My, what a weekend!

After the first week of classes overseas, I can safely say, it is going to be a hard semester. Luckily for me, I can take the pressure of school work and classes off, by going on day trips. First, however, let me explain my school week. I am taking four classes here in London. The first is only on Mondays, Humanities for three and a half hours, followed by an hour and half museum visit. Not a bad day. I am also taking a speech class that focuses on Greece and Turkey. My communications class encourages discussion on intercultral communication and then my other class is really hard, British Pop Music History. Okay, so it is not that bad. I am fortunate only to have classes four days a week, however the classes are much longer in length since we will be finishing them before we leave for Greece at the beginning of March. Overall, the classes are great, some are more interesting than others, but so far so good.

On Friday, two of my friends and I set off for an adventure. Our plan was to take a bus to Oxford and explore the city. So we took the tube to Victoria station, found the bus station, and found the bus. After an hour on the bus we arrived to the rain but beautiful architecture of Oxford. We went to the famous pub, The Eagle and Child, where CS Lewis and JR Tolkien famously met to chat. We explored Oxford Castle and even managed to find a Krispy Kreme right outside of it. I was delighted. Oxford castle was used as a prison until 1996 and just last year opened up for tours. We explored throughout the whole thing, even climbing on top of a large 'mound' of dirt and grass, taller than the castle, to take a look of the city. We walked through the many universities that fill the streets. Oxford was a great place to explore a city that has so much history and beauty where ever you turn.

Saturday, bright and early, several of us took a long bus ride into Cardiff, Wales. We decided on the one day affair because visiting my family that lives in Wales was a lot further and a great deal more expensive. So we headed for the capital and found ourselves exploring another castle. This one, however, was filled with the decor of a home and a palace. We took a tour of the castle and even had tea in the dungeon. We also explored the Bay and walked the streets of this Welsh city.

Sunday, I went to three church services (read the previous blog for the details) but in between I went to the Tower of London. I believe they were called beef eaters, which were the tour guides and they were hilarious. He started the tour by asking where everyone was from. When he called the United States, he stated that this history could have all been ours if we only paid our taxes. We saw the royal jewels...bling bling. Wow, one diamond in a crown was 530 carrots. Dang. We walked in the footsteps of queens and people who eventually got beheaded by some king. There was lots of death in the tour, but overall lots of history learned. I love living in a city that has so much wisdom behind it. England and especially London has so much history that everywhere you go, you learn about why things were created and how that may influence our modern culture, language, and life.

Now it is Monday and I hope you all have a great week. Myself, living in the UK, did not get the day off of school, but I hope you all enjoyed or are enjoying your day. Cheers!

P.S. Pictures coming soon!

Learning to Live in the Big City

The weekend has been an exciting one. I experienced many firsts in my life and got to know a ton of new people. I am sad to report to you the Seahawks lost and are now out of the playoffs for the NFC Championship. Sad day, although, I am happy to report that the Cowboys lost and the Pats are taking it all the way. Back in the UK, however, life is not based on NFL football, shocking I know. This past weekend I went to the London Eye. This structure is almost 500 feet tall and is pretty much a giant ferris wheel, except that instead of the little swing seats it has these bubbles that can fit about 25 people. Luckily, no rain while we were on it, a very rare thing for London. The scenes were beautiful and lovely. I saw right down the Thames, many buildings I did not recognize, and Big Ben. After leaving the rather tall contraption, we headed down the road and walked all the way to Piccadilly Circus. Since we were in a tour, there was not much time for exploring, but I will be sure to do that in these coming weeks. I forgot to mention that I took my first trip on public transportation here, using the tube to get there and the bus to get back. Wonderful! Very clean and logical process. I am hoping I can get the hang of it.

The other highlight of my week was yesterday, Sunday. Every good Christian knows their favorite thing about Sunday is church, so I was excited to attend here in London. In the morning I went to Hillsong. The service is downtown London at the Dominion Theatre. HUGE! Hillsong comes from the Hillsong in Sydney, Australia. Lots and lots of worship music that people sing in church all over the world comes from both churches. Well it was wonderful, just a true blessing to be in London at their worship. Church #2 was an evening service at HTB, Holy Trinity Brompton which is less than five minutes away from our house. Another amazing service. The building was smaller but just as lively, we sat with all of the college students and it was wonderful fellowship. The worship leader for that church is Tim Hughes, another artist that has written the music that my church at home and in Malibu sing. What a huge blessing to attend this service. The pastor at htb was a great, very postmodern kind of preaching. Finally, Church #3 was house church. It is actually run by our faculty here at the Pepperdine house in the flat at the top of the stairs. This semester we are studying C.S. Lewis' book Mere Christianity. We sang, ate dessert, and discussed. So I was pretty churched out for the day but had lots of wonderful experiences.
I am starting classes this Monday morning. I'll let you all know how they go! Cheers!

I'm here!

Wow, after a ten hour plane ride, a two and a half hour experience in baggage claim (luckily not at my expense), and a thirty minute car ride from Heathrow airport, I arrived at 56 Princes Gate. The streets are totally picturesque. Our house has a reception area and office once you walk in and then the 'basement' and four floors above it. My room is shared with luckily my closest friend here, Elizabeth. We are on the basement floor along with two other girl rooms, the kitchen, the student lounge, computer lab, and laundry facilities. The third floor has all of the classrooms, fourth has boy rooms, girl rooms on the fifth, and finally our visiting faculty on the sixth. A tall house, but I usually only go between the first two. Our room is spacious but you can tell it is very old and we luckily have our own bathroom with the smallest shower I have ever seen.

Not too many adventures in London so far. We are having orientation this week so today we went on a walk around our neighborhood, South Kensington, and later we're having lunch and a meeting. Last night we went to a local hang out spot for the Imperial College students. It has been very fun getting to know the new students here and some of the old ones. There are about 12 new students and the old ones are returning slowly. Classes start on Monday, so pretty soon they'll all be back. I look forward to updating you all again soon. Cheers!

Anxious and Excited

Hi all! I hope you are all having a wonderful start to your new year 2008. I am very excited to leave in 4 days!! This blog is meant to keep you updated with my travels, life, etc. while I am abroad. Right now I have two very large suitcases, a list of what I think I need, a plane ticket to LAX, and not a whole lot of time left with family and friends. I will arrive in London on the 8th so hopefully you guys can all bookmark this page on your web browser and check it every so often. I love you all! Cheers!