London Eye

Yours truly came up with a brilliant idea to go for a ride on the London Eye. Hopefully I don't learn that I am indeed scared of heights, but it's never bothered me before. I posted about it on the group's Facebook webpage and got about a dozen others to go with me. I decided to go on the first free night that we have... so July 8th it is! I also let my mushy side come out and decided to go at 21:00 (or more commonly known as 9 pm) to hopefully see the sun set. This is by far the thing that I'm excited the most about so far!

Barcelona, Spain!

Me and a newly found friend from Kentucky named Samantha planned an extra trip to Barcelona! We will be leaving from London Stanstead on Friday, July 27th at 8:35 and arriving in Barcelona El Prat at 12:05. I am very excited and anxious about this flight because El Prat airport is right alongside the beach, so we will get an awesome view. We're going to rough it with only a small carry-on with 2 days worth of clothes in it because it was another about $75 to bring a checked bag.

The hostel plan is still questionable. All that we've looked up don't quite fit what we're looking for. We might have to stay outside of the actual city of Barcelona. Most hostels for adults have less than impressive ratings. We looked at one called the Mediterranean Youth Hostel, but the staff dresses up like mermaids and weird stuff like that... Nothing like a sea monster to clean your room I suppose.

Because neither me or Samantha are into the whole partying idea (although yes- we will be very legal to do so there), we are just trying to avoid the nightlife clubs and parties. We might stay in an actual hotel versus a hostel but we have time to consider that. Either way, we mainly plan to go to the beach and do some touristy site seeing there. Of course, I can't speak a lick of Spanish nor am I so sure of the stereotypical Spanish people or food... but it's all a learning experience!

We will fly out from El Prat Sunday, July 29th at 22:00 and arrive back at Stanstead at 23:20. This is a little later than what we would have liked to fly out, but the only other option was 6:50am and that would've been a nearly wasted trip. We haven't made arrangements to get to/from the airport yet but I'm sure we will take a taxi. This round trip flight was right at $200 which is quite a bit more than my Dublin flight but hey- carpe diem!

London Flight Itinerary!

I finally got my flight itinerary! Yayyy! This is when it all became a reality that I’m actually leaving in a few short weeks. So, I figured I’d share the info. We will be flying via US Airways. I have to be at the airport in Indy on Thursday, July 5^th around 1:30pm to meet up with an ISU official for my airline ticket and some other stuff for London.  We will board flight number 3290 at 3:38pm and arrive in Charlotte, NC at 5:16pm. We have a short layover in Charlotte then we will board flight 732 at 6:25pm to arrive at London Gatwick on Friday July 6^th at 7:20am their time… which is about 2:20am here I believe but don’t hold me to it. I’ve met most of the people flying out with me or meeting in Charlotte via Facebook, so I’m a lot less nervous about it now!

After we arrive at Gatwick, a coach will take us from the airport to King’s College where we will begin our very long day without sleep (and we all know how grouchy Jenny is without sleep… so I apologize in advance to all other CCSA members and the English people who must encounter me!). On the morning of Friday the 6^th, we get settled in to our rooms at Hampstead and get lunch from 11:30am-2:00pm. Then we have walking tours of the campus and surrounding areas from 1:00-5:00pm. We return to Hampstead by 6pm for a mandatory “Welcome Reception” where I assume we will meet the faculty and get acquainted with everyone.

Saturday, July 7^th at 8:30am (which keep in mind will feel like 3:30am to me...ugh!) we have mandatory orientation till 10:00am. Then we go for a mandatory city tour from 10:00am-1:00pm which I can imagine will be very helpful.

Sunday, July 8^th is free, so I will probably find a couple travel buddies and go explore the city and maybe experience the public transportation systems so I don’t look like a complete loss when I have to use it for real.

Monday, July 9^th at 9:00am is when I start classes. We will have the first few days to get used to everything and everyone, thankfully. Then between July 9^th and August 6^th, I’ll be posting about what kind of trouble I’m (hopefully not!) getting in to. Kidding- I won’t get into any trouble!

Monday, August 6^th is when my dream will come to an end! We board flight 733 at 10:00am their time at London Gatwick again. We will arrive back in Charlotte, NC at 1:55pm with a roughly 3 hour layover. I can imagine by this time I will just be ready to get home and won’t like the idea of a layover. Then at 4:42pm we board flight 4001 from Charlotte and land in Indy at 6:24pm. I am dreading this long flight more than I could appropriately express with words, but I know it will all be worth it! More plans to come soon!

Classes

Although class and homework is definitely the last thing I really want to think about in London, I'll have to face the fact that it is STUDY abroad. While at King's, I'll be taking 2 classes which will both count toward my graduation credits at ISU (and my criminology degree is almost done! Woo!). My two classes, one criminology and one psychology, are called "Our Concept of Mind and How British Psychology Shaped It" and "Law & Order: London". I'm pretty excited about both of them. Classes are split up into two groups: A and B.

