The Cavalcade & departure

This morning I slept in a little bit since I’m sure that I won’t be getting much sleep for the next 24 hours or so with all of the traveling to get back home. I finished packing up all of my stuff and got some lunch. After lunch, Brittany and I headed down to Holyrood Park (right by Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury Crags) for a parade that is part of the festival called The Cavalcade. There were tons of people lining the streets and we got prime standing area right at the curb near the very start of the procession. The parade was really cool and started off with Harley Davidson rides, Farrari cars, a whole variety of bagpipers and bands from around the world, some floats, and lots and lots of groups of actors and dancers passing out flyers and trying to promote their shows. It was very lively and diverse and a great way to spend some of the last few hours here in Scotland!

We came back to the flat to finish getting ready to depart and now I’m just playing the waiting game until it’s time to catch a cab to take the train back to London where we have to try to find a way to get from King’s Cross to the airport for our flight a little after 9 am tomorrow morning. We’re hoping to be able to get the last tube ride to Heathrow Airport but we don’t have much room for error so it might be a bit of an adventure finding alternative transportation. I’m sure we’ll figure something out and I will be back in Michigan by noon-ish tomorrow! I can’t believe that my month overseas is already over! It has flown by and has been packed with great experiences and loads of memories! Goodbye, Europe! I’ll have to make my way back over here sometime soon ☺

Salisbury Crags, The Meadows, & a ghost tour

In the morning we went and bought tickets for a ghost tour tonight. Then we walked over towards Arthur’s Seat to climb the cliffs that are to the left of the volcano. Apparently the cliffs are called the Salisbury Crags. It was another good work out with a great view!

We came back to the flat for a bit and then Thao and I headed out to walk around the park in town called The Meadows because one of the guys we met in line last night before the show told us that there would be performers and artists there for the festival. When we got there we found only a few people practicing for some sort of drum show and a couple of fields of men playing cricket. So that was pretty much a flop but we still enjoyed being able to walk in the park and spend some time outside in the surprisingly sunny, warm weather. Since there wasn’t much to see in The Meadows, we wandered around in the city for a little while. We ended up coming across a small flea market type of thing going on in a street, so we did a little bit of shopping around there before we headed back to the central part of Edinburgh for a free show.

The show was called The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Romantic Conflict. We had come across the actors from the show a few nights ago because Brittany was wearing a Michigan State hoodie and the man commented on it because he is from Dearborn. So we talked to them for a little bit and they gave us the flyer for their show and we decided since we didn’t have anything else going on and it was free, that we would check it out. It was a very cute and clever show! There were only two actors (a male and female) and they each played many different roles very well by simply changing character by putting on a jacket, hat, glasses, etc. Quite talented!

After the show we came back to meet up with the rest of our flatmates to go to dinner. We came across a local pub that had an open table so we ate there. I got the All Day Big Breakfast which was a massive amount of food including: toast, eggs, bacon, baked beans, sausage, hash browns, mushrooms, and black pudding (a Scottish dish that tastes decent but mostly just like seasoning but apparently is made from sheep’s blood…).

As a whole, the meal was delicious and incredibly filling! When we were done with dinner, we went back to our flat until it was time to go and we walked over to the Royal Mile where our ghost tour was supposed to start. The tour guide wore a black hooded cape and was very dramatic. She carried around a lit candle that she held under her face as she took us to dark alleyways and streets and told us stories of “villains” and their secret lives. For the second half of the tour we walked down into the underground vaults that are supposedly haunted. It was all stone and very uneven down there and the air was stuffy and humid. Since we were the last tour of the night, we got to blow out the candles behind us as we went. Despite the creepiness of the place, the tour wasn’t really that scary. The stories that our guide told us were mostly about the ghosts that are said to haunt the various vaults and the different sightings and sensations that are often experienced. The stories weren’t very chilling and the fact that we were down there with a large group of about twenty or so people definitely made the experience less frightening. When we left the vaults, our tour was officially over and we walked back to our flat unscared but a little tired. That was the conclusion of our final night in Edinburgh.

More Edinburgh: Fringe fest & Taste of Scotland

Thursday, August 5
We walked to Astley Ainslie Hospital in the morning as a class. There, we had two presentations by SLTs (the Scottish Brain Injury Rehabilitation Service & Edinburgh Community Health Partnership). At the end, we got to hear from a stroke patient who now suffers from expressive aphasia, which was a very insightful and unique experience.

