My First Two Weeks + Barcelona!

Hi from London! I’ve been here for two weeks now, and I’m already having such a great time. I’ve met so many cool people, all of my classes are awesome, and I’ve already been on a weekend trip to Barcelona! I’m studying at Queen Mary, University of London, which is in the East End of London. There are tons of international students here so I’ve gotten to meet people from all over the world. I’ve met people from different parts of the US, Zimbabwe, China, Pakistan, Cyprus, Sweden, and Germany.

Our first few days here were filled with lots and lots of boring orientation programs where they used lots of confusing British lingo and scared everyone half to death about the dangers of living in a big city (no worries, Mom, it’s really not that bad). Academics here are pretty different though. Our entire grade is comprised of only a handful of assignments so everything is worth a lot more. One of my classes only has two assignments all semester. Lucky for me, though, none of my classes have final exams! I just have essays due at the end of classes or shortly after our spring break. Speaking of spring break… I’m so excited about it. Our last day of classes for the semester is April 1st (no joke haha), and then we have the entire month of April off for spring break. Yes, you read that right. THE ENTIRE MONTH. After spring break, our final exam period is May 3rd-June 10th. I’m required by my program to stay until June 11th when the final exam period is over, but since I don’t have any exams, I’ll just be chilling. I’m excited to travel with my friends over spring break and for my family to visit sometime after classes are over.

I’m really excited about the classes that I’m taking this semester! I’m taking Dance Theatre, Narrative, London and its Museums, and London Architecture. I may or may not have purposely chosen three classes that are based on field trips around the city… Okay, I definitely did. At least this way I’ll get to explore London and have it count as ISU credits. Score. My dance theatre class has been interesting so far. It has definitely made me think about dance in a different way, although a lot of the topics are pretty familiar to me thanks to the awesome dance program at ISU (S/O to ISU dance! Miss you guys). The class includes a handful of visits to see dance performances around the city which I’m super pumped about. My narrative class is the one I’m least excited for just because it involves a LOT of reading. To be honest, I definitely won’t be doing all of the reading, but either way I think it will be an interesting class. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and Emma by Jane Austen are on our reading list, and I’m sorry, but seriously who has time for that when they’re studying abroad? (#ratherbetraveling) My museums and architecture classes should be really fun too. They remind me a lot of AP Interrelated Arts in high school, so those should be a good time.

In my first two weeks here I’ve gotten really comfortable with the city. The Study Abroad program at QMUL had a boat cruise on the River Thames for international students which was really fun. We cruised along the river and had a traditional British tea while we saw all the pretty sights. All of the people that I’ve grown really close to are people that I met on the boat cruise so I’m glad I went! My program also took us on a double decker bus tour of the city, and we got to see the major highlights of London all in one afternoon. We even saw the Bishop of London! He just happened to be doing some kind of processional when we were driving over the river. Our tour guide was really excited about it and kept saying how special it was that we got to see him. It was pretty cute.

This past weekend I went to Barcelona, Spain, and I had an amazing time. I went with my friend Allana who is from San Diego. On Wednesday afternoon Allana had said that her friend from school who is also studying abroad wanted to meet up with her in Barcelona that weekend. She didn’t want to go alone, so I volunteered to go with her. She really didn’t have to do that much convincing to get me to tag along. We bought our tickets and booked a room in a youth hostel late on Wednesday night and flew to Barcelona on Thursday afternoon. It was pretty hectic, and we nearly missed our flight. We were running short on time to begin with since we couldn’t leave for the airport until we were both out of class. It definitely didn’t help though when they put my bag through security FOUR TIMES. We literally got to the airport 20 minutes before our gate closed and after the fiasco at security we had to run (more like sprint) to our gate. Of course, it was the farthest gate in the entire airport. We made it though!

We spent Friday and Saturday sightseeing all around the city. We got tickets for a Hop On Hop Off bus tour of Barcelona, which was awesome because it made it so easy to get from place to place. We were able to see so many things each day. We saw all of the main attractions of Barcelona, and holy cow, is it beautiful. Seriously though, Barcelona is one of the most stunning places I’ve ever been to.

On Friday we ate at the market along La Rambla and we went to Plaça de Catalunya, the National Art Museum of Catalunya (where we saw an amazing view of the entire city), the Barcelona Cathedral, and the Santa Maria del Mar cathedral. We also got the prettiest gelato ever. It was the kind that they make to look like a flower. And yes, it tasted as good as it looks. We also came across this funny British American bar called Obama. There was even a table outside where you could sit and have a drink with an Obama statue.

On Saturday morning, we went to this adorable brunch restaurant called Brunch & Cake. It was so cute, and it reminded me of Egg Harbor back home. We saw the Casa Batllo, the Sagrada Familia, and Parc Guell. They were all beautiful, but the Sagrada Familia was by far my favorite. It was INCREDIBLE. It was honestly one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. It was a beautiful sunny day when we went so the inside of the church was lit up all the colors of the rainbow from the light shining through the stained glass windows. I could have stayed in there all day. I think I took like 60 pictures. If you ever go to Barcelona, you absolutely HAVE to go inside the Sagrada Familia. The outside is impressive (construction started in 1882 and it still isn’t finished), but I promise the inside is even better. Parc Guell was also really amazing. Allana and I took a bunch of pictures on the famous mosaic benches and got beautiful views of Barcelona. We went to Camp Nou, the soccer football stadium that is home to FC Barcelona. We wanted to go on one of the tours of the stadium, but by the time we got there the stadium tours were over.

We flew back to London on Sunday morning and had to get back into the swing of things for classes again this week. Boo. Take me back to Barcelona. This ended up being much longer than I expected, but hey, I had a lot to say.