Greenwich

So my first week of classes in london is over! Having all 3 hours classes is kind of rough, but luckily all of my professors seem pretty decent, so it should be interesting!

I uploaded pictures finally, so i'll backtrack a few days to greenwich: we got there by bus, looked over the Thames:

...walked around, got a mini history lesson (which i would share but i dont remember...oops...i was really hungry during it!) anyway, then we went up to the top of the hill to the prime meridian! so of course we took the typical tourist pictures straddling the line:

they also had a bunch of major cities/countries laid out along the line to show there they were in relation to one another so dad, this one's for you:

Tomorrow is the school trip to Stonehenge, which i'm really looking forward to, as well as Salisbury, which I don't know too much about, and when i asked someone they told me it was one big steak, so i guess i'll have to wait to find out!

Next weekend is one of the "SU LOVES LONDON" weekends, where the school plans a bunch of things around London to do, so Friday we're going to Brighton Beach, Saturday I signed up for the city bike tour, and Sunday there's a boat tour to Greenwich with a tour of the Queen's house and picnic of some sort.

Travel plans are in full force! A bunch of us are doing this thing called the "Presili Venture" which is like an outdoor weekend thing in Whales, run by these people who have groups of kids stay at their house for the weekend and run all sorts of outdoor activities. There's everything from kayaking, to hiking to jumping off cliffs, so we'll see, but that's not until mid-october. I just booked my train to Paris for fall break! The plan is to do Paris for a few days, meet Arielle in Venice for a few days, and meet up with the rest of the Paris group in Madrid (who are planning on going to barcelona while hopefully i go to italy), so we'll see. I'm also planning on going to Prague w/ Bri the last weekend in September, which is somewhere i'm dying to go.

Other than that, the only other thing to mention is that everyone in my flat woke up this morning at 6 AM to the sounds of hammering and electric drills, that i could have sworn were coming from inside the walls directly into my ear, but we still haven't found the actual place of origin. all i know is that at 7 AM i woke up to maggie smacking her wall yelling 'JUST STOP IT'...which was pretty amusing when i remembered it at like 2:00 today and realized it wasn't a dream.

That's it for now! I'll leave you a picture of my attempt to 'oust' the smell of chicken schwarma/mcdonalds from our flat and replace it with glade 'fresh laundry'...(while maggie brushed her teeth)

S-T-R-E-S-S

If i had to pick one word to define this past week: STRESS. Looking back, i cannot believe i've only been here one week--it feels like forever, which I guess is a good thing, seeing as how everyone talks about how the time here flies by. From finding a place to live, to getting used to the (gross) food, to finding drawers to put my clothes in so i can finally unpack my suitcases, it's been very stressful.

But now that most of that is over, I feel that I can relax and truly enjoy my time in London. Classes started yesterday--it's going to be rough having 4 3 hour classes--especially since after the first 45 minutes I start yawning...oops. yesterday i had 2 classes-photography and international PR. the 3 hours is rough, but all the classes i'm taking sound decent, so it shouldn't be too bad. tuesday i dont have any class, and wednesday i just have one class at night, entrepreneurship, and thursday i just have sociology of sport at 2 pm, so monday is my only early morning. yesterday i made my first "commute" ever, i'm so used to getting up and driving to high school or walking to class, yesterday i had to walk to the tube, get ON the tube, get OFF the tube and walk to class (and stop to get a muffin).

The travel planning has begun! yesterday we were all comparing lists of where we'd all like to travel, and hopefully starting the weekend of Sept. 18th somewhere. On my current list is: Amsterdam, Prague, Paris, Madrid, Milan, Dublin, Edinburgh and Germany. But who knows, it's going to be hard to figure out which ones we ALL want to do, and which ones i may have to cross off my list.

ok, i'm off to enjoy my day off! more pictures soon, hopefully