When the presentations and talk were over, we walked back to the flat to get some lunch and take a quick nap and then went to climb Arthur’s Seat, a dormant volcano that is right next to Edinburgh. The views along the way and at the top of the climb were breathtaking! It took us about 45 minutes to climb to the top over rocky “stairs” and dirt trails. On the top of the peak there were two rock monument structures—one was a sort of compass, and the other was a “seat” which was really more of a stone stump. We spent a fair amount of time at the top taking pictures and taking in the scenery all around us. It incredible to see the sea on one side, countryside farms on another, the city of Edinburgh on yet another, and cliffs in yet another direction. Such diverse and beautiful land! It was a great experience and we didn’t want to leave, but it started to rain a little bit so we decided to head down before we got stuck in the middle of a downpour on steep rocky, trails.

We came back and went to dinner at a local pub, although I didn’t eat since I had food back at the flat. We then hung out for a little at the flat before Thao and I went to walk around the Royal Mile. When we were there, we saw a street performer that does magic tricks with a cigarette—incredibly, he was a performer we had seen just a week or so before at Covent Garden! We also saw a group of artists dressed up as nuns with cigarettes and beer that were walking down the middle of the street in slow-motion apparently in an attempt to attract people to go see there show. It didn’t impress or tempt me to pay to go see them but it was entertaining to see their odd antics in the street! We then came across an 18-year-old street performer who juggled fire on two men’s arms.


Next, we did a little shopping and went to Frankenstein, a pub that has been around since the early 19th century. As the name suggests, the pub was decked out in Frankenstein décor with cobwebs, old horror movies playing on a projection screen at the front, and strange, old contraptions on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. Business was slow at first but then it picked up for about an hour or two. Lots of the girls from our trip were there and one of us even won a 300-pound bar tab after entering into a lottery and picking out a key that unlocked the “beast” in the cage (it was a man dressed up in a wolf mask). We stayed later than everyone else and then walked home after getting kicked out at 3 am since the place was closing up. We stopped because some of the girls wanted to get food on the way home. One girl got chips and cheese and then stepped outside to wait for everyone else, but her food was stolen right out of her hands by some guy that sprinted by and grabbed it. I guess that’s life in the city late at night haha. With that as our final event of the day, we headed back and were glad to finally get to sleep in the early hours of the morning.


Friday, August 6
I slept in after our very late night at Frankenstein. After everyone was finally ready, we headed down to the Royal Mile to walk around for a couple of hours to see the hustle and bustle of the Fringe festival. There were lots of street performers, actors and comedians handing out flyers for their shows, and other theatre people and musicians just having fun amongst all of the tourist and festival-goers. We got to see a lot of really strange stuff as well as some very talented people. It’s definitely very exciting and I’m so glad that we get to be here for this huge event!

When we had seen our fill of festival madness for the day, we walked back, stopped at Tesco (a grocery store) and then went back to our flat to pick up a little before the rest of our class came over for our final summary session of the program. We all tightly packed into our little living/dining room here and talked for a couple of hours about what we’ve learned, experienced, etc. It was a nice little wrap-up of the program.

After our meeting was over, we had a little over an hour to nap and get ourselves ready for the Taste of Scotland event. We all took cabs over to Prestonfield which is a complex including a hotel and a large stable that is decorated elaborately inside—this is where we had our Taste of Scotland dinner and show. The Prestonfield grounds are gorgeous and the inside of the hotel is very ornate and beautiful as well! Apparently several celebrities have come to stay there including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Elton John, Sean Connery and Winston Churchill. Pretty cool! Inside of the stable, you would have no idea that it actually was a stable. Everything was covered in red velvet, the walls were covered in sparkling lights that looked like a night sky, and there was a fairly large stage at the front with golden pillars and red curtains. It was much fancier and more elaborate than I expected!


