Goodbye Europe, HELLO TEXAS!

After my nice little nap I was able to squeeze in overnight, we then loaded the coaches to airport at 3am. It’s hard on your body to get up at be active at 3am after only sleeping like three hours. I heard a lot people mention that they didn’t feel good simply because of a weird sleeping schedule. We attempted to load all of the luggage onto the coaches, but these coaches were smaller and therefore about 25 whole bags wouldn’t fit in them. This caused us to have to wait nearly another hour on a trailer that would attach to the back of our coach. As soon as we finally left the hotel, I was fast asleep on the silent coach.

The drive to the Zurich airport wasn’t more than about 45 minutes so we arrived a little after 5am, when the airport check-in opened. It seems to me that European airports are quite inefficient when it comes to managing lines. Either that or we overwhelm them with 80 of us at one time, haha. When I tried to check my two bags, the lady working the check-in counter told me I had a special kind of ticket (different from everyone else’s) and that I would only be allowed to check one bag. After I began to tell her there is no way that could possibly be right and I started raising a slight fuss, Dr. Dan stepped in to save the day! He informed the lady that he is the travel agent responsible for this group’s booking, and that there is no way that my ticket could have that kind of restriction because it is an international flight. She still persisted and continued to argue with him, and then Dr. Dan informed her that we didn’t even book this flight in particular. I was re-booked by British Airways just last week to accommodate my former travel plans that were affected by the current BA strike. Then she began to understand and made a few more phone calls and allowed me to check my second duffel bag. I still had to pay a heavy bag fee of 50 Swiss Francs because one of my checked bags was 5 kilos over the max weight limit.

By this time it was nearly 6:10am, and boarding for our flight was supposed to close at 6:20am. I rushed myself through security, onto the tram, through the terminal, and to the gate only to discover that they hadn’t started boarding the plane at all. Turns out British Airways ended up delaying our flight by nearly 30 minutes because of the slow check-in procedures outside of security. Even after I checked my bag, there was still at least 15 people from our trip in line behind me waiting to check-in and get their boarding passes.

The plane finally took off for what was about a 1.5-2 hour flight to London. We landed and had to go through security again upon entering Terminal 5 at Heathrow. Once we were inside, it was AMAZING! Terminal 5 at Heathrow is by far the coolest airport I have ever been to! There are mini-Harrods, great shopping, and wonderful restaurants. Since it was only 9 am London time I wasn’t in the mood for heavy food, so I just grabbed a ready-made sandwich at Pret a Manger for old times sake. As tempting as it was, I only ate half while we were waiting for our flight, and saved the other half for what would prove to be a tasty meal during the 10-hour flight back to Houston. Our flight was delayed (again), this time due to the strike and the fact that they couldn’t scrounge up enough crew members to work our flight. (awesome... --sarcasm included).

I was so excited to finally take off and know that the next time we land I’ll be back in the great state of Texas. The flight was long, but not nearly as long as the flight to London seemed. The difference was that I slept nearly 4 hours on this flight and barely any on the first one. When we finally landed and the pilot said “Welcome to Houston,” I found it amusing how nearly our entire study abroad group applauded and cheered at what was simply a routine landing just because we were all so excited to be back in Texas. I couldn’t stop smiling when I was deplaning, but that smile faded fast however when we saw just how long the line at immigration was. After waiting for over 30 minutes in a sea of around 300 people, we were processed and I was able to get my luggage. After a quick run through at customs, I walked through the big double doors of IAH’s Terminal E and into Brad’s arms and I was home. I had a wonderful journey on this trip. I learned so much about culture, people, life, and myself. It’s an experience that I’m so very grateful for, but nothing beats home sweet home! ☺


oh ps: this is a picture from the plane's individual tv units that i took during the flight. In route to Houston, Europeans have no other description for humid houston than "HOT". haha, most all of us found a good amount of amusement out of that.

Tour of the English Countryside

This morning on our free day in London, a large group of us had booked in advance a tour from Evans Evans Tour Company in which they would drive us via coach up to Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge all in one day. They even came and picked us up at our hotel in the morning!
Windsor Castle was our first stop of the tour. It lies about 30 minutes outside of London and is used as the Queen primary residence when she is not at Buckingham Palace. We couldn’t see as much as I was expecting since we were only there for an hour and a half. It was just enough time to get a few pictures, walk around, see everything, but there was no time to linger around one sight. This was probably the biggest downfall of the tour as a whole, but it was still nice to be exposed to all of these landmarks that are outside of London that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. The castle was so big, and the view was incredible. I wish I could have seen the front of the castle because all I saw was the side and the back.


