Prior to leaving I was excited about studying abroad in London. This would be my first trip to Europe at the age of 22. I packed up the day before I was leaving to London Heathro airport.
UK and Ireland
I heard that British food was not tasty before I came here. It is no more true these days! I want to explain about traditional English food which I tried!
Full breakfast is English traditional meal of the morning, and it usually includes egg, sausage, bacon, and toast. I went to Masters Diner in the Covent Garden. Here, it is about £6 with a cup of tea. (It was much cheaper than other places!) Some restaurants serve beans too, but the taste is a little different from ones which we eat in the US. Our beans are sweet, but British ones have some tomato taste in them. I also added black puddings, which is a pork sausage with pig’s blood. I was afraid of eating it, but it was not as bad as I heard! (But one slice was enough for me.) Overall, full breakfast is a good morning meal and gives people an energy for a day!
Fish & Chips! Is there any British food more famous than this? No! It includes a fried fish, usually cod or haddock, chips (french fries), lemon, tartar source and some vegetable. I ate it twice at different places; first at Rock and Soul Place and second at Ale and Pie. Both were really great! Fish was fresh and juicy and tartar source was excellent. We need to add some ketchup or salt to chips. It is good with beer!
On Sunday, I went to the Covent Garden and ordered Sunday Roast with a glass of red wine. The well known group was playing beautiful classical music in front of me. (How lovely!) The Sunday Roast was about £15, and I had a choice of beef or lamb. I ordered a lamb roast. I was so happy because it was served with Yorkshire puddings! Yorkshire pudding is an English side dish made of egg, flours and milk. It was one of the British foods I wanted to try. They were more dryish than I expected, but good with the lamb roast very much. Also, the source was great… It was very good with meat, puddings, vegetable and wine.
Scorns! It is usually serves with cream and jam. I ate them first at a cafe in the Covent Garden and next at the Natural History Museum. They were not too sweet, and usually include some dried fruits. At first, I ordered English tea with it. The scorn was warm and soft and great with tea. It was the best scorn ever. At the Natural History Museum’s cafe, I ordered mocha with it. The scorn was harder than the previous one and cold, but it was still delicious. I thought scorns were more dryish and similar to bread, but it was not true. I love scorns! They have a gentle sweetness which cookies don’t have. I want to try afternoon tea set if I have chance and enough money.
This is Beef Wellington, which “is a preparation of fillet steak coated with pâté (often pâté de foie gras) and duxelles, which is then wrapped in puff pastry and baked (wiki).” It is one of the British foods I want to try during this trip, but it is very very expensive at every restaurant. However, I finally found reasonable Beef Wellington at Harrods! I want to buy and try it before I come back to the US!
I arrived at London on January 3.
I was glad that I could come to London safely just as planned. It was a long trip for about 6 hours (but shorter than NY to Japan). We arrived in the morning. After checking in our flat, we walked to ATM to get cash. It was the first time to see European money. It’s so cute! I tried to stay up not to be beaten by the jet lug, but the jet lug won. I was so tired and fell asleep for a few hours. After taking a nap, my roommates and I walked to the grocery shop to get some food. I heard British food is not delicious, so I prepared myself. I gave a sigh of relief because the shop was similar to one in the US. I planned to eat as many British food as possible, so I only bought small amount of food in case of getting hungry at night and before class.
I was so impressed by the landscape of London when I first saw the town because buildings were unbelievably pretty. I couldn’t count how many times I said “Oh my god, it’s so cute.” Everything was decorative yet stylish. I especially love traditional brick apartments. A red London bus has two levels and runs around the city. It is one of the symbols of London. I bought the Oyster card without a bus potion so the main transportation is a train, but I would take the bus at least once before going back to the US.
My stay in London is just getting started. I will visit as many places as I can, and eat as many British food as possible!
Thank you for reading!
Hello all my name is Marissa Heuser. I am currently a sophomore at SUNY New Paltz. I’m in the honors program here. I adore New Paltz and pretty much everything about it. I am going to be studying abroad at Kingston University in London, England. I leave the USA on January 4th which is so soon!! I am going for the whole Spring semester and to be honest I’m kind of scared. In a, I’ve never been this far from my family/friends for this long, kind of way. I am a real homebody, I chose my school because it was 2.5 hours away from my home. My parents are my closest confidants and my sister is my best friend. It’s going to be a challenge learning how to survive without them. I also have two Labradors, Chloe a female black lab who is 11 and Kingsley a little yellow male who is almost 2. They are my little loves and I’m going miss them so much.
My friends are just as fantastic. I have two of the most amazing roommates anyone could hope for. Jess and Christina have become my best friends at college and my life line(s). They are supportive, kind, brilliant and hysterical.
It is going to be so weird not living with them next semester. I have plans to video chat with them all the time because I don’t know if I can handle life any other way 😝.
