Touristy Stuff and a Star-Sighting

I'll try my best to start where I left off.

On Saturday the 6th I headed to London with Sarah, Jennifer, and Curtis. We went to the Tate Modern, which I must say I loved and wish I could have spent more time there, and walked around for a bit. We had by accident, taken the long train to Waterloo so we were a bit late to get started.

We also went to Shakespeare's Globe but the Merchant of Venice was sold out and we didnt really want to do a matinee viewing because it would cut down on our time to do other things. So with heavy hearts we continued on our journey.

We were supposed to meet Sarah's friend from Riverside in Leicester Square, so we walked to a tube station but found out that some of the main lines were closed for repairs. Eek!!! At least we got some exercise as we made our way along the Thames and to a tube station that had a line in operation that went to Leicester Square. Once we arrived we decided to grab some food. We went to some burger place with a cheesy name like Burger Shack. Horrible service, but hey at least we didnt have to tip them! It took us way too long to eat because of their forgetfulness so after we decided to hit the discounted ticket booth. We got tickets for the Woman in Black for half price. After we decided to go shopping on Oxford Street. I continued my mission of finding a pair of rainboots or at the very least flat boots that wouldnt soak up the water and failed miserably. I found 2 light sweaters at H&M that were really cheap so I was content. We then went to get some coffee but the line was too long, so we just sat for a bit before heading to a pub. We went to Oniells and got a bit to eat before we headed to the theatre. The nachos were surprisingly good, not the same as real nachos, but not bad. (Sarah and I had been craving nachos for quite some time). We then headed to the theatre. I really enjoyed it. It basically had 2 actors in it, and was pretty barebones but I guess it went with the storyline. After the play we headed back to school. We caught the last train out of Waterloo and were on our merry way. I think we all slept well that night considering the amount of walking we did because of the Tube closures.

Sunday was primarily a study day and the rest of the week went accordingly.

Thursday I met with my director to go over classes and I guess someone told him about my room, so I told him it was a crackden and he thought that was hilarious. After class, we all went into town for a nice dinner. I had pumpkin soup and Moroccan style chicken with couscous. Delish! Then for desert I had a brownie with ice cream. The ice cream was good, the brownie not so much. It was more like cake so I was slightly disappointed. Overall the night was fun. We all were chatting. Andrew, my director, told us that the girls studying in London, who probably have never officially met a British person, were planning on going all out for our Thanksgiving dinner and asked us to show them up. . . Basically he said "But I know you girls can outdo them". So we told him we would. Which is nice because it gives us a reason to use the nice clothes we all brought along. After dinner, the majority of us went around town a bit more and then we headed back to their dorms. I once again just slept over there because its too far too walk late at night.

That night, I started feeling a tad sick. . .boooo . . .

On Friday, I was finally pressured into buying tickets for an event at the Student Union (even though I wasn't feeling 100%), The Hogwarts School Disco. I did my best to dress Harry Potterish but considering I have never once read the books and have only watched portions of the movies while babysitting, I was pretty clueless. And then add on the fact that I don't necessarily have a wide array of clothing to choose from for events such as these and you've got yourself one confused Margaret. It was a lot of fun and it was nice to finally be able to go out with the girls I live with considering every other time they go out I'm either catching up on work or with the Californians.

The following Sunday, aka this past Sunday, there was a free trip to London for international students. We went to the Tower of London and got to see the Crown Jewels. We then hopped on a boat and cruised down the Thames toward Greenwich. Once we got there we went to have lunch at Queen Mary University. As we were walking we saw that they were filming something. I made some crack about it being for the history channel since it was obviously meant to be a few hundred years ago. We got to the gates of the school and at first the crew was confused as to why we were there. But then we were let in and walked through part of the set to the dining hall.

Turns out they were filming a movie: The Duke and Dutchess of Devonshire and I guess some people saw Keira Knightley. . .my friend used my camera to snap a photo of her inside a carriage but honestly you really can't tell that it is her from the photo.


