London

Ashley and I took a trip to London! It was a lot of fun, but really tiring. The first day we got there, we saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and then spent the rest of our day trying to get to our hotel. We wandered all over until we went to a travel desk who gave us directions. So we hopped on the subway, then a bus, and then we walked and finally made it to our hotel!

The hotel itself was really weird... the light switches on one wall would control the lights all the way on the other side of the room! And then some switches turned on one light, while another turned on three random lights.... so the first thing we did when we got there was flip on every single switch we could find to try and figure out what the hell was going on. It was so confusing. Even the bathroom light wouldn't turn on without two different switches being flipped on. Weeeird. Oh and did I mention that the bathroom door didn't have a door frame for the lock to go in? What's the point of putting a lock on the door if it doesn't lock anything? Hahah!

So weird hotel aside, we spend the next full day in London on a hop-on/hop-off tour bus. We stopped at Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye.... umm... Tower Bridge and the London Bridge.. St. Paul's Cathedral and a few other places. Ashley wanted to see Shakespeare's Globe, but the tour buses passed by them in about 2 seconds, while the tour guide goes "Oh yeah, that thing between the two buildings is Shakespeare's Globe. NEXT!" (that was me being sarcastic, by the way) and we passed right by it without catching even a glimpse of it. Urgh.

Then we took a boat back to where we started, which was pretty fun. It was dark by then, so everything on the river was all lit up and it was really pretty.. Ashley begged me to go shopping, so we stopped at Oxford Street. Ha, like we could afford anything there. It was fun to look at everything though.

We got back to Glasgow yesterday, and not even a few hours after we returned, a friend of mine called me and wanted to meet up with me. I was so excited to go meet her! We met up with her at a cafe and talked for at least 2 hours. She's really cool and I'm glad I got to meet her!

Ashley gets to go home tomorrow morning.... once she's gone I'll spend the day packing, most likely. And I go home on Wednesday morning! YAAAAY! No place like home. I got some Christmas presents for people too. :3

Scotland, Day 90

My friend got here yesterday! I was really happy to see her, but neither of us got sleep the night before, so we spent most of the day napping. XD She couldn't sleep because of the plane ride, and I couldn't sleep because of my damn allergies.

Guess where I went today? Edinburgh! Yay! My friend and I got to see the castle and walk around in it... it was so cold out, but it was really pretty there, and I'm glad we went!

Scotland, Day 84

Today was a really weird day... really weird.

First, I decide I want to take a walk somewhere... somewhere I had never been before. I always go to Sauchiehall street, because there's plenty of shops and interesting things to look at, but I wanted to find some other part of the city that was nice. So to do this, I leave my flat and walk in the opposite direction that I normally walk in.

About 10 minutes later, I find myself on Sauchiehall street again.


I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED!!!!


So yeah, my attempt to explore the city has failed. But I'll try again this weekend. And I'll bring my camera this time. Ya know, in case I find another guy who swallows fire. I saw that today too.

So after that, I figured I might as well do some window shopping, or go into stores that I had never been in. My first stop was the Chocolate Bar, which has the most tempting name I've ever heard. There were sooo many boxes of chocolate, and I'd love to buy some for my family and take it home, but I know I'll have very little room in my luggage to do so. I'll think about it.

I also hopped into a few other stores for fun... found a few things I wanted to buy, but wasn't in the mood to wait in the long lines just to buy them. Maybe I'll feel more energetic about it tomorrow. I did find some sweaters and leggings that I liked...

After all that, my shoes broke. You know, those little ballet flat looking things? Not the best kind of footwear to be wearing when I'm going to do a lot of walking... but they've held up for the past 3 years, so I just slipped them on before I went out... I wasn't even expecting to do all this exploring today anyway. So yeah, both shoes broke in at least 3 places as I was walking... so I had giant holes on both sides of my feet... and it was pretty uncomfortable, so I stopped at a shoe store and found some REALLY comfortable boots! I'm wearing em now! I like them a lot. But holy crap, why are UK sizes so... small sounding? I'm a size 6 in the US, which is a 3 here. Took me forever to actually FIND a size 3 pair of boots...

In just 5 days, my friend Ashley will be here! She'll be staying until the 15th, and I leave for home on the 16th. I'm really excited!

Scotland, Day 71

Yo! Today was a good day, I'm happy to report. Haha! I guess even though my umbrella broke, good things can come out of that. I went out with a friend to buy a new one (and I'm happy with my new walking stick of an umbrella... it's not the tiny little thing that I brought with me, but it will do. As long as it fits in the suitcase!)

