Great Britain!

Some people wonder what the difference between the UK and Great Britain are.  Incase you're one of these people, I will tell you.  Great Britain is the union of Scotland, England, and Wales, which make up the larger island.  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Norther Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or UK, is just as its full title suggests: it's the combination of the countries that make up Great Britain along with the country of Northern Ireland.

The reason I am starting this very belated blog post with that short "lesson" is because I have officially been to every country in Great Britain! :)

Wales:
Over the weekend of February 7th - 9th some friends and I went to Wales.  We had decided to go because it was cheap, but didn't know anything about what there was to do or see, and I have to say, Wales surpassed my expectations.  Cardiff was a small, beautiful city on the water with great architecture, tons of pubs, and delicious food.  Oh, and one kick ass castle.  The first day we were there we went on a long walk through town and by the water, ate tapas with the most amazing sangria I've ever had, and hung out in our hostel.  The hostel was surprisingly extremely nice!  They served a great complementary breakfast, free tea and coffee all day, a cider and pizza dinner for just a pound, and the people working were just all around friendly.  On Saturday, our second day there, we got to storm the castle!  It was so beautiful and really fun to see the different rooms and towers, even though the steps to get up to the towers tended to be steep and a bit scary!  We walked around it for a while and then I saw a little door in the side of a hill that resembled a hobbit hole.  I thought we had to go in there, but upon entering it just looked like a broom closet.  But we went in, and good thing we did because it turned out to be an old World War II bunker.  Right under the castle wall!  It was really scary though, with no lights, and old speeches and the sound of bombings coming from speakers along the walls.  The walls were decorated in old WWII propaganda, which were extremely sexist by today's standards but quite funny.  There were some tables and beds set up to example what they would have been like back then. All in all it was a very cool experience.  Then we went to a museum and it was, well, a museum.  Another fun part of the day, though, was going to a pub to watch rugby!  The 6 Nations tournament is a series of rugby games between England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, and Italy, and that weekend there was a game between Ireland and Wales, so naturally everyone there was very into it!  On Sunday we took a little trip to another costal town called Penarth where we walked along a rocky beach, through a cute little town, and into a yummy restaurant for lunch!  When we got back to Cardiff, we went to a tea shop and had tea and scones.  FYI: scones here are not like scones at home, they're amazing. All in all it was a great weekend.

Photo From Wales:

Welsh Parliament

Words Learned in Wales:

"Dummy" = Pacifier

"Op Shop" = Thrift Shop (in Australia, not UK - learned from a girl in our hostel

Scotland:

This past weekend I went to Scotland to visit my friend Amy who lives in Glasgow.  I took a night bus on Thursday night, arriving in Glasgow bright and early on Friday morning.  Then we went back to her flat and slept the rest of the morning!  In the afternoon I went to class with her and then we walked all around Glasgow.  It was very pretty, but my head was down most of the time due to the rain, so that was a shame.  

On Saturday we went to Edinburgh and it was probably one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen.  We started out walking to their Parliament building, which was actually very ugly oddly enough.  Then we walked through some main streets and all around the city.  We walked by University of Edinburgh and had a pint at their student union.  Then we walked through an area called Grassmarket, which is now full of "posh shops" (a.k.a. pretty clothes I can't afford) but was once where all of the hangings took place - lovely fun fact I know.  Then we looked up and saw the castle (another castle - so exciting!)  It stands on top of a hill (kind of more like a cliff really) and overlooks the whole city.  I knew we wouldn't get a chance to go in because it was already closed for the day and cost too much anyway unfortunately, but I really wanted to go up and get close to it at least!  So from Grassmarket we found a nice and steep staircase that lead right up to the castle.  Well if the 6 miles we had walked already that day weren't enough exercise for the day, those stairs sure did the trick!  But once we got to the top it was all worth it because the view of the city was so beautiful.  It was right around sunset and the sky was so pink it looked photoshopped.  And the castle was huge!  Much bigger than the one in Cardiff.  If I ever go back, I'll go inside!!  Finally, to finish off the day in Edinburgh (the UK's most haunted city), we went on a ghost tour!  This was a bus tour all through the city, where like any bus tour, they told us the names of the buildings and some history.  The twist, however, is that each building came with a ghost story of some witch, murder, and/or serial killer.  It was very cool.  Edinburgh also has an underground city, which many of the walking ghost tours go through, but as it was a very cold night I was happy being on the bus tour.  When we later got back to Amy's flat in Glasgow some of her friends came over, so it was really nice meeting other Scottish people!

On Sunday we went back into the center of Glasgow because it was a beautiful day!  The center was very pretty and this time I could appreciate it!  We went to a big square where a carnival with a ferris wheel was set up for valentines day.  We then had dinner in town before I had to grab my overnight bus back to London.

