For having less than 48 hours in Paris we sure saw alot! Our trip to Paris was part of our program, so everyone from our dorm went with. Traveling with 160 kids gave me flash backs to our high school trip to New York. Aka.....we spent alot of time getting counted! Unfortunately, there were so many of us that they had to put us into two different hotels on opposite sides of the city. They also put the two groups on two different schedules for trains and tours so Lann and I saw very little of each other over the weekend. I spent alot of time on this trip with my roomate who goes the University of Michigan and two other girls from our floor who also go to Michigan. Where we saw all of the big monuments lit up at night.
On Friday morning my group boarded a bus to go to St. Pancras International, the big train station in London. From there we boarded a Eurostar train to Paris, this went going through the famous "chunnel" to go under the english channel to France. Two hours later we were in Paris!
After checking in our hotels, we took the french Metro to the Eiffel Tower area to take a boat tour down the Seine. After our experiences on the London Tube the Paris Metro felt very confusing, especially because our french is minimal.
After dinner in a French cafe and some sight seeing we embarked on a great metro adventure!
The snow found us on Saturday, which was our big sightseeing day. The day started with a bus tour of all of the big areas of Paris including, Notre Dame, the Arch de Triumpe, the Champs Elysees and various other French neighborhoods. Our tour ended with a visit to the Eiffel Tower. By this point of the day the snow was so intense that when we got to the top of the Eiffel Tower you couldn't see anything.
From the Eiffel Tower we had lunch at another French Cafe and journeyed to the Louvre to see the very famous Mona Lisa and various other big paintings. The Louvre is so big and intense that even 2 plus hours was not enough to see more than one wing of the museum.
The rest of the day included shopping, crepes, yet another french cafe and multiple French bars.
We had one last opportunity to see Paris on Sunday morning. My roomate, some friends and I went exploring to the Jewish Quarter of Paris which had some amazing bakeries and a fun middle eastern food called falafel.
After a morning in Paris it was back on the bus and the train to London. We were all exhausted and glad to be back in familiar territory!
Monday, February 9, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Liverpool and London Blizzard
Lann and I spent the weekend in Liverpool! Our main reason for going to was to see the football game between Liverpool and Chelsea...which according to Lann was bigger than the Superbowl. While in the land of the Beatles we also walked around the city, went to the Beatles Museum, toured the Liverpool football stadium and visited the Merseyside Maritime Museum.
Liverpool is an interesting city. Its located on the water nad back in the day was home to some of the major British ships. Once the Beatles moved through Liverpool though the city took a turn for the worse and its only in the last 10 years that things have started to turn around. Every where you look throughout the city there are buildings being demolished, new buildings that have just opened and historic buildings. Liverpool was voted the city of cultural for 2008 in the UK.....and they are hosting the international badminton championships this summer!
The real exciting part of the weekend though didnt take place in Liverpool. After a three hour train ride we arrived at the Euston London train station at midnight.....in the middle of a blizzard......well what British people at least consider to be a blizzard at least....approx three inches of snow. This "blizzard" caused the whole city to shut down, cabs, buses, tubes, etc. essentially leaving us stranded a good 6 miles from school. After over an hour of phone calls, brainstorming, attempting to get cabs we finally called it quits and checked into a "travel lodge" for 76 pounds.
No sooner had we checked in to this minimal dump than we got a phone call saying there would be a cab for us in 20 minutes! We are very thankful to have some good friends here in London who made lots of phone calls to various cab companies on our behalf. This felt like winning the lottery! So finally after 2 plus hours of being "stranded" we crawled into a cab and made it safely home. I have never been so glad to see 1 st. albans grove in my whole three weeks in London.
I'm sure Lann will write a post shortly reliving every single minute of the Liverpool vs. Chelsea match.....good luck!
