Blunt

Saturday, March 24, 2012,5:14 PM

When Home Comes Abroad

It's natural to feel homesick, especially when you haven't created a "home"for yourself in your residence.

This past week my friends from New York and Singapore came to visit. Honestly, it was the best week of my life. I got to experience and visit more than I had in the past ten days than I had in the few months that I was here!

Instead of posting lengthy blog posts with large gaps in between, I'll recap everything we did (just as soon as my exam gets over on Tuesday *stressstressstress*)

Checklist of things I did and will cover:

- Madame Tussauds

- Westminister (London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminister Abbey)

- Piccadilly Circus (Theatre, M&M World)

- Buckingham Palace

- Tower Hill

+ much more :)

So when if you're planning on going to London or visiting someone, these are definitely things to do!

Friday, March 9, 2012,6:31 AM

Programs!

Rewind to move-in day!

Before we could even unpack and settle, RAs and NYUL coordinators gave us papers and pamphlets ranging from emergency contact info to maps to restaurants ...and *drum roll* Programs! Students are given a list of 6 sites out of which they are given the option to choose up to 3 and 20 credits to attend other events.

Eager, I chose the first three: Cambridge, Oxford, and Bath & Stonehenge...though, I reallllllly want to do the others as well *hint - if anyone official is seeing this -*

Cambridge

En route Cambridge...

Summer 2012 Olympic Stadium

When we arrived, about 15 of us close friends stayed together in a group with a tour guide, who increased my general knowledge by about .00005%+ with her unenthusiastic and monotonic bits of information and frequent stops ...in the cold. If there's one thing I remember about our trip to Cambridge, it was that I was chilly.

Thought applying to Harvard (andgettingrejected) was hard? Cambridge and Oxford students have many rounds to their application process, steps that include getting interviewed by four people (#dread). Not only that, the students in these universities work like crazy since their terms are much shorter, about 8 weeks in duration. Much respect!

King's College - Cambridge

After the tour, we wandered around town for a bit & got food!

Cambridge is a cute and tiny town. It's obvious that it's a college town with all the students everywhere, but it's unique in that it's rich and full of ancient architecture and history. I didn't get to take a picture of it, but in the little outlets they had surrounding the outdoor market, there were shops such as Hugo Boss, which oddly stuck out.

Best part of the trip: seeing fudge being made

Oxford

The weather the night before the Oxford trip was so terrible that almost everyone out of the 15 I knew that were supposed to go thought the trip would be cancelled. Since we heard that there are no snow plows in London, we figured that there was no way buses the next morning would take us to Oxford when the streets were filled with snow. However, when I woke up, I didn't get an email saying the trip was cancelled, so I assumed the trip was still on...Unfortunately, I was the only one who made that assumption. So, off I went to Oxford alone!

Center of town

Streets of Oxford

Apparently students dress up this statue in crazy outfits for fun, especially during exam week. However, since one student got caught and experienced severe academic consequences, the prank has been more on the DL.

One of the coolest parts about Oxford was that parts of Harry Potter was shot here! The outside and insides of buildings were used as parts of Hogwarts.

Outside the "Infirmary" and "Library"

Inside the "Infirmary"

Where the Yule Ball lessons took place

Tort Street Kitchen - where we had lunch

Trinity College - where JRR Tolkien studied

My first butterbeer (aka hot chocolate)

Oxford is a pretty tiny town, and I ended up walking around the whole thing a few times. I also explored the science museum and other little places, but there wasn't too much to do there. Unlike Cambridge, it didn't have many high-end shops, but like Cambridge you could tell it was a college town with many cafes and little places to eat, students everywhere, etc. If I had to choose a place to study, I'd probably pick Cambridge. There are about 30 or so colleges and everything is close in proximity. Additionally, there are more modern shops and places that wouldn't make me feel like I'm in such an isolated town. However, both were absolutely gorgeous to visit and I'm glad I went. Both were about 1.5-2 hours away in journey.

Bath and Stonehenge

We had to depart for Stonehenge before 8 in the morning (around 7:45), so waking up was a bit painful. The drive to Stonehenge was 2 hours through very scenic countrysides.

Stonehenge

Oops!

There isn't anything to do in Stonehenge besides look and take pictures of the site, so within an hour we departed for Bath, which was an hour away.

Bath is one of the most gorgeous places I've ever visited. Now I know why Jane Austen always wrote about Bath and how the rich and fancy people would go here. The waters of Bath were supposed to be healing, and since the town is expensive to live in, only rich people would reside here.

Nicolas Cage's house

Hot Springs/ bird poop water

I've explored a lot of Europe, but this was by far one of the most memorable places. It's architecture is rich, the design of the city is compact, and the running water everywhere is so spectacular.

Labels: Bath, Cambridge, Oxford, Stonehenge

Tuesday, March 6, 2012,6:00 AM

(home)sick!

Again, not to make an excuse, but I'm sorry for not having posted.
I've been unbelievably sick for the past 10 days that it's gotten a bit depressing.
I've made friends with Panadol... :( and to top it off I have 2 more exams this week!

Will make normal posts soon and regularly.