Photo from Scotland:

The Scott Monument

for Author Sir Walter Scott

Word learned in Scotland:

"Waistcoat" = Vest

"Vest" = A tanktop or undershirt 

Oh yeah, and school's going well too! :)

The first full week.

It's been a while since I have posted because I've had a very busy week with classes and such.  Over all, the week went very well.  On Tuesday, however, I had a class called the Psychology of Prejudice and really didn't like the teacher or how the class was structured, so I dropped that class.  It's a shame because the topic is so interesting, but it just wasn't the class for me.  So the trouble became what would I take in its stead?  Just as I was pondering this, I received an email asking kids to join one of the classes I had originally been interested in but ended up not taking called Global Perspectives on Child and Adolescent Mental Health... a mouthful.  We call it CAMS.  So I signed up for that one.  Then Wednesday I had one class called Cultures and Contexts: Multinational British Identity.  It was a pretty good class, nothing special but a requirement that will surely be interesting.  Then Thursday came and I got to try the new CAMS class and see if it was worth switching in to.  It's great!  The teacher is really nice, we watch a lot of movies, and there are no pricy textbooks to buy!  We watched a documentary called 7up, which is the first installment of a longitudinal study on a bunch of English kids from varying social classes.  The kids were so cute!  The rich ones were very posh and snooty, and the poor ones were so sweet and accepting.  It was the 60s, so they all wanted to be astronauts.  Looking forward to the next episode, called "14up" later on in the class.  Then after that class I had my last class of the week: social psych.  It was great.  The teacher is an old British lady who is very funny and spaces out a lot.  Should be a good class!

Once classes were done for the day I headed home to rest and get ready for the night's big "start of term party" thrown by NYU at a club called Madame Jojo's which is apparently a drag and burlesque club on most nights... no shows for us unfortunately.  So I got home, was excited to relax for a little, when my roommate invites me out to a pub to meet her British friend.  Well, since I haven't actually met any British people yet really, I said sure.  So that was fun, and then I went home to get ready for the party.  It started at 10, so of course we had to be fashionably late.  We got there around 11.  Now, clubs aren't usually my thing.  I get tired and hot and what not, but since it cost 5 pounds my goal was to stay at least an hour.  BUT it was so fun!  I saw lots of friends I had made in my classes and met tons of new people.  I managed to stay until 1.  Not the craziest night seeing as though the party went until 3, but good for me.  Then we walked the long way home with sore feet, and fell right to sleep!

On Friday I was so tired I slept until 12:30 in the afternoon.  And then I pretty much stayed in bed all day.  One very exciting highlight of the day, however, is that I booked a trip to Wales for next weekend with some friends, and got tickets to go to Paris to visit another friend in March!  Yay travel.

So finally I come to today, Saturday.  Today was the opposite of yesterday in which I did almost nothing because today I feel like we talked all over... or at least that's what my feet are telling me.  So this morning I went to a place called Borough Market on the south side of the river.  It's a huge food market with tons of vendors selling produce, meats, and spices for groceries, as well as tons of fresh food for lunch.  There were samples galore and it was all delish!  I think my favorite thing I tried was truffle honey.  I'd tried it before but not like this!  It was so fresh and strong but just when it tasted a bit overwhelming, it was smoothed and sweetened by the taste of honey.  I would have bought like 10 jars right then and there... but they were 9 pounds each, so I'll wait til the rentals come to visit ;).  For lunch I had freshly made pumpkin tortellini.  The noodles were hugh and stuffed so much it was coming out at the seams.  Probably one of the best pastas I've ever had.  After lunch we headed back to the dorm.  Then, because today was one of like 2 sunny days we've had since we got here, my friends and I decided to go back out on a walk.  To where?  We weren't quite sure.  We decided to walk back towards the river.  It was a long walk, about 30 minutes or so (longer because we kept stopping to take pictures and passing adorable shops).  We passed the Twinnings Tea Shoppe with portraits of all the old Twinnings family members on the walls (as well as more free samples!).  Then we found the water and the beautiful skylines that make the older and newer parts of london.  To the right was Parliament, Big Ben, and the Eye (which is obviously new, but part of the more traditional half of London (or at least, the more traditionally photographed).  To the left was the more financial and modern side of London, with tall glass buildings including The Shard, the tallest building in Europe.  We decided to walk over a bridge to south side of London again, taking tons of pictures of the skyline on the Thames. When we got cold we decided to walk back.  We stumbled upon Trafalgar's Square and decided to sit there in front of the National Gallery for a bit before heading back to the dorm.  When we finally got back our feet were sore and cameras full of pictures - the true signs of a good day.

Tonight after dinner I'm off to a place called the Cider Tap, which is a pub full of ciders instead of beers.  Much tastier in my opinion.  So that's all to report for now.

Picture of the day:

London Eye, the River Thames, and Big Ben 

in the far distance on the right

Words of the day:

"Aubergines" = eggplants

"Zebra Crossing" = crosswalk