Once inside, I saw the dining hall sign with various typical foods listed and wasn't all that surprised, but when we actually walked in I was shocked. It was a beautiful dining room all set up for us with a set of dishes on the table and chandeliers hanging above some of the tables.

We were served chicken with green beans and seasoned potatoes as well as a really good dessert. It was a strawberry based cream in a pastry shell. After we drank coffee out of our extremely tiny cups. We were then on our way to the National Observatory to stand on the Prime Meridian. Once we got to the top of the hill, there was a beautiful view down the hill, over the Queens Building, through the courtyard of Queen Mary College of the Thames and the financial district of London.

We waited for a while to stand on the prime meridian but finally got a few pictures.

The bus ride back was quite long. Once back we grabbed dinner and crashed. I had basically no voice and had a hot cup of tea with honey and some hot chocolate because I had a presentation in the morning.

This week has been okay. I have a lot of reading and had some difficulty getting the books for the classes, but I'm handling it. I read today for a 2500 word history essay thats not due for another week, but since I'm going to Stonehenge and Bath next Sunday I need to get it done. I spent today reading for it and will hopefully be able to write it tomorrow. I've also booked a trip to Spain for early November and then found out two days after booking it that I have a paper due the day we get back. . .eek!. Oh well, I'lll figure it out. I have 5 essays this term. Starting on numero uno tomorrow and hoping to complete all 3 that are due before Christmas plus one that is due after Christmas.

I'll post pictures later since it won't let me do it now for some reason.

Rowing on the Thames!

Hi All,

So to pick up where I left off. . .

On Friday I went to Freshers Fayre and put my name on the list for the campus radio station, swimming, psych society, and the rowing club.

To join any of it, there is a fee. I decided to try things out before I committed my 10 pounds per, because lets face it, I'm not made of money.

So Saturday morning I got up, ate, and headed to the front of campus (aka the other side of the castle I live in). I met some of the other California girls there and off we went. The boat club took us out on the Thames in Staines. It was lots of fun. I was the first in my section of the boat so everyone had to be in pace with me which meant that the cox (probably spelled that wrong. . but I'm too lazy to think) kept telling me to stop and start. And the paddle kept turning in my hand, but overall pretty good morning. To join would have been 60 pounds and after several days of thinking about I decided not to since its Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. I want to be able to travel on the weekends.

We then went shopping yet again in Staines where I finally got dishes and such. (exciting, I know!)

Saturday night we went to a club in Windsor to celebrate someone's b-day and I got to meet some of the people who the rest of the Californians have been hanging out with. It was a lot of fun just to dance and hang out. Since my friend Sarah and the rest of the Californians live about a mile and a half from campus, I just slept on her floor and headed back on Sunday morning.

That evening I went with Emily, from Australia, to swim, but we were confused as to where we were supposed to meet and ended up getting lost trying to find the sports centre. We eventually just headed back and watched a movie with the rest of our floor.

Monday was my first day of class. I wasnt on the list for either of them. And I must admit I was/still am slightly intimidated by the 20 page reading list for history. Although I dont have to read everything on the list, I had trouble getting the 2 required readings. Currently Ive completed 125/400 pages. . .eek! Media Arts was good except that I felt out of my element. I made a comment about the biased nature of news broadcasts and then remembered the Brits have the BBC. . .oh well. We then watched an unpleasant documentary about alcoholism . . . yea. . .that's gonna stop a lot of us from touching alcohol for quite some time. That night I did laundry with Emily. By the way, laundry is so expensive and the machines are tiny!! We stayed while our clothes were drying and did our respective puzzles (Sudoku for me). We decided that Monday nights should be laundry nights and we should bring a bottle of wine down next time. But then shortly after changed our minds, mostly because Em was acting like a crazy woman. . .spinning around with her laundry bag attached to her back in the lift.

