Continued adventures...

                                        

                                               Wales


First off... I found two amazing discoveries. 

One: A DANCE STUDIO!!!! I found the most amazingggg dance studio in Covent Gardens which is a beautiful area only a tube ride away, and I couldn't be more excited. It is huge with TWELVE different studios offering different classes seven days a week.The classes range from normal Jazz which is what I took all the way to..."sensual salsa," "Michael Jackson style," "Street Flava," and "Egyptian dance". I think I'll stick to the jazz and ballet classes. Everyone there is around my age or mid 20s and it's at a good challenging level for me...needless to say it's exactly what I've been looking for (for the past three years!). So although I am extremely sore and can barely walk since I've taken the class last Thursday.. I'm going back tonight and plan on going a few times a week, and I'm very happy about that!!

Two: A Whole Foods. Although it's a little bit of a commute, the second I walked in I was in gluten free heaven. I've searched high and low at grocery stores all over and have yet to find a cereal I can eat, but here I had four different options!!! It's huge, and is worth going to just to eat at the cafe. So that was very exciting and I will be making my way over there (in Kensington) often. 

Last Wednesday I went to my first play for my performing arts class. It was part of a "Young Writer's Circle," which is putting on a bunch of plays written by...you guessed it... young writers. I was wrong to judge the show upon entering the theater when I saw it was just three rows of seats on each side of the stage, probably seating no more than 75 people, which is something I have never experienced before. The show was called "Shades" and really shed light onto a new side of Islam that I had never thought of before. You must know that my school is probably half Muslim. The city of London has a huge population of Muslims and you see primarily religious Muslims with the head-wraps (not to mention only one side to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). Anyway...the show was about a young non-religious Muslim woman who falls in love with a religious Muslim man. It talks about the difficulties of being non-religious in a primarily religious atmosphere. She talks about how she doesn't believe you should have to wear a head scarf to show you are religious, and fights for her beliefs although she is willing to change them to be with a more religious man. Also in the show her roommate is a young gay Muslim man, who refuses to talk about it, scared that his family will not understand. It was very interesting...  extremely radical, very entertaining (it was actually pretty laugh-out-loud funny at times) and a really good experience overall. Next week we are seeing Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew," which is supposed to be great!

Last Saturday Michael and I went on a day trip to Cardiff, Wales. We had way too much time in Bath..so we decided to make it a shorter day trip which was definitely not enough time...can't seem to get it right yet. Imagine a big city American football game-day atmosphere and multiply that by like 25. It just so happened to be the England vs. Wales Rugby match that night in Wales, and these people are rugby CRAZYYYY. I put a picture up of the line to one of the bars...and this was how the lines were to EVERY bar from about 11 am on...and this was a 6:00 in the evening game. It was a really cool atmosphere to be in, and although we thought about trying to find tickets, it seemed basically impossible and even so they would have been around 70 pounds. It definitely would have been an experience though...and I hope to go to either a rugby or "football" match in England soon!

   

We climbed to the top of this castle which is a huge part of Cardiff.  The main castle which you can see in a picture above was unfortunately closed for an event . They said that the castle holds big events often..including something a couple years ago for the Queen and Nelson Mandela, and it also holds big concerts. The whole courtyard is absolutely beautiful. It was too bad we didn't have more time, because there are a lot more castles in Wales that we weren't able to see, but this wassss a fun climb up. There are lots of old staircases, windows, and crevices mostly made for protection factors. 

Best find of the day: a Neili-sized window in the castle. Michael was jealous, as you can see.

and some more pictures of Wales..

The Rugby Stadium
The line for one of the bars
Inside the Cardiff Castle courtyard

It was a very beautiful city...weird that they speak a different language only two hours away!

Last but not least, I must tell you that today was actually somewhat warm. I know it' s been semi-warm in the US... so warm is really a relative term. But the high was 50 today and I was sweating in my peacoat! YAY.

Cheers!

It snows in London..?

Yes, it snowed, and one thing this city does NOT have is snow ploughs. Thus, the entire city shut down. No tube, no buses nothing. The city apparently lost some 2 billion pounds, which is pretty funny considering the roads were CLEAR. "Most snow seen in 18 years...?" Really?? because it  snowed no more than about 5 inches... although I must admit that a. it was very beautiful and b. I was excited that (unlike madison) classes were cancelled! It really only snowed the one day though.. and I'm being optimistic that the weather is getting better. I think we've hit the coldest, which wasn't even that cold.. so I'm ready for no jacket weather now!!

                                     

Okay rewind a little bit...last weekend I went with Michael and our friend Ross to Bath...which just so happened to be pretty much like it sounds. An ancient city marked by lots of Roman baths. They are hot water springs that fell as rain about 10,000 years ago, and are still 115 degrees. There are 40 or so minerals in the water, which in medieval times was helpful for curing paralysis and other diseases.  You can see the steam rising which is kind of cool..?

(This is a cute little area of apartments called "The Circus" in Bath)

So, it was very neat seeing the baths themselves, however an entire day in the city of Bath was a little too much...it really is a beautiful place, but in the freezing cold (it just so happened to be the coldest day we've had so far), it was a long day. We were so cold (and bored) that we went to see Milk which was amazing. 

