[December 15] London: The Nutcracker & Christmas Tea @ The Ritz!

Oh boy! On my last Wednesday in London, I had my last exam. Afterwards, I went to see The Nutcracker ballet near Trafalgar Square. What a gorgeous theatre!!!

I really enjoyed the performance; The Nutcracker is one of my very favorite things about Christmas. As soon as December hits, I listen to The Nutcracker Suite A LOT—it's definitely on my Christmas music playlists. Even though this particular performance was indeed beautiful... there were some things about it that I'm not used to. For instance, in the beginning, there was a scene that took place outside with 'ice skaters', when people are arriving to Clara's house for Christmas. This seemed a little extraneous and unnecessary although the ice skating bit is nice enough. Then there was some confusion about the 'prince charming' and the nutcracker... he would switch back and forth and I didn't like that. I also really DID NOT like that there was no Snow Queen...?!?!?! And no Sugar Plum Fairy??? HELLO?!?! There was still the dance but the 'princess' did the Sugar Plum Fairy dance, which was right after her solo dance anyway! LAME. I was actually mad about this. Also, there was no Marzipan NOR Mother Gigone. NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!

Later that evening, me and some friends went to have Christmas Tea at The Ritz! It was very ritzy (Sorry! I was obligated to say it...)! It was all decorated for Christmas:

We were served champagne, tea (we chose jasmine; it was definitely the best jasmine tea I have ever had), cute little tea sandwiches, desserts, and scones. The scones were my favorite, oh boy they were delicious!

So. Spoiled.

Tiny mince pie, 'R' is for Ritz!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[September 10] London: Orientation & The Globe Theatre

Whew! Another day of orientation... it was a much more laid back day though. I'm really not sure how many of us there are in the IES program exactly, maybe 70 or so as far as I can tell (all Americans except for 2 girls from Spain). There are two programs for IES London in the same group as me: Study London and Theatre Studies. I am in the Study London one, of course!

When we signed up for the program we could choose between living in the international student dorm or doing a homestay (living with a British family). For the most part, I have really loved dorm life at school so I picked dorm! I've been SO lucky with roommates so far and I'm lucky again! My roommate here is very nice; she's from New York (NOT the city) and we're both signed up for every single field trip. Yayyy!

We started out the day by attending a presentation about classes, academic advising, field trips, and a police officer visited us and talked to us about safety. Here, police officers don't carry guns like they do at home. This is actually a little weird to me because I think, Well if there's a problem what power do they have if someone DOES have a gun? (Although citizens here DO NOT have the right to bare arms). But as one of our guides pointed out, this is rather comforting, the fact that they don't NEED to have guns. The police officer said he's been one for 17 years and that London is perhaps the safest city in the world as far as large cities go. Then within London's 32 boroughs, he said that Chelsea and Kensington is the safest borough. It's really nice to hear, but of course, I'm going to be just as careful as I would be anywhere.

They fed us lunch, and here's a picture of part of the group of students in a room that some of the classes will be in. I really, really like the study abroad building... it was built in the 1800s and looks really nice! Once again, another reason why I feel so lucky to be studying here...!

There are Starbucks EVERYWHERE. Along with McDonalds. Seeing both EvErYwHeRe...

In the afternoon I took a bus with a few other kids back to the dorm. It took about 45 minutes; the tube is A LOT faster but it was really nice to sit on the top of a double decker bus in the very front row and see the city. And it's way more comfortable than being squeezed in a giant capsule of humidity far underground...

These pictures are from the bus. Again, just streets, but just trying to show some of the atmosphere:

I took this picture in Chelsea for my brother Jacob, and it's perfect because he liked to take cool pictures!

A park that's about a minute walk from my dorm in Chelsea:

The main road:

The cRoWdEd subway... No panic attacks yet...

Just a picture of our huge group outside the subway station... it's funny because my roommate happens to be the one looking at the camera!

St. Paul's Cathedral; seeing it for the first time!:

On our way to the Globe Theatre, we had to cross the Millennium Bridge. It was a really neat structure but at the time, I was admittedly oblivious to what it was. Here is the scene in Harry Potter 6 where it is destroyed by dementors:

(picture courtesy of http://www.virginmedia.com/images/halfbloodprince-deatheaters-431x300.jpg)

I'm disappointed because for some reason, the pics I took of the outside of the Theatre don't exist anymore although I can SEE THEM in my iphoto... Anyone else ever had this problem? Well, I couldn't NOT include a pic of the Theatre so here is one courtesy of http://www.ego4u.com/en/read-on/countries/uk/london/globe-theatre

My attempt at a panorama view of inside the Globe:

The Globe Theatre stage! (Well, replica).

Me and my lovely roommate:

Just some detail inside the theatre:

I really love this pic I was able to get... It's a view of the Thames from outside the Globe:

Completely in awe...

We got to wait outside of it for awhile to catch a bus. Can you imagine just waiting outside of St. Paul's Cathedral to wait for a bus...?!?!

Me and some new friends on the bus ride home! Lots of people in our group were really excited to go clubbing/to bars but honestly, I was super tired and there will be plenty of time for that over the next months. Don't have to fit everything into the first weekend!