Imperial College London Orientation. Day 6.

June 27^th

We woke up early in the morning for orientation at Imperial College London.

We got packets with all the guidelines and rules of the program. The packets also included many brochures on London to help us in planning trips and tours. Next, the professors gave an overview of each of their classes. After that we had a little coffee break and walked to PizzaExpress to have lunch-we go there as a group a lot.

After lunch we walked to the bus to take us to a bus tour of London. This took a long time and involved a lot of bus changes, but we finally got there.

The bus tour was fun, it took us awhile to get the hang of taking pictures that didn’t involve trees or heads blocking what we were trying to take a picture of. The tour guide was pretty hilarious, and very informal, but informational. Everything seemed to go by so fast, but I did manage to get some decent pictures!

Trafalgar Square

The London Eye!

Parliament

Big Ben!!!!

Two of my favorite things in London!

This dragon supposedly protects London...

The Tower Bridge

The tour ended at the Tower of London where we all got some yummy ice cream! Then we got on a boat that would take us down the river (Thames..I think) and we got lots of awesome views of Big Ben and the London Eye.

(Please excuse the extreme random-ness of my layout of the pictures...Blogspot is hard).


After the boat, we went inside the tube station to “top up” our oyster cards. That was a lot easier than I thought it’d be because it involved technology and my internet is still not working. Ever. I hate it.

Anyway, after that we went to Imperial Housing (which is our permanent housing) to get the textbooks that had been sent there and Erin’s luggage that was lost by the airport. Poor girl has been living out of a teeny tiny suitcase for a long long time and was extremely excited to finally get the rest of her stuff. But when we got there, the front office was closed! It was so sad. On the plus side, we got to see what the outside of our housing looks like, and it is cuuuuute. Very pumped to get to live there soon (I live there now!). As we were walking back to the tube, Ellie pointed out this very slik-looking building that was all black. She told us that was an extremely upscale hotel that is so fancy that they don’t even display their name all big. The name of the hotel is Blake’s and that made me miss my brother. She went on to tell us that apparently Jonny Depp stays there a lot!! How cool is that? The hotel is like right by our housing!

After walking us a part of the way back to the tube, Ellie left us to find our way back home on the tube by ourselves for the first time! Aaaaand we made it! Not with my help though, I had no clue where we were going…I still don’t :/ (now I do!)

After we got home, I did a stupid thing and bought this internet service thing called BTO-something.. So I basically spent 5 pounds for 24 hours. BUT I did NOT get 24 hours! I maaaybe got like, 2 hours. But probably less. So that was extremely frustrating because I was so excited to have internet for the time I did. It was just a tease.

So, I called my mom so we could get together for some coffee or something because she had just gotten into London earlier that day and I was in great need to see her because I missed her a lot already—which is strange because I’ve gone much, much longer without seeing her. Must be the large distance..

Mom got a taxi to come to where I was and we walked around looking specifically for a internet café, but we had no luck so we decied to just go to PizzaExpress where they have free wi-fi. Mom got wine and I got apple juice. We had to get dessert because apparently they wouldn’t serve alcohol without food. There wasn’t much of a protest there :)

We talked and caught up and I showed her my pictures till PizzaExpress closed, and then we relocated to the outside of my housing.

Then somewhere between midnight-thirty and 1, a group of my friends came home very intoxicated from the pubs. That was very entertaining, they were all so excited to meet my mom and wanted to give her hugs and buy her pancakes..lol! Fun times.

Mom left at around 1:30ish maybe..and I went to bed and tried internet one last time, but it didn’t work because it never ever works.

Off to Edninburgh! Day 2.

June 23rd

The next day, we woke up bright and early for the hotel’s free breakfast! They had juice and fruit available for us, and brought us yummy toast. They also brought us an “English” breakfast which consisted of sausages, bacon (but strange bacon—at least it's not the kind that we’re used to. It was extremely undercooked and looked pretty disgusting to me), weird looking eggs, and baked beans. That was a bit ‘o culture shock for me!! Haha... But, all was well and I ate what I could manage to eat. Afterwards we met up with the group and began walking to the train station. Once we got there we had to wait to see which platform we were on. As we waited, I got my railroad card out so it would be ready to swipe as we walked inside. We saw that we were on platform 4 and I began to get all of my things together. At some point during that process, I must have dropped my railroad card. Once I realized this, I was extremely frustrated because I was literally just holding it! We all looked around for it with no luck. Fortunately, I was able to get a replacement for 5 pounds. So I hurried to do that. While I was doing that, apparently our train got pushed back to a slightly later time and we got upgraded to first class!! Yay! I got to the train after getting my replacement and my friend/roommate Larissa saved me a seat and I could finally relax!

First class-ing it up!

The view from the train was gorgeous the whole time we were one the train, and the first class seats were amazingly comfortable.

This and the following pictures are only a tiny bit of the beautiful sights from our train ride :)

The staff came by to bring us complimentary wine and food and we were all so excited and happy to be there.

I slept a lot of the way there, even though I wanted to watch the view as it went by. Every time I would be looking out the window I would somehow drift off to sleep, but it was alright, I definitely needed that sleep.

It took us about 4 ½ hours to get to Edinburgh, Scotland, but it went by fast because of all the sleeping that was happening. Now, I should inform all of you that you do not pronounce Edinburgh Ed-in-burg, or Ed-in-burrow. I was taught that the correct pronunciation is Ed-in-bur-raa. Say it with me now, Ed--in--bur--raa. Great Job! lol..

We finally arrived and walked to our hotel/town house/Carin Hotel. There were so many gorgeous buildings on the way and everything was just so surreal and exciting!!

We were lucky to have yet another adorable room. I didn’t get pictures of this room either! But believe me, it was very, very cute. The only problem with this location was that there were only 2 bathrooms for the 20-something of us. But, we managed just fine.



After settling in our new rooms we walked to go on a bus tour of Scotland. This bus ride reinforced how frickin’ beautiful Scotland is, but I got no information from the tour guide. I could not understand him at all. I decided it was because he was speaking too close to the microphone. I was slightly bummed that I couldn’t hear him, because there were bits and pieces that I could hear and those parts were interesting. But I was able to get some pretty incredible pictures of the wonderful city. Also, I think I’m in love with Scotland. More on that later.

After the bus tour we were free to wander the city as we pleased. A group of us wanted to go see Jekyll & Hyde which was playing at the Edinburgh Playhouse. I was so excited and happy that other people wanted to see that because what an amazing experience, right??

We had some time before the show started, so we decided to get some food and alcohol in our bodies. We went to a little pub/restaurant place near the theater and ordered quickly because time was running out. I ended up getting tomato soup again because apparently that’s everywhere now, and I’m a big fan of it…..usually. This tomato soup was pretty gross. It tasted like spaghetti sauce. Not what I wanted. Luckily, my drink was a different story! I didn’t know what I wanted, so I asked the bartender what he would suggest for me. He got me Strawberry Lime Cider. It was good, but slightly carbonated. I enjoyed it more than the soup at least.. We were running out of time and still had a lot of our alcohol left so we chugged as much as we could and headed out. That was a bit of a mistake because I had to pee like crazy for the whole first half of the show…hah!

We got into the theater and found out that our seats had been upgraded How lucky are we?? They weren’t like upgraded to the front row or anything, but we went from the top balcony to the slightly lower balcony. That was great. The show was incredible. I had never seen Jekyll & Hyde live and it is one of my most favorite Broadway shows! I’m so happy and thankful they were showing it that night!!

We walked back home after the show was over and I took advantage of the wi-fi in the lobby to talk to Mom and then I finally went to bed.