Study Abroad Week 6! Valentines & BAFTAS

Hey up! What a whirlwind of a week I had! You will see below the excitement that I had, but the start of the week began with me not being sick anymore!!!! 

               

 

Something I didn't know, is that London is so cute near valentines day. On valentines day I went to the area near Victoria station on my way to the Museum of London for class. Every shop was decked out with flowers and it was so pretty walking down the street. 

After my class, I decided to treat myself and get a pastry from Primrose Bakery! 

Since it was Valentine's day, I decided to take myself on a date! I went to Motown the musical! I decided to see this musical because I figured that nobody else would want to go with me so it would be the perfect musical to see by myself. Honestly, it was the weirdest experience of my life. I don't know what I was expecting for this show, but it was....not very good haha I don't really know but let's just say I had to get a vodka diet coke at intermission and it still didn't get any better. ALSO there was a couple sitting next to me on a date and I guess they were from northern England and they drive into London every valentines day to go see a show, but the guy kept asking me questions throughout the show and I was like ??? why are you talking to me, I do not know you at all...anyways it was a weird experience

                          

 

One of my favourite places in London is Primrose Hill. It is north of Regents Park and overlooks all of London. Anyways we walked up to the top on Friday after walking through Regents Park and had a little photo shoot. 

                          

 

Friday night, we found a club in Camden that was having a High School Musical night. Basically they just played high school musical music for the entire night and I danced my heart out and it was truly the best night of my entire life. 

Saturday Morning we went to a tea shop for breakfast and I got coffee. 

After our morning tea, I went to Covent Garden and it might be my new favourite neighbourhood in London. Basically Covent Garden is a neighbourhood with no cars and so all the streets are a pedestrian walkway. It's just an adorable neighbourhood/shopping area where you can get lost in. 

Okay here is where the exciting stuff happens. Something that I realized this week was how thankful I am for the independence I have gained over the past few years. I used to be so scared to do things on my own but now I really don't mind. On Sunday morning the BAFTAs were giving out wristbands to be on the red carpet. I woke up early and went to central London and waited for the BAFTAs to tweet the location. I saw the location and realized that I was only 5 minutes away. I thought I was going to be the first person there so I was casually walking and then I turned onto Regents street and saw 493580 girls running and so I started sprinteing for my life. They tweeted the location at 10:00 and I got there at 10:05 and I was 260th in line...if THAT tells you anything. Anyways I got a wristband and then went to Royal Albert Hall to be on the red carpet! 

Going back to talking about independence, I used to be so scared of going to things by myself, but nobody wanted to go to the BAFTAs with me and I was just like whatever I guess I'll go by myself then ! And I'm so glad that I did! One of my favourite things about these types of events is that you always make friends! The person standing next to me in line had been to many events like this before and we were standing behind some girls and they opened up the other side of the red carpet and my new friend looked at me and grabbed my arm and was like "girl we are going to run" and I was expecting a light jog but this kid literally sprinted like FULL ON. I felt like I was on a treadmill and put the speed on full blast. My legs literally still hurt from this day. Anyways we got front row because of this! 

OHHHHH my queen Octavia Spencer. The people that I REALLY wanted to meet were Jennifer Lawrence and Sam Claflin. But there was a bit of an event that occurred. Basically an hour into the red carpet, all the girls standing next to me, ripped their jackets off and jumped over the barricade. At first I was like....what....the fuck,,,,,is happening. But the girls were protesting Teresa May, the prime minister of the UK. These girls basically just sat on the red carpet chanting and the security really didn't know what to do. I thought it was interesting because if that would've happened in America, they would've been arrested or something, but the security just let them protest which I thought was kinda nice, the not so nice part of this, is that the police stood in front of the barricade I was next to when Jennifer Lawrence and sam claflin walked by so that nobody else would just onto the red carpet and so I missed them :( but also I'm glad those girls were able to peacefully protest so it's fine.

                                 

 

I'm definitely more of a music person than a movie person, meaning I don't know too many movie stars, I wish I could tell you the number of photos I had with random white male actors that I have no idea who they were, but I just took selfies with them because other people were and I assumed they were famous. 

Margot Robbie was probably my favorite person that I met this night! She was SO nice and wanted to meet all the fans and she also looked stunning! 