My friends back home are weird and crazy but they are the best people you’ll ever meet. They will talk your ear off about video games but they will never let you down. They are loyal and goofy and basically just the weirdest pack of misfits you will ever meet. We have stuck together through everything and I know that even through they are far away, we are never truly apart.
But enough with the sappy, I’m going to miss my family/friends so much, stuff!
I am packing for England! I decided to start packing about 6/7 days before I leave. A bit of advice, NEVER START PACKING A WEEK BEFORE A 5 MONTH TRIP!! It’s stressful because it is close to the departure date so you are freaking out but just far enough away to let you be paranoid. I have spent about 2 full days contemplating bringing another pair of socks. Its….not healthy. I am locking up those suitcases and putting them in a different room because I can’t stop staring at them wondering what I missed.
They are both MAXED OUT.
I will make my second post on the day I leave! I was really lucky to make a friend who is also going to Kingston. We even got seats next to each other on the plane! I am so nervous and excited and I can’t believe that I am going to London!!!
I guess that’s all for now!
Till next time,
Marissa
Hello. I’m Emi Takeyama, a junior international student from Japan. My major is Graphic Design and I will join the London Art Seminar during this winter. The trip is only for two weeks, from January 2 through January 17.
During the seminar, we will visit famous and important places of art and history such as Tate Modern, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, Kew Gardens, and Saatchi Gallery. We will also join some tours and watch a theatre show.
Of course watching art works is the biggest purpose of this class, but experiencing its culture is another very important purpose. This is the first time for me to travel Europe, so everything I see, listen, eat, smell, and feel is new in London. I already experienced studying abroad in the U.S. as Japanese, so this is a good time to compare how I feel in England and the U.S. as an international student.
In London, I will sketch landscapes in my cute travel sketchbook and take a lot of photos to remember the trip. Also I want to use those photos as materials of my art works in the future.
I will try traditional British food such as fish and chips, English breakfast, Yorkshire pudding (I heard they are delicious), Stargazy Pie, and Haggis (I heard they are awful…).
Overall, I am very excited to go to London! I will continue to post my recent conditions on this blog. Thank you for reading!
12/30/15
It’s 3 days and 7 hours before the departure, and I’ve just started my second 8 hour train ride this week. The holiday season has consisted of visiting all of my relatives and all of my boyfriend’s, making this month and the next couple weeks the most I’ve ever traveled in my life. I’m overjoyed by it all, but I have to admit I’m also anxious. It’s a mix of never taking a flight this long (it’ll be about 8 hours), never leaving the country except my short vacation in the Bahamas when I was 6, and being so insanely busy the past 2 weeks that I’ll only have one day to get everything together and actually pack. Adding on to that, the day after I come back from London the spring semester auditions for the theatre department are happening. l’m thinking about all the wonderful things I want to do in London, but I also have the looming audition anxiety, and I haven’t even found all of my material yet. So it’s a lot to think about.
Connie had us do pre-departure assignments that gave us a chance to explore the city of London online a little bit before our feet hit the ground running. I’m so used to the grid system of NYC that it’s still kind of confusing to see how the city of London is laid out, but the tube is starting to make more sense, and I’ve been told by many people how much easier it is than dealing with the subway here. It looks like Bloomsbury, where we’re staying, is an excellent location, right near the theaters and lots of fun pubs and restaurants.
This all seemed so far away…and now I’m rushing to get everything together and I’m brimming with excitement. I’ve looked at our schedule for the next 2 weeks, and it’s jam-packed with so many awesome things. I’m particularly excited to see Macbeth at the Young Vic, the Kinks musical Sunny Afternoon, and visit the Globe. I’m looking forward to meeting all kinds of interesting people, seeing great theatre, eating delicious food, trying different beers and cocktails, and having loads of unique experiences. Bring it on!
How was it over a month ago that I sat in my room writing my “prepping for London” blog post? How has a month gone by and how have I found myself writing the “coming down from the emotional high that was one of the best experiences of my life” blog post?
In all sincerity, I am very happy to be home; to see my family, my friends, and my bed (sleeping being the second thing I did, only after having pizza, of course!) I have now been home for five days, the first four of which were pretty hard on my body. Jet lag (especially after a 14-hour layover in Norway) hit me pretty hard and left me with a migraine and irregular sleep schedule that I am just now coming out of. Now that I’m not waking up at 4:00 in the morning and have seen the majority of my family and friends, it almost feels as if no time has passed at all. It was pretty comforting to come home and see that though life went on whilst I was gone for a month, everything stayed relatively the same. I suppose I am ready to settle back into the life I had prior to leaving, one that consisted primarily of school work and my part-time job, but now I’m grateful to say my mind has beautiful places including Scotland, France, and England to wander to.
After the euphoric month I spent in Prague, I am lucky enough to have been welcomed back to Wales for a visit before returning to New York. I am staying with one of my best friends, Annie, who was my flatmate in Uni Hall when I studied at Cardiff University. This is my second time meeting up with her since studying in Cardiff, but my first time coming to her home in Wrexham.
