Happy Birthday Mum!

Happy happy birthday to my mom!  I wish I could be there to celebrate, but don't worry, I still am remembering her in London!  I love you very much mama!  You are the "best mum" ever!

I will give you a quick recap of the past few days in London.

Wednesday:  Went to class in the morning and planned out what we wanted to do for the rest of the trip with Meg, Holly, and Haley.  Ate in the cafeteria, nothing really special but totally free!  This was a very laid back day.

Thursday:  Field trip day!  My class went on a field trip to Hampton Court in the small village of Surrey.  Hampton Court was Henry VIII's favorite castle, and he built it for a honeymoon spot for Anne Boleyn.  It is located in Surrey...anyone seen The Holiday?  It is one of my all-time favorites, and this is the little village where the movie was filmed.  Surrey is adorable!  This is definitely on my list of "I want to come back here one day".  Filled with fun antique stores and beautiful homes, Surrey is the ideal English village!

Thursday night was the Harry Potter premiere.  I have never experienced anything like it before!  There were hundreds of people at the theater we were at.  This was the theater the stars had just been at one week before!  There were definitely some major die-hards there.  

Even the chairs were leopard print!  It was my kind of place.

Meg and I with our 3D glasses on.

Friday:  I went to the Tower of London!  Many prisoners were sent here to be torchered or even killed.  It also houses the Crown Jewels.  It was neat to experience a castle this old.

After visiting the castle, we wandered to St. Katharine's Dock.  It is a cute little area where people that cruise along the River Tymes can dock and eat at a nice restaurant and maybe stay the night in a hotel.  A man was selling homemade fudge so I stopped and got some and sat near the dock.  It was a lovely afternoon!  

The world's favorite coffee.  Starbucks are everywhere!

My fudge.  It was vanilla, caramel, and chocolate.  Yum!

Saturday:  I went shopping!  I literally shopped 'till I dropped.  I went with my new friends from Belmont, Shannon and Meredith.  We started off on Oxford Street and hit H&M and went into a few other cute stores too.  Oxford Street is compatible to New York shopping, very very crowded with top name stores.  We then went to Covent Gardens.  Such a cute area!!! My favorite area yet.  It is a cobblestone type village with top name stores just a little smaller.  It kind of reminded me of SoHo in New York, but it's quainter.  I found some very unique British keepsakes.  I finally found Cath Kidston too!  Cath Kidston is a British designer and it is all over London.  I am surprised it's not a bigger trend in the States, but I bet in a few years it will become very popular.  

New friends Meredith and Shannon!

Aisle at a mini grocery store....embarrassing.

That sums up my first full week in London!  I have a test on Monday, so I will be studying all day today.  Looking forward to the week to come though!  See you soon!

  

Start of the first week in London!

I cannot believe the number of pictures I have taken in 5 days.  It's a little over the top, but every picture captures a memory I want to visualize forever!  I have covered a lot of ground over the past few days and have made many memories already.

Sunday, we started off the morning at St. Paul's Cathedral.  It was breathtaking.  I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it!  We went to the Choral Eucharist service in the morning.  Sadly  I wasn't able to take pictures in the inside because it was prohibited.  :(

After St. Paul's, we went and ate lunch at a Pizza Express near the cathedral.  It was delicious!  The food here is not the best, so it is exciting to eat a good meal and actually feel decently full after a meal.  After lunch, we headed to Westminster Abbey to go to another choral eucharist!  Yes, the place where William and Catherine just got married a few months ago.  It was totally surreal.  After being glued to all of the William and Kate talk, it was really neat to be able to see Westminster for myself!  Don't worry, I bought a book allll about the wedding at the gift shop!  Can't wait to share it!

