This is my travel journal from my study abroad trip to the UK and France. The names of my teachers and classmates have been changed for privacy reasons.
DAY 21 - June 9, 1:30 pm
Got up, did laundry, and went to Covent Garden Market to watch the street performers. They had some pretty good ones there. This one guy, Spiky Will, was awesome. He cut his act short because there wasn't as big a crowd, but when he skipped to the finale, which involved a bed of nails, the crowd doubled. He ended up in nothing but his boxers and two heat-shaped nipple tassels.
"Hey, I'm trying to worry my mother. Can you help?"
"Sure! Let's take a picture and show her you met a nice English boy!"
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Day 21: Naked at the Globe, Dumbass at the Tesco
- April 25, 2012
- By Lissy-Strata
Day 20: Stonehenge
- April 24, 2012
- By Lissy-Strata
This is my travel journal from my study abroad trip to the UK and France. The names of my teachers and classmates have been changed for privacy reasons.
DAY 20 - June 8, 11:15 am - Train
Sitting on a train to Salisbury, going to Stonehenge.
The last time I was here, I saw just about every major tourist attraction in London, but I never got to see Stonehenge. See, the tour company had booked us on the solstice and the place is always closed on the solstice. Talk about poor planning! It's not like this was a surprise. What, was some guy in the agency going "Well, last year it was closed on the solstice, but surely it wouldn't...It's closed again?! How's a person supposed to predict when the solstice is gonna happen?"
Five minute googling directions, and I made my way to Waterloo Station and hopped on a train to Salisbury. (Our tuition covered all these travel passes and I'm gonna use them!) It's not too hard to get around here. I just asked an officer which platform I needed. As soon as I walked away from him to have a look around, PIGEON! Yes, I got hit in the head by a pigeon again! Got a picture of the little bastard so I can report him for harassment.
Read more »
Sitting on a train to Salisbury, going to Stonehenge.
The last time I was here, I saw just about every major tourist attraction in London, but I never got to see Stonehenge. See, the tour company had booked us on the solstice and the place is always closed on the solstice. Talk about poor planning! It's not like this was a surprise. What, was some guy in the agency going "Well, last year it was closed on the solstice, but surely it wouldn't...It's closed again?! How's a person supposed to predict when the solstice is gonna happen?"
Five minute googling directions, and I made my way to Waterloo Station and hopped on a train to Salisbury. (Our tuition covered all these travel passes and I'm gonna use them!) It's not too hard to get around here. I just asked an officer which platform I needed. As soon as I walked away from him to have a look around, PIGEON! Yes, I got hit in the head by a pigeon again! Got a picture of the little bastard so I can report him for harassment.
Day 19: The Tower of Lo-DAVID TENNANT
- April 23, 2012
- By Lissy-Strata
This is my travel journal from my study abroad trip to the UK and France. The names of my teachers and classmates have been changed for privacy reasons.
DAY 19- June 7, 11:50 am - Cafe
I did not sleep at all last night because I couldn't stop smiling like an idiot.
I'm currently sitting at a table outdoors at this place called Giraffe. It's in this shopping center-slash-apartment complex and it's really nice. I wasn't planning on eating here. I stood at the door, vaguely thinking about lunch and they sat me so quickly I didn't have time to decide. Maybe I'll eat something small before I go the the Tower of London.
[Shoot, do I need to go in to order or what? Whoa, sudden roof leak!]
Read more »
I'm currently sitting at a table outdoors at this place called Giraffe. It's in this shopping center-slash-apartment complex and it's really nice. I wasn't planning on eating here. I stood at the door, vaguely thinking about lunch and they sat me so quickly I didn't have time to decide. Maybe I'll eat something small before I go the the Tower of London.
[Shoot, do I need to go in to order or what? Whoa, sudden roof leak!]
Day 18: Westminster Ab-CATHERINE FREAKING TATE
- April 22, 2012
- By Lissy-Strata
This is my travel journal from my study abroad trip to the UK and France. The names of my teachers and classmates have been changed for privacy reasons.
DAY 18- June 6
Today started out with a quick trip to Leichster Square so everybody could get theatre tickets. I asked Liz and Rebecca if they'd like to see Much Ado with me, but they wanted to know the ticket prices. So I went over to the theatre to ask at the box office. Regular seats were too expensive, (and too sold out) but standing room was ₤16. I went back to tell them, and they told me to ask if I could reserve any for tomorrow.
