I can’t believe I’m back in NYC and this experience is over.

I spent my last week trying to catch up on the sights that I didn’t get to see. Sunday was full of walking and museum touring; I hit up Tate Modern and checked out their awesome collections of Miro, Picasso, and Dali. As I’ve said before, I’ve hated modern art for the longest time but after being in Europe I’ve definitely gained an appreciation for it. Afterwards, I walked across the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul’s. Because it was a Sunday, I wasn’t able to actually be a “tourist” inside the Cathedral, so I just admired from the outside and sat on its steps for awhile (enjoying the awesome weather :D). Then I walked down Fleet Street, and eventually encountered Somerset House on the Strand. I went and sat inside watching the pretty cool water display they had in the courtyard. Afterwards, I continued walking along the Strand until I got to Covent Garden and Leicester Square. It was a great day, especially since I never really took the time to walk slowly and take in all the awesome architecture London has to offer. 

On Monday, a bunch of us got up bright and early and took the train outside of London to Thorpe Park. It was an awesome amusement park and we took in practically all the rides (while dying at my hilarious picture on one of the fastest rides called the Stealth). We also got really lucky with the weather again, because it started to pour towards the end of the day when we were nearly done with all the rides. 

On Tuesday, I, along with fellow Barnardian Emily, went on a tour Salisbury and Stonehenge. I figured that was the one thing I couldn’t leave the UK without doing. It was a really good and informative tour (through LondonWalks, which I highly recommend) and Salisbury Cathedral was stunning. The entire town was just so charming, and just like Canterbury, it’s what I envision when I think of European villages. Stonehenge was also pretty awesome. I’ve heard from a lot of people that it’s underwhelming, but I thought it was pretty cool, especially when you know all the history/mystery behind it. I would’ve loved to go during one of the equinoxes or solstices because they actually let you go up to the stones…I’ll definitely make sure to do that before I die. We got back to London at around 6:45pm and I rushed to get to Camden Town to go to the Keane concert. It was at the Roundhouse Theatre which has a long history of famous performers getting their starts there. Anyway, I was ecstatic because rapper Knaan was a surprise opener (he flew in from South Africa where he was staying for the World Cup) for Keane and performed a bunch of my favorite songs. The Helio Sequence also opened and I really like them since they opened for Keane on their US leg of the Perfect Symmetry tour. Keane finally hit the stage and performed a lot of their new stuff and all their major hits. It was an epic night, especially because Tom’s voice truly is amazing and we even got to hear Tim sing (he was lovely!). It was a long and exhausting day, but totally worth every minute.

The rest of the week was spent having epic goodbye parties in our kitchen and around Dinwiddy House. The only thing I wasn’t doing was packing, which became a problem when it was 3am Thursday night and I had about 12 hours to pack before I left. Thankfully I work pretty well under pressure, so I packed, and ended up leaving with less than what I actually came with :D Saying my goodbyes was also terrible, especially since this experience can never be duplicated. I’ll definitely be back in London, but I won’t be living with same amazing flatmates and all the friends I made. I keep telling myself it’s more of a see you later than a goodbye, and I will definitely do my part to keep in touch and visit.

I still haven’t been able to fully reflect on my semester abroad but I’m sooo grateful that I got to go to London, go to SOAS, and meet the amazing friends that I’ve made. I’m also excited because I know two of my friends (Fay and Hannah) are planning on visiting New York in October :D. It’s mindboggling that six months can go by so fast, but these were the best six months of my life. I’m going to have these friends forever and more importantly, a global outlook on the world that can’t be attained by staying in the US alone. I’ve learned so much about myself, gained an immense amount of self-confidence, and have a better understanding of what it’s like to be a young person growing up in this ever globalized world.

London, it’s been a blast and I love you.

Exactly one week until I’m back =)

On Sunday, three friends (Hannah, Yuriko, and Tash!) and I came down to my flatmate Alice’s hometown of Deal in Kent. It took about and 1.5 hours by high-speed train from St. Pancras International station. Deal is the red dot on the map that’s pictured above. As you can see it’s right on the shore of the English Channel and it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s a sleepy little town with a long shoreline of pebble beaches and a seemingly endless view of the channel. It kind of reminds me of suburban parts of New Jersey. We had some great Chinese food, and anyone who knows me knows my strong distaste for Chinese food. We enjoyed an easy night in, especially since I was feeling pretty ill unfortunately.

Tuesday was great because we spent the entire day in Canterbury, which is about 40 minutes away from Deal. We took  on the shopping on the high street and it was all cobblestone. There were also lots of beautiful medieval gates and a huge medieval wall. We had some great lunch at a little cafe, continued on shopping, and then went to see the Canterbury Cathedral, which is the seat of the Church of England. It was so beautiful, with a lot of similarities to Westminster Abbey but on a much grander scale. Afterwards, we had some more dinner and spent the night out and about. We took a cab back to Deal and almost watched Avatar…it stopped working for some reason but we decided this was a sign to go to bed since it was around 4am.

I’m here until tomorrow evening and I’ll keep you updated if anything awesome happens.

Last night, I dreamed that I married Prince William…I think this is my subconscious telling me to stay in England.

