Day 3

Last night Jeana and I probably went to bed a little later than we should have which made waking up at 8:00 a.m. this morning a little difficult or maybe its just everything finally catching up to us! But we woke up quite fast due to some morning excitement. We had walked to the tube stop...almost all the way there when I asked everyone if they had their IDs. One of the girls didn't so we debated what to do but finally decided not to risk it so she ran all the way back to the flats which is a few blocks and back as we waited for her at the tube stop. We left the flat at 8:30 and its only supposed to take 20 minutes to get to the college but it was now 8:45. Yesterday Lyndon gave us a huge talk about not being late so we were freaking out to say the least. We got on the tube and it was 8:57 by the time we reached the final stop but we still had a little ways to walk. We knew we weren't going to make it on time but we did our best by running there and then sprinting up the 6 flights of stairs. We were about 2 mins late but later when we explained to Lyndon he seemed fine with it. It was just orientation today, not actually the start of class so I think that gave us a little bit of room for slack. Plus he was also glad we did not leave the girl behind to fend for herself so all in all it was no big deal but we got a nice light jog in that woke us all up for the time being!

Then we had the whole orientation which we were all in a daze for. Honestly I can’t even remember all of it. It was information overload to the max. It was a lot of good info though just too early in the morning and in a very hot room which only made me want to sleep more. During the meeting we were given our assignments for the weekend or as they are called “tasks.” Its weird getting assignments already since school doesn’t start until Monday actually but they are interesting assignments so its not bad at all. Talking about this actually reminds me of the task I talked about yesterday that I said I would say more on.

We were given a list of questions that we had to find the answers to by asking anyone out in London. We weren’t supposed to look up the answers or ask any of the students at the college. We had 11 questions total and we just had to try to figure out the answers as a whole flat. If we couldn’t figure out the answer we were just supposed to guess. I thought I’d share a few of the questions. Try to figure out the answers and I’ll have them at the end! They were a lot of fun to try to figure out!

QUESTIONS:

1. What is a Pub Quiz?

2. What is ‘the knowledge’ and who has it?

3. What is a ‘Cockney’?

4. If you were in ‘The Clink’, where would you be?

5. What would you get from a ‘hole in the wall’?

6. What are you doing with a biscuit, if you are ‘dunking’ it?

ANSWERS:

1. Most people in Europe have a local Pub that they go to regularly and each has its own national institution such as film or theater. They have Pub Quizzes based on their national institutions which are just trivia questions. Teams play as groups and there are prizes at the end.

2. The Knowledge is a test taxi drivers have to take to ensure they know the area around London like the back of their hand.

3. It is a type of person usually in the working class who have their own vocabulary. It is basically rhyming slang. For example ‘currant bun’ is the sun, ‘apples and pears’ is take the stairs

4. Jail…the name comes from the clinking of the jail doors

5. A ‘hole in the wall’ is an ATM machine so you would get cash from it

6. You would be dipping a cookie in tea

I just thought that might be a bit of fun, hope you enjoyed it! So that was a fun part of class. After orientation was over we decided to go find the grocery stores we had been looking for because we had food but not enough to actually make a meal with. We found Iceland which was very neat. It was mostly frozen dinners but it was all very inexpensive so we all plan to shop there a lot! It was actually a lot of fun shopping…we all felt very grown up. After we went there we went and purchased our hairdryer and straightener which was exciting. Carrying so many groceries wore our arms out by the time we got back to our flats. I’m going to have to start carrying around my reusable grocery bag to carry my groceries home in! So far I never seem to remember it. Once we got back we were all pretty exhausted but we each made our lunch. I microwaved some frozen Chicago style cheese pizza which was absolutely delicious! I will definitely be purchasing that one again. Once we got done with lunch we all got ready to go to Harrods!

We ended up leaving at 3:00 instead of 2:00 because some of us wanted time for a nap. I unfortunately didn’t get one of those in. But we finally headed out and Harrods was an awesome sight to see! I’ll have pictures up on facebook later. We went straight to tea but we took the Egyptian staircase which was incredible. Tea was the most adorable thing. It was a fun experience to have and we all enjoyed being proper and feeling English. We all got tea and two scones which were incredible. They also had the most amazing crème (butter) and strawberry jelly for the scones. Each of us girls at our end of the table were only able to finish one scone each as they were extremely filling and delicious!

After we finished out tea time we headed around to look at Harrods for a little bit. We were all still exhausted though so we only looked at the pet store and then headed home. The pet store was super cute but unfortunately too expensive to get anything for little Abbie but I was thinking about her the whole time!

On our way out of Harrods we saw this adorable bakery so we stopped in and checked out their display. They had decorated cakes that were beautiful and some yummy looking deserts. We might stop back there sometime for a special treat! They also had adorable little animal characters made out of what seemed to be Marzipan…one was a frog and it made me quite happy!

Then we headed back to our flat on the tube but stopped at the grocery store to pick up things we forget in the morning…it seems like we are always going there but we enjoy it! We can’t wait to make a dinner for the whole flat…I didn’t think I was going to like having to cook for myself each meal but I’m loving it. After relaxing for a while I cooked my dinner for the evening which was grilled cheese made with fresh bread and tomato soup. It was quite yummy. I think I’m going to get used to all this fresh bread and then be sad when I don’t have it back at home!

Now we are all just hanging out as a flat and are going to watch a movie and have a relaxing night in which I am quite excited about. Lounging around in sweats could not be any more perfect right now :)