On True Love and High Adventure

Well, at least high adventure.

Finished reading The Princess Bride yesterday. Great book, although it requires patience from those who love the movie. One of my favorite quotes comes from Inigo, as he and Fezzik are in pursuit of the man in black. As they fight the many levels of the perilous Zoo of Death to rescue Westley, Inigo turns to his loyal companion and says, "Let's look on the bright side: we're having an adventure, Fezzik, and most people live and die without being as lucky as we are."

In a way, that's how I feel about my time in London right now. It's had some bumps, to be sure - mostly in the school arena - but then I remind myself of where I am and what an incredibly huge gift this experience is, whether I always appreciate it as such or not.

Meet Basketball, the fattest pigeon ever.

My friend Sam and I are on the hunt for the

biggest of all time, and so far Basketball is in the lead.
I know you guys will want updates, and don't worry.

They're coming.

Hey Ben! Looking good.

Living far from campus has it perks, as it gives me plenty of time to read on the bus. I'm not the only one, either. I love how much people read here! Doesn't matter if I'm on the bus or on the tube, I look around me and people are reading books. Next on my personal reading list is the first Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet." Saw the movie at Leicester Square Sunday night, and love how all of the main landmarks are down the street, just updated with 21st century surroundings - Big Ben is still here, but with cars driving around it instead of carriages.

Other things I've done this week include going to Camden Markets and exploring the antique book stores that London has to offer. I also visited the Beatles to Bowie exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery (some very cool photographs of the pop culture icons that defined the swinging 60's London), where I met up with Nadine from USC. Haven't gotten around to quite as many new sights this week because...

First week of classes officially terminated for me on Wednesday at 1 p.m. Don't hate me, but as of yesterday I finalized my course schedule: three classes on Tuesday, two on Wednesday, and an optional screening time on Monday evenings for one of my classes. My schedule has turned out to be even better than I expected; I'm taking two classes that I really wanted to take at King's, Jane Austen in Context and The Film and the Book, in addition to a comparative literature class called Travel Writing (very appropriate) and a theology course labeled Introduction to Christianity, which is actually very interesting so far. Basically my schedule looks nothing like it did two weeks ago, and I am very, very happy about that!

I've also taken some time in the past couple weeks to start getting involved in a church here. They have a regular service Sunday nights that I've been to twice, but this past Tuesday night I also tried out their small group geared towards college students. Met some really nice people who are genuinely applying their faith to their lives, and even found out that one of the youth leaders recently came back from visiting RockHarbor church in Orange County, which I went to for a little bit in high school. A nice little coincidence to remind me of home and how much I love and miss you guys - hope that you are all staying warm and safe despite the crazy weather changes I've been hearing so much about. You guys are getting more rain than we are here, and that's unacceptable! I'm sure you'll give it back to us as soon as possible.

For now my plans are to lounge around a little bit and take a respite from all the coming and going I've been doing the past couple weeks plus some. Also taking time to recharge so that I will be ready to take Edinburgh by storm next week when I visit Eric and Adriane for a few days. I'm so excited to see and eat chocolate soup with them (it's an Edinburgh thing)! For now, London and I are still spending some quality time together. I'll be posting some pictures from the past week or so, so watch out for those.

The English Translation

Hey guys! Hope you crazy Americans on the west coast are enjoying your version of cold, because this over here is the real deal. I know USC started class this week, so good luck with everyone's classes, and try to still have fun, okay?

This week in London was more free time for the King's College crowd. Pretty much everyone else has started courses, even the other UK institutions, but we have our first classes beginning tomorrow. You have been spared the monotonous details yet again! I was a little lazier this week, but managed to see some different sides to the city. In the past few days I have seen Oliver! the musical, the Hitchcock theatrical parody The 39 Steps, which was hilarious, the Rosetta Stone and part of the beard of the Sphinx at the British Museum, the exterior of Buckingham Palace, as well as the many towers and Crown Jewels at the Tower of London.

Some tourist obstructing my view of the Tower Bridge from the Bloody Tower.

The quarters of the Bloody Tower, where names such as Sir Walter Raleigh were held while imprisoned - bigger than my dorm room, and he got to bring all of his family and three servants... so, all in all, not a bad deal.