My psychology class (group A) is taught by a guy named Tom Wilson who is from Belmont University in Tennessee. He's awesome so far by keeping in close contact with us, making sure we're somewhat familiar with each other, and sending us random packets in the mail of readings and stuff so we're not lost on day one of classes. We will meet on Monday mornings from 9:00-noon and Wednesday afternoons from 13:30-16:30 (or 1:30pm-4:30pm) with mandatory field trips on July 10th (University of Oxford), 19th (field trip for classmate bonding, he says), 24th (Cambridge) and August 2nd (Chichester). Also, it's not mandatory of him, but he is taking us to tour the inside of Buckingham Palace on August 1st! That's the one I'm looknig forward to most! We will have to pick an English psychologist to research and give a presentation over for the end of the program.

The criminology class is taught by an ISU professor who I haven't had yet, Lisa Decker. I hear she's not the most fun or relaxed teacher so I'm not really looking forward to that part of it. My crim class (group B) will meet on Monday afternoons from 13:30-16:30 (also 1:30pm-4:30pm) and Wednesday mornings from 9:00-noon with mandatory field trips on July 12th, 17th, 26th, and 31st. She hasn't really been in contact with us so I don't know where any of our field trips will be. I know we get to meet the police and guards... but who knows what she'll have in store for us. We will have 3 day weekends of Friday-Sunday without classes or mandatory trips. That's all I know about classes so far!

Dublin, Ireland!

There are sooo many places that I'd love to visit in Europe, but I'm squeezing my top few into the month that I'll be there. I decided that Dublin was definitely one of those places, so a group of about a dozen of us got together and planned a trip to Dublin. With that said, I've already booked my flights and hostel! We will be flying out as a group from London Gatwick airport early on Saturday, July 21st at 6:50 and arriving at Dublin at 8:10. The airline we'll be flying is called Aer Lingus.

I'm finding that European flights are much cheaper than US flights with it only being around $100 round trip-- although they trick us Americans and put everything in their Euro amounts so we think we're getting a heck of a deal till the credit card comes out and we spend more US$ and not Euros!

I'm not sure what all we have planned as a group upon arrival, but we will probably just check into the hostel and take the rest as it comes. We used hostelworld.com to decide on what appeared to be the nicest, cheapest and safest one which ended up being Globetrotters (http://www.globetrottersdublin.com/). We will be there just one night and leave from Dublin late on Sunday, July 22nd at 21:25 and arrive at London Heathrow airport at 22:40. (Sorry that I'll be in Ireland and England for your big over-the-hill birthday, dad!) I still have to count out the 24 hour/military time deal, but I'll get the hang of it quickly (which John will surely appreciate so I won't always look at him like a deer in headlights and ask the time when I see his watch).

If you're wondering why we're only going to Dublin for one night... most of us are attending a trip to Stonehenge through CCSA the day before (Friday, July 20th) so we only have a 2 day weekend versus the usual 3 days. Aside from that I've got a couple other places and things in mind, but I'll wait till tickets are booked and set in stone before I spread the word! :)

About CCSA

Most people are asking "How did you get the chance to go to London?!" so here's the boring answer. How this whole program came about was through an organization called CCSA which is in Nashville, TN. Around 25 schools from the States are in it together and about a dozen "kids" from each college are going on this trip. Most if not all of the instructors are from the colleges here in the US and I don't think any of our instructors are actually English (which is probably a plus because I'd be admiring the accent versus listening to the material). Whereas I might not know many people going from ISU, there will at least be plenty of Americans going with me. I've met a few of them through Facebook and have been planning some weekend trips and stuff with them. I plan to take two weekend trips (with that info to come later too!) and spend the others actually in London. Well now you know about the bummer school part of the trip, so I'll try to make the rest more interesting and exciting! ;)

King's College

So while I'm paying big bucks to ISU and studying in London, the college I will be attending there is called King's College (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/index.aspx).  I've researched it a little, but the program I'm in has essentailly nothing to do with the academics at King's so I haven't looked into it very much. 

I'll be living on campus in a single room (thank the good Lord above... sharing is NOT caring for me!) in a dormitory called Hampsted Residence (check it out... it's quite awesome! http://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/pg/accom/kings/kingsresidences/hampsteadresidence.aspx). I'm still waiting on my actual flight ininerary from Indianapolis to London,  but I do know that there are several airports in London (Stansted, Gatwick, and Heathrow for example) and have no idea which one we'll be using. It's going to be a whole different world over there for this Hoosier homebody!

30 Days till London!!

Hey guys! So as most of you know (since I haven't shut up about it in months), I'm going to London next month! It's actually ONE MONTH from today!!!  A whole 30 days! So I made this blog to try to keep you guys up to date on what I'm doing and when/where. I have no idea how to work this thing, so maybe we'll all figure it out. Hopefully I'm savvy enough to figure out how to add pictures later and all of that. Right now, I'm still planning weekend trips and figuring out what I want to do as far as a phone abroad, packing, attractions and all of that. I'm always open to suggestions from everyone (especially those who have gone abroad before!) I plan to go to Dublin for a weekend, and see lots of musicals (Jersey Boys, Wicked, Sweeny Todd, and any others that I can get, really). This is all very exciting, nerve-wracking, and every other crazy emotion, but it will be so worth it! I'll keep you guys posted as stuff pops in my mind. That's all for now, folks!  :)