Our dining experience at Prestonfield started off with our choice between a potato and turnip soup or game paté. Unfortunately, I was feeling adventurous so I chose the paté, but upon tasting it I immediately regretted my decision. It had a very smooth texture and it tasted almost like a funny, mushy hot dog but worse haha. Even though I only had a couple of bites and didn’t particularly enjoy it, at least I can say I tried it! Next up was the main course and we had another choice between beef with carrots and potatoes or poached salmon with green beans, potatoes, and Hollandaise sauce. I picked the salmon and it was delicious! It wasn’t anything too exotic to me, but I enjoyed it all the same! The main course was followed by lemon tart with Cranachan for dessert. It was a little bit sweet and tart and very rich, but I really enjoyed it. After that, we were given coffee or tea (I picked tea) with homemade Scottish tablet (a fudge-like, buttery tasting treat that was very sugary and a little gritty but quite yummy).

After tea was served, it was finally time for the show to start. We were provided with over an hour of Scottish entertainment including everything from dancing, singing, accordian, violin, drum, keyboard and bagpipe playing—it was incredible! In the middle of the show we had a break for a haggis ceremony in which a man presented the traditional Scottish dish with an eccentric “Address to the Haggis” and then we were served the odd dish. I was really scared at first since the description of how haggis is made does not exactly make my mouth water (it’s basically all of the leftover insides of a sheep that are ground up and then cooked inside the sheep’s stomach with some seasoning). We all worked up the courage to try the haggis, which was served on top of mashed potatoes and it was surprisingly tasty! It was quite peppery and had a strong seasoning flavor but was very edible and savory! I was pleasantly surprised by how well I like it. After our haggis tasting experience, the show continued on with the second half, ending with a group singing of Auld Lang Syne. And with that, our show was over and our study abroad program was officially over! It was very bittersweet!


After saying our goodbyes to Dr. Cooke, we took cabs back to the flats. Thao and I quickly changed and then walked over to the Assembly at George Street for a show called “Gutted” that was part of the festival. The show started about a half hour late, but luckily we made some friends with a Scottish couple and another couple that was from London and we passed the time talking about everything from NHS to Michigan winters to popular (and not-so-popular) festival performers. It was cool to get to hear their experiences and points of view about a variety of topics. The show eventually got underway and we spent the next hour plus watching a musical comedy about revenge that bore a close resemblance to Sweeney Todd. It was interesting and most of the actors were pretty talented. I thought it was a nice changeup from the two comedians that we had seen already at Fringe. The show finally ended around 1:30 am and we walked back to the flat to crash after another late night on the town. Only two more days left in Edinburgh; I’m having a great time and am going to make the best of my last couple of days in Europe! It’s hard to believe that our month here is almost over!

St. Andrews & Fringe Festival

Today we had an informal class trip to St. Andrews in the morning. It was just over an hour ride from Edinburgh on the train, which was completely bearable because there was such amazing scenery the entire ride! We rode past the coast as well as rolling hills of farmland speckled with sheep and cattle and lined with trees and stone walls. It was all breathtaking! I would have to say that Scotland’s countryside definitely give Ireland a run for its money.

When we arrived in St Andrews we had to take a very short bus ride up to town where we got off and walked down to the coast where the St. Andrews Link golf courses are. We spend a while hanging out on some rocks on the coast and taking in the views and then we finally made our way to the courses where we wandered around for a little bit trying to figure out where the Old Course was. It turns out that we were actually walking past the last couple holes of the course the entire time, but it was so open and didn’t have any obvious fairways, sand traps or greens that we didn’t know it was a course. It is so different from any golf courses that we had ever seen before, but I guess it makes sense that the course wouldn’t be too standard since it was made a long time ago. Once we figured out what it was it was neat to know that we were seeing the “birthplace of golf” and so many famous and talented golfers had been right where we were. Surreal!

We made our way down to the country club where a couple of girls suggested we eat lunch. I thought that the prices would be insanely high at such a prestigious place, but they actually turned out to be very reasonable so I enjoyed an chicken and bacon sandwich while feeling significantly out of place in my blue jeans and tennis shoes among all of the older, well-dressed Scottish golfers.