I’ve been loving summertime in London. The weather has been beautiful, warm and sunny but not scorching hot. I’ve been spending lazy days out in the sun, whether it be in my dorm’s courtyard or Leicester square. The tube is absolutely awful though…it just reeks of body odor. I guess that’s a good thing because it’ll encourage me to walk everywhere. I have my only exam next Tuesday and after that I can enjoy the sun guilt free :) Also planning a trip to my flatmate Alice’s hometown of Deal in Kent and that should be fun since it’s by the water. And I also need to go to Edinburgh, so I should really get onto planning that. Other than that it should be an awesome three weeks in the UK and then back to NYC! It’s going to be bittersweet though if you ask me. I’ve made some amazing friends here and I consider London my second home (I’m seriously considering a Master’s degree here). But I’ve also missed my family and friends and NYC. We’ll see how I manage once June 18th arrives :/

If I had a nickel every time I felt second-hand embarrassment when encountering Americans in London (especially on the tube or bus), I would probably have $5 right now. Please heed the advice of this wise columnist.

GOING TO SEE KEANE IN CAMDEN ON JUNE 15th. SO EXCITED :D

Loving springtime in London and looking forward to more concerts/lazy park days.

Unfortunately, I’ve been deprived of the awesome UK music scene in NYC, but I’m quickly learning and appreciating it all. This is “Omen” by The Prodigy, a song I’ve been listening to on repeat for awhile and a group I’m growing to love.

I haven’t posted in awhile but that’s because I’m busy with my final essays. I’ll be done with those by next Wednesday (hopefully) and then I can relax until my only exam on June 1st. I just booked my return ticket home for June 18th, which means I only have a little over a month left. It’s bittersweet, but I’m going to make the best of it by creating a London bucket list (which will be posted here once I actually sit down and do it). I’m also planning on checking out other parts of the UK…mostly my flatmates’ lovely hometowns (yeah, Deal!) and definitely a trip to Edinburgh. I also plan on eventually posting pictures of my trips last month…let’s hope it’s sooner than later. I’ll promise to update with something a little more interesting next time.

I’m so happy to have gotten into London yesterday evening, especially since I managed to get the last bus ticket from Madrid to London by complete chance. When my flight was cancelled on Monday, I spent the day trying to figure out different ways of getting back online. I tried to rebook my cancelled flight, but all the airlines were only giving me flights out for Wednesday the 28th. I couldn’t be in Madrid for another week and a half, so on Tuesday I spent most of the day at the main train station in Madrid. I literally wasted my time since every person I talked to essentially told me the same thing: 1) all overnight Madrid-Paris trains were booked for seven days 2) all trains to the coast city of Santander were also booked for at least five days 3) all ferries from the main Spanish ports were booked for at least four days and 4) I could attempt to get a train into southern France, but the French rail workers were on strike so I might be stuck there. I was pretty frustrated and depressed at this point since it looked like I would not be able to get out of Spain until next week (when my classes would’ve already started and I would’ve ran out of money).

On Wednesday, I decided to try the buses since on there were no buses available according to the receptionist at my hostel on Tuesday. I found an available bus to Paris on Wednesday night and was really excited and tried to book BUT my American Mastercard didn’t work online. At this point I was practically kicking myself for not having a Visa card. Anyway, I decide to get down to the bus station in person and try to pay in cash for the same Madrid-Paris bus. I get down to the station and head to the ALSA bus booth and the woman tells me there isn’t a Madrid-Paris bus available until Saturday despite the website showing a bus available for the Wednesday night. I decided to try my luck with the Eurolines booth. I go up the woman and ask her for Madrid-Paris and she tells me there isn’t anything available until Friday. At this point, I was so peeved that I was just going to buy the Friday ticket and wait two more days in Madrid. I told her that I ultimately need to get to London…not knowing that there are buses that go straight to London via a ferry from Calais, France into Dover, UK. She then excitedly told me that there was ONE ticket left going straight to London and that this was the last ticket until Monday; someone had cancelled last minute and returned their ticket to the booth. She said she was only accepting cash so I told her to hold onto my ticket while I got cash from the ATM. I got the cash, paid for the ticket, and literally kissed and hugged that ticket. I also wanted to break through the glass and give the woman a hug but I figured that would be overkill.

At this point it was 2pm and the bus was leaving at 4pm so I rushed back to my hostel, got dressed (since I ran to the bus station in sweatpants, looking completely out of place since no one wears sweats in public in Spain), and checked out. I got to the station by 3:20pm and as I was on the escalator getting to my bus terminal, I felt someone trying to pickpocket me. At this point, I was in complete disbelief that I was about to be pickpocketed on my way home, especially since I was always pretty vigilant throughout my two weeks of travel. Thankfully I caught the guy just as he was trying to unzip my bag; I was in such a good mood about getting the last ticket to London that I couldn’t care less about yelling at the guy, all I managed to do was give him a death stare in an attempt to embarrass him. I’m pretty sure it worked since we were on an escalator going up and he had nowhere to go. I’m also pretty sure if I were in a bad mood (aka not getting a ticket to London), that guy would’ve been kicked to the bottom of the escalator at this point. Anyway, I managed to get on the bus and I said a bunch of silent thank yous to God and to everyone who wished me luck…I think I was still in shock at the prospect of actually getting to London. I sat next to this sweet Scottish woman who gave me lots of food throughout the journey :) She told me that she got her ticket on Sunday morning after waiting for a few hours. I also talked to another woman from London who said she queued for NINE hours on Saturday to get her ticket. Again, I was thanking my lucky stars at this point. Our bus driver also was terrible (took the wrong turn leaving the MADRID bus station, missed our turn to Calais in France, and nearly made us miss our ferry) but it didn’t bother me at all. Like I said before, I was just ecstatic that I was getting back and nothing could kill my mood. Twenty-six hours later and I was in London and the weather was absolutely gorgeous and everything was blooming. It was definitely the perfect way to end my epic trip across the continent. Only in Europe, baby.