New Ventures and Friends

I know I've been slacking on keeping up with this, but we've only been at FIE now for two days and I've been really busy. We live (in what we learned yesterday) in South Kensington, the most exclusive and expensive area code in all of Europe. I knew it would be nice, but this place puts Beverly Hills to shame. In our neighborhood their are 70 million dollar homes owned by various Royals of other countries and at the end of my street is Kensington Palace, where Princess Diana lived. Her place is huge, but nothing really pretty to look at. We took a walking tour of Kensington today and saw many famous residences and historical sights. It was really a nice morning walk. In about two hours, around 2pm, we have a scheduled bus tour around London. Thankfully, we'll be sitting and getting off for "snaps" as they call photos here.

Last night: was feeling EXTREMELY homesick, but pushed myself to go out anyway. Really glad that I did! A bunch of us went to the university bar across the street where if you are a cardholder (and we all are bc it came in our welcome package) you literally got about 80% off at the bar. So instead of 8 pounds, a drinks was a little more than 1 pound. Very good deals when I am loosing money because of this exchange rate. At the bar, we met a bunch or really cool kids from Temple U. in Philthy. We talked with them for awhile, found out they were headed to Archangel, a bar/club on Kensington High Street, and we joined! On the way, we stopped at their flat. They are also in our FIE program, but aren't in Metrogate so it was interesting to see another form of student housing. There were about 20 people living behind one locked main door and then just a long hallway of just huge dorm style rooms with various hall bathrooms and huge kitchens and meeting rooms. Think Anderson 6 as one apartment. It was crazy, I would have liked to have lived there. I love my room though. I bought a few pillows at Mark and Spencer's yesterday to make a little nest for myself and I slept like a baby last night so that was a good investment.

I'm gonna walk to get a panini at a small shop down the street in a few minutes and then off on the bus trip around the city! Hopefully I'll feel less homesick as the days go on. There is just no Chipotle or Kelly here. :(