After lunch we wandered through some of the nearby shops and sat down to enjoy the surprisingly warm and sunny weather. We eventually decided to make our way back to the town centre to walk around for a little bit before we took the train back to Edinburgh. It was another enjoyable ride in the scenic country followed by a little more shopping in Edinburgh. Then, we came back to the flat for dinner and a little break before we went to a couple of comedy shows that were part of the Fringe Festival. One other girl and I went to see Dan Atropolski at the Pleasance Dome. He’s a British comedian who was pretty funny, but we also soon felt a much larger cultural barrier than we ever had before on the trip. It seemed that many of his jokes were about British people or culture that were way over our heads so we had absolutely no idea what was funny. It was still a cool experience and we were able to pick out enough humor for it to be worthwhile. When Dan’s show was done, the other girls then met us at the same place to see Bo Burnham. (For anyone who doesn’t know, Bo is a 19-year-old American who had a big break as a YouTube phenomenon a couple years ago). He was absolutely hilarious! He played the piano and guitar, sang, read “haikus”, and just had a great show! Bo performed for about an hour, and afterwards we walked around in an outdoor hangout area that was set up for the festival for a few minutes and then came back to the flats for the night since we have our last official class tomorrow morning.

Queen Margaret University & around town

We started up a new week of classes today. In the morning we took the train one stop to Musselburgh where we got off and walked to Queen Margaret University. There, we had four lecturers come and talk to us throughout the day; they were pretty interesting and two of them presented material on technology they use for speech assessment (electropalatography and ultrasound tongue imaging). I had never heard of either of these methods before so I thought it was very cool! We were there until a little after three o’clock and they even provided us with a good old British lunch (finger sandwiches, crisps, and mini cupcakes).
After class, we took the quick train ride back in to Edinburgh and spent an hour or so walking and shopping around the Royal Mile (basically like the Main Street here with lots of shops and activity). We then went to Deacon Brodie’s Tavern for dinner (named after the man who inspired the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). I decided to try something a little different, so I got a Roast Lamb ciabatta sandwich. It came with gravy and roasted potatoes; all of it was a little bit interesting but pretty tasty. When we were done with dinner we headed out into the street and saw an Australian street performer so we decided to stop and watch. He was absolutely insane and really talented! This guy rode a three-meter tall unicycle while blindfolded and he simultaneous juggled three swords/axes. Crazy! Right before he did that stunt, he “swallowed” a sword that was probably a foot and a half long! It was the craziest thing I’ve seen in a long time haha. We found out at the end of the performance that he was in town because of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe that officially starts tomorrow and is a three week long festival with over three thousand shows (comedy, theatre, dance, music, art, etc.). Apparently it is the biggest festival of its type in the whole world; we’re really lucky to happen to be in town while it’s going on and I’m sure it will provide us with lots of entertainment and excitement!
When we were done watching the crazy Australian’s street show we walked back to the flat to rest for a little while.

Edinburgh

This morning started off with our transportation to Edinburgh from London. We had to take taxis as a group from our flats in London to King’s Cross to catch the train. Let me tell you that figuring out how to fit 21 girls with all of their luggage into three taxis early in the morning is not easy or fun haha. But we finally made it to the station and waited around for our train where we then struggled to find storage for all of our bags in the very limited luggage storage space. Well, needless to say it all eventually got sorted out and we took the four and a half hour train ride up to Edinburgh. Even though it was fairly long, the train ride was enjoyable because the scenery is gorgeous!
When we arrived in Edinburgh we took taxis to our flats and got to drop off our stuff in our rooms. I am in another flat of six girls, but this time we all have our own rooms and we have two bathrooms with working showers! I think it is a great upgrade from our crowded flats in London, but some of my roommates disagree for some reason. Oh well, at least I’m happy haha ☺ Not to mention, we have great views out of all of our windows on the fourth floor here; they are much better than the apartment rooftop views we had in London.
After we dropped off our stuff, Dr. Cooke took us down the street to show us where the nearest grocery store is. We then had a little over an hour to do what we wanted before our city bus tour. My roommates and I went to get dinner at a nearby coffee shop. I got a Cajun chicken crepe with a salad. They accidentally forgot to make my dinner though, so the chef brought me a free muffin too to make up for it. They were so friendly and everyone has the greatest Scottish accents! It is so fun to hear the different accents everywhere we go on the trip!
After dinner we came back to walk with the rest of the group to the Edinburgh Waverley Station to get on the tour bus. The tour lasted about an hour and was a great opportunity to orient ourselves within the city and to hear a little bit about the history and main attractions within Edinburgh. It is truly a unique, quaint, and beautiful city! After an hour on the second level of an open-topped double-decker bus, I quickly learned the hard way that Scotland does not have the warmest weather, even in the summer. We were all chilly and wishing we had brought warmer clothes, even though most of us were already wearing jeans, hoodies, and tennis shoes. At least now I have an excuse to buy some warm Edinburgh paraphernalia while I’m here! haha
When we were done with the bus tour we looked around in some of the touristy shops and then (rather blindly) made our way back to the street where our flats our. From there, we went to the University of Edinburgh office (our flats are through that university) to buy vouchers for the internet since we were told it wasn’t going to be provided to us for free. After that we went to the grocery store and came back to the flat to recuperate from our traveling and to test out the internet. Little did we know, apparently we could have gotten on the internet for free without the vouchers we had just purchased. I guess that means we’ll have to try to get our money back tomorrow…Sometimes traveling and all the expenses and unknown factors can really be overwhelming. But we’re all settled in now and happy to have any internet at all ☺ Tomorrow is a day long site visit to a nearby university. I’m not really sure what the visit is going to entail, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough!
Well, we’ve made it to our final week and last country that we are visiting for the trip! It’s all been flying by and it’s sad to think about leaving in a week, but at the same time I’m ready to come home to the familiarity of people, places, food, and transportation. I know I’ll be home soon enough, so it’s time to enjoy my final week here in Edinburgh ☺

