london calling



1. Covent Garden

2. Pretty shops around Covent Garden

3. Hog Roast at the market

4. Union Jack pride
5. Emily, me, Heather, Kim
6. Nelson's Column at Trafalgar Square

7. Fountain in front of Buckingham Palace

8. The Queen's pad
9. The London Eye
10. Ticket to our first play
11. Getting my fortune told
12. Hanging from one of the tunnels
13. Disco ceiling above the rollerskating girls in hot pants (what)

As you can probably tell by the cheesy title and pictures, yesterday we went into London for the first time!

We had introductory classes first for an hour and a half in the one room schoolhouse, ate our lunch cooked by Nick the chef, and walked the ten minutes it took to get the train. The road was lined with beautiful shrubbery and cherry trees. Of course it was.
The train was cleaner than I expected (sorry any Englishfolk reading this, but I had low expectations for some reason), and the scenery was lovely along the way. Rivers and fields and cows. Not too shabby. We got off at Liverpool Street Station, where we headed underground to take the tube. We took two; after the first one we headed down a bunch of escalator and stairs and someone ever so kindly pointed out "we just keep going further and further underground don't we?". Thanks pal. That's comforting.
Anyways, I survived the tube and we walked out into Covent Garden, which was packed with people. It was gorgeous out, hot and sunny. Where's all the rain London? Although I'm certainly not complaining.
We wandered around for a bit before heading off to Trafalgar Square. We passed through Leicester Square on the way but didn't stop. When we got to Trafalgar Square there was some Olympic Event going on that had the whole Square blocked up, so I sadly didn't get a picture of Aslan the giant lions.
Next we headed through a beautiful park where there were gigantic trees, squirrels, ducks, geese, shrubbery shaped like the Queen's crown.. it was beautiful (you'll probably be sick of me using the word beautiful by the end of these three months. I need a thesaurus).
We stopped in front of Buckingham Palace for a few minutes. I had to run in really quick and pick up some DVD's from Liz.
By this time we were all starving so we headed toward the riverbank to have dinner at Wagamama. The London Eye is gigantic, jeez. I imagined it as sort of a ferris wheel, maybe a bit bigger? Um, no. It's massive. Each pod is like the size of my old apartment. They look terrifying to go up in but I'm obviously going to have to do it at some point while I'm here.
Dinner was fast and delicious. We had a little bit of time to explore the waterfront before heading to the play, so me and few girls went and grabbed an ice cream from a not unattractive guy in an ice cream van who told us we should go to Brick Lane to party. So now that's on my list. Thanks, attractive ice cream guy.
Our final stop for the night was the play, Carnesky's Tarot Drome. Um. What. We wandered away from the riverbank and ended up in some grafittied tunnels where the entrance of the play was. We walked into a tunnel to the entrance room, which was a gigantic wrestling ring set up. After a strange introduction with a man and a woman in silver glittery showgirl outfits, we were told to wander through the tunnels to see the tarot cards in real life.
I'm not really sure what it was all about, to be honest. One woman was rubbing dirt all over herself. Another sang really creepily and handed out scrolls with odd fortunes on it which read more like facebook statuses than predictions. I got a stamp on my hand from a shaky woman in a unitard that said 05 APRIL 2018. Not entirely sure what that date is for.
After some time wandering in the tunnels we were invited back into the wrestling ring room where a wrestling match was about to happen. At this point I got kicked in the face by one of the wrestlers. That was nice. I have a bruise on my nose as a sovenier. Thanks!
The play ended with a rock bank and women rollerskating around wearing sparkly hot pants. So, there was that.
We took the train back into Harlow, and I debated going for a pint at the Crown but honestly all I could do was crawl into bed. 11 hours of walking and a kick in the face really did me in.

england, finally!

I'm here!

After four long (really long) summer months, I have finally arrived in England. It's pretty damn good to be here, I'm not going to lie. The plane ride here was pretty eh. We flew overnight, so at first I was thinking oh, perfect! I always sleep sooo well on planes! Well, no. Barely slept at all. Watched a bit of Brave, was served some questionable pancakes (the wine made up for them), and a few hours and a three and a half hour time change later I was in England! I was pretty surprised how quickly and smoothly we got through security, got our bags and were out of customs. Not sure what gave me the idea that we'd be there for hours but the whole thing probably took less than an hour.

We got on our bus after (which had a picture of a flying nun on it) and cruised to campus on the left side of the road. I swear, the Harlow campus looks like it was taken straight from a picture book. Actually, all of Old Harlow does. The houses and trees all have lush vines crawling up the sides, there's an old graveyard behind our house and the little brick houses have beautiful flower beds in front with tiny iron gates at the end of the gardens. I didn't get many pictures yet but since I'll be here for three more months I figure I might take one or two another day. You know, maybe.

After being shown to our rooms we had a quick campus tour. Like I said, it's beautiful here. We wandered around and then went to Tesco for groceries, where I spent about a half hour looking for oats. They're in the cereal aisle, in case you find yourself in the same predicament I was in.
We got the bus to the mall (basically an outdoor square with a bunch of stores around the edges), where I bought a purse at Primark. Oops. We also found a 99p store and the public library. A successful trip, I'd say.

After returning to the Maltings and unpacking we headed downstairs for dinner. There were a bunch of salads set out, and after a few minutes they opened the door to heaven the kitchen. Hot turkey, potato fries, stuffed peppers, fresh bread, english dressing, cauliflower, carrots, every kind of fruit imaginable, strudels, pastries.. Clearly I won't starve to death here or anything.

Auditions followed dinner in the one room school house just across the road. Let's just say my audition featured me standing on a chair. Not behind the chair like I was instructed. On the chair. I was just a little tired at this point. I went back to my room and promptly fell asleep.

And that was my first day in England.

(For some reason my Rebel won't work, so pictures on this are going to be from my iPhone for the first few days. Just so you know.)