Hello!
Right now I am sitting in a youth hostel in the middle of London. I've been in Europe for the past two weeks and I have ten more to go!
I'm on a program called International Travelling Classroom. We spend about a week and a half in each city in (I believe) seven cities over the course of the semester. I arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland two weeks ago. We stayed in the Dalkeith Palace and spent most of our time exploring Edinburgh. We took a three day trip to the Highlands, and that was absolutely incredible. I was so sad to leave Scotland yesterday. I'm a very outdoorsy person, and Scotland is perfect for people like me. The mountains are breathtaking, and the people are incredibly kind. I've only been gone for a day and I already want to go back.
I arrived in London yesterday with four other girls from my group. We get two or three days of independent travel time between each city, and we all chose to get to London early. Some people chose to go to Dublin, Ireland, and others went to Liverpool in England. I'm glad we got here early- we've spent most of our time sitting in the hostel. After two weeks of non-stop travelling and learning, it's been a nice break. However, I'm ready to get out and sight see. I really want to go down to see Big Ben and the London Eye later, which the other girls are interested in doing.
I have to talk about my hostel first. We're in a youth hostel in Camden Town, and when we first looked online it looked alright. It has 4.5 out of 5 stars, and is pretty darn cheap. However, when we got here, we were shocked to find that our room is the size of a walk-in closet. Three beds are stacked on top of each other on both walls, leaving about two feet of space in between. We have a shower, but the light turns on automatically and there is a button to turn on the shower. No heat adjustment. After twenty seconds, both the water and the light go off, so you have to continuously press the button to keep the water on, and you have to do it in the dark. I took a piping hot shower in the dark this morning. It wasn't too bad, though. I know that when I look back on this someday, I'll have some cool stories to tell my kids and grand kids.
We haven't gotten a chance to explore much of London yet. We went out for dinner at a fish and chips place that was disgusting, and we went out for drinks. It was my first time experiencing Happy Hour, so that was fun! I had two drinks, but I didn't get a buzz. I was a little disappointed, but I have two and a half more months here. The United Kingdom has a bad exchange rate, so once I get to mainland Europe I'll worry more about drinking and going to nightclubs (which I'm excited for). Right now, I'm trying my best to save my money. I've been very under budget the past two weeks because I'm saving up for the end of my trip, where we get two weeks of independent travel. I also want to take a side trip to Norway for about three days between cities. Norway is very expensive, so I'll need the extra money. I just talked to my mom and I mentioned my tight budget, and she basically told me not to scrape by and to live it up while I'm here. My mom is absolutely amazing.
When we got here yesterday, everyone was exhausted. Some of the girls were pretty crabby, and it kind of carried over to this morning. I've stayed out of it and no one is upset with me, but some drama started up today. This is the first time anything has really happened since we got to Europe (at least to my knowledge) and I got a little freaked out by it. I've told everyone that got upset that if they need to talk, I'm here to listen and I'll support them. Everyone that was involved in the drama is gone right now, and I'm worried about what will happen later when everyone gets back. I might go downstairs and write on here some more to get away from it.
All in all, Europe has been pretty awesome so far. I haven't gotten homesick to the point of tears yet (much to my surprise), but I might hit that point if the drama here gets worse. I'm excited to hook on with our group again so we can all relax and be around other people. We're basically diving right in to our experience in London tomorrow with some sort of music show, so I'm excited to get out and start exploring London!
Until next time!