Exterior of the Bloody Tower.

Exterior of the Tower of London

In addition I have experienced some of the London night life - I've gone clubbing twice in the past week, the second time with some of the British kids from my dorm. We went to an Australian club called Walkabout and had a pretty great time, mostly because the music choices were "legend" - British way to say "cool" over here. They played everything from the Baywatch theme song (I didn't even know Baywatch had a theme song) to Whitney Houston to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin," with the last song of the night being "Hey Jude." One thing about British clubs that's different from back home is that there's no grinding here - which I have to say is one thing I do NOT miss about home.

Which provides an excellent lead-in to my list of arbitrary things that are different in London than at home. They tell you about driving on the opposite sides of the road, but here are some other things they never think to mention that consistently throw me off:

- The streetlights turn yellow not only when changing from green to red, but from red to green as well (so you can start your engines?)

- the McDonald's and Pizza Huts are nice here - and when I say nice, I mean nice. They're predominantly sit down, come to think of it there are no drive thru's at all here.

And there is the fire alarm... something both London and America have, apparently. More to come later!

First Week Abroad

Hello everyone! Thanks for being patient with the new blog post. A lot of changes have been happening in the past week, and I wanted to give myself time to get settled here before I wrote it all down. There won't be pictures this time around, but I have been taking some (baby steps, my friends, baby steps).

For those of you that don't know the specifics of this semester for me, I'm studying at King's College in central London, taking a couple classes that go towards my Comparative Literature minor at USC (along with a couple elective credits that I'm still trying to figure out at the moment). Studying abroad is something I've always wanted to do, and London is one of my favorite places in the world, so I'm excited to combine these two things and see what results.

With that, here's the breakdown of this past week. I arrived at Heathrow airport on January 4th and went straight to my dorm room, which is located in southeast London. King's College does not have one solitary location, so the different departments of the university are spread throughout three main campuses, and my dorm is... not near any of them. Which took some getting used to. By now I've figured out my transportation to and from school (I take a red double decker bus! The view from the top level as we cross Waterloo bridge is spectacular), but at first I was really intimidated by the surroundings. I've actually spent a significant amount of time this past week complaining about what could be improved in my living situation, but have come to realize that the complaints boil down to these three things: blah blah and blah. I'M IN LONDON! For five months! And there are some great things about my situation so far. For example, the people I've met. Most of them are other study abroad students, and it's great to have a set group of people I can go romping around the city with if I feel so inclined.

Which, as it happens, I do! A lot. King's classes don't actually start until next week, so this gives the new students lots of time to get familiar with the layout of the city. So far I've been to Trafalgar and Leicester Square, walked along three of the main bridges connecting the north and south sides of the Thames River, seen the London Eye, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, and visited parts of the Tate Modern, National Portrait Gallery, and Natural History Museums. While paying attention to the Harrod's shopping mall and some very British pubs, for the full city effect. Most of these things I've done before on previous trips to London, but it's a different experience this time around because I get the amazing opportunity to choose my pace in these places and go back if I feel I missed something the first time. Every place is distinct and has a brilliant history, but one thing keeps astounding me: the buildings are magnificent. It's crazy for me as a California girl to come to this place where the architecture recalls another time period and have it actually be more than a hundred years old. My friend and I walked by a breathtaking cathedral tucked away behind London bridge two days ago. Built in 606. Hadn't even cracked the quadruple digits yet. It's in moments like those where I will be simply walking around and it will suddenly dawn on me that I'm still in London. I guess I just haven't woken up from the dream yet.

Okay, that should do for now! Anderson out.

Mission Statement

Hey guys,

Jenna here. At the recommendation of some of my friends, I'm starting a blog to chronicle my study abroad experience while in the beautiful city of London. I resisted the idea for a while, but ultimately found that this would be a pretty great way of keeping you all updated with what's going on across the pond, if you're interested (or just very, very bored). I don't promise to be consistent in my updates, and I don't promise to give valuable information at any point in time. Consider these posts my love letters back home, letting you all know how dearly I miss and want to share this experience with you.

Love,

Jenna

(P.S. I don't have the slightest clue how blogs work, but if you do, and have specific questions/comments or want to tell me something funny about your lives back home, feel free to do so.)