Studying Abroad: 3 Month Update

How is it possible that it's April?  That by the end of this month I will be back in the USA?  That's absolutely crazy to me!

If you're new here and want to read about the other two months I've been in London, you can read about Month 1 here and Month 2 here!

The beginning of March was spent in Dublin, Ireland which you can read all about here!

Saturday, March 10th was spent doing homework, but I did get outside on Sunday, March 11th.  I decided to go souvenir shopping for some family and friends, which I will have to wait to tell you about in case some of them are reading.

Saturday, March 17th was another homework day, but I did get the chance to go out with some friends at night.  We wanted to go to an Irish Pub, but because it was St. Patrick's Day the lines were out the door and around the corner so we ended up at BrewDog, but we still had a lot of fun.

On Sunday, March 18th I met up with some friends I met when I went to Berlin last month and watched the parade.  The London St. Patrick's Day parade was not like the parades I've seen back home: no one was cheering or clapping or jumping around.  Naturally, the girl I was with and I were doing these things and it resulted in someone next to us asking where we were from.  When we said America he said, "Yeah I figure."  He was Canadian though so he also realized that this parade was a little lacking.  The rest of the day was spent in a bar with a musician taking requests.  We were responsible for some Britney Spears and Stacey's Mom being played.

Friday, March 23rd was the last day of my internship, which I was very sad to walk away from.  I had such a blast being a Publicity Intern at Simon & Schuster UK.  The people were amazing and I learned a lot about the publishing world.  The fact that it ended also reminded me that my time here in London is almost over.  My best friend, who is studying in Italy, was in London too so we were able to get dinner and hang out for a couple hours.  It was great to see her and made me excited for all of my friends to be home over the summer.

Saturday and Sunday I was in Nice, France with my roommate which you can read about here!



Since I no longer have to go to my internship, a friend and I were going to have a Charles Dickens Day on Monday, March 26th, but the Dickens Museum isn't open on Mondays so we ended up rescheduling that and going to Harrods to get lunch and cake instead.  On our way there we also stopped inside a bookstore, which we said would result in no book buying.  But then we started talking to a sales associate and both ended up buying a book.

Thursday, March 29 was really exciting because I met up with a friend I haven't seen since Junior Year of High School.  She was a foreign exchange student and now she's studing in England.  She has some time off so she came down to London and we saw Wicked, which was amazing!  I had chills throughout the entire thing.

Friday we took a bus to Brighton for the day.  We then took another bus to the Seven Sisters and walked around there.  However, it was raining and cold, so we ended being absolutely soaked and pretty miserable.  But we made the most of it and still had a good day.

Saturday, March 31 we slept in and then headed to Chinatown for some food before my friend had to leave.  We actually had to wait until noon for the place we wanted to eat lunch to open so we got ice cream at about 11:30am.  It was great.

Only a few weeks left for me here in London.  I look forward sharing with you what I get up to during that time...

Weekend in Dublin, Ireland

Hello everybody!

This past weekend a group of friends and I went to Dublin, Ireland.  Now, if you're anywhere near the UK, you may know that last week there was a 'snow storm' that caused a lot of issues for a lot of people.  I put that in quotes because the total amount of snow that fell was probably somewhere between 2 and 3 inches, in central London at least.  So for a bunch of Americans from the Northeast, we weren't worried about it at all, but then Thursday and Friday flights were being canceled left and right and we started to get nervous that our early morning Saturday flight was going to be next.

Luckily, our flight did not get canceled, but there was a moment when we thought we weren't getting on the plane.  There was a group of five of us that went, and most of us just packed a backpack because we were only going to be gone for one night, but one girl had a carry on size suitcase - still, no one really thought much about it.  However, at security, she's told that she needs to check her bag and is escorted back to the counter.  The rest of us walk to our gate, which of course wicked far away from security and she's texting us saying that she's in a really long line and that she doesn't know if she's going to make the flight.  The four of us start to panic because we have no idea what to do when the plane starts boarding.  Do we get on and hope she makes it in time?  Do we wait for her and all of us miss the flight?  Do we beg and plead with the airport gate worker to keep the gate open for five extra minutes?  We were told that the gate was going to close at 6:20am, but people were still in line, so we stood off to the side.  A couple minutes later our friend rounds the corner, and it was like watching the winner of the Boston Marathon cross the finish line.  The funniest part: we weren't the last people on the plane.

When we all got to Ireland, we had to figure out the best way to get to our hotel, which took some time.  We got in line to buy bus tickets only for them to tell us it was cash only, so we had to go back inside to the ATM and then get back in line.  But we did eventually make it, and we spent the day exploring the Temple Bar area of Dublin.  After a couple of hours relaxing in our rooms since we all had to wake up at about 3am, we spent the night at the actual Temple Bar and listened to a great cover band play a bunch of songs that we knew and sang along too.  The night ended with diner french fries and being back at the hotel before midnight.

  

Sunday we partook in an Airbnb Busking experience.  This was supposed to be on Saturday, but because of the weather, our guide changed it, which we ended up being happy about because we were all so tired on Saturday after everything that we probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.  He took us around the Temple Bar area and Grafton Street, explaining what Busking is and who started their careers this way (U2, Ed Sheeran, Hosier, etc.) which we had no idea about.  We also had to Busk for ourselves which was a lot of fun, but also nerve-wracking, since we are not singers.

After the experience, we walked to the Guinness Storehouse.  We walked through the self-guided tour and got a free pint in the Gravity Bar.  Personally, I don't like Guinness, but the tour was cool and how could I not have fun hanging out with friends?  From Guinness, we grabbed a quick dinner and then headed to the airport.  It was a quick trip, but it was full of fun!

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