photo recap

I'm horrible at documenting my trips. I apologize. Luckily, my friend Taylor snapped a couple of pictures during our adventures. 

Last week we went on a walk along the Thames river and stopped by the Globe theater.

We also met up with Emily, who happened to be my best friend in junior high. Small world!

This weekend, we took another trip to Windsor. 

And Taylor took a picture of the inside of the castle, which is definitely not allowed.

excuse the m.i.a

I know I started this blog to keep you updated on my life in England, but life's been going to well here that it keeps me from blogging. I love it here, and the people that I have met. I am one HAPPY girl.

lack of posts

I realize I've been seriously lacking with updates, I apologize.


Also, I've been horrible at taking pictures, but I promise you, it's been going great. I've been spending most of my free time in the city and touring all the museums. I was lucky enough to meet a great friend and run into someone from my youth (seriously,what are the odds of that?!), and I've been spending most of my time with them. Within the past week, I've gone to the National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, London Bridge, the V&A Museum, the Science Museum and the National History Museum. It's been a blast and my museum junky self has been filled with knowledge. I've also managed to become pro with the Tube and getting around London, which has been very helpful. Also, the past couple of days have been freezing here! My Arizona-body can't handle this!


As far as lectures go, they've been kicking my butt and have been up to my neck with reading. But, I'm hoping all this hard work will help me with my Shakespeare understanding.


I pinky promise I will force myself to take more pictures this week!

i'm not dead

I'm not dead, I swear. Just far too busy hitting the books right now. I promise updates and pictures soon! 

dear america

dear america,
you've been fairly kind to me for the past 19 years, but no offense, I don't ever want to come home. The UK is treating me way better than you ever have. I love it here!


Sincerely,
me

question of the day

to buy or not to buy?

I mean, my feet would look great in these babies. And since it rains here VERY often, they would come in handy, right? 

oh, Steve Madden, you kill me. 

first day of school recap

today was not so good of a day.

it was stressful.

i got lost.

i was late.

and i was cold.
but luckily, journal entering has turned out to be a great stress reliever.

so, instead of boring you with my whiny stories about my super bad first day of class, I leave you with this.

i love it here! even when i have days like this, i wouldn't want to be anywhere else. 

i can relate

I can totally relate to this video, this has been my life since I arrived!

my love/hate relationship with Shakespeare

When I first decided to come to the UK to study, my focus was shakespeare. I mean, there is not a more perfect place to study his work, duh! So my crazy little self enrolled herself in two shakespeare classes in very high levels here at Royal. I figured it wouldn't be all that hard......boy was I wrong. The classes here make my literature classes back in the States seem like a complete joke. My reading lists for the week are comparable to the reading lists for the entire semester back in Arizona. Basically, what I am trying to say is that I already have no life and my life will now be consumed by Shakespeare and his material poetic buddies. Don't take me wrong, I love me some Shakespeare, his work does not compare. But, as I am sitting in the library staring at the massive amounts of reading I have, I really despise him.

i shall become THE shakespeare master, fingers crossed.

time readjustment

I woke up at 4 PM today, which meant the sun had already gone down, which meant that I never saw the sun today. That's a problem. I really need to get adjusted to the time difference, it's killing me. 

On a better note, I walked to and back from campus yesterday without looking at my map once! Success! 

Now, I must get back to my HUGE load of assigned reading. The British take their English literature very seriously... 

Cheers!

Windsor Castle

The International office was nice enough to take all the international students to Windsor today. And all for FREE! We took off this morning and spent the entire day touring the castle and the city of Windsor. We managed to squeeze some shopping time in. I was desperate to find a blow dryer and straightener so I don't have to deal with this fro anymore! We scored a delicious lunch at Wagamama's. I seriously recommend it, I think they have a few locations back in the States. We headed back to Egham in the afternoon, I was so drained, I fell asleep as soon as I got home. By tomorrow, I will finally have my phone working here, it's been so weird not having a phone. I will be headed to Staines tomorrow, it's a town right next to Egham. We're going to check it out and see what we find. The semester starts on Monday, but I got lucky and ended up with no classes on Monday!

The castle was absolutely beautiful, we got to tour the inside. Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed inside. But I can assure you, it was pretty!

welcome to royal holloway

On my way to "Uni", as the British like to call it, I decided to take a quick little video to show you how magnificent my campus is. Every time I walk up to it, it still surprises me. Luckily, Egham decided to have very nice weather today, and even showed me the sun for the first time since my arrival! 

fyi: it's super bumpy, i'm sorry I am not a very good videographer!

I also snapped some quick shots before leaving to Windsor.

this one came out blurry, sorry!

home sweet home

Wednesday was a challenge. My day began with some last minute packing early in the morning, then a 6 hour drive to LAX (I was far too broke to fly out of Phoenix). Luckily, we had some time to kill in LA before I had to be at the airport, so my brother and I cruised around LA awing the trees and the beach. 


After a quick lunch, we headed to the airport, where I had to deal with a ridiculous amount of fees for my check on bags. Seriously, it should not cost $200 to check in luggage! I then had to say goodbye to my brother and escape from his prying (Sorry if you're reading this, and stop crying!) I had to go on to the security checkpoint all by my lonesome self and wait for my plane to leave. I was extremely lucky to have such a great plane ride. It was my first time flying on Virgin Atlantic, and I was very impressed. The plane was huge and had a sit down bar at the front, and beds to sleep in upper class!? Luckily, I had 4 seats to myself and was able to lay down. And not to mention, they had awesome movies on board, so of course instead of sleeping, I entertained myself the entire 10 hours of flight. 