Our next stop was 2 whole hours later in Bath, England. Bath was such a cute English town. All of the streets were extremely narrow and it was excessively hilly. I know our coach driver does this all the time, but I still don’t understand how he maneuvered some of those streets with the giant coach we were in. We went into the Roman Baths and saw those. It was cool, but I feel like I needed to know more about them to really have a full appreciation for it. I plan on learning more about them when I get back into the States. It’d be a shame to have visited some place so rich with ancient history and to not fully appreciate what occurred there thousands of year ago.


The last stop on our tour was Stonehenge, which was another hour’s drive. It was smaller than I was expecting, and the stones weren’t as white as I feel like I had seen in pictures. Our group took a lot of pictures as we always do, complete with jumping pictures. Everyone MUST have a jumping picture when they go to Stonehenge! We were only there for about 45 minutes before we boarded the bus and headed back to London. 45 minutes was a little too short, but about right considering there really wasn’t anything to see at Stonehenge besides the stones themselves. I just don’t understand how people from thousands of years ago, before the wheel was invented, managed to move some of these rocks over 200 miles over hundreds of years to form some sort of prehistoric observatory (at least that’s the leading theory right now). It boggles the mind!!


We got back into the city at about 8pm and had dinner at the restaurant, Ask, which we had eaten at a few days before. It’s located on the block behind our hotel, and has some of the best rose wine I’ve ever tasted! They let me take the bottle home, which is something they normally don’t do.
When we got back to the hotel, we made reservations to go to the Absolut Ice Bar near Piccadilly Circus. It was so cool… literally and figuratively! When we got there it was -7 degrees celcius inside the bar, so they provide your with a parka and attached gloves that you have to wear while inside the bar because everything is ice! The glasses our drinks come in are ice, the bar is ice, the tables, the walls, the floor, everything! My drink was actually really good. I ordered the Absolut Vertigo. Some other people’s drinks actually glowed a little which was a little strange for me, but they seemed to enjoy them. The ice bar sessions are only 45 minutes to prevent anyone from getting too cold, which is fine because we were ready to go right about then anyways.


We headed back to the hotel to finish packing, because in the morning we leave for Paris! Goodbye London, it’s been real! Now onto the rest of the trip!

Bloomberg, Harrods, The Lion King

This morning we awoke, had breakfast, and set off as a group again… this time for Bloomberg’s European headquarters. There was a lot of security to get into the building. Our bags were scanned, passports had to be shown, and we were made lanyards with picture ID’s to hang around our neck at all times when we were inside their building.
The inside of the building was SO AWESOME! Up on the first floor (you enter on floor zero), there was an eatery, which had fruits, breads, juices, coffees, cokes, etc. The best part was that everything was free! I had an apple and a water (because I definitely have not been drinking enough water on this trip), and we headed downstairs to floor -1 (yes, that is actually a real floor over on this side of the pond) and got seated for our presentation.

There were 3 speakers, each of which talked to us about slightly different things. I was furiously writing my company notes the entire time! The last speaker was the most interesting by far! His job dealt with the actual running of the Bloomberg terminal, and as far as I’m concerned, he was an expert at it. He showed us the capabilities of the terminal, such as locating one cruise ship via satellite in just milliseconds. He then told the terminal to show the history of that ship for the past 30 days, and it routed the ships course all around the waters along European coastline. You can also search people on the Bloomberg terminal. He searched people who have graduated from Texas A&M and are now CEO’s of some company, big or small. Within a split second, the terminal had pulled up a list of about 80 Aggies who were CEO’s at different companies around the world. Not only could you see which company they managed, but you could find out their income, their current residence, etc. It was amazing! I know our entire group was blown away by their presentation, and it definitely exceeded my expectations!
Then they gave us a tour of their uniquely designed building, and we were on our way to lunch. Ben, Caitlin, and I stopped into a Pret a Manger (Pret-ah-mon-yay) and picked up one of their pre-packaged sandwiches. I got Chicken Avacado, and it was delicious, mostly due to the fact that I was so hungry. Pret a Manger’s are HUGE in London! I swear they must be on nearly every street. If you buy the food to-go, they charge you about 50 pence less than if you say you’re going to eat it there, which is think is a little strange. I almost feel like It should be the other way around, charging you to take it away versus stay in their restaurant and eat it. Nevertheless, quite a few restaurants over here have adopted that practice, so it’s actually quite common to be charged more to eat there.
Right after lunch, we all gathered back together and left for our company meeting at Harrods Department Store. I had high hopes for this presentation as well, and it didn’t disappoint. The speaker was very entertaining, and liked to crack a lot of jokes. He even made a few Texas jokes about “y’all.” He had a good message from his presentation though: don’t just run to a company right out of college because they specialize in what you want to do, but look for what you aim to do with your career in the long run, and focus on the role that you’re going into. The presentation even gave us little gift bags that had a Harrods teddy bear in them, some of their famous tea (they started as a tea and coffee store), some biscuits, and a Harrods pen! It was so nice of them, and made the presentation a huge favorite among the entire group!

