So it's taken me about six weeks, but I am finally writing in my blog! Yeah! I guess I will start from the beginning...I am living in a flat in London this semester; it is right on the border between Chelsea and Kensington. Apparently it is considered a very posh area, so most of the people that can afford to live here are over the age of 40. Oh well! It is still really nice.

We technically live in a townhome that has been split up into 5 different flats. There are about 25 of us total in the house, all of whom are in the same program as me. The flats are pretty tiny and old school. There are times I feel like I am in a prison cell because ALL of the walls are painted white and you are not supposed to put anything on them. Apparently it ruins the walls and they are hard to fix.

My flat is on the very top floor. I live with four other girls. Jill (my roomie from sophomore year) and Melissa (from Penn State) share a room in the downstairs portion of our flat. I share a room upstairs with Val, and Lian (from Unv. of Wis) lives next door to us in a single bedroom. We have quite the common room in our flat where everyone hangs out. It includes:

-Four very uncomfortable, awkward chairs (no couches because they want to dissuade you from having guests)

-A TV which has five channels (on a good day), but when you look at the picture you see two of everything-The tiniest dining room table-A reg. size fridge and a small fridge (which usually end up freezing your foods)-A mini kitchen with some janky appliancesDon't get me wrong, I love our little flat. It is just a lot different than I am used to. __________________________________________________________________

The first two weeks here were amazing because we were able to be uber-touristy. Most days consisted of some orientation meetings in the morning, exploring the city in the afternoon and going out at night.Arcadia took us to see the Tower of London and gave us tickets to see The 39 Steps the first week which was nice.

The Tower of London was huge and we barely had time to go see it so wandered aimlessly for awhile and eventually made it to the Jewel House.I got see all the crown jewels held there which were stunning.I think one of their old goblets on display

could pay for my entire education, a car and leave me some spending money.If only…Later in the week we went to see the British Museum.Again it was MASSIVE.I think we made it to 3 out of many, many exhibits.We saw Ancient Greece, Africa and SE Asia.It is somewhere I want to go back to when I have time.

The first weekend Arcadia arranged for everyone to do a homestay for the weekend.They split everyone in the program between two locations: Herne Bay and Portland.I was in Herne Bay which is a small town on the southern coast of the UK.Luckily I was placed in the same house as Melissa (my flatmate).It would have been pretty awkward if it was just me and the family.We stayed with a mom and her teenage daughter.

The weekend was uneventful, but relaxing.We ate, shopped, ate more, saw a Pantomime, ate more, played board games and ate more.First off English food is a lot more different than I expected.Some of the staples to an English meal include: Baked beans, potatoes and mayo.None of which I am a huge fan of.Shopping was fun, because Herne Bay is a heck of a lot cheaper than London is.The program set up a daytrip for us where everyone on the trip met up.For whatever reason they picked a Pantomime.A Pantomime is an interactive play/musical where the two leads are played by the opposite sex.Our particular Pantomime was d*** Whittington.Why in the hell they picked a Pantomime for a bunch of 20 year olds to go see, I'll never understand.There was a singing rat, dancing cats, the lead character sang a remake of 'Hey There Delilah' (It was called 'Hey There Dear Alice') and so much more.Our house mom could tell we hated it when she picked us up.I felt kind of bad because before the show she raved about how they loved it and went every year.Woops!