Liverpool is an interesting city. Its located on the water nad back in the day was home to some of the major British ships. Once the Beatles moved through Liverpool though the city took a turn for the worse and its only in the last 10 years that things have started to turn around. Every where you look throughout the city there are buildings being demolished, new buildings that have just opened and historic buildings. Liverpool was voted the city of cultural for 2008 in the UK.....and they are hosting the international badminton championships this summer!
The real exciting part of the weekend though didnt take place in Liverpool. After a three hour train ride we arrived at the Euston London train station at midnight.....in the middle of a blizzard......well what British people at least consider to be a blizzard at least....approx three inches of snow. This "blizzard" caused the whole city to shut down, cabs, buses, tubes, etc. essentially leaving us stranded a good 6 miles from school. After over an hour of phone calls, brainstorming, attempting to get cabs we finally called it quits and checked into a "travel lodge" for 76 pounds.
No sooner had we checked in to this minimal dump than we got a phone call saying there would be a cab for us in 20 minutes! We are very thankful to have some good friends here in London who made lots of phone calls to various cab companies on our behalf. This felt like winning the lottery! So finally after 2 plus hours of being "stranded" we crawled into a cab and made it safely home. I have never been so glad to see 1 st. albans grove in my whole three weeks in London.
I'm sure Lann will write a post shortly reliving every single minute of the Liverpool vs. Chelsea match.....good luck!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Travel Plans!
Here are the dates for our trips so far
January 30- February 1st: Liverpool
February 6-8: Paris, France
February 14: Stonehedge and Baths
February 20-22: Barcelona, Spain
March 7-15: Brussels, Belgium
April 3-5: Wales
April 16-19: Scotland
May: 7-19: Germany, Italy, ?? ??
January 30- February 1st: Liverpool
February 6-8: Paris, France
February 14: Stonehedge and Baths
February 20-22: Barcelona, Spain
March 7-15: Brussels, Belgium
April 3-5: Wales
April 16-19: Scotland
May: 7-19: Germany, Italy, ?? ??
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Week One
Hey all,
I have some sad news to report. My trusty laptop kicked the bucket on Monday night. According to the jerks at PC World the LED light in the screen blew out....meaning I know longer have a computer screen. Of course they won't fix it over here because its an American Dell and to ship it back to Dell in the states would be pricey and could take 3 to 4 months. Doesn't this sound like a situation that could only happen to me? haha.
So for the next week or so Lann and I will be attempting to share his laptop. My parents bought a laptop yesterday and are working on loading microsoft office and such before they send it over. They are then going to take the old one back to the states and try to get it rebuilt so someone else can use it. But eesh....if it only it had died a month sooner or waited a few more months!
We spent the first week exploring our new neighborhood and London. Our residence hall, Atlantic house is located in central Kensington just a few blocks from Kensington High Street which is kind of the Michigan Avenue of Kensington, and just minutes from Kensington Palace. The Kensington area reminds us alot of the Lake Forest neighborhood, lots of big houses and fancy cars. We've also explored the West End side of London and went to Portabello market, which is a huge weekend street market.
We are continuing to plan our other weekend and vacation adventures. In February we'll be visiting Stonehedge and going to Paris for a weekend before one of my best friends from LFC comes to visit from Brussels. Then in March we'll head to Brussels for spring break to meet up with a couple of LFC kids and see Lann's good friend from high school. April takes us to Wales and Scotland and possibly Spain. Our plans for once the semester is done are still up in the air but may include Germany and Italy. We've gotten to be really good at searching for travel deals online!
We started classes on Monday. The British University is very strange. Instead of giving out required reading they give you a huge list of "reccommended" reading and you're suppose to read what interests you. Also, daily work is like a joke we pretty much have a midterm paper, a final paper and a final exam.All of the professors are international. My political Communication professor is Greek and has a very strong accent, she talks so fast it sounds like a completely different language.
I'm also taken a hardcore Shakespeare class, which is suppose to be "fun", but I might have to disagree on that one.
Lann is battling a cold, sinus infection type thing, his mom thinks its a staph infection. Hes going to the British doctor on Monday.
