I'm really bad at keeping this updated...so I'm just going to recap what has happened the last 3 weekends since nothing TOO exciting happens during the week.
The last weekend in January was when Emily and Phil came to visit. It was really really nice - as Phil said - to have people around that I have known more than a month. I hung out with them Thursday night and Friday morning but Friday afternoon I went and stayed with a host family. It was the biggest disappointment here so far. We could not stay at the family that we were supposed to because the lady's car had broken down. I had information on what the family was going to be like and was very excited because it said they had 2 dogs. I miss Ella...a lot. The family that I actually stayed with did not have a dog...she had a bird and the son had a snake. Not the same...but the woman was nice. It was not what I was expecting though. I didn't learn much about their family and about traditional English food because they fed us food from Tesco that I would buy...pasta and pizzas. On Saturday all of the people that were with a family - 10 girls went to Windsor Castle together. I didn't think we were given enough time because there was also Eton to see. We had to pay 14 pounds to get in as well. We walked to Eton where there is Eton College...where the princes went...and it costs 130,000 pounds a year to attend! That's college - which is our high school! Saturday night we watched Euro Vision...similar to American Idol only each country in Europe has its own competition and then the winners of each country have a big competition. We slept in on Sunday and then took the train back to London from where we were - Surrey/Woking.
The 1st weekend in February IFSA-Butler had a Saturday day trip to Ely Cathedral and Cambridge. I really don't like how Bulter has put together these trips. First of all, there is not enough time in a day to do 2 things. We left at around 8:30 am..but it was an hour or two bus ride and we had to leave Cambridge at 4:00. Also, there are no tours so you have to research the city before you go to know what to do there. The cathedral at Ely was nice. At Cambridge we had a traditional English Breakfast...complete with baked beans and then walked around all of the colleges there. It was different that Oxford - the buildings looked different and didn't all have a brown tint to them.
Last weekend we had another IFSA-Bulter trip to Warwick Castle and Stratford-Upon-Avon. This trip took longer to get there and we stopped at Oxford to pick up people that go to the university there. We didn't leave until about 9:00 because people were late. Warwick Castle is a medival castle that has been turned into a Disneyworld. There were people walking around in medival garb, sword fighting competitions, and wax people all over that you could take your picture with. The best part I thought was a garden full of peacocks just walking around. You could also climb to the tops of the towers and look around at the town. It was after 2 when we got to Stratford-Upon-Avon so we all were hungry and crabby. We eventually found a pub that didn't have an hour long wait - since it was Valentine's Day - and I had an amazing fish and chips with mushy peas. We walked around the town a bit and saw Shakespeare's birthplace but didn't pay the 9 pounds to get inside. We ran to see his grave in a church but then we had to go right back to catch the buses. Again...not enough time to do anything else.
Everything else has been going well. I think I'm settling down here. I feel comfortable enough to take the tube anywhere or find a bus route which is cheaper. Classes are fine - courseworks are becoming due soon. I have my operations management group paper due next Thursday and all we have to do is edit it. My other group project has started - for marketing - but it's not progressing very fast. I have my other 2 essays for Art and Society and London Theatre coming due in March so I should be starting those soon.
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