Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!

BA Word of the Day: Food Edition! So after cooking and baking over the past few days, I've found that there are some significant differences between what we call certain foods and how we eat them. I shall go forward in chronological order of what I cooked.

wraps. Apparently the other day I made wraps, not soft tacos. Anything in a tortilla is a wrap.

pancakes. Over here they have Shrove Tuesday (aka Pancake Day) instead of Mardi Gras. Huge letdown for me because I wanted to make king's cake and put a mask on. Anyway, people in the UK do thinner pancakes I think (thinner than an American pancakes, thicker than a crepe). They place selected condiments in the pancake (whipped cream, syrup, oh and the shelves are cleared of Nutella on the days before Pancake Day), wrap them up, and eat them with their hands (basically crepe style). And eating bacon with pancakes is unheard of over here (although it did get approval from some people here).

biscuits. Don't ever say the phrase "biscuits and gravy" to a Brit and expect them to be willing to try what you make. Biscuits over here means cookies.... cookies and gravy is basically what you are saying. So then the question that becomes of this situation "What the hell do they call biscuits?" Bread roll kinda worked, but after showing them a picture, scones (pronounced scons by them) was the word to use. But it still didn't suffice because people were expecting a sweet scone with raisins in it.

crisps and chips. French fries =chips. Potato chips= crisps.

I can't think of anything else significant right now, but these have caused some interesting cultural exchanges.

Ok now for the cool pictures I took. Wednesday I got to go to St. Paul's Cathedral (not inside it though), the Millennium Bridge, and The Globe Theatre. Thursday I went for a walk and got a little lost. Friday I went to Wembley Stadium. Ok picture time!

St. Paul's Cathedral

Cool view down one of the roads

Gah! Why is she pointing at me?!? I swear I didn't do anything wrong today!

Cool lamppost... in front of StPC (my new abbrev for it)

Occupy London at StPC

Another cool lamppost

Occupy London at StPC... Seriously why would they do that in front of a cathedral?

I don't know if you can see the guy back there right up against the fence... but  he is some sort of security guard. I figured since he was coyly trying to be a security guy, I would coyly take a picture of him.

View of the Shard of Glass. What is the actually name of this building anyways?

Tate Modern. A museum that I did not have time to go in.

The Globe!

Walking across Millennium Bridge

Shard o' Glass and some other buildings

Oh my gosh! I'm closer to The Globe!

London Bridge from Millennium Bridge. I took a picture of a bridge from a bridge... Yea.

StPC from the Millennium Bridge

Two guys practicing a sword fight in the Exhibition center of the Globe

 A little bit about the Globe must be mentioned. First of all, in case you didn't know, the idea of rebuilding it was an American's idea. Second, we went in while there was a rehearsal for A Midsummer Night's Dream going on. I think it's pretty cool that I got to go into the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe and see a tech rehearsal of a Shakespeare play. Third, we weren't suppose to take pictures inside the Globe... but I really wish I would have.

So the other day I decided to go for a walk. I found this cool little pathway, but I got kinda lost. I found out that the houses just north of where I live are really nice though!

And then I found this beautiful view of London whilst being lost. My camera and photography skills don't do this view any justice.

 Friday I went to Wembley with Hayley because she is working there and needed to time how long it would take to get there.

Good thing we weren't on this bus ;)

I think I need to make a meme that says "Not sure if it's a giant roller coaster... or Wembley Stadium"

Wembley

Wembley

Wembley again

Wembley yet again

The roller coaster

Hayley as close as any of us would get to riding the Wembley roller coaster ;)

 There are black cabs all over London with cool designs and ads on them. On Wednesday I saw a Coach cab but was deeply saddened when I couldn't get a picture.

Coach black cab

And then we found one near Wembley!!!!! Yay!

7 11 in London

Staples Superstore in London

I went in and asked for you, Buddy, but they said you weren't there :(

Hayley at her uni

Hayley had to drop by her uni to get some papers sorted out. This little building is all her uni consists of. Yes, my friends, there is a university more jank than Indiana State. I know you probably can't believe, but here is the proof.