After the presentation, we came back to the hotel, freshened up for about an hour, and left again, this time for Covent Garden, a small shopping and theater district in London. We stopped and ate at this yummy Italian place before we went to our theatre to see The Lion King. I had always wanted to see this play whenever I would go to New York City, but now I was finally getting the opportunity, and I wasn’t about to pass it up. The show was great, although the theatre was a little hot and stuffy, and the bathroom line was horrendous. These days though I’ve almost always come to expect long lines in bathrooms, haha. The costumes were the best part of the show. The actors became the animals. It’s super hard to describe until you’ve seen it once for yourself in person.

On the way home from the show, we stopped into a pub near Picadilly Circus that most of our trip was already at. We were there for a little while until Kinsey got a beer spilled all over her legs. It was time to go after that. So we headed back to the hotel and got some much needed rest. I swear, I don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to this jetlag. It’s affecting me more than I was anticipating. Oh well, I feel like everyone is in the same boat. Tomorrow, we have a completely free day, so a big group of us are taking a tour up to Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge. We’re all really looking forward to it! Goodnight!

Parliament, London Eye, Exploring London

Rise and shine! Early mornings are going to becoming commonplace on this trip unfortunately, so I might as well start getting used to it. I don’t mind completely though because getting up early allows you to make the most of your day, and when your time in a city is limited, you might as well see all you can as quick as you can! This morning we headed down to another interesting English style breakfast at the Holiday Inn. A signature item that was found on the breakfast buffet everyday was baked beans. I don’t think I would normally be ready for beans at 7:30am but more power to those who are.
We departed from our hotel via tube for the Westminster stop and our Parliament day. I was very excited for this day, especially because the weather was starting out wonderfully for London; sunny, slightly brisk, and NO RAIN! When we got to the Houses of Parliament, we took many group photos because it was such a picturesque area!



Then we headed off for our LONG walking tour of Westminster Abbey and the area surrounding Parliament. We had originally scheduled a tour of Parliament but because of the recent elections in Great Britain, they weren’t allowing tours at the moment. The tour was a great way to see everything, take pictures, and learn a lot about the British style of government, which is very different than the United States. Our guide was very knowledgeable as well. He said he had to take a course to become a certified London tour guide that took over 2 years to complete! He had written exams, papers, and everything! We saw 10 Downing St. where the Prime Minister lives, many important government offices, and buildings of historical significance. So much information has been entering my mind these past few days I wish I could remember it all for this journal, but it would be nearly impossible!
Westminster Abbey was beautiful as well! It’s currently still a working church with services everyday at 5pm and additional services on Sundays. A few of my friends and I considered coming back that evening for the service, however we found we just didn’t have time. The Abbey is also still houses a very elite school for boys, with tuition somewhere around 30,000 pounds a year! The inside of the Abbey houses many graves and memorials for important people in British history such as John Keats, Isaac Newton, and many descendents of royal blood.



By the end of the tour my feet were absolutely killing me, having been walking on them for almost 4 hours. We ended our tour at our meeting with Sir Peter Viggers, a member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons, which is the elected house. He was very interesting to me, and I actually asked a question at the end of his speech! I was very proud of myself, being that I was quite nervous.
Backpack in hand, we rushed to the bathroom after the meeting was over to change into our casual clothes for the day and headed off for the London Eye. I had heard previously that you want to allow plenty of time there because you never know what the lines would be like. Fortunately for us, they were very short when we went. We only had to wait about 10 minutes once we got our ticket to boarding our Eye capsule. The views were awesome! We had seen the Eye and Parliament the night before all lit up, but this view was completely different. We were able to see all of London! I bet the other people in the capsule got tired of the annoying girls from America taking pictures constantly and video recording, haha. It’s ok, I promise we weren’t too obnoxious; it is a big tourist attraction after all.



