Greetings from London!

Well after all my previous blogs of prep work and planning, the time has finally come that I am now currently living in LONDON!! I have officially been here for two whole weeks but it seems longer because I have been so busy every day! I just now am getting completely settled and have time to sit down and blog. (And hopefully make all of you consider studying abroad!!) AIFS makes everything so easy. Traveling was no challenge at all. I took two flights and then an AIFS representative picked our group of students up from Heathrow Airport and brought us back to our campus. (After we waited in Customs for two hours!! But at least the lady I went to was very nice!) I am staying in a Residence Hall called Atlantic. It is similar to a residence hall in the States, but not as “polished” I guess (Definitely makes me miss Fisher Residence Halls!). I am living with a roommate who is awesome! Her name is Becky and we have a ton of stuff in common so we get along very well. We have also made a strong group of friends pretty quickly and do a bunch of stuff with them. It is a great group of students from all different states, which is pretty awesome because I get to meet new people with different backgrounds and cultures!

The first week we were here was Orientation Week to get us adjusted to life in London. We are technically living in Kensington, or commonly known as, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which is the richest and safest part of London! It’s gorgeous here, and surprisingly does NOT rain everyday!! Well anyways, back to Orientation week…we participated in a ton of activities to meet our fellow STABS (Study Abroad Students, which we are commonly referred to as haha) and to become familiar with the school and city! We started off with a walking tour of Kensington with one of the funniest tour guides I have ever met (I know many tour guides ;) ) Then we took a bus tour of London which was awesome because we got to see all the major attractions of London briefly before we could explore on our own! A few other activities we did were: seeing Wicked and Les MIs, taking a tour of the Chelsea Football (Soccer) Stadium, Harry Potter Tour, Jack the Ripper tour, the London Eye, Tour of Westminster Abbey, and to end the week they took us on a boat tour of The Thames. The boat tour was actually a dance party as well so it was a great way to get all the students together and bond!

Well gotta run to class now, more to come!

CHEERS!

Amanda