The whole experience didn't hit me until I arrived at Heathrow and went up to customs and had to fight my way into the UK. The Border Agency agent was hesitant to give me a visa since I don't have a set return date. I had to promise over and over that I would leave within the time allowance that my visa permits. Luckily, I was pretty good at convincing her, and I was finally given that wonderful little stamp in my passport, followed by a last minute evil glare from the agent. 


Getting my luggage was a nightmare, but fortunately people took pity on me while I was trying to haul around three 50 pound bags and helped me out. And thanks to my awesome landlord, she had a nice taxi man with a huge sign with my name on it, waiting to take me home. My roommates were very welcoming and helped me settle into my new ikea filled bedroom. Seriously, every single piece of furniture in here is from ikea. Long live the Swedish. I began unpacking, but my lack of sleep overtook me and I fell asleep on my bed, without a blanket because of course, I forgot to bring bedding. Awesome right? My roommates had some friends over and I was introduced to everyone. Then we all ordered take-away, no, not take-out, it's called take-away here. Get on with it people. We had some delicious Indian food and hung out for the rest of the night.


I went to sleep fairly late, which was a big mistake, because I had to get up nice and early for orientation today. I got myself all bundled up and what I thought was prepared, however, half way on my walk to campus, it decided to start raining. It started with a drizzle, so I figured I could handle it. So I kept on walking slowly oooing and aaaing all the cute houses in my neighborhood. But sure enough, it kept raining harder and harder, until I was booking it to get to campus. It was a fun-filled, extremely informative and overwhelming kind of day. We had several presentations to attend to get us oriented around campus and to wipe off that lost puppy look on our faces we all had. Hopefully it worked, I might still have the look for another couple of days. I met my advisors and got my class "timetable" aka my schedule. (I've learned quite a bit of English lingo today) 


My new friends and I walked to to Egham center in the afternoon (well it felt more like 10 PM since the sun had been down for hours already, I blame you AZ and your abundance of sunshine!) We had our first British pub experience. I must say it was quite awkward. I don't know if I have American written all over my face, or if I just looked completely lost, but everyone's eyes seemed to migrate towards us as we walked in. The staring continued, and it probably didn't help when we had to ask how to order food and what a "jacket" was (baked potato). After dinner we headed to the famous Tesco here in Egham. I had a long shopping list, with a duvet as my #1 thing to buy! After an hour of wandering around, I got some groceries and headed back home. 


Seeing as I have to be up in 8 hours, it's time for me to hit the sack (that's super American, I need to learn the British way of saying that). 


Greetings from Englefield Green!
Maggie 

lessons in the past 24 hours

Even though I have only been in England for 24 hours, there are many things I have already learned.


1. If the weather forecast says it's going to rain, IT WILL RAIN. Unlike the lying weathermen we have in AZ, they mean it here.
2. If the weather forecast says it's going to rain, it will rain ALL day. 
3. If google maps tells you it will take 7 minutes to walk to campus, allow an extra 45 minutes to wander around and figure out where in the world you are, and time to stop and awe at all the cute houses in your neighborhood.
4. A "jacket" is a baked potato.
5. My school looks like Hogwarts.
6. I feel like Harry Potter.
7. If you ask someone where the restroom is, they will have no idea what you are talking about. I now call it the "toilet".
8. If your signature on your receipt does not match your signature on your id EXACTLY, the big man behind the register will not let you buy anything. 
9. If you wander around in a grocery store completely lost, eventually, a nice man will come help you and tell you where the fresh milk is.
10. Canada has really cool people, and luckily they sent me an awesome friend who is traveling to Budapest with me.


It was a LONG day.


I have yet to take a picture, or see the sun for that matter....
But I promise that I will have some tomorrow, we are going to Windsor castle for the day! 
And don't let this post fool you, I love it here!! 

arrival

I've officially arrived. Details will be coming soon!

Apt 228

Dear Apt 228,

Where do I even begin? You have been so good to me. I moved into this place not knowing what to expect. I had 2 random roommates, and I feared it would not go well. But, boy was I wrong. You girls have become my best friends. I will miss our 3 am runs to Texanos, Filibis, and Oliveos. I will miss our awesome convos about the men in our lives. I will miss our chicken nugget obsession. I will miss our adventurous nights together. I will miss our late night talks with Chris the security guard. And the several encounters we had with the po po this year... haha. I will miss our movie nights in our snuggies and the endless parties we had in this place. Even though the 3 of us will be in separate countries for a while, I know that we will stay close, because I will definitely be skyping you ALL the time. I can't wait till next year! We will have the most rocking condo ever!

Love,

Maggie 

11 for 2011

1. have the time of my life in london. 

2. meet as many new friends as possible

3. visit spain, france, italy, ireland, czech republic, greece, germany, and as many other countries as possible

4. stay close with my roomies!

5. run a half marathon (okay maybe....)

6. skydive

7. walk down abbey road

8. stay in the louvre for an ENTIRE day

9. continuously write in my journal

10. manage to not get lost TOO many times

11. come back with many memories