On Monday, we were actually able to get a decent amount of rest and sleep in after a full first weekend of traveling and seeing the city.  The first day of class was also on Monday, and it went really well.  My teacher, Beth Miller, is the head of the Interior Design department at Mississippi State so I already knew her.  She told us the difference in being a "tourist" and a "traveler".  It was very inspiring.  She said that a "tourist" limits oneself and complains about the food and gets homesick because they can't sleep, or are hungry.  She said a "traveler" is one who is eager to go, do, learn, and take in the true culture of London and try new things.  I am definitely striving to do that, but it is not hard because I am so in love with the city!  I am taking a history of interior design class and have to write a paper about William Morris.  I am supposed to go somewhere in London that has to do with him and research about his works.  After class, Meg, Holly, and I went to the wal-mart type store they have here in Hampstead.  We heard about these wonderful cookies there and went and bought some!  The sweets here are unreal, so I guess that makes up for every other meal, haha!  Meg and I finally found some hair rollers too because our straightener and curling iron would not convert.  Thank goodness we finally found some!  

Today, we started off the day super early to go to Wimbledon.  We took a tour and it was absolutely incredible!  It was really neat to see everything just after the tournament finished.  I was amazed at how well-kept up Wimbledon is.  It was beautiful!  We even saw members of the Wimbledon Tennis Club out playing tennis.  I bought the most expensive tshirts I have ever bought in my life there today, I am embarrassed to tell you how much they cost in American dollars!  I bought one for my dad and one for myself, so hopefully we can keep them forever.  

Meg and I at Centre Court!

I thought this tennis outfit in the museum was precious!  

Who knew that tennis balls used to be white?

I decided that if I could pick a tennis outfit, it would definitely be this one-shiny, and of course, gold!

I wish I could bling like Serena Williams! 

After Wimbledon, Meg and I headed out to Harrods.  We were completely overwhelmed, to say the least!  It took us roughly 2 hours to even start looking at 2 floors.  We were so overwhelmed that we decided to grab a bite for dinner.  We saw the golden arches from a few blocks a way and headed to McDonald's....definitely the best meal so far. Very grateful for this meal!!

Meg was a little hungry, can you tell?

London is everything I dreamed it to be and more!  Can't wait to share more exciting adventures to come!

First Weekend in London

Finally made it to London!

I can't believe I have actually made it.  I left on Thursday morning, and got here at 3:30am US time which is 9:30 am London time.  I stayed up all day to do walking tours when I got here to try to prevent falling asleep.  They told us that falling asleep in the afternoon would create jet lag even worse.  Needless to say I am still tired but the city is so wonderful I don't even want to sleep!

After getting familiar with campus, Meg and I decided to go into the city with some people we met in the CCSA group.  We decided to take the tub to try to find ice cream, and we ended up right in front of Buckingham Palace! (Where the Queen lives).  Here are some pictures from the weekend so far!

Even though we didn't find ice cream or gelato, we found this cute frozen yogurt place.  They had very limited flavors, so meg and I settled with vanilla.  It tasted different from our froyo, it tasted like real yogurt just frozen!

Today we took a bus tour of the entire city of London.  It lasted about 3 hours but I enjoyed absolutely every single minute of it.  Here are some pictures from today!

This is the remain of a church that was burned down during WWII.  It had beautiful gardens surrounding it.

Can you guess who it is?  John Wesley...the founder of the Methodist church! I am a Methodist myself, and I thought this statue was really neat.  It was actually at St. Paul's Cathedral...I am going to church there in the morning!  It is a choral eucharist. Should be interesting, we will see how it goes!

Front of St. Paul's Cathedral

Please guess who went to high school here.

I'll give you a hint...he is a pretty famous actor.

Daniel Radcliffe!  I'm thinking this is probably the most expensive high school to go to in the world.  It was right along The River Thames amidst a beautiful area of London!

It is very chilly here!

Countdown to the Olympics!

Along with sightseeing, we also did some amazing shopping today.  Precious little markets, H&M, and Topshop, were some of my favorite places we went today.  Things are a lot more expensive here, which is the only downside.  That's all I have for today.... Stay tuned!