I also went to the Borough Market with some friends which was absolutely amazing. I would love to go at least once every couple weeks to buy fruit and things. I loved the atmosphere, and I bought entirely way too much chocolate. 

homemade chocolate truffles.. I couldn't resist.

  As (I think) I mentioned before I'm in a class        called "Historic London," in which every Wednesday we take a different field trip. Last week we had our first trip which was to Shakespeare's famous "Globe" Theater. It is a pretty accurate replica of the original, which unfortunately burnt down. They do have a spring show season, which hopefully I will get the chance to see!

And last but not least.. in honor of my lovely father from when I went to the wax museum...

 

                                         

                                   Cheers!

Getting Settled

I apologize for the delay.. I've been meaning to find a way to get my pictures up (left that little thing at home) and wanted to wait so I could post some pictures, but you'll just have to keep checking back! Crazy, it has almost been two weeks! Things are going pretty well.. I cooked my first successful meal EVER tonight (obviously had mom on the phone the whole time..), but I made my self a delicious salmon, and could not be more excited. Don't forget I'm straight out of the sorority house, so this is new to me..:) I've been meeting people here and there that go to my school through orientation and classes too, so that has been nice. For the international students' first big welcome we had a 'cheese and wine' party, not to be confused with wine and cheese. They claim we say it in the wrong order. Anywayyy. free wine and cheese while meeting people, so it was fun!

Classes started this week and although  I was very sick on Monday ( I'm allergic to gluten AND the water here apparently..very exciting) I jumped right into things on Tuesday. Now you must understand classes work a little differently here. In the US there are 2-3 lectures plus a discussion each week for a class. Here..there is one lecture and sometimes a 'tutorial'. Therefore, I have class Monday-Wednesday and am already enjoying my four day weekend, so that is pretty great to say the least. I'm taking a class called 'Performing Arts in London' in which we are going to see about 10 different shows..mostly plays but one ballet and an opera as well so that will be amazing. I am also take 'Historic London'...might as well take the cultural classes while I'm here right?...in which we don't even have class but instead go on field trips once a week. I'm very excited to start learning about this massive city, I haven't had very much chance to explore yet!

Last week I saw Avenue Q which was absolutely hilarious, didn't expect it to be so funny, but I laughed the entire time. If you haven't heard of it, it more or less makes fun of Sesame Street the entire show. So I really enjoyed that. I think the next show on my list has to be either Jersey Boys or Dirty Dancing..or Billy Elliot..and obviously Wicked for a third time. Hey, for the student price of 20 pounds a show you can see like 7 for the price of one Broadway show! 

On the day of the inauguration the wax museum let Americans in free which was very cool and extremely impressive. People LOVE Barak here, it's great. It is extremely easy to keep myself updated on American news/celebrities..they loveee it here. Anyway, last weekend I went with Michael to the Portobello Market in Notting Hill which was really neat. Lots of antiques, clothes and jewelry, and we both picked up some delicious fresh fruit. I think I decided I want to move to Notting Hill when I retire.. it really is the nicest cutest little area. This weekend we are going to the famous Bourough Market, which I think is primarily food so that should be good. We are also going to Bath which is supposed to be beautiful so hopefully I will have pictures up by then! Check back in soon!

Cheers :)

Neili

I MADE IT!

I'm here! Bags and everything!! I am very grateful to have had the wonderful Libby (one of my best friends from high school who is also studying abroad) and Michael drag my giant bags across London, there is absolutely no way I could have done it myself. It really is a beautiful city, and in three days I've only gotten poured on once. I've  seen the sun twice now  which is good news to me! The people here are SO nice..and more then willing to help with directions which is great.

I met up with the nine other kids in my program in Notting Hill which is where we stayed for two nights. Notting Hill is the cutest little area, and I even passed by Stella McCartney's new billion dollar home...which happens to be about half the size of our house. Last night we saw the show Complicit...if you've heard of it I would be very impressed. Richard Dreyfuss played the main character, so that's kind of cool but I honestly could not tell you what it was about (something about after 9/11...and bashing on the American media for being one sided....maybe?) Of course I would prefer a good musical over a play any day, which I will not be passing up with the amazing student prices they have! Anyway.. that was weird. Then, I went over to where Michael is living which is an absolutely beautiful area a half block away from the London Eye (the big ferris wheel, Big Ben and everything!) They have a market over in that area every day where he found me a delicious gluten-free brownie! 

I moved into my room today which is close to an area called Islington. It's extremely old and has lots of neat artsy shops and stores.. very different from the two other parts I've been in. However, there is STILL at least one Starbucks every two blocks...no exaggeration there. It's a little sad, ha. Me and a couple kids from my program spent the entire day today figuring out the bus system, which is wonderful now that I know how to use it!  And my room.. I'll just say it will be very very cosy. There are about ten other kids on my flat and I am hoping to meet them tomorrow!

That's all for now!

Love, Neili