This was probably one of the coolest experiences that I will probably have over my time across the pond! I was able to see Their Royal Highnesses Will and Kate! It was so interesting how everyone views the royals. Before they walked the red carpet they cleared out all of the press and celebs from the red carpet so that will and kate could walk. I thought this was so interesting and when they walked down the red carpet, it was dead silent. Anyways seeing them wasn't an experience I thought I was going to have during my time in the U.K. but I am so glad that I was able to! 

And to conclude my fangirling weekend, I woke up at 5am on Monday morning and went to the Radio One Studios and Camila Cabello was there! This is the closest thing to a selfie I got but it was such a fun experience! 

Okay, that is all for this week! 

Study Abroad Week 5!!!

 Hello ! I am very behind on blog posts so I'm just going to post two in a row to get caught up and pretend that nothing happened. My classes are finally starting to kick in aka I actually have to do work. Every day I am surprised by small cultural differences in going to a university abroad. For example, today I was trying to check out a book in the library, and they don't use the same library organization system as the united states so I asked the librarian where a book was and she gave me a number and I was like....alright this means nothing to me, Betty Sue. ALSO you actually have to like....use books for research here. If you were to have me write an essay back home, I would pull everything off the internet easily, but here everything is so specific to the location you almost have to use books as a reference. Anyways I'm writing about the River Thames in the 15th century for my history class and I had to use a book as a reference and I felt like Hermione Granger sitting in the library reading a scholarly book....I also felt like I was in the year 1806. 

So this week I was very tired because I was in Paris and then Stockholm and Copenhagen, so I was so excited to be back in London for the weekend! 

I literally did nothing all week except go to class and on thursday my friend Mia and I went to Abbey Road Studios and took the cheesy picture and then left. 

After that we walked to Primrose Hill to see the historical site of where Harry Styles stood and go the idea to write his solo album. #buyharrystylesonitunes Anyways we took the wrong turn and ended up walking through Regents Park and it was *so* cute. I can't wait to go back there in the spring and ride my fucking bike through the park

This is my friend Mia and I after walking 43254 miles to Primrose Hill! 

We also walked down Primrose Hill High Street? I think that's what it was called....anyways everything was decked out for Valentines day ❤️❤️

We don't have class on Friday so we went to a club on a Thursday and I still feel like I'm not allowed to be there even though I am. 

On Friday I met up with a family friend that was visiting London with her husband! She also used to babysit my sister and I about 10 years ago (ahhh that's so crazy)! But we went to the Elan Cafe and it was literally the cutest place ever I felt like every blogger would have prolapsing organs when they walk in bc it is very /instagramable/ 

 The next morning we tried to go to Farm Girl Cafe and it was so busy so we went somewhere else, so if you want to go to Farm Girl, I would suggest going at like 8am on a tuesday, not 12pm on a saturday. After that I went to Harrods and walked around for like 3 hours and realized that I am very poor. 

AND THEN LADIES I GOT REALLY FUCKING SICK and this is what my life looked like for about 4 days! But I am feeling a lot better than I was this past weekend. I just have a cough now but I am still going to be dramatic and complain about every minor inconvenience. Anyways goodbye friends hopefully I am off my deathbed and actually do stuff next week!  

Study Abroad! Copenhagen and Stockholm

 Hello friends! I am currently writing to you from London and all of the traveling has finally caught up with me and I have been sick alllll week..but it's fine. 

This past weekend a few friends and I took a trip to Scandinavia! We started our adventure in Copenhagen, Denmark! This was the first trip that we were taking where we were planning everything on our own so we were a little bit nervous. Everything was definitely a learning experience. Our flight left from Gatwick airport at 6:00am. Basically getting to every airport other than Heathrow is a huge pain in the ass. If you aren't familiar with London's public transportation, basically they have an amazing underground train, but it closes at midnight and doesn't open until 5am. So since we needed to leave to go to the airport at 3am, we decided to leave the night before and just spend the night at the airport which was interesting. 

At Christmas, I asked my Grandma and Grandpa what they liked about Copenhagen because both of them have visited before and all either of them said was that the airport was really nice, which was true, but I wasn't sure what to expect when I got off the plane. After leaving the very nice airport, we bought a ticket for the subway and they never even checked tickets and so we were like okay we could've just walked on and saved $4 but it's fine. I didn't realize how the language and currency difference would be but we couldn't read the map of where to get off the train and so I asked a man where the city centre was and he told us to get off at Kongens Nytorv. So my ass doesn't know anything so I just listened to this man and we ended up getting off 5 stops early. It really wasn't that big of a deal I'm just being dramatic, but after we got checked into our hostel we went and got waffles and then my friend Aliza and I decided that we are going to Brussels in April just so we can eat waffles. 

