first legit london blogggg
as the end of my second weekend in london comes to a close, i suppose its about time that i actually write about something worthwhile in this thing. just as i suspected, this past week and a half has been the most busy, exciting and utterly fabulous time i've ever had. it's safe to say that studying abroad was a very wise choice for me and exactly what i needed.
lucky for you, this blog is also a pictorial. i'm hoping some photographic evidence of my adventures will allow me to stay on track and not forget to mention the important things like i usually do.
this lovely little building is 6 bedford square, and is more or less the NYU in London "campus". it's basically the main academic center and faces a cute little park that we'll have cute little picnics in when the weather gets nicer. i have most of my classes about a block away from here at the University of London Birkbeck campus. most of the city's universities are around this area. as NYU students here we also have access to the University of London's student facilities, including their student union which has multiple bars in it?! crazy. made orientation much more enjoyable. and the plan is to meet up there every monday at around 5pm before our mandatory 630 lecture, which is actually what all the UL kids do anyway.
NIDO! this is what i see when i walk out my lovely front doors every morning/afternoon/evening. we're living in these brand new buildings between King's Cross (5 minutes west) and Angel (10 minutes east) in Islington. it looks pretty fancy from the outside and the lobby is modern and chic but the building as a whole is pretty much a piece of crap. we have to flush the toilet like 4 times to actually make it happen, and every time someone takes a shower their bathroom floors flood. we got these terrible TERRIBLE bed in a bag linens that i dealt with for maybe 5 nights before buying my own (pink and white to remind me of home, obviously).
and these are my friends! left to right we have stephanie, natalie, anne and myself. natalie and i were clearly friends before london, and she is living with anne who was previously friends with stephanie. we've pretty much been inseparable and the majority of the pictures i have are of the four of us doing something fun somewhere.
once again, i apologize for these pictures being sideways. this picture was taken during a stop on our bus tour last weekend. natalie and i are on the steps of st. paul's cathedral, which is where princess diana and prince charles got married. it's also where the mary poppins "feed the birds" scene was shot so therefore, natalie and i are feeding all of the many birds that are around us.
once again, from the bus tour: a stop at the river thames with its sparkling blue water to complement the clear blue skies of london.
okay so if you live on planet earth you are aware of the current spice girls reunion tour. and if you lived on planet earth approximately ten years ago, you know i was their biggest fan in the universe. so pretty much all i wanted for christmas was to see them in london and on tuesday january 22nd that dream was brought into a big bold beautiful reality. to put it simply, it was the best night of my entire life and im still so happy. and my seats were pretty ballin too:
i would also like to take this opportunity to declare my newfound appreciation for sporty spice, the most underrated spice girl, who outsang the other four combined. and victoria beckham's boys were in the front row and are the most adorable things on the face of the planet.
this is me at tesco, the staple of everyone's london lives. more specifically, this is me at the tesco self-checkout buying 5 different kinds of european chocolate bars.
mmmmmmmmmmm. yesterday morning natalie and i went to the notting hill/portobello road market. yes, that means i was out of bed at 930am. i suppose this is a fair time to discuss london public transportation, which absolutely and entirely rocks my world. i always thought the new york city subway was confusing, but just thought it was confusing because i was probably dumb. no, the nyc subway is confusing because its a total piece of crap and is like, disgustingly inefficient and outdated compared to the underground here. whereas you can easily wait for a train in nyc for 20 minutes (and i usually count on that), the trains here arrive every minute-2 minutes typically... and there are digital boards on the ceiling of the platform that tell when the next train will be there and what its last stop is. no express platforms only, no skipping stops. and when we were going to the spice girls concert during rush hour and hit delays, the conductor actually made an announcement and APOLOGIZED. it was the most amazing thing. the seats are fabric and cushy and there are directional maps EVERYWHERE. even the busses run like clockwork and although the tube closes at 1230am, there are 24 hour busses that go right to kings cross.
these are my amazing vintage boots i got at notting hill... and they may or may not be made of beaver leather.
yesterday a group of about 25 nyu kids here got together and went to the london eye. we actually made it on right during sunset (obviously), and this picture is natalie and i with the sun and the compound of the house of parliament/big ben/westminster abbey. lovely! brilliant!
