Week 10

Hey there!

Okay, I know, I know. I’m late on my blog. My bad. It has just been a very hectic week, especially with finals last week and all the papers and studying I had to do. Then, the fact that I didn’t have internet until now…because internet in Bordeaux is very hard to come by, especially at the university…but yes. Here it is: enjoy.

So my last week in Cambridge was super fun, but I am so sad that I had to leave!! For the most part of the week, I was studying for my Economics final and writing the paper. I tried to get some last minute souvenir shopping done in Cambridge since I hadn’t done any at all…I know, it’s been 8 weeks and I still hadn’t bought a sweatshirt or postcards. I’m ridiculous. Anyway, I had my final on Thursday and then that night, we had our last formal. There was a party afterward as well that was themed the Roaring Twenties and so we played Texas Hold’em, listened to live jazz and danced in the cellar with glowsticks. We also met with all the Japanese students as well and took lots of pictures and said many good-byes. That Friday, I tried to get errands done such as sending off some very expensive souvenirs…expensive because of the sending I suppose, and took my last minute pictures of Cambridge and some of the colleges. I also went out to dinner that night with a friend for some good Italian. Then I went back to pack everything up, ready to leave for London the next morning.

We left for London around 9am and got in around 11am. I was with another girl and a guy. We said goodbye to the girl who met her Dad at the train station. It was so sad! Then my friend and I continued to our hostel. After dropping our stuff off at the hostel, we hit the British Museum (which had cool mummies and random beheaded statues), Westminster Abby (with beautiful fan vaulting..! Yay!), the National Portrait Gallery (which didn’t have Daniel Radcliffe’s portrait displayed at the time…I was sad), and the Imperial War Museum (which had the biggest exhibit on the Holocaust that I’ve ever seen). After that, we headed over to Soho, London’s Chinatown, for dinner and got Japanese and then Piccadilly Circus for shopping. We were pretty exhausted from walking around all the time and so, turned in early at our hostel.

We woke up the next morning and got breakfast in Notting Hill while watching the setting up of one of the biggest carnivals in England. After that, we visited Hyde Park and the Peter Pan statue and Kensington Gardens to see the Princess Diana memorial fountains. Then we went to Camden for shopping and got early dinner there. We shopped around for quite a bit, looking for my “British” shoes, but I didn’t find anything! We had dessert in Leicester Square and then met up with some other friends who were traveling after the program. We tried to go to the oldest pub in London to find that it was closed and so ended up taking pictures in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral. My friend and I headed back to the hostel after that because he had an early flight the next morning.

After I dropped him off at Heathrow the next morning and said our goodbyes, I went to meet up with my other friends from the night before. We got a packed lunch from a grocery store and had lunch in front of Buckingham Palace, listening to the Royal Band play from inside the gates. Afterward, we went shopping at Oxford Circus and then went to Kensington to see Harrods. We spent quite a bit of time at Harrods, mostly looking at the huge TOY department (ahh…I love toys!!), and then my friend went back to her hotel. I went back to Oxford Circus to exchange some money and but some CDs at HMV. Afterward, I went back to my hostel to meet another friend who was staying in my friend’s bed who had just left on the plane that morning. We met and then reunited with my other friend for dinner and went to the London Eye. I didn’t go on it, but they did and I walked around the Thames…it was a beautiful night! Everything was lit up and so pretty! Afterward, I went back to my hostel because I had to catch my taxi at 4:30am for Gatwick.

After getting into Gatwick, I took off for Bordeaux at 7:55am and arrived about an hour twenty after. I met two other girls in the program who were on the same flight and we got a taxi together and got to the university. All we had to do was check-in and so we did that and I spent the rest of the day unpacking and trying to adjust to the change in weather (it was sooo hot and humid!! So different from the pouring rain of Cambridge! I miss the rain!!). Anyway, that was that day…and I went to a supermarché also and got some food to eat because we don’t have an eating plan here.

The next day, we had a meeting at noon and then afterward, I went with a couple of other girls to an internet café in the downtown area by taking the tram. Then we got food at another supermarché and went back to eat. I spent the rest of the night trying to delete programs and clean up my computer because I finally ran out of disk space!! Eek!

Today, we had a meeting in the morning and then met in the downtown area for a historical tour of Bordeaux in the afternoon. After the tour, I got money from my bank and then got some information on the SIM cards here. I spent a half an hour in a café having a pastry and reading the booklets on SIM cards over, trying to understand them before I bought anything. The rates are outrageous here! I think I know why texting is so popular! Then after, I met for dinner with some other new friends I’ve met and have just got back right now. It was a good day, but I have to study for our exam tomorrow for placement for the LIP programme Ahh! Scary French grammar!

Til then-
Sherilyn