Hey everyone!! This past week and a half has been pretty busy for me!
First off, life in Valencia and school are still great; as we come to the close of the semester, we are now preparing for exams, presentations, etc. These will, aside from participation points, be our grades for the semester... So, it's imperative that I do well!!! The class that I am most nervous about is Literature just because we have a lot of information to remember about the time periods we studied and the literature in those time periods. But, as long as I study I should be fine. We have an oral presentation in culture class and that shouldn't be bad as long as I properly prepare for it... That's the kicker :) My conversation and composition classes shouldn't be bad because our teachers for those classes have been amazing--definitely my two favorite classes.
In general, my day-to-day life in Valencia other than school goes like this:
-Breakfast at my house--piece of toast with peanut butter (she just surprised us last week with it...so exciting!!), yogurt, and coffee
- School from 9:15-11; 11:30-1:15
- Lunch at 2 (either she makes us a sandwich in the morning and we take it with us or we come home for lunch)
- ISA office to do homework and hang out with friends
- Either go get Sangria, continue to hang out in the ISA office, walk around, or shop
- Dinner at home at 9
- Either go out to get drinks or just hang out in our house (Samantha and I) and watch Criminal Minds--my new tv show obsession
- Go to bed
Usually on Fridays ISA takes us on mini-excursions or does stuff with us around Valencia. But, these past few weeks I’ve been gone on Fridays.
This past Friday I flew out of Valencia at 6 AM to Madrid to meet my big in my sorority, Rachael. VT gives us a week off for Thanksgiving so she's here visiting me this week! It was SO refreshing and awesome to see someone from home. We were in the Madrid airport for a few hours before our flight to London, and Rachael had brought me Christmas socks/jewelry from my mom and our sorority family (my Grand-big and twin) had made a care-package for me with more Christmas socks and jewelry, some Christmas candy, tinsel, and Christmas lights. That was amazing!!
Our flight to London was about 2 hours and we flew into the Luton airport. So, from there we had to train it to London Center (St. Pancras International). Our hostel was in Bloomsbury (the university area near Russel Square) and it's pretty close to St. Pancras/Kings Cross. Our hostel was nice, but not as nice as the Sevilla Inn Backpackers we stayed at in Sevilla. When we got to our hostel, we were starving so we went to a Starbucks-like shop to get coffee and they had this amazing freshly made food. I got a cranberry/pistacio/brie cheese sandwich. It was phenomenal and so much better than a huge sub-like sandwich with 3 pieces of turkey and cheese on it (typical Spanish "bocadillo" aka sub).
From there, we just kind of walked around. We meandered down Oxford Street and all the shopping around that area. Then, we made our way over to Picadilly, which is like Times Square and then found the Picadilly markets which had some really cool stuff. We walked around the theatre district of Shaftesbury Avenue. It was weird, though, because the sun sets SUPER early there, so at like 5 it felt like 8 or 9. When it was actually around 8 we went back to the hostel and went to a nearby pub for dinner. We got fish and chips, obviously, and this awesome mixed drink. Then, we got some hot apple cider and went back to the hostel and passed out.
