Just touched down in London Town (London, Take 2)

After being home for what felt like 3 seconds, stuffing my face with home cooked meals, spending time with family and friends, showing my friend Leslie from SCU all of the wonders that Acton has to offer (cosmic bowling, anyone?), and yet another trip to the Delta cargo hold to pick up my visa hours before my flight, I made it back to London for Round 2 of my European adventures. I'm still living in Manson Place, same as last semester, except this time I'm in Flat 21 instead of Flat 20 -- meaning that instead of trekking up 6 flights of stairs to get to my flat, I now get to walk up 7! But luckily, I only had to haul one suitcase up those stairs this time around since my program had moved everything into my room ahead of time for me. This time around I'm living with a group of people from universities all over the U.S., which is pretty cool. Michelle, Katie, Kayla, and Megan all go to St. Norbert's College in Green Bay, and are from Chicago, Springfield Illinois, and Wisconsin respectively. My flatmates Polly and Maddie go to Guilford College in North Carolina and are both from New York (Polly's from Brooklyn, and Maddie lives in Westchester County),  Noel and Alex both go to American University in DC and are from Connecticut and Indianapolis, and my flatmate Kelly and I are the two representatives from California -- Kelly goes to CalPoly at San Luis Obispo and is originally from Sacramento. So all in all, a pretty geographically diverse group! It was a little strange at first to be 'starting over' in London again after living here for four months already, but I think it helped that I was in a new flat; it would have been kind of weird to have all the people switch around me but be in the exact same place. The first few nights we went exploring around, got dinner at a nearby pub and went to Piano Bar, which has become our bar of choice whenever we go out, and it was cool to actually know where I was and be able to show people around a little bit. I was really happy to be back in the city and have that kind of familiarity, as opposed to last time where I didn't really know where I was going and was kind of nervous about everything. And other than getting a weird stomach illness type-thing my first few days here, it was a really great start to the semester! Our program took us to see The 39 Steps, which was a very cool slapstick-esque comedy and a fun night out in London. I had a bit of a scheduling error with my classes, but luckily I was able to sort it out and I think it all ended up working out in my favour - the class I switched out of is apparently really boring, and I love the Business Ethics class that I switched into. Here are some pictures from the first few weeks back!

Our kitchen view of the rooftops of London..almost makes the trek up the stairs worth it!

Our kitchen

My room - I'm in a single this time, and the cleaning staff hooked me up with 3 pillows and a colored duvet this time around, so I don't feel like I'm sleeping in a hospital! My bed still rolls around though..

View from my window in my room

Wall decorations

My friend Noorjehan from Acton is also studying abroad in London this semester, so on my second day we met up for some lunch. It was a pretty nice day, so afterwards we walked around Kensington Gardens for a bit. Here's Kensington Palace,

The Albert Memorial,

some trees,

and Royal Albert Hall.

My flatmates Maddie, Kelly, and I made our way to King's Cross Train Station to get some pictures of Platform 9 3/4. It took us forever to find it, because it had been temporarily moved outside of the train station. So we had to be embarrassing tourists and ask where it was..

..then take pictures like this in public. During rush hour.

I'm still volunteering at the organization where I did my internship last semester, and my boss asked if I wanted to come to a meeting with her at Green & Blacks, a delicious chocolate company that's also a member of the Organic Trade Board- so obviously I had to go. After the meeting we each got a bag of chocolate bars, which was fantastic.. although I've already eaten through way more of these than I should!