Last day in London

One of my roommates and I went to church at All Souls Church in the morning. It was a Christian service and was fairly standard, but complete with a very long sermon. When church was over we tried to make it to the changing of the guard outside of St. James’s Palace but since the service at All Souls was so long, we got to St. James Street right after the guards had come out and as everyone was leaving to follow them down the street to Buckingham Palace. So instead of seeing the ceremony, we walked through Green Park and did some shopping at a street vendor and got sandwiches for lunch at Pret a Manger.
From there we took the tube to Marble Arch and saw Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. Speaker’s Corner was very unique and worth seeing, but it was more like a bunch of lunatics yelling at each other and to the crowd than anything very insightful. Most speakers had religious talks or songs. Afterwards, I got ice cream that was really thick and kind of like whipped cream but tasted a little bit like yogurt. Very different.
After that, we came back to the flat for awhile to pack and catch up on journaling, emails, and other random stuff. We finally went to eat at the pub across the street called “The Victory”. I got chile con carne with a salad. It was really good and reasonably priced and a great place to eat for our last meal in London. We then rushed over to the London Eye (London’s huge “ferris wheel”) where our whole group had a reservation for a pod for a ride around the Eye. Since we had paid for an entire pod, we also got a free ticket into the London Eye’s 4D experience. It turned out to be a 3D video of the Eye and sights that can be seen while on it along with wind, confetti, bubbles, etc. to provide the “fourth demension”. It was a really cool experience, but probably not worth it if you have to pay for it. We then got into our pod and took a breath-taking ride around the Eye with a complete view of the massive city of London at night. With our entire class and professor there, it was definitely the perfect way to end our stay in London! And now we’re done here in London and ready to head off to Edinburgh for our final week in the UK…

Paris!

Ok, so it's been super busy around here so I'm just going to post a quick summary of our weekend in Paris:


Friday, July 30
We took tube to Heathrow and flew to Paris. From there we took a train from the airport to the city. Right when we got on, there were two men and a little kid who were playing music with an accordian and tamborine on the train. It was really entertaining and a great welcome to Paris. We got a little lost but found hostel with help of Sarah and Marissa who had already arrived. Th hostel was very nice; it was more like a hotel than a hostel because we had small rooms of two and three people with our own bathroom and the lobby and hallways were very clean and modern. We dropped off our stuff and then headed to lunch a nearby cafe. I got a Croque Madmoiselle (at Chelsea's recommendation) which is cheese, ham, and an egg on toast. it was so good! Then we went Notre Dame and took pictures of the outside of the church, but we didn't go in. We got gelato at a small stand in the street. It was very expensive and rich, but we wanted to treat ourselves since you're not in Paris too often haha. After that we went to the Arc the Triomphe from there and paid to go to the top. It was a gorgeous view of the city, including the Eiffel Tower! After that we walked down Avenue des Champs Élysées and saw the original Louis Vuitton shop but it was just closing up when we got there so we didn’t get to go in. We then walked over to the Eiffel Tower to get some daytime pictures. It is such a huge structure and very impressive! How cool to be standing right in front of such a famous monument! We sat around for a little bit and then went to a nearby grocery store to buy some wine, baguettes, and cheese. We took our groceries back to the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower and spent the rest of the evening under it lit up at night. I didn’t know that it sparkles every hour, so that was an exciting surprise! It was all so beautiful and surreal! We had difficulty finding our way home after midnight because the metro stop we wanted to get on seemed to only be a parking garage. However, we eventually found another stop and headed back to the hostel.
(By the way, the metro smells really bad and is dirty with lots of grafity and many poorly labeled stations. The conditions of teh underground system in Paris made us really appreciate the tube in London.)



