LONDON!!

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LONDON!!

September 13, 2009 by alhaukaas

So its been 2 weeks since I got to London. I don’t really know where to start, but I love it here and at the same time miss everything at home. I am living with 6 other girls, all from the USA. Allie, Kelly, Lauren, Danielle, Whitney and Kitiya. The first few days that I was in London I just unpacked and slept a lot to get over my jet lag. After that I has been a whirlwind of events all across London which entailed lots and lot of walking.

Saturday and Sunday August 29th/30th were Carnival, in celebration of the Caribbean culture. Monday was a bank holiday or a day for everyone to recover from Carnival. We went to Carnival for a little bit but it was very overwhelming and at points there were so many people where you couldn’t move in a direction. Since I am very claustrophobia this was kind of terrifying for me and I didn’t want to be there long. The music and food were amazing and it was a great experience but just too many people for me to handle after just being in London for 2 days. We ended up going to a market afterwards near our flat and bought some really good/cheap fruits and veggies. I had been living off of cereal for the last two days and thought I should finally get some really food.

Tuesday thru Friday we had orientation. We found out our schedules, got our school ID’s, toured the campus building, and took tours of the area and found out the best places to shop. During one of our tours we when to a sample sale, I bought a super cute purple dress. Most of they nights after orientation we just when home and slept we were all still getting used to walking a lot and the time change. Friday we had welcome drinks (champagne), bunch of english candies and snacks, and had time to get to know everyone in the program. One of the nights during the week I attempted to make tatter tot hotdish. They don’t have tattertots here so I made it with french fries instead, it was still pretty tasty. Really miss being at home and having a fridge and pantry always full of food. It also has been a little difficult finding gluten-free foods and for that matter any other food because all of the brands are different then back at home.

Saturday morning we got up kind of early and when to Portobello Market, the world’s largest outside market. It was amazing so many things to look at. The market was split into sections by categories. We only had time to do the Antiques, Food and some of the New Clothing Sections. Later on that night Lauren, Allie, Danielle and I went and saw The Time Traveler’s Wife at the cinema. Such a good movie if you are into a sappy romance chick-flick!

Sunday, was also an early morning Kelly, Whitney and I went to the Columbia Road Flower Market. This was the first time that I had taken a bus here and I like it much more than riding on the tube (underground subway) you can see where you are going and what is happening around you. I bought a nice bouquet of flowers for my room and some bulbs to send home for my mom to plant in here garden. Not really sure if they are going to bloom but we’ll find out in the spring time.

Monday Sept. 7-First Day of Classes! Not really sure if I was really ready to get back into the swing of things but here we go. Everyone else in my flat are design majors so it is going to be different not having them in my classes with me. There are a few mandatory classes that everyone has to take, one in which was our first class of the week, Theoretical & Social Fashion Studies. After that I had a break for lunch and then had Range Planning and Buying.

Tuesday- my classes for today don’t start until the next week or the week after so I slept in today. Allie, Lauren, Danielle and I went to Regents Park that afternoon, rested in the park, read a book and shared a bottle of wine. It was such a nice day, in the park I felt like I was out of the city and able to catch up on my thoughts.

Wednesday-I didn’t have class until the afternoon so I cleaned up around the flat a little. We have a washer/dryer in one and I was the first to use it today, nervous because I didn’t want to ruin any of my clothes. This machine takes FOREVER I don’t know why but it takes like 4-5 hours to do one load. I had Marketing this afternoon, which was okay but not too exciting. For every class here we had to fill out a form of our expectations for the semester of the class. A lot of the basic principles that we have talked about in our intro classes I have already learned but I want to learn it from a fashion standpoint.

Thursday-last day of class. I don’t have any classes on Friday which is nice! I had European Apparel Studies with a crazy teacher. It hopefully will be interesting. All of my classes so far are all very similar and I am hoping in the weeks to come that they become more one of themselves. For each of my classes they have given a schedule to us of every week and what we are doing but I still am kind of confused of what we are doing in each class. We are only given one or two assignments for the entire semester, which is much different then MCAD, but hopefully very thought provoking.

Friday we were supposed to go to Brighton but didn’t because ticket prices were like double unless you bought them ahead of time. So we bought tickets for the next day. All of us headed home, and just had a very relaxing day. I ended up reading The Time Travelers Wife that Lauren let me borrow and taking a long nap.

Saturday, up bright and early! Allie, Danielle, Kelly,Whitney and I headed to Brighton, which is on the ocean, about an hour train ride south of London. We spend the day laying on the beach, wadding in the water (which was warmer than Lake Superior in July) reading books and then exploring Brighton Pier.

Sunday…. today, finally all caught up. I slept in today and now am writing this post. I am probably going to go through my school stuff and see if there is any homework that I need to do. Sorry that it took so long to get the post up. If you have any question for me let me know, its hard to put 2 weeks of London in a blog post.

Here is my weekly class schedule:

Monday- 10:15-11:45 TSFS and 1:30-4:30 Buying & Range Planning

Tuesday- 9:00-12:00 Forecasting and 1:30-3:30 European Cultural/Historical Studies

Wednesday- 2:00-4:30 Marketing

Thursday- 9:00-11:00 European Independent Project and 12:00-2:00 European Apparel Studies

Time Zone Changes ( I am 6 hours ahead from the central time zone.)

My address is:

Alyssa Haukaas

5 Praed Street Flat #2

London W2 1NJ

I love to Skype so send me a message or email me whenever and we can set up a time to do that. If not I can always talk on the phone. I will be trying to keep this up to date. Thats all for now miss everyone!