So that is it! All of my fun pictures from the week. Don't really know what's in store for the next few days, but I'm sure I'll find something to blog about. Until then, Cheers!

Taco Fail

BA Word of the Day:  Autoglass Repairs. Know the jingle "Safelite repair, Safelite replace"? Replace Safelite with Autoglass and you have the entire picture. It's the only commercial I have seen that is completely the same as the American commercial only with British accents and a different name. And for some odd reason it tickled me enough to put it as the Word of the Day.

So let's do a quick run through of the cool things that I have done since my last post. I did the following:

-Wednesday:  Saw my first theatre show in London, A Midsummer Night's Dream! Excellent time!

-Thursday:  Went to a 3D party at Fabric with the Greenviewians

- Thursday and Friday:  Went to a start up company boot camp for my internship; super inspired to start my own company some day

-Saturday:  Went shopping in Camden (elaboration on this trip below; Cyberdog shop pictured above)

-Sunday:  Went to a pub down the road

-All week:  Got a sore throat

And today is Monday. Ok, Camden Market is kinda epic. For example, this store. You enter and there are two dancers standing on balconies dressed and dancing like they are at a rave. I wish I could have taken pictures of the staff for my blog. Maybe in the future. It's three stories of black light items to rave over (Hehehe). The things in this store are meant for raving and light up under black light. If fact, one of the girls that I went with colored her hair pink and her pink hair lit up under black light. In short, Camden Market is worth the visit if you are ever in London (PS I think there should be a website called peopleofcamdenmarket.com).

Today... I epic failed at making tacos. I got the wrong seasoning, I got the wrong cheese (seriously UK, where is the fiesta blend cheese?), it was all wrong. And I was so pumped about having tacos. It was a huge mess. I was kinda embarrassed. But I kept trying to cook it and went on with it. I even overstuffed the first taco because I was really discouraged. But then... it tasted not so bad! And then all the sudden I was really proud of my cooking (even though it was messy). It was probably one of the worst meals I have ever made, but the fact that it was actually edible (unlike what I thought it would be) made me pretty happy. 

Point being:  Sometimes you go into something thinking the outcomes isn't going to be that great. But then it's not so bad in the end. It actually turns out pretty good. But if you quit in the middle, you will be asking your friends for food or heading over to Chicken Spot. So do the things that you set out to do, even if you think you will be rubbish at them. Because in the end, you might be proud of crappy tacos!

Tomorrow is Pancake Day here in the UK (no no no, no Mardi Gras here. Just innocent little pancakes). I'm sure there will be some cute pictures from that, but hopefully no pancake fails. Until then, Cheers!

Random Thoughts about here and home

BA Word of the Day: wash (noun). We call it laundry in the US. Yea, not that exciting. Just one of those little differences.

Hey! Happy Valentine's Day! And guess what! I have a Valentine! All the way in the US! And he sent me flowers! My point:  If your boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever didn't get you something for Valentine's Day, show them this post ;)

Yea... I'm spoiled PS they are red tulips

So today, since I'm feeling kind of lazy and kind of random, I've decided to post a few snippets of thoughts that I've had since I got here. It's funny. When you get to somewhere, you are too busy taking in all the new to remember the little things that you miss about home. Then that one thing happens, the ultimate of the unfamiliar, and you suddenly miss home. For me, it was the 3rd scalding hot shower. I was standing there having to turn the shower on and off as I needed water, balling like a little baby wishing I was home. After you get over that bit of sudden home-longing, you start getting used to the way things are. And then sometimes you remember one of those comforts of home and wish you had that here. So the following is my list.

Things that I miss about the US:

Reliable utilities

Having more than two outlets built into my room

Clean dishes (or dirty dishes that are my own fault, not someone else’s)

Familiarity in general (ex. I’m finally getting semi-used to grocery shopping over here)

Our weird little system of measurement (unmetric methods)

George Washington’s lovely face on one dollar bills (these one pound and two pound coins get heavy)

Familiar accents

Fahrenheit temperatures

Barq’s root beer

Family and friends close by

People that dress worse than me (here I look like a slob sometimes)

Having my own mailbox

Things that I don’t miss about the US:

Pumping gas

Driving in general

Lack of diversity (at least in my little corner of the US)

Cold weather (it’s not quite as cold here)

Well, crazy weather in general (good ole Indiana for ya!)

