Study Abroad in London, England 2005 & stolen cameras

Ironically my last blog post was about my little green camera and about how not to get your stuff stolen. Well, my purse was stolen and the little green camera is gone. Guess I can give myself a commission now and click on my own Amazon links to buy a new camera. As soon as I get new credit cards that is....


I left my purse on the back of a chair in the mall hallway while I was having my review for work. I was very engrossed in listening and forgot it there. When I realized I didn't have it, it was already gone. I remember from TV, the crooks always dump the wallets or bags somewhere. Sure enough, the store next door had my purse. They thought it had been left on accident in a dressing room. Everything was unzipped and dumped out. Luckily I gots no cash in my wallet and all they got was my camera. They didn't even recognize my ancient iPod shuffle as an iPod. 


I feel like now would also be a good time to give a shout out to a favorite blog of mine: http://ifoundyourcamera.blogspot.com/ 


The way it works is if you find a photograph or memory card, you send the blog a few pictures off the camera that might show the owner or clues to where they might live. They are posted on the blog and people view the blog trying to recognize people in the picture. All my pictures from my camera have already been saved to my computer so I'm not that worried, but not everyone is so lucky. There are some real precious moments from lost cameras on this blog.


I'm sure the site is more for people who legitimately found cameras and didn't just yoink them. 
(You are welcome Andrew for my use of the word yoink.)




Anyway, this blog is about London. (I know it appears I have a travel bug, but I realized I just do these things because I'm young and I feel like I should while I can.)


The summer in between my sophomore and junior year of college I did study abroad in London, England. I thought I could make this just a highlights blog, but its already stretching into a few more blog entries. Curses, I have a good memory. 
(Oh and PS: No need to tell me how cute I look at 19 with bangs, I already know...)

There is probably very little chance of this blog being in order, so I'm just going to write as things come to me. You don't know, you weren't there.

Here is my lovely half of the room. (Complete with pigeon warning posted to window.)
Most confusing 5 minutes ever was arriving to find that my room was on the 1st floor which meant I would have to take the stairs up.
"What? 1st floor is ...umm...above the ...umm....1st floor?"

I hate history classes. Not a history hater, just never done well in history. So I decided to knock out one of my graduation requirements while I was in England. I figured that if I was only taking 2 classes, I would be able to focus more and get a better grade. Best decision ever! On Tuesdays we would listen for hours about some historical part of England's history (mostly the Tudor period) and then Thursdays we'd go visit it! How cool is that? We were literally a few tube stops away from huge parts of history. We went to West Minster Abbey, you actually kinda walk on the graves because people are buried in the walls and floors. We went to Hampton Gardens one of King Henry VIII's homes. You can still sign up to play tennis on his clay courts there on Sundays. We even went to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, which is where I got to see these adorable kids in their "Madeline" uniforms with hats! This kind of outfit was pretty typical. Almost every kid I saw on the street was in a school uniform. 
(Oh and do make note of European "man-capris")

This is a picture of our classroom. That TV in the corner reminds me of a fight my teacher had with another teacher, about how the cassette tape we were supposed to watch that day, got stuck in the VCR. It was the most polite argument I've ever heard, but she was livid, it was surreal. 

So no, I guess I did not take a ton of pictures on the educational field trips but I did take this picture of British soldiers returning from Iraq. We were up on a monument looking down at Buckingham Palace and such. It was significant to me, because I really only hear American media, it really hadn't occurred to me that other countries had soldiers over in Iraq fighting too. 

That right there is why I travel, to find out the things I never would have thought of if I hadn't traveled. 

This picture was taken of The House of Parliament/Big Ben from inside the London Eye. The London Eye was built for all the new millennium celebrations as a new and expensive tourist trap for people like me! And for the love of all things holy, don't call it a "Ferris Wheel" but umm...that's kinda what it is...

London Eye ---->>


















Whew...I thought I could get more covered in one blog, but I have so much more to share, and I'm still on introductions. This picture below is a picture of everyone in my program, and few people who basically joined our program, because their program basically abandoned them, so we took them in, Oliver Twist style. (hmmm... that might not be an accurate analogy, I should really read that book...)

My two new future best friends are in this picture, they are actually already sitting next to each other without me. Ashley is the one who is always tan in the white shirt, and Bethany is in the gray hoodie on the stool, looking like Pam from The Office.

I'm of course the one in the loud purple rain jacket. I'm going to use this picture as a segway into the next blog. Here are a few things you need to know...

1. I tried to pack super light. I only brought 6 shirts with me. Turns out when I arrived, I realized 5 of them were pink. (palm to face)

2. It is cold and rainy 89% of the time in London, hence you will be seeing a lot of this purple raincoat that I had only planned to wear in an emergency. (Which turns out everyday was a weather emergency.)

3. Note: We are in a pub that resides within our school. This environment was a major shock to my underage-19-year-old freshly-minted baptist self. Chaos will and did ensue.


So after reviewing what I wrote, I realize I'm only in one picture and I have my bangs pulled back, mostly due to said "weather emergencies" which caused bang frizzing, so here is a picture of me in Bath, England where ancient romans would bathe in the warm springs coming from underground.

(And shall we start counting the pink shirt cameos now?)

I'm not sure what's up next for the blog, but it will probably be about London....see ya!