Saturday, July 31
We woke up fairly early and got breakfast at the hostel which was really good compared to our Dublin hostel. They gave you the option of getting cereal, juice, coffee (or hot chocolate), milk, yogurt, croissant, baguette, biscuits (basically just packaged toast), with butter, jam, and a French version of Nutella. After breakfast, we left to go to Montmartre to see Sacre Coeur. There was a great view of the city because it is up on a hill overlooking all of Paris. It was a great place to visit, but very exhausting with lots of steps to climb. After taking our fill of pictures, we went to a patisserie and I got an apple filled pastry. We then went to Moulin Rouge which is also in Montmartre. There were lots of scandalous shops and other crazy things to see in the area. Then, we headed to the Louvre where we split up and some of us went inside and others went shopping. We only got to see only a small part of the Louvre because it is so huge and we had a time constraint, but we saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo along with lots of other impressive paintings and statues. It was crazy to be standing right in front of artwork that you have seen in books and movies your entire life! Then we headed back to Notre Dame because we wanted to go inside. Someone had heard that the inside was pretty “hollow” and the outside was more impressive, but I disagree. It was incredibly beautiful and ornate inside! We did some souvenir shopping in the area and then got dinner at a quirky restaurant with goofy waiters. I got a vegetarian salad in a bread bowl. It was very unique, but like all the food in Paris, it was delicious! After dinner, we finished our shopping and then took the metro back to the hostel where we got our bags and left for the airport. Between the metro, waiting for the plane, flight, customs, and finally the tube ride home, it took forever to get back to the flats. In the end, we finally got back after 11 and had to start planning for our last day in London. It was exhausting but we all had an amazing time in Paris! It is such a beautiful and unique city with so much character!

Class, Chapel, and Shopping

Compared to all of our adventures yesterday, today was a pretty uneventful day. Our morning class was a lecture about early intervention and prevention of speech and language disorders in very young children. Right after lecture and before lunch, Dr. Cooke took us over to Great Ormand Street Hospital to see the Chapel of St. Christopher that is in the building. The hospital is for children, so the chapel had small pews and a “Teddy Bear Choir” which was a whole bunch of stuffed animals that lined a ledge that ran around the walls of the chapel. The animals had been placed there by the families and friends of sick children. It was really neat to see the chapel, but at the same time it was very sad to hear about the accidents that put children into the hospital and to read cards to deceased children that were written by their heartbroken families. It was definitely a heart-wrenching place.
After we went to the chapel, we headed back to UCL to eat lunch and then we had presenters come in to our classroom for the evening. The first presenter was a SLT who worked for Connect, a charity that focuses on providing support and aid to people who suffer from aphasia and other acquired communication disabilities such as dementia. The second presenter was a man who had suffered from a stroke at age 35 and had temporarily lost his speech afterwards. He shared his story with us and told us of how he had overcome the obstacle in his life and turned it around when he decided to become a counselor after his recovery. It was a very inspiring and moving story. With the end of his discussion around 4:00, we were finally done with our classes here in London!
We then headed over to Regent’s College to print off our boarding passes for our flight to Paris tomorrow morning, and we ate dinner there too. Most of us finally used the last of our 100-pound credit for the Regent’s College cafeteria. I guess that means there will be no more free food for me while I’m here ☹.
When dinner was over, we headed to Oxford Street to do a little bit of quick souvenir shopping, for Brittany to top off on her cell phone, and for Sarah to return a dress to TopShop (a slightly expensive, popular, and incredibly busy young adult clothing and accessory store). After we were done with our shopping, we came back to the flat to start packing and getting ready for our couple of days in Paris.