So I went back to the box office, but SRO tickets were only sold the day of the performance. And I then proceeded to go back and forth between box office and friends an absurd amount of times to ask questions, until they decided to skip the show. Even worse, Jacklyn and Linda, who are also Doctor Who fans and had agreed to go, suddenly decided that ₤16 was too expensive.
Day 17: Museums and Creepin'
- April 21, 2012
- By Lissy-Strata
This is my travel journal from my study abroad trip to the UK and France. The names of my teachers and classmates have been changed for privacy reasons.
DAY 17- June 5
Got to have a lie-in today. I only got up for breakfast, then I went right back and slept until noon. It felt great! At one we went to the British Museum. Here, our schedule suddenly changed so that we'll be going to Westminster Abby tomorrow. This sucks, because I was supposed to meet my pen pal tomorrow. Dr. Thompson said he could come with us, though, so I sent him an email about that the first chance I got. He hasn't responded yet. I hope he gets the message in time. I didn't come all this way to miss him!
(I also didn't fly 4,000 miles to not see David Tennant and Catherine Tate live onstage.)
Day 16: Pleasant Surprise in London
- April 20, 2012
- By Lissy-Strata
This is my travel journal from my study abroad trip to the UK and France. The names of my teachers and classmates have been changed for privacy reasons.
DAY 16- June 4
So I should probably mention somewhere in here that although we've taken our final exam for Dr. Owen's class, we haven't yet taken our final for Dr. Thompson's class. We've managed to persuade her to put it off until we leave London. And once again, I feel like the odd woman out. I'd much rather have done that final yesterday, when everything I'd learned was fresh in my mind, but oh well...
Got up at 6:30 this morning to catch a taxi at eight in order to catch a train that left sometime after that. The train was pretty cool. I ended up falling asleep sporadically throughout.
Brianne randomly yelled "Harry Potter!" as the snack trolly came by. Donna told her to turn her music down, because I'm pretty sure the whole car heard her.
Day 1: Twenty-Four Hours of Kidney Abuse
- March 15, 2012
- By Lissy-Strata
This is my travel journal from my study abroad trip to the UK and France in 2011. This was originally written as part of our assignments, but it was also posted to a private blog for my parents to read. I wrote it out longhand and typed it up later. I've edited it to make it flow better, and changed the names of my teachers and classmates for privacy reasons.
DAY 1 - May 19, 1:00 pm- Starting City
I've been up since six this morning because Mom and Dad wanted to have an early lunch with me. Also, we told Dad we needed to leave an hour earlier than we actually had to, because it takes forever to get out of the house if Dad's involved.
We're starting our journey at the Airport/Bus Station. This is easily the smallest airport I've ever been in. There are only two gates, making it difficult to get lost in here, but it made finding a parking space so much easier. Once we arrived, we waited for the rest of the class to trickle in. This is when I remembered that I can't identify the faces of anyone in this class. During all of our pre-classes, I sat in the front row and never looked behind me. Okay, I know Jacklyn and Linda, but that's only because I see them in theatre all the time.
I've just been sitting here smiling at strangers, hoping one of them recognizes me and takes pity.
So I succeeded in making a fool of myself before we even started boarding. I noticed a lot of people lined up at the check-in and I went to ask our teacher if I needed to do that too. Then I managed to take two steps backwards and fall into the lap of some random army woman using her computer. She was very understanding about it, though.
The security check was mercifully short. I wish I'd worn some slip-on shoes, though. High-top Converse aren't made for quick removal. From there we went up an escalator and were right at our gate. Dr. Thompson, one of our teachers, passed out little laminated cards with the addresses of US embassies and bracelets with the school's phone number. On my bracelet, I added "If found unconscious, please return to-"
Before we got on the plane, some guy told us that there wasn't enough room for everyone's carry-on and he really wanted some peach cobbler, so we had to put a little red tag on our bags and have them checked so he could get to the break room faster. We were reluctant at first, but the man clearly wanted that cobbler, so we complied. As we boarded, I asked the other flight attendant if I should take my laptop out, which I ended up doing. I put it in the overhead compartment.
So I'm actually on the plane right now, and I've just met Cat, my alphabetical seatmate for the trip. She's nice. We made conversation.
Me: The skating rink in my hometown hasn't changed in years. They haven't even painted the walls!
Cat: ...you know I'm from there, right?
Me: No...
Cat: Oh. 'Cause you started talking and I thought you were some kind of creeper.