This weekend we are going to hit up all the big FREE museums in London.
Next weekend we head to Liverpool.
Hope all is well wherever you might be.
Love, Jacalyn
P.S. Interesting trivia fact.....british computer paper is skinner but really long, therefore they need special printers!
I have some sad news to report. My trusty laptop kicked the bucket on Monday night. According to the jerks at PC World the LED light in the screen blew out....meaning I know longer have a computer screen. Of course they won't fix it over here because its an American Dell and to ship it back to Dell in the states would be pricey and could take 3 to 4 months. Doesn't this sound like a situation that could only happen to me? haha.
So for the next week or so Lann and I will be attempting to share his laptop. My parents bought a laptop yesterday and are working on loading microsoft office and such before they send it over. They are then going to take the old one back to the states and try to get it rebuilt so someone else can use it. But eesh....if it only it had died a month sooner or waited a few more months!
We spent the first week exploring our new neighborhood and London. Our residence hall, Atlantic house is located in central Kensington just a few blocks from Kensington High Street which is kind of the Michigan Avenue of Kensington, and just minutes from Kensington Palace. The Kensington area reminds us alot of the Lake Forest neighborhood, lots of big houses and fancy cars. We've also explored the West End side of London and went to Portabello market, which is a huge weekend street market.
We are continuing to plan our other weekend and vacation adventures. In February we'll be visiting Stonehedge and going to Paris for a weekend before one of my best friends from LFC comes to visit from Brussels. Then in March we'll head to Brussels for spring break to meet up with a couple of LFC kids and see Lann's good friend from high school. April takes us to Wales and Scotland and possibly Spain. Our plans for once the semester is done are still up in the air but may include Germany and Italy. We've gotten to be really good at searching for travel deals online!
We started classes on Monday. The British University is very strange. Instead of giving out required reading they give you a huge list of "reccommended" reading and you're suppose to read what interests you. Also, daily work is like a joke we pretty much have a midterm paper, a final paper and a final exam.All of the professors are international. My political Communication professor is Greek and has a very strong accent, she talks so fast it sounds like a completely different language.
I'm also taken a hardcore Shakespeare class, which is suppose to be "fun", but I might have to disagree on that one.
Lann is battling a cold, sinus infection type thing, his mom thinks its a staph infection. Hes going to the British doctor on Monday.
This weekend we are going to hit up all the big FREE museums in London.
Next weekend we head to Liverpool.
Hope all is well wherever you might be.
Love, Jacalyn
P.S. Interesting trivia fact.....british computer paper is skinner but really long, therefore they need special printers!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
We're Here!
We got to London at about 9:15am London time yesterday morning. We ended up on the plane with a bunch of AIFS kids and went through customs and baggage claim with them. Eventually we met up with official AIFS people who put us on a coach bus to our residence hall. Lann and I are in the same hall with a bunch of other study abroad kids.
So far all is good.
Last night we went to our first pub with a bunch of people from my floor and ended up getting lost in Kensington, eventually we made it back to our hall. At the moment we are all feeling the affects of major jet lag- yuck.
More later.
Love,Jacalyn
So far all is good.
Last night we went to our first pub with a bunch of people from my floor and ended up getting lost in Kensington, eventually we made it back to our hall. At the moment we are all feeling the affects of major jet lag- yuck.
More later.
Love,Jacalyn
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Here We Go!
Hi All,
This is where Lann and I hope to post our adventures while we are abroad! We leave tomorrow on a 6:50pm direct flight out of O'hare to Heathrow Airport in London. We'll arrive in London on Tuesday morning and begin six days of orientation activities.
More news to come!
love,
Jacalyn and Lann
This is where Lann and I hope to post our adventures while we are abroad! We leave tomorrow on a 6:50pm direct flight out of O'hare to Heathrow Airport in London. We'll arrive in London on Tuesday morning and begin six days of orientation activities.
More news to come!
love,
Jacalyn and Lann
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