Tuesday I didnt have class but I also didnt do any work. We had a fire drill at 7 a.m. which really angered me. Luckily I was able to get a little more sleep since I didnt have anay plans til 10. I went into Egham (the town) to get some groceries and such with Emily. We just ran errands and such. We then finally went swimming. I paid the 10 pound membership fee. The workout wasnt hard but Emily and I are so out of shape that is was painful. The president of the club asked us why we werent in the fast lane with the boys and Emily casually stated that we didnt want to bruise their egos. I met another American but Im pretty sure he thought Em and I were crazy because we were cracking jokes and being chatterboxes the whole time. I made Emily take the stairs up and she collapsed when we finally got up to our floor. The stairs are quite a workout here. We then went to the volleyball social at one of the bars on campus but it was pretty much over by the time we got there. Oh yea and we had another fire alarm go off right as we were changing into acceptable clothes (aka not our sweatpants).

Wednesday morning I was falling asleep in my lecture and halfway through had to go talk to the Professor about being an exchange student. I then went back to my seat and started to fall asleep again. Great. . .now he knows who I am and the fact that I cant keep my eyes open. I was trying to, but I started seeing double. I mean its the 4th time I had been over this topic. After lunch, I hit the library and actually did some reading. Pretty much all I did the rest of the night (or tried to at least).

Today I tried to read but my articles were online and my computer was not cooperating. I read a little and then went to book a tour of Stonehenge, Glastonbury and Bath with Sarah. We then hung out for a bit before I went to class again. I asked her to quickly check the mail with me and i had a slip with my name on it. I got excited b/c I ordered computer parts and was getting tired of a laptop that wasnt mobile and kept crashing. As I was standing there the lady pulled out 3 boxes. I was shocked. I got my comp stuff, a package from home, and my books that I ordered. It was nice to get a package because the rest of the girls on my floor had been getting them and I must admit I was getting a tad jealous. The girls tried my candy corn. A few liked it but Millie thought it was disgusting. . .oh well. . . more for me! Lecture was pretty good. I didnt fall asleep this time!

Saturday I am going to London with Sarah and Jennifer. We are going to try to see the Merchant of Venice at the Globe. We also plan on doing other touristy things plus some shopping (I still need galoshes!).

Sarah and I have made our list of the places we would like to go and will begin working on it ASAP.

I'll try to keep you all updated.

As requested, my address is:

E413 Founders Hall
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX
United Kingdom













Just so you can see that my room is much better now. . .

I'm Alive!!

Hi there all,

So I can’t decide whether to start with the past few days or the first few minutes, which I must say were not so good! But I think it would be best to start with the past few days.

The flight over was long and quite boring as my friend Nicole and I were a few rows apart. At first there was no one next to me, and like I thought, right as I was about to lift the armrest to give myself more room, the flight attendant comes up to me and asks if the seat is free. Yea. . .unfair, I know!! After some time I started to converse with the woman and she was quite nice. She was originally from England and was going home to see her new niece. She had studied in Florida so she understood what I was feeling. It was pretty nice to talk to her considering how rude the flight attendants were. . . but we made up for that by creating nicknames for them and just looking at each other in disbelief whenever someone said anything stupid or rude. Oh yea and don’t even get me started on the food. . .yuck! But it was bearable with my MP3 player and a book of Sudoku that Sam gave me.

I had to get up a few times to stretch my legs and I would go visit Nicole. I tried to sleep but was unable to thanks to that darn time difference.

Finally we made it to London. We spent an hour in line waiting to get our passports stamped. When we finally reached the front we didn’t need any of the paperwork we had brought along as the woman was quite nice and just asked us a few questions. . . but I did think to myself. . . “Why did I bring all of these papers?!?!?!”. We then went to get our luggage which was all the way at the end of baggage claim and had actually already been taken off the carousel. Surprisingly enough we found it quite easily and headed toward customs, which we didn’t have to go through. I honestly felt as though I had done something wrong when we walked through the empty customs area and out into the airport’s departures/arrivals area. We then sat down and had some breakfast, although I really wanted dinner. We then headed out, hailed a cab and were off to the London School of Economics for orientation. Since our flight arrived early we had lots of time to waste. We walked around the area and sat in some of the parks and just appreciated the buildings around us in the Bloomsbury area. After checking-in (Nicole and I grabbed each other as roomies) we tried to take a quick nap but failed miserably as the cabin of the plane had been dimmed so people could sleep, which only messed with our biological clocks more. At about 330 or so, if my memory serves me correctly, we met with all the other UC students studying at other universities. There were 4 schools total, with 9 students headed to my school. Everyone got along nicely, of course you had the usual drama, yet milder, that you have when you throw together a lot of people, mostly girls with about 5 boys.

