Happy Holidays!

Christmas has come and gone and it is a New Years already! Since my last post...

Lauren and I parted ways for about a week while she spent Christmas with Richard and his family while I went to celebrate up in Bicester with the family friends we had Thanksgiving with. It was a great week, so nice to be in a house with a family and real food (real American food even!) for a bit. We even got a bit of snow, though it was not enough for a white Christmas.

New Years turned out to be a great time as well; Lauren and the boyfriend went out to Greenwich, while I stayed back in London with some friends from ISH. We started the night at The Albany (pub) and spent the countdown there, then took the tube to Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. After about a half hour wandering around for a good club or bar to go to, we ended up at Freedom (club) in SoHo. So much fun!

Now that it is officially 2010, I should make some sort of New Years resolution. This year, I resolve to see as much of the world as I can, meet as many people as I can, and I suppose I should probably figure out this whole grad school thing... At least most of it will be fun!

1/2 Way There...

Somehow, our first semester has come to an end already. Seems like just yesterday we were getting off the plane and trying to find our dorm on little to no sleep. Now, Christmas is in just a few days and classes for this semester are already over! I still have 2 papers to write but still...
The study abroad program here at London Met took all the abroad students out for pizza this past Monday and then for a ride on the London Eye as a farewell to the semester students. Lauren and I are hoping we can get on this again at the end of the year :)We also have been getting some snow here! Apparently that doesn't happen very often, at least not before Christmas so I think we've gotten lucky. It hasn't been cold enough to accumulate at all, but it makes it feel like winter and Christmas at least. This break has tons of potential, and I can't wait to see where it takes us!

Bath & Stonehenge

I decided to take a weekend off of writing papers and head out to see Bath. My friend and co-worker Alyssa was actually going to be back in Bath this weekend to graduate, but unfortunately we miss each other by just hours, just like when we got into England but I set off to explore the city anyway.

Bath is absolutely beautiful! I went to see the the Roman Baths, which were amazing. No spa treatments available (which is ok 'cause the water looked a bit gross) but it was cool to see. At the end of the tour you are able to 'taste' the water from the thermal spring. Weird, but ok if that's the tradition I figure I'd try it. Tasted like warm, stale water. Go figure. My last full day there I took a few hours to go and see Stonehenge. Litterally in the middle of nowhere, and then huge rocks! It was fantastic to see, such a historic and famous landmark. In real life too, not just in a picture!
Aside from the hostel I stayed in, which was nice but next time I think I'll cough up a few extra pounds to not stay in a 10 person mixed room, the trip was wonderful. Hopefully someday I'll make it back.

Hyde Park Christmas

Since I had nothing going on today, and I actually need to get books to write my last few papers (what?), I decided to go check out the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland.
They have Jager as you can see, so life is good. I did not however get any since it was expensive.
The main food and shopping area was German themed, there were brats and beer and pretzels and tons of good smelling food that I could not afford. Maybe I'll go back later and try more of it.
I did try mulled wine though, which was actually really good. I wasn't sure what to expect so the first few sips were a bit different but I liked it. That and some chocolate covered strawberries and I was good to go. They also had this massive snowman which was my favorite :)
Anyway, hopefully I will be back soon to eat more and go ice skating! Still waiting for snow... I mean really, it's December and it is 50 degrees (F) here. Amazing.

Oxford

So we took an impromptu trip to Oxford this week, which was actually really nice. Why did we go in the middle of the week you ask? Well, we went to see an organ recital... Yeah. Right. But the real reason would be this:Awwwww! So cute! The boy in the picture holding Lauren's hand, by the way, is not some guy we paid off the street for the picture, it is her new boyfriend and the organ player that we saw at the recital. All makes sense now, doesn't it? :) Good. Anyway, Oxford was nice, although rainy but what did we really expect?
Since we did go smack dab in the middle of the week and had a recital to attend to, we didn't have tons of time to go exploring but we did see a good amount of the city center area. Turns out the Queen was in Oxford that day too, but we just missed her twice by just a few minutes.
Today, which is actually Friday contrary to what this post might lead you to believe, I took off to check out some of the Christmas festivities around London. There was a 'fun fair' in Leicester Square, and a Christmas market in Covent Garden. The 'fun fair' was really just a few rides and a bunch of Christmas lights, but it was fun to walk through.
The Christmas market on the other hand was packed with people, vendors, street performers, and great food! It kinda reminded me of a holiday version of the Bazaar at the MN state fair actually. I got myself a cup of hot chocolate and walked around to take it all in. I wimped out and didn't try the mulled wine, but that is next on my list. I did, however, try a minced pie. The people here just love them. I thought it was good, but not that good...Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to check out a few more markets, and let you know the verdict on the mulled wine. Now we just need some snow, and the Christmas season will officially be upon us!

A Real Thanksgiving in Bicester

Since Thanksgiving is not celebrated in England (go figure...) Lauren and I were left wondering what in the world we were going to do for this American holiday. We saw that they were a few pubs around that offered Thanksgiving dinners, but they didn't look nearly as your typical home cooked meal.
BUT thanks to my aunt introducing us to a friend of her's from Egypt who is now stationed here in England, we were invited up to Bicester for a real, home cooked, Minnesota family Thanksgiving. It was wonderful! The family we were with were very nice, funny, and made us feel right at home. Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, and even green bean casserole for dinner, and pumpkin AND apple pie for dessert! It couldn't have been better. Not only did they offer us all this, they were even able to find us a few American grocery items that we have been missing! American Dr.Peper, chewy chips-ahoy, pop tarts, and cinnamon toast crunch! What we would have done without these things for a full year, I do not know :)
Thanksgiving was a great success, and I am very thankful for our new friends that welcomed us into their home for the holidays. Hopefully we will be back to see them again soon!

A Birthday in Croydon

It was our friend (UK) Laurens birthday on Monday so (US) Lauren and I hopped on a train Saturday night and went to party it up in Croydon! We had been warned about Croydon, apparently it is not exactly the nicest area of South London. But upon arrival we deemed it no worse than North Ave in Milwaukee and went to meet the birthday girl at the pubs. Ironically enough I picked a seat next to (UK) Katie just to make everyone a bit more confused than they had to be in our collectively drunken state.
After pub hopping until 1am, our group was down to only 5, Nicola ((UK) Lauren's sister), (UK) Lauren, (US) Lauren, (UK) Katie, and myself. Go figure. We all crashed at (UK) Lauren's that night and woke up the next afternoon and had a nice breakfast of tea and toast. We were then kindly given a ride back to the train station to head back into London.
Overall consensus is that Croydon is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and the birthday party was a success. Happy Birthday Lauren!