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, ?? ??
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
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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