London and Beyond

Last Friday I hopped a train to London with the rest of the Loyola crew. Basically, I had extremely stereotypical tourist weekend, and loved every minute of it. Navigating a group of 30 college students through the London Underground was rough, but amazingly no one got lost. We arrived really late on Friday evening, so Cait, Rachel, Jill and I just grabbed dinner and headed to a local pub to relax for the night and chat it up with Londoners.
Saturday was a crazy and hectic day, but we got to see so much of the city. All 30 of us went on a guided tour of Parliament and saw Big Ben, then headed over to the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels. I've never seen so much bling in my life ... kind of jealous. Next stop was touristy photo shoot on the Tower Bridge (gorgeous), and by that time everyone was wiped out. While everyone in my group went back to the hotel to nap, I just grabbed a huge cup of coffee and set out to navigate the London Underground (flawlessly!) by myself to enjoy the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square. We all met up again for dinner, then went out to enjoy the London nightlife. Piccadilly Circus is absolutely nuts. But all in all, Newcastle is totally head and shoulders above London in terms of nightlife. Seriously, London just can't compete with this amazing town that I'm living in.
Sunday was more touristy stuff, including Buckingham Palace and more of Trafalgar Square. Cait, Jill, Rachel and I rode the London Eye at night ... spectacular view. London is definitely stunning all lit up. I think we walked all over the city trying to find cheap, yet edible food, and eventually found a Baskin Robbins. You have no idea how elated we all were. English food is mostly just strange, so it was really nice to have familiar treats.

I arrived back at my flat on Monday to meet my flatmates. Of course I had met my American roommate earlier, but I got to meet 4 more friendly girls, Eleanor, Lauri, Fran, and Sarah. All of them are British and extremely nice. So far they've been very welcoming and we've been having so much fun together. Living together seems like it will be easy. All of my flatmates are first-year students, so we're all in the same boat together trying to make new friends. It's so nice to take a break from the Loyola group that I've been traveling with non-stop for over a week and just go out with the British girls. We've been going out in the evenings enjoying the "Freshers Week" events in town.

Classes start Monday, which I'm actually excited about. Next week all of the orientation craziness will be over and I'll actually have time to settle in. This is shaping up to be a great semester already. Still loving Newcastle!