We went to Primrose Hill that night for a view of the city and dinner at a local pub. It was gorgeous and quite pleasant. We played a game that had to do with British pop culture and I failed miserably, but so did most people. After dinner and drinks most of us were exhausted so we headed back to our rooms. My room was not very clean (apparently no one else noticed) so Nicole and I covered our pillows and used our towels as blankets. We fell asleep around 10 only to wake again at 3 and not be able to fall back asleep until much later.

On Thursday morning we got ready and headed to our study centre. We went in the wrong direction at first thanks to the one guy who wanted to act like he knew everything, but eventually found our way. Let me just say now that the building was gorgeous and it makes realize what the UCs do with our money . . . no tuition fees only educational expenses which go to put giant flat screens on the walls of the study centre. Ridiculous. . . . Anyway so we went over a few important things and then met with some people from our universities. They were both quite nice.

After, we headed to our tour of the Houses of Parliament were we ran into the 2 people from Royal Holloway again as they had been given 2 spare tickets. The tour guide was extremely nice and knowledgable, but I suppose that is pretty important in regards to keeping her job. Overall the tour took about an hour. People wanted to go to the Red Lion Pub but there were no seats and I was afraid of expense. Eventually we split up. Nicole, myself, and a UCI student, Jennifer, going to Royal Holloway decided to look for something else. We ended up at a different pub-type place and had a nice lunch. After lunch we took the Tube back to our rooms and freshened up before the hit the theatre (notice how I’m trying to spell words the British way. . .as much as I usually hate seeing it that way) to see Avenue Q. I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it. My favorite characters were probably the Bad News Bears as they would keep telling another character to do bad things. . .kinda the whole angel/devil dilemma.

That night I was finally able to call home but not for very long as I had to use the calling card on my cell and there wasn’t much credit on the cell. We walked for a bit trying to find a place to go but eventually just ended up heading back to Bloomsbury and walking around for a bit before going to our rooms to sleep.

Friday morning we all met to collect our tickets for a bus tour and a boat ride down the Thames River. We started off in a group of 9. We started at Trafalgar Square which was awesome. We then hit the National Gallery. It was AMAZING. I was able to see a few pieces that I always admired in my art history class senior year of high school, including Van Eyck’s piece that appears in the Desperate Housewives beginning. I forgot the exact title but it is “’Some Guy’ and his Wife”. Absolutely beautiful and amazing just actually looking at the original and being able to see all the details we had discussed in class. Another I saw that I have always liked was Constable’s “The Haywain”. I also saw Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”. The texture was intense and very realistic actually. Jennifer and I talked about going back to London and spending more time there as we originally only had a half hour. I was planning on buying some postcards from the gift shop but, a) they didn’t have the Van Eyck one and b) I figured I would be back.

We then hopped on the bus and took it to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, only to realize there were no speakers which bummed out my friend Curtis who goes to UCR and is here at Royal Holloway. So we decided to walk through Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace. Crazy beautiful there. We took some pictures and assisted a group from Sweden (I think) in a stunt. . .basically 5 people had to figure out how to touch the ground with only 2 feet and 2 hands. They pulled it off and it was actually pretty funny. We then went in search of food and didn’t find much until we stumbled across yet another pub, which was out of my price range, so I didn’t eat. I got out the fruit snacks Sam had given me for sustenance.

