A whole month already...

I have now been in London for just over one month and after creating this account on my 3rd day I have not used it once. So, instead of shopping today I decided to spend a little time recounting the past month.

It is actually unbelievable that a month has gone by already. That is one quarter of the time I will be in Europe, and that idea is mind boggling because i can't stand the thought of it ending. Of course I still have plenty of time, but with everything I have planned I know it is going to absolutely fly by. Anyways, here is the first month...

Arriving in London was shockingly easy, aside from the struggle of wrestling three rolling bags across King's Cross Station with only two hands. When my roommate, Caitlin, and I arrived at our flat, we really had no idea what to expect. There was a slight mishap with the elevator, but I'll attribute that to culture differences since it was our first day. (Caitlin rode it up to our floor and than back down because she didn't realize you actually had to push open the door when you reached your floor. Imagine our faces when we opened it again only to fine her standing there smiling at us, "Um, I think something didn't work right." Hysterical.) Our flat is gorgeous, though. High ceilings, hard wood floors, white walls with gorgeous crown molding and incredible ornate decorative mantles in every room. While the furnishing is minimal, it works perfectly and just highlights the intrinsic beauty of the apartment itself. Unfortunately the Victorian-like charm lost its luster in an incident just last week, but that will be explained later.

So to make a long story short, we were very happy with our flat and, a few hours later, found ourselves very happy with our other two roommates as well. Most of the flats on our side of the building are housing students in our program, so we met many of them on the first day and all enjoyed pints together at a local pub for our first night out.

The next week was taken up almost entirely by orientations, so naturally we took this as a free week during which we could go out every night and get a feel for London's night life. Leave it to me to take this one step too far on night two. Somehow we met some girls in our building that go to Syracuse and went with them to an underground club/lounge. We later found out this was much cooler than we realized since Lady Gaga and the Pussycat Dolls were there the next week. We had an amazing time and met some incredibly beautiful people, but the next morning I woke up with nothing in my wristlet besides a lip gloss. Sure enough, someone had sneakily pick-pocketed me inside the club and gotten away with one of my credit cards, my drivers license, my camera and the keys to my flat. That nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach didn't leave for days, but everything finally got sorted out and now, a month later, everything is completely back to normal. The building manager very kindly gave me the spare keys to our flat and didn't make me pay for new ones, my credit card was able to be cancelled without any charges being made to it and an incredible friend sent me his camera for the semester so that I didn't have to waste precious funds buying a new one. Needless to say, I got incredibly lucky.

After spending our first two weeks in London, we decided to do a little traveling. The next two weekends were spent in Interlaken and Edinburgh, which each have their own posts. Since my friends and I have been traveling so much on weekends, we make it a point to still enjoy London during the weeks, which actually isn't too hard since class only takes up a few hours each day. The pubs in London are actually a little overwhelming, seeing how there are a minimum of 10 on every street. We have dabbled in them, but we have spent most of our nights out in the various clubs and bars, ranging from Maya to Zoo Bar to O'Neils. I haven't found a favorite yet, and to be honest I doubt I will. Everywhere here is just to much fun. :)

So that pretty much sums up the first month in London. Of course I left out many of the details of our daily lives, but in general I am becoming so adjusted to the city and my routine I am truly starting to feel at home and like a local. I even gave someone directions once! This has already been the best experience of my life, and there is only more to look forward to.