London Week 1!!!!!!

It's hard to believe that only a week ago I was sitting in my bed in Kansas watching Glee. I've been in London for a week now and I can already tell that studying abroad in London was the best decision I've ever made! I love my program and my group so much! Everyone here wants to travel and have an adventure and so hanging out with other people who want those things is so much fun!

Living in Kansas I never had really been on a flight that lasted longer than 3 hours. While I was on my flight from Kansas to Chicago, like 3 people around me drank tomato juice out of a can? I was in complete shock. I didn't know that tomato juice was a thing people just straight up drank. Anyways this was the moment I was excited to leave the country(although British people eat black pudding). Being at an airport without my parents still makes me feel like an adult for some reason. I printed off my boarding pass beforehand and it wouldn't scan so I had to deal with it myself. Yes all I did was leave security and ask the airline to print me a new ticket, but all I could think about was how if that would have happened to me a year or two ago, I would've sat in a corner and cried for no reason other than to be dramatic. I knew that I was ACTUALLY going to London when I stepped on my British Airways flight. The flight attendants had British accents and I was legal to drink. My plan for the flight was to have a few glasses of wine and then fall asleep. So I ordered my glass of wine, I turned on some feminist films (Legally Blonde), and all it made me do was pee 4 times within one hour...so needless to say. My ass was tired after the flight.

When I got off the plane and got in my cab, I was so tripped out that the cars were driving on the wrong side of the road. YEs, I knew this was a thing that they did but it was so weird to actually see! Also crossing the street is very different in London than it is in an American city. I have almost been hit by a car approx. 10 times. I don't know how people study abroad in countries that speak a different language because I can't even f*cking cross the street in a new country.

My first day in London consisted of sleeping and then walking around. I went on a walking tour of Kensington to explore some more of the neighborhood I live in. I live just a few blocks away from Hyde Park and Kensington Palace so yes, Will and Kate and my neighbors. Some friends and I walked to Leicester Square and there happened to be a movie premiere with the queen herself, Ms. Meryl Streep. After that we went to a British pub and I had my first beer! I really had never had a beer because I always thought it tasted like you shoved a loaf of bread in a cup of lukewarm water and just left it there for a while. Anyways I don't even know what I ordered but it wasn't that bad! But they gave me a cup to put it in and I accidentally poured it all in really fast and like 4/5 of the glass was foam. Anyways my brother said that he was disappointed in me. The next visit I had to a pub, I ordered ice cream so we're taking baby steps.

I definitely thought that the U.K. would be the same as the U.S. minus saying a few different words and driving on the wrong side of the road, but British people really do have a completely different culture than Americans. For instance, Americans are loud as hell. I didn't notice this until I went out with a group of Americans and a British person yelled at us for being loud Americans and I was like.....damn...we really are loud and annoying. Also, Americans have completely different eating habits than Europeans. Europe doesn't have a bunch of chemicals in their food so all their food tastes different, they also have all their food portioned, like if you bought a bag of chips, there would be 6 small bags of chips inside. They also sell oreos by the sleeve and not the box. Our first dinner in the university dining hall, we noticed that all the British students had completely clear plates, and all the American students took way more food than they were going to eat and had a bunch of food left over. Anyways moral of the story is Americans like eating large portions and are loud.