We finally found a bus stop and took it all the way to the Tower of London where we hopped on the Thames River cruise. We were down to 6 people by this point, 5 girls and a guy. The captain of the boat kept teasing us because we were the only ones laughing at his jokes. Therefore he knew we’d just keep laughing. We hopped off right by the London Eye, grabbed some hot chocolate/coffee and then split up yet again. Some of the girls wanted to go on the London Eye but it was expensive so 3 of us headed back to the London School of Economics to clean up or grab a coat before dinner at Inn the Park at St James Park.

It was a really nice restaurant, so I felt a bit underdressed but the food was good. They kept pouring more and more wine just so they could charge us for it. In the end, quite a few of our glasses remained quite full as we stopped while we were ahead. I have no idea what we had for dessert but it was amazing! Believe it or not. . . it was too sweet for me so I limited myself to only half of it. Then a few of us went to a pub by Trafalgar Square and just enjoyed each other’s company before heading back for our last night.

Saturday morning was hectic since we had trouble getting a cab company. Finally my friend Sarah hailed a cab and she, Curtis, and myself hopped in. We took it to Waterloo Station where we caught a train to Reading. We barely got our stuff off in time at Egham Station. As the doors were closing, missing a few bags, Sarah and I threw our arms out to prevent the doors from closing so Curtis could grab the last two bags. Immediately we saw stairs and were quite worried but luckily did not have to take them. We then began to wait for the shuttle to get us but had no idea when it was coming, so when someone suggested sharing a cab we said sure. Bad idea.

A) he made the ride more expensive

B) he only paid 3 pounds while we paid 5 each

C) I had to have my overweight duffel on top of me and it pressed on my rib cage

(p.s. I later saw that kid at a bar on campus and scowled : ))

And here begins the sad part of my trip thus far.

I walk into my room on Saturday and my jaw drops. I have not really been homesick since Ive been here so I haven’t ever been super upset, but this disgrace made me cry. My room was in shambles. There were patched up holes in the walls that had not been painted over so I had these huge deep brown spots/lines on my walls which were supposed to be cream. My armoire didn’t close, my dresser smelled horrible, one of my windows was broken so it could not be opened, paint was peeling off the walls etc etc etc.

After waiting for a pay phone I finally called home and told my mom all about it. I just could not believe that they would give out a room in such condition. About an hour later, Sarah came to get me. She told me about her room, but agreed that mine was pretty bad. We went into town which cheered me up until I fell over. I was looking ahead at a shop and didn’t see the groove in the middle of the sidewalk for drainage, and down I went. I didn’t think much of it. Yea it really hurt but I figured it would feel better so Sarah and I continued our shopping, which involved getting a lot of toiletries and stuff. It hurt the rest of the night as I got to know some of the girls on my floor and went to dinner. It wasn’t until Sunday that Emily, from Australia, helped me take care of it. She of course told me I should have done it sooner but all the girls were quite concerned. We ran a cold bath over it and wrapped it up. I kept it elevated for awhile and then went to get some free ice cream around 330 or so. Later I was sitting in the hall and told the girls I was just going to go put up my leg. About 630, right as they were leaving for a BBQ, I lifted my pant leg and exposed my ankle which looked absolutely disgusting. Millie, who lives down the hall, took off the wrapping which relieved some of the pain. My ankle looked like it had a tennis ball attached to it. Millie ran to get ice but had trouble finding it and when she went to the reception desk they told her I could stick it out or go to the hospital, both of which I did not want to do. She finally found ice at the bar downstairs and one of the asst. wardens came up to take a look. It was a long night, but after a lot of ice time the swelling had gone way down.

Monday morning I went to the Health Centre and got a sleeve for my ankle and a list of exercises and then went about my errands. This whole week has been a lot of random meetings and stuff.

Wednesday Sarah, Jennifer, Curtis and I went into Staines to get some basics. And my room was painted. So I’d have to say it was a good day. I still have plenty of stuff I need, but will go to Egham on Friday.

I stayed up late Wednesday night to finally unpack and decorate my room and now it feels much homier.

So I know this was long. Kudos to those who made it through.

I dont have internet really but I'll try my hardest!!