WOW. We also learned that Shakespeare’s Code, an episode of Doctor Who (Season… 5? It’s Martha’s second episode, which people who watch will understand ;) was filmed there, and David Tennant actually got MARRIED there (not on the actual stage, but in an “occasion room”), and got their pictures taken there… might’ve been one of the more exciting things I learned on the trip hahah
We had a bit of free time before we needed to get back on the coach, so we got lunch at EAT, which is a fast-food-ish place, and then headed back to the coach for a nice 3 hour (approximately… I dozed) bus ride. We watched The Impossible on the bus, which recounts the story of a family during the 2004(?) tsunami in Thailand. It’s a SUPER intense movie to watch on a bus ride… but still a really good movie.
We got to Leicester around… 4? I don’t exactly remember. And we got dropped off at John Foster… we thought we were going to get dropped off at Nixon Court, Mary Gee Houses, then John Foster, but the joke was on us, because we got dropped off in the opposite direction, sooo we had to get all the luggage off of the coach (we had a trailer attached, which is super handy, but not when it gets packed incorrectly)
We then got checked in, and taken to our rooms. Mary (also from Kent State) and I are roommates at Inglewood, which is a BEAUTIFUL house that is part of Digby Hall at Leicester.
Zoe (who lives next door at an equally beautiful house called Highgrove) and I tried to figure out what we were doing and where we were. We managed to go to Asda, which is literally Wal-Mart. Their carts have the “Rollback” and smiley face on them that any old school Wal-Mart would have. Hah we got bedding and towels and basically anything that we didn’t have – goodbye precious pounds… the only time you don’t want to lose pounds! *Badumtssss*
We made it back to our houses and to Beaumont Hall (where the food is!) for dinner. So that was good. Then…. I think…. We just hung out. I think I stayed at Zoe’s for a while. But an early bedtime is essential, so I went to bed pretty early, I think.
Thursday 22 January
Got breakfast at Beaumont. Went to orientation stuff basically all day. Found my way around campus, which is astronomically small (oxymoron, anyone?). It’s probably half of Kent’s campus… if not less than that. I don’t really remember what we did that afternoon – it’s all a blur. But that evening we went over to Jordan’s at Nixon Court and hung out, which was really fun.
I really need to take individual pictures of these girls and give you bios… maybe that’ll be my next blog post ;) I’ll give you NAMES for now though: Zoe, Jordan, Emily C, Emily G, and Carly. Expect to hear a lot about these ladies. They are prime friends! So thankful that I found them my second day here!
Friday 23 January
Also kind of a blur, we had more orientation stuff in the morning, the afternoon was just chill. After dinner, we (assume when I say WE that it’s the 6 of us… also known as The Felicias) went to The Dry Dock, which is a pub by the university and got drinks (well, they got drinks and I stole sips), and hung out. The rest of them went to The O2, which is the club on campus, and I came home and chilled. Went to bed kinda early.
Saturday 24 January
On Saturday, I got up and got ready, then we met on campus, grabbed a bite to eat from the Library Café, and met up with a LARGE group of people for a walking tour downtown. We got to go through the historic part of town, see Richard the Third’s memorial and where he will be buried in a couple of months. We ended our tour in the city centre by the clock tower. We explored a little bit and found Wagamama’s for lunch – It was… okay. Not my fave. I probably actually would only go back if people REALLY wanted to go back. I’d rather go to Nando’s ;)
I think I just watched a movie and chilled on Saturday night… but I really don’t remember hah. I might’ve watched a movie at Zoe’s. idk.
Sunday 25 January
SUNDAY! Woo! Got up and got ready (as ya know, I do every day), and went and stood outside Beaumont with Zoe and Ohio Emily G (as opposed to Canadian Emily G who is part of the Felecias), and waited for an unmarked minibus to come pick us up to take us to church. We went to Leicester City Vineyard, which was really nice. There’s coffee and tea, and snacky food. The service was… comfortable. The music was SUPER similar to H2O – we sang Oceans, a song by Hillsong Young and Free that I can’t remember the name of, From the Inside Out, Revelation Song, How Great is Our God/How Great Thou Art, and another song that I don’t know, but was quite good.
After church I met Laura, Erica, Giles, and Michaela, and they invited us to a student hangout night that was happening that evening. We went back to Oadby Student Village via the minibus, and I just had a chill afternoon. Tried to figure out what I was doing for classes the next day! Had dinner – food here isn’t amazing. It’s edible, but not amazing. Ha.
So I went back to the bus stop after dinner and waited for the minibus yet again (this time with no one I knew because OH Emily had other plans and Zoe needed a chill evening) and met a couple of people who were going.
The Student evening was very fun. I met quite a few people, we sang some songs (including Furious, which is one of my faves), talked about generosity, sang a couple more songs, chatted some more, got information about small groups, etc. I also got connected with the people who do MUISC here! So that’s really great. Michaela, who I met that morning, introduced me to Dan and he invited me to a jam time that they have on Friday mornings – so I’m super excited to be able to play music while I’m here, because that was something that I totally wasn’t expecting to be able to do!
After the hangout, I came home, got my stuff together for Monday morning, and went to bed.
I think I’m going to end this post here because as my word count tells me, it is close to 2,100 words. Which is enough for one post ;)
First week of school up next!
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