out and about: Last Week in London

Love my UK friends!

Things have been a little crazy the last two weeks so I haven't really had the opportunity to wrap things up. I can't believe just two weeks ago I was sitting in London revising for my Thermo & Fluids exam... and now here I am in Savannah! A few of my UK friends asked that I keep the blog going over the summer so that they can keep up with my southern shenanigans. At the moment it feels like I'll be working a lot but hopefully I'll be able to escape away for a bit to Charleston or even just a few fun nights downtown in which case I'll post a short blog here and there. I'll also be travelling to Vancouver at the end of the summer before headed to RPI so I guess my travels aren't quite finished yet!

Anyways, my last week in London was amazing! I couldn't have asked for a better end to my stay. After my last exam which went quite well, my friends (Devin, Elisabeth, Sonia, and Sonia's boyfriend Floris) all went over to the farmer's market for a tasty lunch before hitting up the ULU bar for a round of celebratory pints. After that I headed over to Ramsay to meet up with Jack and we headed over to the Science Museum! It was incredible in there--I absolutely plan to go back the next time I'm in London! Unfortunately, it closed rather early so Jack and I Boris biked back to Ramsay (with a little bit of running) just in time for Ramsay dinner with the dinner crew (Jack, Natashia, Ellen, and myself). Afterwards, we hung out for a bit and got ready to head out to Proud, a cool club in Camden Town with student nights on Thursdays. The club was awesome and I got to see a lot of people since everyone went now that exams were finished.

Friday began with my last Ramsay breakfast with Jack and then I had a few hours to myself during which time I mostly packed and printed out crossword puzzles for the long journey. I stopped by Sainsbury's with Beatrice before headed over to the hockey picnic in Regent's park. It took me about an hour and thirty minutes to find my team largely because I hadn't had a cell phone for about two months but fortunately I found them in the end! A bunch of us from the team shared a delicious lunch and they presented me with the nicest picture frame collage and a jubilee key chain (which I have on my car key now!). They were simply the nicest friends and I was glad to have known them for the entire year. That night was our last dinner crew dinner and then my corridor headed off to Emma's house for her 19th birthday. It was a really nice evening with the whole 2nd floor gang.

Saturday was filled with more fun activities beginning with a walk down to see the changing of the guards with Elisabeth and then a tube ride over to King's Cross to finally see "Platform 9 3/4". We then grabbed some lunch and chatted a bit. Before meeting up with Devin, one of my friends from my Shorter Narrative class, Lorenzo, wanted to meet up to say goodbye before I left so I chatted with him for a bit at Warren Street Station. He is from Milan and told me that if I was ever in Italy that I'd have a place to stay with him ("even if I didn't like him" haha). Of course I told him to please let me know if he was ever in the States, especially since I love showing people around DC. He said that he didn't care for the US before his year abroad but that after meeting people "like me" he felt like he had to go to the States because it must not be so bad if people such as myself live there and let me tell you I think that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me in my life. What a nice guy!

After Lorenzo left I met up with Devin and we went for a spot of afternoon tea, my first pot ever! I'd had sips of tea before but never really liked it but we had some delicious Earl Gray tea and crumpets. :) Elisabeth met up with us and so we hung out in the library quad for a bit before saying goodbye :( That night was the Summer ball so I hung around with Natashia and Ellen while they got ready. I tried my best to see if I could get a last minute ticket after seeing how cool the decorations in the quad were but I couldn't get one. I was kind of happy I didn't though because that meant that I got to have one last Coldplay jam session with Gwijde! He came to see the girls before the ball as well and so we hung around and jammed in the music room one last time (although I had sold my guitar so it was just the piano).

The next morning, my friend from the hockey team, Beth, was so kind and showed up to help me carry my bags (a total of around 175 pounds!) to the airport. I was really sad to walk out of Ramsay for the last time knowing that I'd miss all of the people and places from this past year in London and also knowing that I wouldn't be back for quite some time. We thought the Piccadilly wasn't running (because of tfl.co.uk) so we took the tube over to Paddington but then accidentally took the Heathrow Express which was rather pricey. I made it to the airport though and got to check all the bags I needed, none overweight, and still had a few pounds to spare for lunch in Iceland (my flight had a layover in Iceland). My flight left London around 1pm and landed in Iceland where I boarded another plane 2 hours later for DC. My mom picked me up in DC at 7pm and I was back in the sweaty, muggy, mid-Atlantic summer.

One thing I had forgotten while I was away was how rude Americans were. Maybe I'd never noticed it or maybe I got used to how polite people were to me in London (strangers offered to help me carry my bags when I got to London and friends offered to escort me to the airport as I left London) but I experienced three rude Americans before I even got through boarder patrol. On the plane I asked one fellow if I could get by because I had to put my luggage further down in the aisle and was trying to get back when he said sharply, "well I don't know where you want me to go." I was like, "into the row for a second...?" And then at the boarder patrol the gentleman, as they always do, asked me what I was doing in the country, "studying," studying what? "Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering." But then this was unusual... he asked me what I was going to do with that. "Uhh... Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering?" Yeah but what kind of job are you going to get? "I don't know, I have an internship with an Aerospace company I--" --alright, go make money. And he put my passport on the desk. I didn't quite know how to respond to that. But anyways, the people I've met in Georgia have been very kind. I'll write more about that later though. Sorry if I rambled on too much about my last few days but I just never want to forget them! Maybe I'll add some more later... hah, thanks for reading!

P.S. sorry these photos are a bit out of order.