Abbey Road, Trafalgar Square, & Household Cavalry!

Our morning lecture was a guest speaker from the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children. Apparently Michael Palin is one of the original guys who started the Monty Python and he based his role as a stammerer in the movie, A Fish Called Wanda, after his dad who was a stammerer. The talk was very interesting and much better than a lot of the morning lectures we have been having lately. Our presenter had lots of good insight into how clients feel about and deal with having stammers.
During our lunch break, a few of us got Belgian waffles with Nutella from a street vendor since we had seen them many times and wanted to try them out before we left. They were very rich and sticky but so delicious! The waffles were much thicker than any waffle I had ever had before and I’m sure they were not healthy, but it was a great British treat! Haha
In the afternoon, we went to the Royal London Hospital where we started off with a very long-winded tour of the hospital’s museum and medical library (the museum was actually pretty interesting despite the length and of the tour included stuff from the real Elephant Man who had lived the last four years of his life at the hospital). When we were finally done with the tour, we watched a short video about the Elephant Man and then headed back upstairs for a couple short presentations. The first woman talked about how they deal with the multicultural community that comes to the hospital for services (mostly Bangladeshi people in that area). Finally, the second SLP talked to us about her job as a therapist in the hospital’s children’s unit. The talks were fairly interesting, but the room was hot and we were all getting very tired (like usual) so it was a huge relief when the day was finally over.
After class, we headed back to our apartment to regroup and then from there we headed to Regent’s College for dinner. We then went to Abbey Road for about a half hour and took pictures crossing the street (which is actually quite difficult to do when there is a steady stream of cars and lots of other tourists trying to do the same thing) and signed the wall outside of the Abbey Road Studio. It was a fun adventure and neat to be in the spot where history was made and such famous people have walked!
From Abbey Road we went to Trafalgar Square because I thought that the National Gallery was open later today than the rest of the week, but it turns out that my source was outdated and the gallery wasn’t really open by the time we got there at 8:30. However, we got to take some cool pictures of the Square and we even climbed up on the giant metal lion statues on top of one of the monuments in the center of the Square.

We met some British guys there who helped a couple girls get on one of the giant lion statue’s back. Brittany started talking to them and found out that they were actual part of the British Household Cavalry and they invited to show us the stalls where the horses are kept. Of course we were all a bit skeptical and first and very cautious and only agreed to walk with them a half a block to where the stalls were. They took us to this giant gate in the middle of the block between Trafalgar Square and Parliament and they told us to come in. We refused at first, but they brought one of the horses out to where we were and we saw a few men walking around inside in soldier uniforms so we started to feel a little more confident that they were telling the truth, not to mention the fact that we were in the middle of a fairly busy area. There were six of us there and one of us was brave and/or crazy enough to go in by herself, while the rest of us waited outside hesitantly. Once she came back and another girl went in with her and they both came back begging us to go in and see the horses, I finally decided it was safe enough and went in myself. It was so cool! There were probably ten or fifteen men working in there, all dressed in camouflage and military hats. They had also brought out a horse for us to pet and feed. These are the horses that the Household Cavalry ride to the front of Buckingham Palace every day for the changing of the guard. They told us that they carry swords while they are on duty protecting the Queen and the Palace and one of them even got to wear a gold jacket worth 50,000 pounds because he played the trumpet during the procession. It was so fascinating and surreal to see and experience the whole thing! We really lucked out because they said not very many people get to see the stables at all because they actually weren’t supposed to take outsiders in there. What a cool opportunity! After we walked around and fed the horses, took lots of pictures, and met some of the men, we went outside the gate and talked to them about their job a little longer. It was all so interesting but we eventually had to part ways and head back to the flat for the night. That was about it for the day, but it was a very memorable and unique experience for sure!