Classes more frequent than once a week

Lucky Charms ;) (yea, they don’t get those here)

Weird Seymour people

Those people from high school that you don’t want to run into

Things that I love about the UK:

Unfamiliar accents

The metric system (seriously, it makes way more sense than whatever the heck we have)

My internship

My accommodation

New friends

The people in general (even the ones that get into fist fights on the bus… makes for good entertainment)

Different sized notes (makes counting money and keeping track of it so much easier)

Things that I can’t wait to say to my kids some day:

“Kids, when I was in uni (British speak for college), I once carried my weight in groceries 2 miles uphill in the cold London evening just so I could make myself a decent meal. The least you can do is carry a couple of groceries from the car to the house.”

“Kids, when I was in uni, I had to wake up three hours before going into my internship to get ready, make myself a proper breakfast, and ride a double decker bus for almost an hour to get there. The least you can do is wake up in time to catch the school bus that takes you to school without you having to know which number school bus to get on.”

“Kids, when I was in uni, I lived in a building that ran out of toilet paper on the weekend and had to go buy my own. The least you can do is replace the roll when it’s run out and be thankful that you have a mom that makes sure there is plenty of toilet paper in the house.”

“Kids, when I was in uni, I have to carry my laundry up and down four flights of stairs to a laundry room with only one washing machine that worked and had to be shared by over 50 people. The least you can do is fold a few shirts and place them neatly in your dresser.”

I’m sure I’ll have plenty more before my little trip to London is up ;) Until next time, Cheers!

Internship and A Day at the Museums

BA Word of the Day:  bus route 271. How did you say it? Did your pronunciation rhyme with ‘out’ or did you say it like ‘root’? Also, did you say ‘two seventy-one’ or ‘two seven one’?

British pronunciation:  bus root two seven one

American pronunciation:  bus raut two seventy-one

Yea, it’s the little things that tell everyone around you that you are American.

For instance... Taking a picture of the statue of George Washington at Trafalgar Square

 

I had my first few days of my internship this week. It's at Carbon Voyage, a small start up company housed in a campus building (pictured above). I'll have to take a picture of the tiny office this company works out of. Anyways, the people that work for CV (the 3 that I have met) are really fun and chill. My task is to create a sustainability training for TfL's freight operator recognition scheme, a program that looks to improve London freight delivery. Just in case you didn't know, traffic in London sucks. Oh, and TfL is Transport for London, the government agency that runs the trains and tubes and buses. So I'm excited to get started on that soon!

I have now been to all of my classes as well. My two HR related classes seem like they will be pretty informative and useful. I was a little worried about one of my classes being too similar to another class I have taken in the US, but it will cover different material, so I'm going to stick with it.

The gem of my classes... Theatre in London. The professor is energetic and funny... Oh yea, and we get to see one show a week. The first show this Wednesday will be A Midsummer Night's Dream. Not my favorite Shakespeare play by far, but hey! I can't complain! I get to see a Shakespeare play in London! The worst part about the class was hearing about the amazing shows the professor couldn't fit into the class's budget. For instance, Einstein on the Beach is showing, but we can't go as a class. If I want to pay to go see it on my own, I could... Hmmm...

                                      

This weekend me and a girl that I live with, Hayley, went to the British Museum and the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. The nice thing about both of these museums... They are free!!!!!!!! 

So, if you want to go see the Rosetta Stone, the stone that holds the code to Egyptian hieroglyphics, it's free. But make sure you grab a map because we got kinda lost. These museums are huge.

Then we hopped on a bus to Trafalgar Square. At Trafalgar Square there are monuments of famous people, human rights protesters, and a countdown to the London Olympics. 199 days to go!

This is a photo at Trafalgar Square of the Palace of Westminster I believe. Don't quote me on that.