After we checked doing the London Eye off our to-do list for the day, we headed back to the hotel to drop off our heavy bags, freshen up, and then scurried off to the Victoria and Albert Museum. We didn’t have a ton of time in there because we got there 45 minutes before it was about to close, so we saw as much as we could as quickly as possible. The museum is giant, so I doubt I could’ve spent an entire day in there an seen it all! We were anticipating going to the Grace Kelly exhibit in the museum, however it was sold out for the day.
Once the museum closed, we set off to look at St. Paul’s Cathedral. The inside hours for visitation closed at 4pm, so we just walked around the outside. It was massive! I still think that Westminster Abbey was prettier because I am a fan of the gothic architecture style, but St. Paul’s was pretty nonetheless. From St. Paul’s it was just a short walk to the millennium bridge and across to the other side to see the Globe Theater, a monument dedicated to Shakespeare and his life’s works.



CJ, Kinsey, and I had walked so far for so long that we didn’t even realize that it was almost 8 o’clock, so we headed off to find some place to eat. The Texas Embassy sounded like a good choice. It was a great Texas atmosphere with Texas license plates, country music, tex-mex, margaritas, and Dr. Pepper!! The best part of the restuarant was up the stairs, there was a wall where people from Texas could write in where they were from. We started a whole Texas A&M Marketing Study Abroad 2010 section and so far about 30 of us had eaten at this restaurant! It was a super long day, but so productive.

Exploring London

Day 3: Sunday May 16, 2010

Our first morning in London! So exciting! We awoke quite early and went downstairs to have breakfast. Something that I noticed right away that was different from the States was that most all buildings in London start at floor zero, and then go up from there. So actually, our breakfast was held on the second floor of the hotel, even though that floor was named floor one. As soon as we finished breakfast it was off to the conference room down the hall where we heard the 4 London presentations of London (the city), British Parliament, Bloomberg, and Harrods. They were all great! I really enjoyed how the Harrods team gave out chocolate coins if we answered a question correctly… however, I didn’t know any answers haha.

Then it was off to our private bus tour around London. It was a really great way to get oriented to the city, because up until that point, we had only seen a limited amount the night before. Our tour guide was super knowledgeable, but after a few hours, riding on a bus taking pictures out the window seemed pretty redundant. We got off at Buckingham Palace just in time to see the changing of the guard! It’s has such a regal feel to it. What really boggles my mind is that changing of the guards happen all over the city multiple times a day. It’s such an involved affair that mainly appeals to the tourist who wants to see it once and then they’re fine to move on. Unfortunately, I couldn’t have the great pleasure of saying I was at Buckingham Palace when the Queen was inside, because she was at her residence at Windsor Castle, which is where she spends most of her weekends. Nevertheless, I took some good camcorder footage of the changing of the guard as it was happening and then just of the Palace as well.
We broke off from the bus tour (as most people did after seeing Buckingham Palace), and went out to explore London on our own. After walking around, failing to correctly read the map to the underground station, taking the cliché red telephone booth picture, we finally made it onto the tube and rode it up to Camden Markets. We had heard it was very eclectic shopping, but very very neat to check out. Unfortunately for CJ, Kinsey, and me, we didn’t really know where the actual Camden Market was once we got off the tube. We wondered around for a few minutes, saw a little cluster of shops that said “The Camden Markets” and assumed that must be what we were looking for. We wondered through the whole thing within 10 minutes of arriving, and were less than impressed. We left feeling a little disappointed because as 3 girls would, we were really looking forward to having some good shopping time in Camden. It wasn’t until later that evening that we realized our mistake. After talking to another group from our trip who went to Camden on the same day, they told us that the market we went to was actually the imitator for the real Camden markets which was down a few blocks and around a corner. The other group said the real Camden Market was definitely something to see, and had great items for super cheap. One girl got a jacket for 9 pounds!

