To Norwich!

Day 3: January 12th

So, from my orientation agenda I see that today we had our final orientation in London in the wee morn. We then went back to Harlingford Hotel and checked out and waited for our transportation to arrive.

The Kent crew got a swanky coach that would take them directly to Kent, East Anglia had to take a taxi to Liverpool Street Station then catch the train to Norwich where we would then take another taxi to campus. It was a hoot and a half dealing with the luggage in such a consecutive manner.

On the train to Norwich.

It was raining when we got to UEA. We got our accommodation info and keys. A handful of us had rotten luck and got stuck with Mary Chapman Court.

It is located in the city and Mary Chapman people need to buy a bus pass that hurts the wallet oh so bad.

Phillip, Kelsey and I were those unlucky people.

We had dinner on campus with all the other exchange/visiting students then a taxi took us to Mary Chapman Prison.

Kelsey lives a floor above me and Phillip is in my flat.

Dude, I'm writing this from the future and I still hate this place. It's ugly, lonely and inconvenient.

Anyway, we go in and meet our flatmates that are already there. So there are five people in total living in the flat, we each have our own rooms but share two toilets, a shower and a kitchen.

I go to my room to unpack stuff when the power goes out.

Of course.

You know when the power goes out normal people try to get the power back on or at least figure out what happened. My flatmates? Nope. They're like "oh no..." then went back into their rooms. So Phillip and I go all Sherlock Holmes on everyone's ass and solve the mystery (not really, we went upstairs to Kelsey to complain and then messed with two power box things until ta-da, light appeared).

We were hailed heroes and given the key to the city.

It was a lovely first night in Norwich.

Sight-seeing in London.

Day 2: January 11th

Free breakfast at the hotel! I ordered an English Breakfast, but I don't think it truly was one since there were no beans, either way it was good.

Today was jam-packed with activities and also the first time I took the underground. Monika had given us oyster cards with 10 pounds the night before. I was nervous since she really made it seem like I would get crushed to death, but it wasn't bad at all.

Chris and Ashley lookin at the map.

I quickly learned to always stand to the right in escalators though.

Our first stop was at the Houses of Parliament for a private tour.

I look so dead behind the eyes. I never knew jet-lag until now.

We couldn't take any pictures beyond those stairs, which sucks because the inside was absolutely amazing. There were many portraits of previous kings and queens, and even more of Queen Victoria because she likes to see her face everywhere possible, apparently.

Our guide took us inside the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Before we went in though there's a hall with statues of previous Prime Ministers and I LOVED Winston Churchill's.

Look at that sass!

We then walked to Westminster Pier where we took a boat tour on the River Thames.

London Eye

London Bridge

Needless to say, my face was very, very cold.

After we got off the boat we took the bus (my first double decker!) to Covent Garden where we all went to the Carphone Warehouse to buy some phones. Most of us got the penny phone, which literally cost a penny. I had to top it off with 20 pounds though.

We ate at Henry's Cafe (or something along those lines) where I got a lackluster soup, but it was warm which was what mattered the most.

There were around 13 of us and usually when that many people have to split the bill it takes years to figure out, but Adam was such a wiz, man, it took just minutes. Extremely impressive.

Next was a tour of Tate Modern. Our tour guide was just fabulous and had one the coolest coats ever. Bah. I can't find the picture but I'll upload some of my pictures to Facebook soon, so hopefully it'll pop up. *Warning* After the boat ride I started to take pictures with my phone instead of the digital camera because I was too damn lazy to get it out for the rest of the day.

The tour lady took us to see the most significant pieces and told us a bit about them when JET-LAG STRIKES: PART 2! I snoozed a couple of times during her talks. It was so hard.

This was a rather disturbing piece of art. The birds :'(

When the tour ended we hopped on the tube to eat dinner at Wagamama's. I got Chicken Katsu Curry and the curry sauce was delicious. It was such a shame I couldn't take it with me.

Then it was time to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. I had never seen it before and I was very impressed, especially by the chick who played Elphaba-she had an amazing voice. It gave me chills! I think what made me really love Wicked was the British accent though. I don't know if I could ever see the American one now without being disappointed at the non-fanciness.

The stage.

JET-LAG STRIKES: PART 3! Unfortunately, I fell asleep during the middle of the first act. Le sigh.

Yay! I made it!