Not only was the cool, rainy weather comforting after an extremely hot summer in Prague, but Annie’s parents and house are even more comforting. They’ve made me feel so welcome that I’ve talked of being adopted into the family.
Annie took me on a tour to Chester, England on Sunday and then we had a study session when we returned. We went to ride her horse on Monday before a cheeky night out for old time’s sake. Tuesday was recovery day and I continued to work on my essays. Wednesday we met up with another flatmate from Cardiff, Kym, in Chester. They took me to Afflecks, and indoor indie commerce shop with a variety of different shops. It was basically the whole village of New Paltz in one building: tapestries, records, henna… very hipster and I loved it. Unfortunately, my budget was super tight at this point and I had major baggage restrictions so I had to resort to window shopping, but it was wonderful. We eventually went to the Manchester Art Gallery which was free and HUGE. I love art, and it almost made me feel like it was another day in Prague.
All in all, it was so great to spend time with my friends that I made during my first study abroad experience. I remember being miserable when I had to leave Cardiff, not knowing when I’d see all my Welsh and English friends next… 1 and a half years later, I’ve been back to Europe two more times and some of them have even came to visit me in New York.
Traveling is really the most beautiful, indescribable, surreal thing I’ve ever done; I don’t ever plan to stop.
I can’t believe it’s been a month since I visited Amsterdam. It was my last trip until I headed home to New York. I’ve always wanted to visit Amsterdam. I remember my aunt going all the time and bringing me back souvenirs. It was great to finally have the opportunity to see it for myself.
In order to explore Amsterdam we used transportation and walking. However, we soon realize that walking was the best way to get around. I realize the bus pass we got for the four days we were there was not worth it. Lesson learned!
Tip #1: Research! If you don’t need transportation, don’t be pressure to buy a weekly pass or etc.
Also it’s very important to pay attention. Not only are you look both ways for cars, but bikes make up most of the transportation around Amsterdam. I had to constantly look back and forth just in case.
The highlight of my trip was visiting the Anne Frank House. I’ve heard about this place for such a long time. I grew up learning about Anne Frank and the holocaust that I had to check it out. The whole time I couldn’t believe I was there and learning about new things I didn’t know. I left that place feeling inspired and grateful for the life that I live.
I also learned that you have to be patience because you have to wait about two hours to get inside. That didn’t stop me from wanting to see the museum. I’ve waited for concerts longer than that!
Tip #2: Be patience and arrive to places early.
Another highlight was visiting the Van Gogh Museum. Gogh was another person I grew up learning about. It was great to be surrounded by his art and other artists that were inspired by him or that he was inspired by. It was great to see his famous work and learning more about his life.
It was also the beautiful scenery that Amsterdam has to offer. There was beautiful canals, flowers, and weather all around me. It was a great time to go to Amsterdam. Although I didn’t get to go on a canal, I was able to experience riding a bike around Amsterdam. It was very nerve wracking at first, but then I got the hang of it. I would definitely ride a bike again in Amsterdam if I have the chance.
I got visit the famous I Amsterdam. I watched people climb the letters with so much ease and I wish I had the strength. Maybe next time!
I miss all the travel places I got to visit. I can’t wait to experience it again one day.
It’s been exactly ten days since I left Wales. It felt like just yesterday that I was walking the streets of the lovely country and creating a life there. I remember the people, the food, and the place I called home. There are small moments when I think back to the six months I spent abroad. Sometimes it feels like a dream and I just woke up from it. I still can’t believe I got the opportunity to travel and study in UK.
I think over the past six months I developed a greater appreciate for the world and where I live. I started taking a closer look of my surroundings and feel grateful to live in one of the greatest cities in the world. Since I was away for six months, I feel like a foreigner. I have to start falling into the familiar patterns and rediscover my city.
Two days after returning, I went to Manhattan and I couldn’t hide the smile from my face. It was great to be back and call home, home once again. One thing that I started paying more attention is the tourists. I have a better understanding of what goes through their minds when visiting a new place for the first time. Now, I have patience when it comes to being surrounded by tourists because I was a tourist for six months.
I wouldn’t mind being a tourist in my own city. There are still so many things I haven’t seen and I lived here all my life! I still have places in Europe that I want to visit in the future or even return to places like Wales once again. With studying abroad, it made my love for traveling increase. I want to travel the world and grow my appreciation for the world even more.
Aside from seeing the differences between UK and US, I think I’ve become a better person and student. I have learned to take on new responsibilities and skills. I’m on my last year in SUNY New Paltz and I’m ready to take on the upcoming tasks with the new skills I learned. Studying abroad helped my growth and helped in redefining my goals I set in the beginning of the year.
I love that I had the chance to study abroad. It gives me the chance to talk about my experiences and hope that my brother would want to study abroad one day. I can also offer tips to my cousin, who will be studying abroad in two years. I think everyone should have the chance to study abroad and discover the world we live in.