After our failure of a trip at Camden Markets, we did what any typical young American tourist does when they come to London… We went to King’s Cross train station and got our picture with the Harry Potter platform 9 ¾! There is a special area that the train station put in just for Harry Potter enthusiasts in which you can go get your picture taken with the cart halfway pushed into the wall. It was definitely something I had to do in London, and I got it done on the first day!
Another thing that we had to accomplish within the first couple days in London was venturing inside Harrods before our business presentation with them scheduled for Tuesday. I had heard about the store before the trip as this most extravagant luxury retailer, and was anxious to see if it would live up to all the hype. I’m pleased to say that it most certainly did!! We explored the food department of the store first, and everything looked amazing and so delicious! CJ and I decided on buying a cupcake from the Harrods bakery and Kinsey decided to be brave and try a whoopie (like a whoopie pie we have back in the U.S.). My red velvet cupcake was pretty good, although I think I just prefer a cupcake with sweeter cake and less sweet frosting. However, that is not to say that the frosting wasn’t good! In fact it was the best part for sure! Unfortunately, mother nature was not on our side that afternoon, and when we walked outside of Harrods to eat our cupcake (because we couldn’t find a place to eat inside), it was pouring down rain. We attempted to sit on a bench, hold umbrellas, and eat our crumbling cupcake all at once. Apparently my motor skills don’t work that way and cupcake crumbs ended up all over my lap and the ground! After we made complete fools of ourselves, we went back into Harrods and did more wandering around. There was still so much that we didn’t see, but we left because our feet were hurting! We had been walking everywhere!



After dinner, CJ, Kinsey, and I decided to ride the tube down to the Westminster stop and see Parliament lit up at night. We got there right at dusk, and had a wonderful view! It was so gorgeous! We took lots of pictures of the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and the London Eye. We had another long day tomorrow, so it was time to go back and get some sleep.

Depart Houston, Arrive in the UK

Day One: May 14th
And so it begins...

I have to admit, I probably wasn’t nearly as excited as I should have been when departure day arrived. I was constantly stressing about different things I had yet to do for pre-trip preparations. Packing was finished up Wednesday night (the 12th) because Brad and I left for the Woodlands on Thursday the 13th. His new house is awesome by the way! haha. In a way, I was sort of dreading today because of having to say my goodbyes to Brad. I never knew it could be so difficult to leave someone, but I suppose when you're truly in love and that person feels like your other half, it seems more gut-wrenching than you'd expect. Tears were shed at the airport, but it was important for me to go inside to check in to start this amazing journey with all my fellow Aggies.

The check in line was horrendous, seeing as it took about an hour and a half just to check in. Somehow we still had 2 hours to kill once we got to our gate. A last American fast food meal was had (Wendy's was the best we could do) and then we boarded the plane in the nick of time... seriously. A massive squall line of thunderstorms was about to roll into the Houston metro, and we would've been sitting on the IAH tarmac for well over an hour I'm sure. Amid some turbulance and clenching to the arm rests on my part (nervous flyer over here), we became airborne. The flight seemed like it took forever... especially considering the longest I've ever previously flown is about 4 hours from DFW to Calgary. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to sleep much at all on the flight which made me both anxious and annoyed. I knew it would come back to haunt me after the jam-packed Saturday that lay ahead of me. To pass the time, I settled into the movie marathon mode, watching whatever would keep me entertained. Sherlock Holmes and the Blind Side were the movie highlights for me... most definitely. Oh, and I got to watch my favorite show, Friends.... which is always an EPIC win! haha. I finally drank a small bottle of wine, and it was just enough to make me groggy. I was then able to get about an hour and a half of sleep before I was awoken (much to my dismay) for breakfast. But you can’t get too mad at the nice British Airways flight attendants because their accent is just too endearing not to get a smile out of me. We touched down at Heathrow amid giant Airbus aircrafts that dwarfed our measly Boeing 777. After making our long journey through trams, escalators, moving sidewalks, and the like, we made it through customs and out to meet Dr. White, his wife, and Dan. A new morning was breaking in London, so it was time to overcome the jetlag and start our amazing European journey.




Once we boarded the chartered bus they had reserved for us, we learned that the other half of our trip’s flight experienced a very lengthy delay getting out of Houston because of severe weather. They had just taken off not but an hour before we landed. Crazy stuff! So unfortunately that half of the group didn’t get to experience Oxford like my group did. Immediately when we left the airport that’s where our driver took us. It’s about an hour and fifteen minutes west of London. I got minimal sleep on the bus but attempted once again.