Day 0: January 9th

You’d think that because I’m going away for 6 months I would have been on the ball and started packing/organizing my stuff sooner, well, that did not happen and because of that the morning of my flight I was frantically packing and all that jazz. I was terrified and excited, but definitely more on the terrified side.

My mom cried and then yelled at me to get out of her room. She left and made it clear that she wasn’t going to return to see me off. Bahahahaha.

Anyway, Greg and Shaina came to say goodbye and then Jeany did too. Jairo was going to take me to the airport but somehow Greg, Shaina, and Daniel were the ones to escort me to LAX.

My checked bag made it under the 50lbs with 41.5lbs!

When my posse left me I, of course, cried like a bitch. I then wiped my tears and went to security. I saw Daniel, Greg and Shaina from the security line walking to Greg's car and tears were a comin', but I semi-successfully pushed them away.

I got through security with no incident, I didn’t have to go through that body scanner thing, I took some Dramamine and like a couple minutes before we had to board Kelsey finds me and we chat until we board. AH! So happy I didn’t have to fly there alone!

Jesus Christopher Christ. A direct flight from LAX to Heathrow is no joke. Those ten hours truly felt like ten hours. I was scared as hell when we were about to take off because I thought the plane was going to crash, but once I saw how nonchalant everyone else was, I calmed down.

Now, I really wanted to sleep on the flight but for the life of me I couldn’t find a good position, so it was more like I was half awake, half napping. Before I attempted to sleep I watched The Social Network while I ate. I really wanted to watch Never Let Me Go but I knew I would probably fall asleep during. An hour before we landed they served us breakfast. When I opened my yogurt it spat out itself into my eye and my blanket.

We landed and I was kind of bummed no one clapped. That’s my favorite part of flying because you that’s when you know for certain that this plane will not kill you.

Also, THANK YOU JULIE BERES, YOU ARE AWESOME FOR LENDING ME YOUR CAMERA. AND IF YOU'RE READING THIS, DO YOU WANT SOME CANDY?

Day 1: January 10th

We get off the plane and Kelsey and I head to get our visas, but first we had to walk for a good 1000 miles to get to the immigration people.

Next, we went to baggage claim where we stared at the conveyor belt for some odd minutes until I spotted my luggage already off to the side, not on the conveyor belt at all. That was surprising but I was happy I didn’t have to take it off my self since it was heavy as hell.

Thankfully, Kelsey’s baggage was heavy as hell too so we agreed to split a taxi. BEST DECISION EVER. When I went on the tube the next day I knew it would have been a disaster if I had attempted to take it to get to the hotel, my slowness and weakness mixed with heavy luggage and no clue as to get from here to there? Yeah, I gladly shelled out the 30 pounds for a simple taxi.

So, what I’m officially doing is a semester abroad (January through June) through UC EAP (or University of California Education Abroad Program) and will be studying film things at University of East Anglia in Norwich (pronounced Nor-idge), which is around 100 miles away from London.

However, before we arrived to UEA we had to stay in London from this day till Wednesday morning for orientations.

We got to the Harlingford Hotel, checked in and…WHAT A COINKI-DINK… Kelsey is my roommate at the hotel! We were on the second floor or something so dragging my luggage up the stairs wasn’t that bad. The room was so cute!

We had to meet in the lobby at 3:30pm. Kelsey and I were late because we were far too busy lying on our beds, so they called our room to inform us to get our asses down. We then walked to the London Study Centre where we would have all of our orientations. When we got there our program officer, Monika Popp gave us goodie bags with juice, walkers crisps, a cereal bar, bottled water, a pen, notepad and a folder with itineraries and a bunch of other info. OH, we also got a 2gig USB flash drive, I can’t believe I forgot that! Then everybody introduced themselves and blah blah blah-in short, everyone was fun, fresh, fierce. Then Monika told us what life in the UK is like.

That’s when the jet-lag started to hit me. As hard as I tried I couldn’t keep my eyes opened. My stomach also wouldn’t shut up, so I was relieved when we went to an adjoining room and a feast was prepared! Monika had ordered burritos, they were ginormous . There was also fruit, some more walkers crisps, juice, brownies and some other things I can’t recall. I totes took a lot of the left over crisps, juices and cereal bars, Monika insisted of course!

We then went back to the other room and finished the meeting. We walked together back to the hotel.