Wagwon everybody!
Now for those of you wondering wagwon (pronounced wAHguh wAHn) is London slang for "what's going on?", I learned that from my British friends here! So life has been pretty good the past week, fairly uneventful but still good! I turned in my first graded piece of coursework last week- a 3,000 word essay on Soviet Identity in the Twentieth Century (yes, it was just as fascinating as it sounds) so it was a weight off my shoulders to have that done and out of the way. I was in a bit of a funk at the beginning of last week (in case you couldn't tell from the cutting off 3 inches of hair. Obviously I live on the wild side these days!) and wanted to do something fun over the weekend so I decided to channel my 5 year old self (when I was 5 I knocked on our then-next door neighbor's door and said "I hear there is a little girl about my age living here and I would like to meet her" and Amanda and I have been friends ever since!) and call up a friend to meet up over the weekend. Now, this was not just any friend, this was Kyle Walters! Kyle and I used to live next door to each other until his family moved to Arizona and my family moved to Geneva. It had been a few years since we had seen each other and was total chance that we happen to both be studying abroad in England in the same semester only a couple hours away from each other. I e-mailed him and we decided that I would come to Leeds (where he is going to school) on Sunday!
The rest of my week was pretty boring because I was crazy excited for the weekend and my little adventure. It would be my last weekend before Easter holiday starts so I wanted to try to get as much work done as possible. I managed to finish my last essay (4,500 words on Civil Rights and the Cold War, can you say par-tay) on Saturday and was ready for a fantastic Sunday in Leeds. Now for some reason England does daylight savings time 2 weeks after the US so our clocks changed on Sunday morning. I was all worried that I would mess up the time difference and while I didn't do that I did end up sleeping through my 2 alarms I set and waking up 40 minutes later than planned...good thing I get ready fast! I hopped on the bus to the train station, got some tea and a muffin for the trip and was off. I arrived in Leeds with no problems, managed to walk past Kyle in the train station and wander around lost for a few minutes before we found each other, my bad! Kyle gave me the grand tour of the city and the University of Leeds which unlike my university here, is basically right in the city so we could easily walk between the two. We got lunch, coffee, walked around, did a little window shopping and just had a great time catching up on each others lives over a pint of cider. (I still feel SO strange ordering alcohol and no one even thinking twice about it!) It was one of those cool experiences that you have with people that even though you haven't been around each other for a long time, it still doesn't seem like that much time has past. It was really fun to get to share our similar yet different study abroad experiences and to share the funny things that have happened to us over here. Unfortunately I am a total failure and didn't manage to get a picture of the two of us together (sorry mommy!). I also went for fashion over function in the shoe department and have some nice blisters on my feet as souvenirs of the weekend :/ Oh well, live and learn I suppose! I made it home safe and sound from the train station and felt like such a grown up going by myself to visit someone and all that jazz. All around it was a FANTASTIC day and we have tentative plans to meet up in Nottingham in May which I'm sure will be a blast.
This week my to-do list is a long but not too exciting. I am preparing for my Easter holiday which means that I have to pack up my entire room and completely move out. In the UK apparently they hold conferences at universities and the attendees sleep in our rooms. Warning to whoever is in my room...the bed is one of the most uncomfortable things EVER, sorry about it! Luckily a family friend will be collecting my stuff for me so I don't have to travel with all of it and I will also be staying at her house for part of break. I'm wondering how I am going to get all of my stuff back in my suitcase and have a feeling it's going to be a bit of a struggle to achieve my mom's master packing skills that got me over here! Saturday I'm off to Paris for a long weekend of art, shopping, and hopefully a comfortable-ish bed at the Plugg-Inn hostel with my Australian friend, Konstantina! I'll have really shady internet access for the month of April so if you write to me and I don't respond that's why and below is my travel schedule so you can all keep tabs (and maybe be a little jealous) of where I'll be for the month. I'll be back at school on May 1 and then will have just a few short weeks left here in Nottingham, CRAZY! I literally can't believe that I will be coming home 2 months from yesterday, yikes! On the roller coaster that is study abroad this past week has been so fantastic that I don't really want it to end just yet!
Well that's just about it for now.Thanks for all the cards I've been getting lately (you know who you are :) ) and the thoughts and prayers I know you've all been shooting up for me. I'll try to blog as much as I can next month about my travels but it might just end up being a nice long (and I mean LONG) post at the beginning of May when I get back. And of course I'll take lots of pictures and try to soak up as much of these experiences that I am lucky to be experiencing as I can. It will be a bit of a stressful month with all the traveling but I know I will look back on it years from now with a smile on my face and tell my little grand-kids about how cool of a world traveler their grandma was back in the day!
Love from London (and all kinds of other cool places soon!),
Stacey
Here's my travel schedule:
April 2-5 Paris
April 5-16 Jean's house, a family friend, and possibly some UK day trips
April 16-26 a tour of Barcelona, the French Riviera, Swiss Alps, Venice, Rome
April 27-May 1- London with my MOMMY (yes, we will be attending the royal wedding...my invite is in the mail, I just know it!)
**If you have any requests of places to go, things to eat, travel advice or anything like that please let me know :)