When we got there, I was pleasantly surprised at what we saw. I was expecting it to be just a college campus, but it was an actual quaint English town. Our tour guide gave us a wonderful tour around the area of campus and explained to us how the Oxford University system works. I have to say it’s quite different from anything we have in America. At Oxford, there are 38 colleges in which one can be admitted to, and you take classes within your college. Students take a more well-rounded assortment of classes for their degree, which isn’t normally as specialized as our degrees in the United States. While we were walking around Oxford, several of us in the group noticed all of the Harry Potter sights that were around us. Much of the filming for the movie was done at Oxford, such as the Great Hall, the library, and the outside courtyard corridor which is seen in many of the films. After a quick bit to eat it was back on the bus and back to London to check into our hotel for the week.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn London Kensington Forum, located in west London, in the city of Westminster to be more exact. Although the rooms weren’t what I was expecting at all (twin size beds and barely room to put a bag), it didn’t matter because it was a place to sleep. However, we couldn’t sleep off our jet lag just yet. The group hen left for Leichster Square so we would know how to properly use the tube for the week. We explored on our own, walked around Picadilly Circus, Chinatown, and parts of SoHo before we settled on eating at a little pub in an alleyway. We were determined to try some fish and chips, and it was delicious I must say! Ben’s ale, aptly named Spitfire, wasn’t as good. Haha.

After our dinner, we went to a free wifi café and were able to download Boingo internet service, which is how I’m staying connected to the world back home. It’s been a lifesaver so far! Finally, it was time for us to head back to the hotel to turn in. What a long day… or should I say 2 days!

21 days...

So as I sit here tonight, I'm thinking about all I have left to get before my amazing trip this summer. For those who don't know, I'm studying abroad for about a month at the very beginning of this summer through the Texas A&M Marketing Dept. It is the biggest and longest running study abroad program at Texas A&M. I think the program has been running something like 25 years or more. And like I also mentioned, it is the biggest study abroad program at A&M with 75 students going annually. Basically, the premise of the trip is that we travel to 6 different European countries to sight-see and be tourists. The "study" part of the trip is minimal, we just have to attend many business presentations that companies have arranged for us in the various places we travel to. For instance, when we travel to London at the beginning of the trip we have meetings with British Parliament and Harrods Department Store. :) So even the study portion of the trip doesn't seem too too bad, huh?! Other businesses we meet with that are notable include: BMW, Audi, Apple, Bloomberg Media, Swarovski Crystal, and Johnson & Johnson... among others.

Also, before the trip we are placed into groups of 4 assigned to research and then create a presentation over either a city we plan to visit on the trip or a business meeting we'll have. My group members are Caitlin (who is also my roommate), CJ (who I credit for getting me interested in the trip in the first place!), and Ben (who is super business savvy and is one of only 17 guys going on a trip of 61 girls, ha). --Ben is a good friend and went to high school with my boyfriend, Brad, for all you curious minds out there. Our topic for our presentation and paper are the cities of Nice, France and Monte Carlo, Monaco! I'm so excited. Both of those cities are amazingly gorgeous and so picturesque. Our 2-page research paper was due April 8th, because Doc and Dr. Mac want to compile all the different papers, along with individual headshots, cultural and historical information, timelines, and other stuff. Our group got our grade back on our paper already... we got an A :) Now we just have to try to get together and meet amid finals week and prepare our presentation for the trip. We shall see how that works out ;)

I've been in the process of buying the many things I need for my trip, and I still have many things left to do. I still have yet to get foreign currency exchanged, or change my iPhone to international, or buy skype minutes, or call my bank and let them know I'm going to be out of the country... and the list goes on and on unfortunately. Luckily, 3 of my 4 classes finish up within the next week so I'll have about 2 weeks of my time to devote solely to packing for my trip and making sure everything is accounted for.

I am still uneasy about the current volcano situation in Iceland. I know that now European airspace is slowly getting back to normal, however, I just really hope that Eyjafjallajokull doesn't re-erupt.. or worse her sister volcano about 12 miles away. I read an article yesterday in which an A&M professor was quoted as saying that whenever Eyjafjallajokull erupts, her big sister, Mount Katla has erupted in the same year, and the eruption is always more fierce. :/ So that's not pleasant news. I just want to get over to London, and then the volcanoes can do their thing because we're traveling by charter bus between all our different destinations, so air travel won't matter at that point. :) I have forked over a lot of money for this trip already, and I will not let some moody volcano ruin my plans!

I am so excited for this opportunity to see many places that are so different than Texas. So many of my friends are studying abroad this semester and are absolutely loving it. It's my turn for a little foreign exploring! Our last study abroad orientation meeting takes place this coming Monday night, and then the next time we meet as a group will be at IHA for our flight to London on May 14th. I plan to keep everyone updated on this blog as frequently as possible. We are required to write daily journal entries for our class which I plan on typing and hopefully just copying into this blog as time allows.

21 days,
-Amanda