Hey it’s Demetra again, Sarah has final exams all this week, next week, and like for the eternal fucking future so I believe she will not be writing on here for a bit. However, I am going to write my first (of probably like 50) blog entires that will be about London, England. I applied to study abroad in England in the same fashion that I do everything else in my life – on a whim. Seriously. I applied the day of the application deadline because I was bored and thought “hey, it’d be cool to live in Europe for a little while and I have never been to London so why not?”. Months later I was accepted into the study abroad program and like less than a year later I was on a fucking plane to London. Now this was the first time in my life that I would be spending more than like a month away from my parents and if you have ever met my parents you would know that my sister and I are like two princesses in their eyes. My dad was terrified he would have to pull a Liam Neeson and come save me. We weren’t even allowed to watch the movie Taken in our house for the last 3 months leading up to my departure…
So now that you have some background knowledge of my family it will help you to understand why my trip to London turned out as it did.
My parents knew (rightfully so) that I would most likely get lost if I took a flight with a layover (and probably end up in like Bangladesh or something) so they decided to fly me first class. Now if you have ever flown first class you would know they give you this entire ridiculous treatment where you can go in this weird lounge before the flight, where you are allowed to eat and drink as much as you want. I was a fucking mess at the airport I am such a baby when it comes to my parents so I was balling at the airport, texting all of my friends, and acting like a total brat who was not appreciative of the amazing opportunity i had been given. And – like any understanding and supportive mother would – my mom suggested I have a few drinks before the plane because guess what else? I hate flying. I decided to take my moms great advice and what would be better than a few drinks? I’ll tell you what. Not a fucking entire bottle of wine to yourself. Yep. I was sitting in the business lounge with a shit ton of CEO’s and shit, crying, texting my friends, and drinking out of a bottle of wine. This was not my finest moment.
Fast forward 12+ hours and like 4 glasses of champagne on the plane: I am hungover, exhausted, and experiencing culture shock that felt more like the moments leading up to a massive heart attack, jammed with 5 other study abroad students + a driver into a taxi made for like 4 people. What. the. fuck.
The first place I dragged myself to eat in London was called Nando’s. The University I was attending is The University of Westminster and it is located near the Baker Street tube stop and across from Madam Tussaud’s, which I never brought myself to visit because seeing the line every single day for 6 months made me vow that I would never wait that long to see a bunch of terrifying wax people. Nando’s was located maybe a 10 minute walk from the University, on Baker Street. I had a side of rice with the grilled chicken pita, and I have this weird child-like habit of ONLY eating something if I like it and never trying anything else so I continued to eat this same meal every time I came to Nando’s.
A few days into my study abroad program we went on a double decker bus city tour of London. (I studied abroad with a program called CEA – which was phenomenal. The woman who was in charge of our program was awesome and we had the chance to go on a lot of trips that were fully covered by our study abroad fees). This took us to sites such as Tower Bridge (that’s the cool bridge you always see in pictures, not “London Bridge” London bridge is actually really boring looking and made of rock.) It also took us to the Westminster Abbey and Big Ben <3, where obviously everyone needed to take pictures with Big Ben or the Phone Booth near it – The phone booths actually don’t really function as phones anymore, I was told by one kind individual of the country that they are in fact used by homeless people to shoot drugs in. Interesting.
Across from our University was a bar which became my favorite hang out spot (Monday-Thursday) The Met. The Met has carpeted floors, cocktail pitchers for five pounds and meal deals where you could get like a burger and a beer for something as cheap as 6 pounds. I also liked it because I pretty much got shit housed every time I was in there and (besides my fellow Uni/study abroad students) it was mostly inhabited by English people! (Unlike a bar I frequented on Tuesdays, Rockets, which I will write about in a further post).
While I was in London I also had an internship working in Camden for a Day Center for people who struggled with mental health issues. I will not write much about this because I feel like it could set me up for a potential law suit but I can honestly say it was one of the most rewarding and enjoyable jobs i will probably ever work. Camden is like NO other place in the WORLD. and it is fucking fantastic if you are ever in London and do not take some time out of your day to visit Camden you have no idea what you are missing. It is hip, it is different, the street food is great, the shopping is sensibly priced but the clothes are so different. If you walk around Camden the people have such a different sense of style – it’s seriously the coolest place I have ever been. Being from Chicago the only other place that reminds me of Camden is Wicker Park and it’s not even close. One of the most famous bars is located in Camden, World’s End. Which I never actually went to despite I walked past it every single day. Camden is just a short (20-30 minute) walk thru Regents park, and it is totally worth it I mean Regent’s Park is beautiful and you should walk thru it anyway so might as well walk to Camden!
This is just one of many posts I will be writing about London so if you ever want to visit London be sure to check out my posts because I will tell you sites you should see, foods to try and clubs to sneak into haha
Runaway Blond 