Oh, and I took my bear Chester with me! This is Chester in front of the National Gallery. If you are in London, you have to visit the National Gallery. There are a few Van Gogh's and de Goya's and Monet's and Manet's and a couple Caravaggio's and a gazillion other things. PS you aren't allowed to take pictures in the National Gallery. I plea that I did not know that! ;)

So, from here I don't know what the next exciting adventure I will write about will be. Probably my first trip to the theatre or some goofy happenings here at the dorm. Who knows! Until then, Cheers!

Sports and School

BA Word of the Day:  tariff. In the US, we understand a tariff as a tax on an imported good. In the UK, tariff also means a plan for a cell phone. I’ve seen both plan and tariff used interchangeably, but I can’t quite put my finger on any difference. If you are British (or just have knowledge on this matter) please comment on this post if there actually is a difference.

First of all, go Giants! I’m not a big fan or anything, I simply root for the team that I think is less likely to win and root for them. I got the other people in my building that watched the game to root for the Giants (except for one girl that wanted to be contradictory), so it was fun getting to root for the winning team. It was also fun to explain to the other students how American Football is played while we watched the game.

This weekend I got to see my very first rugby match (on tv). It was the Scotland v England match, which I guess is supposed to be a big deal. I don’t even remember who won. What I do remember is the crazy hits that those guys took… with little to no padding. Ok, yea it wasn’t always full on contact like American Football is, but still! Those guys were getting hit hard and by multiple guys! And the goal posts that they have to kick the rugby ball through, along with the angles at which players kick the ball through, make American Football special teams look like little kids.

With all of that in mind, I must say that rugby and American Football are two fairly different sports. For instance, the guys in my building that watched the Super Bowl were annoyed at all of the pauses in the game for commercials and time outs. In rugby, it’s two periods, 40 minutes each, of full on rugby. No time outs (unless injury occurs), no commercial breaks, nothing. It’s great. But I still love my American Football.

And onward with my first day of school! I got off the bus and to my surprise, two other study abroad students that live in my building got off the bus in front of me at the stop! To an even bigger surprise, one of them was in my class today! So yay! I wasn’t all alone in class! And I also wasn’t all alone in finding our classroom, which was a royal pain in the butt. Tower main has about 30 floors… and they have color coded sections. Do Rina and I never really knew where we were going. We kinda just went on lucky hunches down the halls, but we made it with plenty of time to go.

So we walk into the classroom. It’s quite a large lecture hall, however, all of the chairs are on the same level. And the desks attached are round and tiny. Both Do Rina and I were shocked at the smallness of the round swivel desk tops. Class was your typical introductory first day of class. Right after class, I went to a building across the street for my seminar class. There were between 10 and 15 people in the seminar. To my shock, not a single person in the seminar is British. There are people from Nigeria, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Ghana, and the US. The professor isn’t even British; she’s from Germany. You would think it is statistically probable that at least one person would be British. Again, typical introduction class.

My other class has been fine. Another HR class. Tomorrow I go in for my first meeting at my internship at Carbon Voyage and I go to my first Theatre in London class. Both should be lots of fun to report on! Until then, cheers!

Snow in London

BA Word of the Day:  oregano. As in the spice oregano. In the US, we say it with the accent on the second syllable. In England, they say it with the accent on the third syllable. It's crazy because if I say it the American way, everyone cocks their head and gives me a look like "What the heck did you just say?" and then I say it the English way and they give me that drawn out "Ohhhhhhhh".

So it snowed in London in case you didn't here. And it was beautiful. We had a massive snowfight. I tried to make a snowman, but he got destroyed in the snowfight. His remnants ended up on my head (as pictured above).

I remember getting made fun of in class by teachers for those of us in the class being excited about snowfall and looking out the window from the desk. Well, students in London are the same. When it started snowing in the other day, we ran to the windows to look at the glistening flakes. Then we put on our winterware and tromped on the fresh snowfall. We grabbed fluffy white scoops, clumped them together, and launched them at each other in a massive free for all snowfight. 

It’s funny. You do things that sound fun and never think if anyone across the world does the same thing. I guess my thought before coming to London would have been “Well surely they don’t have enough space in such a city to be able to have a snowfight or build a snowman.” Not true. Students in London order pizza, play video games, and hang out in the lobby of their dorm just the same as American kids (maybe even more). They watch YouTube videos and surf Facebook. They even have snowfights when the opportunity presents itself. 