everything else here is going just swimmingly. tonight is the first night out of the past 12 that im not going out. i have 200 pages of a historical fiction novel about london to read for tuesday, so i should get crackin on that. leave me comments! love you all.
lucky for you, this blog is also a pictorial. i'm hoping some photographic evidence of my adventures will allow me to stay on track and not forget to mention the important things like i usually do.
this lovely little building is 6 bedford square, and is more or less the NYU in London "campus". it's basically the main academic center and faces a cute little park that we'll have cute little picnics in when the weather gets nicer. i have most of my classes about a block away from here at the University of London Birkbeck campus. most of the city's universities are around this area. as NYU students here we also have access to the University of London's student facilities, including their student union which has multiple bars in it?! crazy. made orientation much more enjoyable. and the plan is to meet up there every monday at around 5pm before our mandatory 630 lecture, which is actually what all the UL kids do anyway.
NIDO! this is what i see when i walk out my lovely front doors every morning/afternoon/evening. we're living in these brand new buildings between King's Cross (5 minutes west) and Angel (10 minutes east) in Islington. it looks pretty fancy from the outside and the lobby is modern and chic but the building as a whole is pretty much a piece of crap. we have to flush the toilet like 4 times to actually make it happen, and every time someone takes a shower their bathroom floors flood. we got these terrible TERRIBLE bed in a bag linens that i dealt with for maybe 5 nights before buying my own (pink and white to remind me of home, obviously).
and these are my friends! left to right we have stephanie, natalie, anne and myself. natalie and i were clearly friends before london, and she is living with anne who was previously friends with stephanie. we've pretty much been inseparable and the majority of the pictures i have are of the four of us doing something fun somewhere.
once again, i apologize for these pictures being sideways. this picture was taken during a stop on our bus tour last weekend. natalie and i are on the steps of st. paul's cathedral, which is where princess diana and prince charles got married. it's also where the mary poppins "feed the birds" scene was shot so therefore, natalie and i are feeding all of the many birds that are around us.
once again, from the bus tour: a stop at the river thames with its sparkling blue water to complement the clear blue skies of london.
okay so if you live on planet earth you are aware of the current spice girls reunion tour. and if you lived on planet earth approximately ten years ago, you know i was their biggest fan in the universe. so pretty much all i wanted for christmas was to see them in london and on tuesday january 22nd that dream was brought into a big bold beautiful reality. to put it simply, it was the best night of my entire life and im still so happy. and my seats were pretty ballin too:
i would also like to take this opportunity to declare my newfound appreciation for sporty spice, the most underrated spice girl, who outsang the other four combined. and victoria beckham's boys were in the front row and are the most adorable things on the face of the planet.
this is me at tesco, the staple of everyone's london lives. more specifically, this is me at the tesco self-checkout buying 5 different kinds of european chocolate bars.
mmmmmmmmmmm. yesterday morning natalie and i went to the notting hill/portobello road market. yes, that means i was out of bed at 930am. i suppose this is a fair time to discuss london public transportation, which absolutely and entirely rocks my world. i always thought the new york city subway was confusing, but just thought it was confusing because i was probably dumb. no, the nyc subway is confusing because its a total piece of crap and is like, disgustingly inefficient and outdated compared to the underground here. whereas you can easily wait for a train in nyc for 20 minutes (and i usually count on that), the trains here arrive every minute-2 minutes typically... and there are digital boards on the ceiling of the platform that tell when the next train will be there and what its last stop is. no express platforms only, no skipping stops. and when we were going to the spice girls concert during rush hour and hit delays, the conductor actually made an announcement and APOLOGIZED. it was the most amazing thing. the seats are fabric and cushy and there are directional maps EVERYWHERE. even the busses run like clockwork and although the tube closes at 1230am, there are 24 hour busses that go right to kings cross.
these are my amazing vintage boots i got at notting hill... and they may or may not be made of beaver leather.
yesterday a group of about 25 nyu kids here got together and went to the london eye. we actually made it on right during sunset (obviously), and this picture is natalie and i with the sun and the compound of the house of parliament/big ben/westminster abbey. lovely! brilliant!
everything else here is going just swimmingly. tonight is the first night out of the past 12 that im not going out. i have 200 pages of a historical fiction novel about london to read for tuesday, so i should get crackin on that. leave me comments! love you all.