JANUARY 20 - 21, 2011
After an emotional and busy beginning of the week, things were beginning to settle down as the weekend loomed closer. Thursday morning, I had two Thermodynamics lectures with an hour between the two. So after the 10am one, I went next door and bought a couple doughnuts for about a quid (British slang for pound) and hung around. After the 12pm lecture, I went home and ate lunch and just hung out for a while and got some stuff done and organized. That night, I met up with some friends and started to plan another trip I plan on making: Dublin!
Oh, I'll be headin' home to me homeland! It looks like I'm headed to the land of the Leprechauns, Guinness, The Blarney Stone, and James Joyce! Flying in really early Saturday Fabruary 5 and leaving late Sunday night, so I'll have two full days of the green country! I can't wait. But it will probably be the last trip I do in a while - I don't think my expenses could keep up if I do more in such a short amount of time!
Speaking of traveling, I'm still deciding on other places I should go. I'm thinking I could do another weekend trip to someplace like Brussels or Amsterdam sometime. Then I have to think about where to go during my long Spring break of April 1 - 26. I hope my family can come sometime during then - I'd love to go to Paris and hang in London with them for a while! Also, I'm thinking I'd maybe like to do a week in Italy - see Rome, Venice, and Florence to name a few. I also keep hearing great things about Spain - Barcelona and Madrid both do sound pretty cool..
As much as the idea of backpacking around Europe appeals to me, I feel like I'd rather do something like that with a group of good friends from home, rather than my pals here. Although I'm definitely going to see what other people here are doing for break and probably hop in with them here and there. Oh well, it should be a good time regardless - if my money can hold out until then haha!
Anyway, after we got plane tickets to and from Dublin, I headed home for the night to get ready for my first long Friday of Lectures.
Some pictures of from the Bridge at night, just because it's still awesome even though I see it everyday:
Gotta love it
This the National Theatre. No clue what that entails, but the buildings look pretty cool all lit up.
Viewing Big Ben through the London Eye
..
Friday morning saw my second 9 - 12 lectures of the week, this time for my Software Engineering for Internet Applications course. It doesn't seem too bad - so far, it's very concept-driven and it's actually pretty interesting stuff. I may actually like this course if it doesn't turn out to be too hard; it's the highest-level course that I'm taking here. After that, I went home to eat lunch and hang around. I decided to do some errands before my next lecture at 4pm, so I packed all my stuff for Edinburgh so it would be ready when I came back, then headed out around 2:30pm. I stopped at the cash point (ATM) at Waterloo Station for some money, then had my Railcard added to my Oyster card so I get discounts on tube tickets as well as trains, which is nice. Checked my Oyster card (if I haven't explained this already, it's a card you can put money on and scan when you use the tube) balance as I left, and headed for the phone store. Since the online service wasn't working for me, I 'topped up' (put money on) my pay-as-you-go phone and headed back towards campus for class, stopping at a Tesco and grabbing an apple for a healthy snack on the way!
OK, so my time table (schedule) is a bit weird on Fridays. In the afternoon I have two lectures that begin at 4, with one going only until 5 (Thermo), but the other going until 6 (Abstract Algebra). When I noticed the conflict last week, I talked to the professors and a bunch of other people and they pretty much said if I can handle it, I can try doing both. Since I'm getting credit for these courses back home, I might as well give it a try. Plus Abstract Algebra is a first-year course over here, so I should be fine. Anyway, this Friday I went to the Thermo lecture, then caught the second Algebra lecture at 5. I figure I can alternate which lecture I attend on Fridays, unless it starts to become an issue. Oh well. After hearing what we're covering in Abstract Algebra, I've actually already covered half the topics in different math courses at Case. Check and mate, Mathematics minor.
Also while I was wandering around between lectures and whatnot, I snapped some pics of the inside of the main building of my campus at KCL:
We have this really sweet chapel randomly in the middle of the building. Pretty cool
One half of the main staircase heading up to the second floor of the King's Building (I'm on the other half)
Reggie the Lion! KCL's mascot
After my last lecture of the week, I rushed back to grab my things: my bag, some money, and a small packed dinner for the train! I was on my way to Edinburgh, Scotland when I walked out the door at 6:07pm!
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Big Edinburgh update coming up next. Not looking forward to uploading like 150 pictures haha
Cheers!
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