#udglobal

Hello, dear readers!

Wow, it’s only been two days since I arrived in London, and yet I feel like I’ve been here for years. This city is beautiful and full of surprises, both bad and good.

When we got here on Sunday, Leah (my roommate) and I took a short nap (we had a six hour plane ride, you can’t really blame us), and then we went to a cell phone store to purchase my British cell phone (in the first picture). After that, we went out to dinner at a little cafe right next to our hotel. I got the fish and chips, and it was incredibly delicious.

On Monday we had our first day of class, which is held in a beautiful building right near our hotel. I included a picture of our classroom! An interesting part of our classroom is that we use lap desks, which I initially thought would be difficult to use, but actually turn out to be quite easy to manage.

After class, Leah and I, along with some new friends from our program, decided to explore London on foot. Somehow, we ended up making it all the way to King’s Cross Station! I almost died of excitement when I got to get my picture taken at Platform 9 3/4, and also lost my ability to talk for a bit when I saw the beautiful Renaissance architecture of the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel. 

Today we went to see the Wallace Collection, which houses some beautiful art. It’s perhaps the first time I’ve seen Renaissance art up close, and I was beyond excited to see a few paintings I recognized. 

Interestingly enough, communicating with the people here is much harder than I anticipated. I realized within the first day that the combination of a foreign accent and unfamiliar syntax can make people very hard to understand. Sometimes the Londonders have trouble understanding me too (in a coffee shop today it took four tries to say ‘almond milk’ in a way that the barista understood).

A scary part of London that I was definitely unprepared for is the threat of petty theft. Pickpocketing is so big here that you need to be constantly alert when in public. Someone on our trip has already had their cell phone stolen, and we’ve only been here for three days.

I’m adjusting quite well, but there are still hiccups along the way. Sometimes things as simple as buying dinner exhaust me. However, I can’t help but stay in awe of this city. It’s beautiful and full of history, and I can’t wait to discover more of it.