Copenhagen is literally the cutest city ever. Other than their overpriced food ($9 for coffee and a bagel!!) Everyone in Copenhagen is just so fucking calm. Like I was walking around and nobody gave a fuck about anything and I was just like alright. 

That night we went to Tivoli Gardens and it was a winter wonderland! ALSO I tried "Irish Coffee" I wasn't sure what it was but I wanted something warm and I wanted coffee so I was like okay,...but then the barista started making it and just started pouring whiskey in a cup and I was like...alright we out here I guess. Anyways that was the first time I had whiskey (reminder that I'm legal) and I felt like an old white man. 

The next morning we went to a cute cafe called "Next Door Cafe" and I had my cup of coffee without whiskey. I wanted a cute cup of coffee so I could post a picture and caption it "Cup. Coffee. Copenhagen" because that is what Harry Styles did. 

After our very good lattes and pancakes, we ventured out to find the Little Mermaid statue and Rosenborg Castle. 

Copenhagen is definitely a walking city. We walked around everywhere and saw basically everything! I'm so glad that we squeezed two trips into one because I felt like we were there for the perfect amount of time! At about mid-afternoon, we went to the city centre station to get on our train to Stockholm, Sweden! 

The train ride was literally like I was going through the visual effects department of the Frozen team at Pixar studios. It was so pretty and covered with snow. We arrived in Stockholm that evening and then went to our hostel and grabbed dinner. We were supposed to go to the ice bar in Stockholm but then realized that we were all very tired so we just went to bed. 

Basically, all I did in Stockholm was eat but I'm not even mad about it. The first thing on our to do list was to go to a bakery and have a latte and cinnamon roll. If you didn't know, I worked at a bakery in Kansas that served cinnamon rolls when I was in high school so I'm kinda a cinnamon roll expert. ANYWAYS I'm still thinking about this cinnamon roll. 

Stockholm was very very very VERY cold.After our cinnamon rolls, we decided to go a museum. We went to the VASA museum which was a ship that sunk in the 1500's and was discovered in the 1900's so it was basically like the Vikings version of the Titanic museum. Also, there was a sign at the museum that said if you were under 18 you could get into the museum for free, so I was like....okay  im going to try to finesse this free entry ticket. so I go up to the ticket booth and ask for a children's ticket and the guy goes "can I see a form of id" and I started sweating, i was thinking about running. I was just like "sorry all I have is my student id" and he was just like "okay" so I got into the museum for free! .....Also side note everything in Sweden is so expensive. I'm very happy that they get free healthcare, education, maternity leave, etc. but it really sucks when you don't live there and have to pay their 4819205831095% taxes on dinner. 

After our museum visit, we walked around the city centre and stopped for dinner and had Swedish food! I had a .....well I don't really know what exactly this was but it was a pie with feta cheese and spinach and it was really good! 

Alright that is all for this adventure!

Study Abroad- Weekend in Paris! 🇫🇷🇫🇷

Bonjour!!! Excuse me if there are any typos in this blog post because I dropped my phone on my computer screen last week and now there is a huge crack in my screen and it cost $500 to get it fixed sooooooummmmmm im just going to deal with it I guess!!!!!!!!! THRIVING!!!!!!!! 

Day 1!!

Day one we took the EuroStar from Kings Cross (we left from platform 9 and so I was literally leaving from platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross) and we arrived in Paris later that evening. I don't know why I was expecting the Chunnel to be really cool and amazing because it was literally like taking the C train from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Anyways we were supposed to go on a sunset cruise down the Seine River, but the Seine was flooded so we went on a Roue de Paris, which is just a huge Ferris Wheel in Paris. 

I'm not really one for freaking out over monuments/statues and stuff. Like when I saw the statue of liberty I was like alright, but the Eiffel Tower literally took my breath away. It was just so amazing to see something I have wanted to see for my entire life. We were waiting to get on the Roue De Paris and our advisor came over and told us that the Eiffel Tower was sparkling and we walked around the corner and saw her all lit up and :') 

Bye this was the only other picture I took this day. My friends and I were wandering around the French Latin Quarter trying to find a French restaurant and stumbled upon this one place. We thought we were at a really fancy classic French place but it turns out we were at the French equivalent of Applebees. Also, I learned that French people fill wine glasses all the way up to the top which like....thank you . 