The next morning we woke up around 8:30 and had breakfast at the hotel. Then, we went to Starbucks because they have CHRISTMAS FLAVORS there :) So, I got myself a Peppermint Mocha! I can now officially take that off my list of "first meals" when I get back home. From Starbucks, we walked down to the Thames and across the Waterloo Bridge. We walked over to the London Eye (just to see it up close, not go on it--too expensive). On the way there, we stopped at the South Hampton Christmas Markets that were happening on the Thames. Then, we crossed the Westminster Bridge and got some great pictures of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. We decided to do the Houses of Parliament tour, which was awesome because our tour guide was this sassy woman who loved Rachael and me (because we laughed at all her jokes and pretty much everything she said). Before the tour started though, we sat in the park next to the Houses of Parliament and watched the boats go by on the Thames--beautiful! The leaves are all different colors there, so that was awesome too! The Tour lasted about an hour and a half and then we went over to Westminster Abbey. We didn't go in because there was a huge line/a little expensive; but, the outside of it is gorgeous, like everything in London. From there, we walked to Buckingham Palace, took lots of pictures of it and of the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of it--that was all really cool. Then, we walked from there to Trafalgar Square where we climbed on the lion statues and I pretended to be J.K. Rowling at the HP 7 Part 2 London Premiere (it was in Trafalgar). And, in Trafalgar is the huge countdown to the summer Olympics!! Very cool. By this time it was around 3:30-4 and we were pretty hungry so we went to this pub near Trafalgar, called the Princess Pub. I got some delicious hot chocolate and grilled chicken with salad--so good!! Then, we walked back to the hostel to rest/get ready for the pub crawl we were going to go on that night. The crawl started at 7:30 at a bar near Liecester Square off of Charings Cross Road and with everyone, we went to 5 pubs total and ended at a dance place--it was SO much fun! We met an Australian girl and guy who were studying in Dublin and a brother and sister from Michigan; we had a great time with all of them! Pretty much the whole time we were chanting "U-S-A" or "Aussie Aussie Aussie, AY AY AY" all night, being the obnoxious Americans and Australians we are. It wasn't until the last place we realized that the Aussies were in our hostel as well; so we walked home with them around 2 AM. We all crashed when we got home because it was kind of a far walk and our feet were killing us from walking around all day.
The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at another Starbucks-like place called Pret a Manger. From there, we walked to Hyde Park intending to stop at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland (Christmas village/market/land in Hyde Park) really quick and then go Speaker's Corner but when we got there, the I got too side-tracked in Winter Wonderland that we never made it over to Speaker's Corner. Winter Wonderland was so cool--it made me SO freaking excited for Germany and it's true Christmas villages. Anyway, we then walked all over Hyde Park and went to the Peter Pan statue and Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, which was so pretty. In Hyde Park, there are tons of people walking dogs and people with their kids on scooters--which I've now come to realize is such a good idea because it's distracting for the kids/makes them move faster/you don't have to carry them--aka it's full proof as long as they're wearing a helmet. So, we then walked back through Hyde Park and took a bus, yes double-decker, to Trafalgar. From there, we walked to St. Paul's Cathedral. I think I like this kind of cathedral, on the inside at least--with white marble and lots of light, more than Gothic Cathedrals (gothic cathedrals are really cool on the outside though). Right outside of the Cathedral, guess what we found--OCCUPY LONDON. I'm not going to lie, it was kind of annoying; I know the Cathedral is near the Banking District, but really? In front of a cathedral? Really?..
Anyway, from there we walked across the Millennium Foot Bridge (the one they destroy in Harry Potter 6). Then, we walked to see the Gerkin (Egg shaped building) and walked some more through the Banking District. After this, we tried to find the road that would take us to the Tower Bridge but our map wasn't showing the small side streets that we were on so we got to the London Bridge and got a picture of the Tower Bridge from there.. At this point, it was around 4 and once again, our feet were dead so we were planning on busing it back to our hostel. But, because the map didn't show small side streets and our bus was on a diverted route, we couldn't find a stop. We got a little lost, and usually I don't really like getting lost, but it was so pretty that I didn't care at all--surprise of the year! While we were lost, I got a picture in a telephone booth--it smells like pee in there though so I got out kind of quickly. Finally though, I found a street that was on the map and we were like 10 blocks from the hostel, which for me wasn’t worth taking a bus so I got us close to the hostel but we had to stop for something to eat; so, we stopped at a Pizza Express (it was really good)! When we got back to our hostel after eating, we ran into the Aussies and decided to go ice-skating in Winter Wonderland with them around 7. Until then we just hung out with them in the hostel common room. And then we walked over to Hyde Park once again; however, what I thought had only been a 30 minute walk that morning was definitely like 50 minutes, even though it felt like an hour and half because all four of us were exhausted. So, when we finally got there we all practically kissed the ground. Winter Wonderland was so pretty all lit up at night though, so it was worth the walk!! We got our skating tickets and had to wait for our session to start, but I loved everything (the sounds, the Christmas music, the smell)! We ended up being the last skating session of the night (all sessions last an hour). It was really cool because there was a band in the middle of the rink and they played a mix of acapella songs and Christmas music. As for ice-skating, I now remember why I haven’t skated since middle school. It took me a good 2 laps to get the confidence to move from the outside to the middle. Although I’m a chicken, it was really fun and despite my near 100 falls, I never actually fell—shocking! The best part, besides hanging out with Rachael and the Aussies was that there were a few very attractive British guys as the Ice Marshals; unfortunately, I wasn’t the worst skater there so I never got “taught” to learn to skate…dumb move on my part there. I’ve definitely realized that there is a HUGE difference between European guys and British guys, as the latter is much more attractive 95% of the time. Anyway, after the skating session ended, Winter Wonderland was closing so we left and decided to take the Tube home because we literally could no longer walk. At this point, all of us are pretty hungry because we didn’t really eat dinner and the ice-skating was kind of a work out 1. Trying not to fall 2. Actually trying to be speedy at some points; so, we went to McDonalds because the Aussies love it. While there, we met up with one of their other friends from Boston who was also studying in Dublin. It was so fun hanging out with all of them. I really loved my time in London.