Tomorrow at 10am I start school. I don't know where my classroom is. And I will likely watch the Super Bowl tonight. I'll let you all know how my first day of London college is. Until then, cheers!

Picture Post!

First things first. Disclaimer on the previous post. I have met a girl from Wisconsin and a girl that goes to Ball State in Muncie, IN (and she didn't know anyone from my high school that goes there unfortunately). So I'm a bit more satisfied, but my point in the previous post still stands.

As promised, I took some pictures of some sites! Yay me! Lol sorry guys. And if you are Sophia Rigalopolopoulis :), sorry that Chester hasn't gotten out yet. He's still a bit shy (and I didn't take my backpack to stuff him in). So I will revisit these places later on and take Chester with me.

Ok, but before the pictures, I'm going to post a BA Word of the Day from now on (BA stands for British/ American, or you can replace it with the more familiar version of BA, up to you;). These are either slang words or words pronounced differently by British people or Americans. Sometimes I might post things that we, in fact, say funny and that makes less sense than the British version, as pointed out by the people I live with. 

First BA Word of the Day- US word:  bangs. In the US, bangs are the piece of hair in front of your face. 

                                           British word for bangs:  fringe.

The first thing that came to my mind when someone said fringe:  The song in the musical Oklahoma about the surrey with the fringe on the top. If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch this video Oklahoma the Musical "The Surrey With the Fringe on Top" But it makes much more sense to say fringe than bangs. And they cringe when I say bangs which makes me giggle.

Anyways, let's get to the good part. Reading is for people that ride the bus and tube anyways (no, seriously, I feel like an idiot on the tube and bus because I'm the only one not reading lol). Now for the pictures!

First, the most boring picture of all... my schedule! My internship and Theatre in London class aren't included.

Ok, more kinda goofy pictures, but oh well.

A picture of me cooking for my first time in the UK:  a classic English breakfast of eggs, bacon, frankfurters (hot dogs), beans, and toast. PS apparently beans are suppose to be not heated? Idk about these Brits!

Oh yea, and the bacon is different. It doesn't get as crispy and I feel like it has a lot more substance. Anyways, I like it a lot.

Now here are the good pictures! We went on a boat tour from the Thames (pronounced Tims) River and these are some of the pictures that came out nicely. A lot of them were shaky because of the boat moving.

This is a building. To be honest, I'm not quite sure which building, but I like the medieval sorta look at the top.

 Distant view of Big Ben

Oh no! The guards are coming to get us! (I think this was at the Houses of Parliament)

I think they were changing guard. I don't know, but the man on the right being switched out actually started smiling and chuckling in the middle of things.

 My dorm building... oh no wait, this is Buckingham Palace. Sorry about that.

 The gates at Buckingham Palace.

I should probably look up the proper name of this fountain/statue, but it's outside Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace again. Strikingly odd. For the amount of money paid for my accommodation, I could have sworn this was where I was staying.

Me, Kim, and Jen in front of Buckingham Palace 

 Photography exhibit. If you don't know who Shackleton is, look him up. Amazing story about exploring the Antarctic and nearly losing his crew.

 Distant view of London Bridge

Where I actually live... Just kidding. This is where I will live after I become rich and famous.

Referred to as "The Glass Shard". Will be the tallest building in Europe once completed.

London Bridge as we went under it in the boat.

London Tower

London Bridge at dusk

London Tower again

The walking bridge that is in a Harry Potter movie. A bit blurry.

Um... A semi circle cool looking building? I know it's something important, just can't remember.

Another important building that I should know the name of

The London Eye

Me with Big Ben in the background. Props to the front facing LCD on my camera.

Me with the London Eye in the background

Coolest picture of Big Ben ever... and yes I took it.

Not the coolest picture of the London Eye... and yes I took it.

So that's it on my massive pile of pictures I had to show you all. I might post the outtake pictures on my Facebook sometime. In the meantime, Cheers!