Day 2!! 

Day 2 started with a bus tour of Paris! Our first stop was at this random ass place that nobody knew what it was. Our tour guide was like "okay get off and it was literally just a street and we were all just like boywiththecup.gif 

We then went to arc de triomphe and let me tell you!!!! I would rather  die than drive in one of the traffic circles in  Paris. Like it's basically just 923905098 cars with no lanes going for it 

                      

After the arc de triomphe, we went to the Eiffel Tower!!! My friends and I had planned this pose for a good week and so please appreciate it. 

 

Not to sound like a Taylor Swift song, but I was thinking about how every city makes you feel different things. For instance, New York City makes me feel like I have endless potential and gum on the bottom of my shoes at all times. Paris truly has a romantic feel to it. Not even in like /that/ kind of way I almost don't know how to describe it. My friends and I were crossing a bridge over the Seine at night and we could see the lights of the city and I was just wow this just feels romantic !!  You know that feeling you get when you finish a book where you REALLY want two characters to end up together and they do at the very end? And you're just like WOW LOVE IS REAL!!!!!! That is how Paris just makes you feel walking through the streets. I don't know why it does, but IT DOES

Our tour dropped us off at The Lovre (Lorde, 2017) and we wandered around there for a while and admired the pretty building and Mona Lisa ! To be completely honest, we didn't mean to spend as much time there as we did, but we got really fucking lost and just like,....deadass couldn't find our way out and ended up walking around like the entire museum. The building is /huge/ no wonder our Lorde and savior wrote a song about it. 

 

I am quickly discovering that my favorite part of Europe is the street waffles.  We also climbed to the top of a department store and had some pretty views of the city at sunset! 

 Day 3!! 

Our day started with taking the metro to Notre Dame! I made a snapchat story saying "DAMN SON" and someone tried to convert me to a Jehovah Witness and so I'd say it was a great time. 

After seeing Notre Dame, we walked to Shakespeare and Co. which is a famous bookshop in Paris. There is some historical reason that makes it important but I don't remember what it was.....but it was really cute and I bought a Harry Potter book in French and there was a man playing La La Land music on the piano. 

I felt very Parisian this day. I got a lot of tweets asking me to make this a fashion post but ...I really don't think I have an interesting enough style for that dfjkasl I love the style in Paris because it's so classic and simple. Like I'm literally wearing black high waisted jeans from American Eagle and a striped shirt from Jcrew . like it's not that deep, Lou Anne Beatrix The Third. 

I do suppose that my beret and necktie made me outfit a little bit more /paris/ but if I'm being completely honest, the only reason I bought a beret is because my hair was an absolute disaster and I needed to just cover it with something. 

I also bought a baguette for absolutely no reason 

Taylor Swift stood here in the Begin Again music video! Fun fact! 

 

My friends and I decided to walk literally 2 hours across Paris and so about 1/2 way through we decided that a coffee was a must. We stopped at a cute cafe outside and drank our cafe du lait! Let me tell you !!!! French people know how to make coffee and that's the tea!!! 

 

My friends and I walked 2 hours to see the Eiffel Tower again and let me tell you!!! It was worth it! Honestly I was a little bit worried about only being in Paris for 2.5 days because there were so many things that I wanted to see. I quickly realized that Paris was a city you could definetly see in 1 or 2 days.  

Another thing that I learned on this trip is how relaxed and go with the flow I have become. When I was in high school and my plans would change, I would literally feel like screaming at the top of my lungs for 20 minutes every single time a minor inconvenience happened. Our train back to Paris was delayed an hour and we missed the last tube to back to our dorm and lots of people were freaking out and mad at our program for not planning ahead. Honestly, I didn't really care and we just took the night bus back from the train station and it wasn't that big of a deal. I just remember sitting on the bus being like ...when did my anxious ass become so fucking calm...Like I genuinely didn't care I personally enjoyed the little rendezvous because it was funny. 

Before leaving for Paris I ordered 20 sheets of Polaroid film on Amazon and had such a fun time taking polaroids around Paris. Here are my favs: 

Au revoir!