After we did that, Joan got a call from one of her friends and they were meeting at a place called Yates, so they invited me to come along. It was a lot of fun and I met a bunch of new people! And it was my first time in a LONG time that I ate a burger, so that was cool. Hahah~ they also told me how to get to Edinburgh... (need to go to Queens Station and take one of the buses... so I think I'll make a trip there sometime too.)

In other exciting news, one of my dearies from back home may be coming to visit me in December, which I am TOTALLY EXCITED FOR OMG!!!1111JKLASDFA'$(@#

Scotland, Day 56

^Someone tell me why I decided to go by days and not weeks while titling my blog posts???

...
I wanted to do some traveling this week, but it was not meant to be. :( Oh well... I might take a walk somewhere tomorrow, just for kicks. I also need to buy some more ibuprofen... my wisdom tooth is coming in and it huuuurts. Need to visit the dentist when I go home... I wonder if I'll need it removed in the future.

I also really really want pizza... o_o

Anyway, I just made my schedule for next semester! Can't wait to go back home and back to Pratt! Here it is... something like this:

Monday:
Intro to Acting 9:30am - 12:20pm
Pre-Production 2pm - 4:50pm
Code for Digital Media 5pm - 7:50pm

Tuesday:
Astronomy 5pm - 7:50pm

Thursday:
Narrative Strategies 9:30am - 12:20pm
3D Character Design 2pm - 4:50pm

So yay! Wednesdays and Fridays are free days!

Scotland, Day 45

Hi!!! I got bored sitting here, so I took some silly pictures. Welcome to Vikki's habitat! Enjoy your stay.

Leave it to me to find a tissue box with adorable sheep on it.








Yep. So that's about it for now. Classes are blah, as usual... really not doing anything interesting around here. :\ I need to travel or something. My mom is going on a job interview soon, and if she gets this job they're going to send her to London for training! I hope she gets the job! And goes to London so I can actually go see her!!! ^o^ (LOL @ my html fail over here...)

Scotland, Day 32

Ahhh!!

This morning was horrible! I was planning on waking up around 9:30 for my 10am class... but the fire alarm had other plans for me. It woke us all up at 8! Grrr! So we all had to leave the building and go stand outside in the cold while the obligatory three fire engines came and realized that it was just another person who either burnt their breakfast or took a shower that was too hot. v_v The funny thing though, was that Lindsey's window was WIDE open.. you could see it from where we all stood outside. So then one of my flatmates goes, "she jumped out of the window, of course!" I just thought it was hysterical, especially considering a previous conversation we've had about jumping out of windows.

That story started when we got our curtains replaced with blinds, since the curtains had mold on them. Once the new blinds were installed, Amy realized we couldn't fully open the windows anymore. And the first thing she thinks of in that situation is, "what if there's a fire? How will we jump out of the window?" Hahahah!

So yeah... I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep after that alarm, so I made some breakfast and just waited until it was time to go to class... it was nice to finally be able to eat something before class, but in the end it was a horrible idea to stay awake... class today was incredibly boring and I had to fight to stay awake! We need to write reviews at the end of the semester, so this was basically a lecture on how to write reviews. That's all fine and good... but there were FOUR speakers! The only one who said anything useful was the first speaker. The rest after that, well, they were just wasting my precious sleeping time. I got back to my room around 11:40ish... and I slept FOREVER! As in, I woke up at 6pm. Yep... there goes my day.

Scotland, Day 20

Had my first figure drawing class today. It was awesome! Reminds me of freshman year at Pratt, doing 6 hours of drawing class with Brian. That was so much fun! Unfortunately, my good day was killed by cramps... but the pain wasn't so bad this time around.

Here's some of the work I did today!

Scotland, Day 16

My flight back home is December 16th, but I'm pretty sure I need to leave the Margaret Macdonald House on the 12th, so I need to change my flight. But anyway, while I was thinking about this, I remembered a couple I met on my flight from Heathrow to Glasgow... I'll probably never see them again, but I wanted to thank them for being so nice to me on the way to Glasgow... I was crying just an hour before I got onto the flight, and after talking to them, I calmed down immediately. They were headed to Scotland to visit their daughter and her husband... they had been to the area a few times before, and knew a lot about Scotland already, so they took the time to talk to me about what life would be like here. They made me laugh and made me smile, and I'll never forget that.

