{"id":497,"date":"2014-09-23T18:59:54","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T22:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=497"},"modified":"2019-07-25T17:44:08","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T17:44:08","slug":"destination-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2014\/09\/23\/destination-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Destination: London"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even though I have been here in London, England for just over a week I haven’t had the full opportunity to look back, reflect, and, yes, blog. \u00a0The hype for going “across the pond” and the endless hours of packing, and then re-packing, and weighing, and finally re-re-packing were all I could think about. \u00a0And then, I got here. \u00a0I flew out on a late Friday, September 12th night flight. \u00a0As I waited for my flight I saw multiple other college age students waiting around. \u00a0Little did I know that in the crowd was my closest friend-to-be at school. \u00a0As I sat down in row 43 in seat E, another girl sat next to me. I had a backpack, purse, and a pillow with me (I really didn’t want to have to buy one in the UK; see image below). \u00a0As I was horribly losing the battle against squishing my pillow into my tiny seat when I started talking to my new friend to be: Allison. \u00a0Some of the anxiety subsided because I finally had met a friend! \u00a0After a long, long six and a half hours with only a short one hour nap, we landed at London Heathrow National Airport. \u00a0Allison and I maneuvered our way off the plane and to Customs, where they have a special line for just students. \u00a0I was very nervous, I had never been through any customs by myself before. \u00a0Luckily, everything went by quickly, we collected our wicked heavy luggage and began looking for the Queen Mary collection group. \u00a0They were incredibly easy to spot in their blue shirts and friendly demeanors. \u00a0Shortly after that we were on a bus going through the heart of London towards Mile End (the part of the city where our campus is located). \u00a0Mile End is home to not only the college, but a plethora of cultures, a lot of fried chicken, a tube stop that can get you pretty much anywhere in the city, and at least two beautiful parks. \u00a0Coming from Rollins I knew that any campus would be big, but this one is BIG. \u00a0It still only takes me around 5-7 minutes to get to class (I like to think I walk fast), but still it is big. \u00a0It has at least two bars, two restaurants, a campus store, bookshop, and multiple dorms on campus. \u00a0There are around fifteen thousand of us at least attending here for undergraduate studies; at least six hundred of which are study abroad. \u00a0Needless to say, the big school atmosphere is a lot to take in. \u00a0Those first few days after arriving I stayed close to campus and met a few people. \u00a0One of my flat mates, Yachana, is a \u00a0study abroad student, and Allison introduced both of us to her flatmates most of whom are from Britain. \u00a0That first Sunday, the 14th, a few of us went to Westfield Mall, the largest mall in the UK (see image). \u00a0In all, the first few days here in London were used to adjust to the area and grow comfortable with where I am. \u00a0So far I love it and I can’t wait to continue to love it! \u00a0Keep your eyes peeled for more of My Adventures Across the Pond! I promise that stories (and pictures) \u00a0of sightseeing are coming!<\/p>\n

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Even though I have been here in London, England for just over a week I haven’t had the full opportunity to look back, reflect, and, yes, blog. \u00a0The hype for going “across the pond” and the endless hours of packing, and then re-packing, and weighing, and finally re-re-packing were all I could think about. \u00a0And…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qmul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18240,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions\/18240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}