The next morning we had to get up a little earlier to catch the train to the airport and fly out. When we got to St. Pancras, I tried to go to Kings Cross but it was impossible to get across the lanes of traffic to see the outside of the building and if I wanted to get on the platforms (which obviously I would have wanted to do) we would have had to pay for it.. L that’s ok, I am absolutely going to go back to London and when I do I’ll get my Platform 9 and ¾ picture! So, when we got to Luton airport we flew back to Madrid but we had about a 6 hour lay over from that flight until we flew back to Valencia so we went to the Holiday Inn Express (where Rachael is staying when she goes back to Madrid Saturday) so she could store one of her bags there the rest of this week while she was in Valencia and get it when she goes back. We sat in their comfy chairs and relaxed/used the internet for a while and then went back to the airport. When we got to the airport, we ate dinner and just waited for our flight. The flight to Valencia is like 30 minutes tops so it’s not bad at all. We got home around midnight and I dropped Rachael off at her hotel and I came home and passed out.
I truly, truly LOVED London. So far, it’s the first place on my list that I definitely want to return to in Europe. Now, I haven’t been to Germany so we will see if it’s still number 1 after that trip but as of now, it absolutely is. Don’t get me wrong, I love Spain and I LOVE Valencia, but London, was just truly amazing. Everything I saw I would absolutely go see again any day and I would want to see so much more that I didn’t get to see.
As for this week in Valencia, Rachael and walked around and I showed her the Center City and she shopped, we went to the City of Arts and Sciences to see the buildings and just hung out at one of our favorite cheap bars both Tuesday and Wednesday night. On Wednesday night, though, we went to the Valencia vs. Belgium Fútbol game—so much fun. Valencia won 7-0 J
Then, last night was Thanksgiving and our ISA directors set up a dinner at a restaurant they rented out for the night. Because Thanksgiving is such a big deal in the US, they always do this for the American students. It was so nice! I mean we only had turkey, mashed potatoes, and a little bit of cranberry sauce (and the world’s worst pumpkin pie) but it was so nice of them to try to make it seem like home. There were people who were homesick yesterday; I definitely missed people. But then, for most of us, more so what was worse than not being home on a holiday like this was that the speeches the directors gave pretty much made all of us cry because all of the time we’ve spent here has literally been incredible. All of our directors agreed in their speeches that we were one of the best groups they’d had and they really wanted to thank us for a great semester. Then, some of the people in our group gave speeches about how amazing their time has been and we were all tearing up… I have no idea how we are going to handle the bus ride to Madrid and the goodbyes in the airport. It’s just hard because the majority of friends and family back home live close but all of us live in different states and we’re going to go from seeing each other everyday to not, in one day.
Like I said earlier, as we come to the end of our time here, I am definitely really excited to come home and see everyone but it is SO bittersweet because I don’t want to leave any of the friends I’ve made here.
So, these next three weeks are going to be crazy with schoolwork, traveling, trying to spend as much time with each other as possible! But this weekend we are in Granada with ISA. Then, next weekend we go to Germany and then it’s our last full weekend here, then we come home the next Friday/Saturday! So weird!
Post pictures of London, Valencia futbol game and Thanksgiving soon!