So thanks Linda and Steve!

In other news, tomorrow is a holiday, so no class! ^o^ I'm bad.. I've been sleeping in til 1pm this whole weekend... But I'll have to get up nice and early again on Tuesday. v_v

Scotland, Day 13

Okay, since I made Chris all depressed with my last post (and probably everyone else too), I'm going to update again on a happier note! I realize that my mood swings are incredibly crazy.... I'm acting like a bipolar person, and I'm not bipolar at all. Seriously, I'm getting better... I take forever to adjust to things, but I think I'm finally working on that bit.

I went to Kelvingrove Art Gallery today... it's a nice museum! Not as good as the Met, I must admit, but still worth going to see. The best part is the architecture. I feel like I'm entering a castle or something...... the architecture over here just kills me.. it's so cool! So yeah, we spent most of the day drawing at the museum, and I've come to realize that I SUCK at oil pastels. Yep. It did remind me of Brian's drawing class freshman year at Pratt, where we had to draw ourselves + exhibit while wearing a funny hat or costume... or the life-sized mammoth bones... DX That took forever! But it turned out to be really really fun, and I miss doing things like that.

Okay, picture time!

Scotland, Day 12

God I hate it here.

This isn't what I wanted, nor expected from studying abroad. I feel like I'm going to be wasting a whole semester's worth of learning by being here. I know it's only the first week and things will probably pick up once we get real assignments, but right now my days are being filled with short presentations and nothing else. I go to class at 10am... and we're done by 10:40am. Everyone just sits in the classroom and does their own thing, but since I have nothing else to do, I go back to my room until my next class at 2pm. Which will probably be just as short. I'm not doing ANYTHING useful. The only assignments we've got so far are presentations on two artists and a presentation on what influences us. We basically put together a slideshow. So boring! I want to go back to Pratt right now and learn things that are USEFUL to me and things that I WANT to be learning. I hate this! I hate this!!!!!

I also got a pay-as-you-go phone yesterday... I get free texts (yes, even internationally) so PLEASE. Text me. My number is 07503039973. According to my mom you'll need to type this in (for internationals): 011 44 750 303 9973.

Scotland, Day 6

WOOO! FINALLY HAVE INFO ON MY CLASSES! Sorta!

I sent an email earlier asking about my classes, since I didn't have any sort of time/location or idea of what my classes were. I just got a response saying that I need to go to the Foulis building on Monday at 10am to make my timetable. Finally something makes sense around here!!!!!

And since I'm updating my blog again, I'll post some more pictures that I couldn't post yesterday. Hehe. Got pictures of the opera singer, the street performer and some of Central Station too!

Scotland, Day 5

I have more pictures to post! When I spend more time outdoors and exploring the city, I feel a lot better, so that's what I did all day yesterday. It was really relaxing and fun! I'm still trying my best to get to know my flatmates... we're going down to the Assembly Hall later to learn Ceilidh, which is Scottish dancing. Hehe I wonder what that will be like... Still no info on classes, but no one else has information on that either, so I guess I'm not the only one. I emailed the school about it, but haven't gotten a response yet. God, I hope I get a response soon! It gets me nervous, not knowing where to go...

Okay, onto the pictures. This is mainly from Sauchiehall (sp?) Street and around that area... it's got tons of shops, lots of cool architecture, and LOTS of street performances. In a day I saw two bagpipe players, an opera singer, one guitarist, a small band and a street performer doing magic tricks. I also visited Central Station. I'll post more pictures later... for some reason I can't upload more than 4 images at a time...

Scotland, Day 3

...At least I think it's day 3....

Being in Scotland is very stressful... I will admit that I've gotten upset a few times because I want to go home, and I want to go back to Pratt, where life MAKES SENSE! I mean, seriously. Classes start next week and I don't know where to go, when to go... Pratt's campus is enclosed, so it's so simple to get around. GSA is all over the place! And the hill it's on is HUGE! I'm dead tired just from going to and from the place!!! I really really want to go home!

But anyway, I have some pictures to share!



Not much right now, but I can't upload many pictures at once (connection is too slow). So for now, I think I'll go make dinner, shower and then SLEEP!

First Post

Finally made a blog! Now I just need to figure out how to work all this and I'll have this up and running!

I leave for Scotland tomorrow, so this blog will cover as many details as I can on my 3 month trip, as well as life as an exchange student.