More class and Covent Garden

In the morning, we had a talk about grammatical morphemes in children with SLI, Autism, and Williams Syndrome. Then, our afternoon involved a visit to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery where we listened to three separate presentations by SLPs. Our fist talk was by an SLP who works in the theatre (British term for the operating room) while patients get brain surgery while they are awake. She is responsible for making sure that the surgeon does not remove any parts of the brain that are associated with language function. Our second speaker at the hospital talked about tracheostomies and the importance of paying attention to the patient’s emotions and attitudes to the whole ordeal. Finally, the third speaker of the evening talked about how spinal surgeries that are carried out from the front of the neck can often lead to swallowing difficulties post-surgery.
After class, we went to Regent’s College to get some dinner and from there we headed to Covent Garden. We had heard that it was a good spot to go in the evening, so we thought we’d try it out before we ran out of time. With “garden” in the name, we expected to find a garden in a park with a little market and small street performers, but it was actually much different. It was a fairly big complex with permanent shops, smaller booths set up around the streets, and areas for elaborate street performances as well as smaller musicians, yo-yo experts, and magicians. Even though it wasn’t exactly what we expect, it was a really cool experience! I am constantly in awe of how you can be in London for such a long time and do new things every day and still find endless attractions, shopping areas, and other spots that you never even knew existed. It is such a huge and diverse city! So we spent about an hour or so doing some shopping and watching street performances including a terrible juggling act, a couple of traditional Chinese musicians, and an eccentric comedian with a mullet wig haha. We headed to Covent Garden a little earlier than we had planned, but that ended up being perfect because the shops all started closing up right around 7 when we were thinking about heading home.
We then took the tube home to our flat for the night so that we could have some time to relax and hope to get a little more sleep than we have been since we have all been struggling to stay awake during our afternoon lectures haha. Hopefully our plan works out and we are all rested up for the remainder of the week! We’re going to Paris for Friday and Saturday, so we only have three more full days left in London; it’s so hard to believe that our time here is almost over already!

Wimbledon & Tower Bridge

This morning we took a half-day trip to Wimbledon. It is in the outskirts of London so we were able to buy a cheap tube pass to zone 3 and just take the underground all the way there. We had to walk about ten minutes from the tube stop to Wimbledon, but it was a relaxing walk through a cute area that was refreshingly empty of lots a people and cars. We got to the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and bought our admission, which included a trip to Centre Court where we got to take pictures from the stands. It was really cool to see the stadium up close and personal! While we were there, there were maintenance men working on uprooting the grass on the court after doing a trial planting of the grass for three weeks in preparation for 2012 when the courts will be used in the Olympics only three weeks after the end of the Wimbledon Championship. (Apparently they usually uproot the grass immediately after the tournament each year and replant it to let it grow until the following year.) While it wasn’t perfect timing to see the court as it would be during play, it was really interesting and unique to see the maintenance aspect of it. After we had our visit to Centre Court, we went into the actual museum. It was really fascinating! They had a little bit about the history of tennis, old rackets and balls from previous championships, as well as autographed outfits and the real men’s and women’s singles championship trophies! So cool! When we finished looking at all the stuff in the museum, we went upstairs, did a little shopping in the gift shop, and then headed back to our flats for lunch.
After lunch we had a group meeting with Dr. Cooke at Regent’s College to discuss how everything is going and what our plans are for the upcoming weeks. We stayed at Regent’s after our meeting to eat dinner and buy meals to take back to our flat for the rest of the week.
Once we had all of our stuff, we took it back to the flats and decided to relax for a little bit while it got darker outside so that we could go see the Tower Bridge at night. Around 9 or 10 we finally headed out and took a long tube ride down to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge where we enjoyed a couple of hours taking pictures and just enjoying the beautiful weather and great sights. It was another relaxing and gorgeous night, just like our night out to Big Ben and Parliament! After that we came back to the flat and called it a night.

Weekend in Ireland!

Friday, July 23
It was a long morning of traveling after getting only two hours of sleep. We got ready at 2:30 a.m. and then walked over to Edgware Road to catch a double-decker bus that took us up to Baker Street where we got off and waited for the EasyBus that took us to London Stansted airport. We flew Ryan Air to Dublin and then bought 3-day Dublin bus passes and took those into City Centre of Dublin. We got off the bus and were too tired to do much sightseeing but instead made our way to the hostel, Mount Eccles Court, so that we could check in and drop off our luggage. Our first impression was that Dublin was much more open and cleaner than London, but it seemed to be just another big European city. We were able to check in to the hostel (we stayed in a room with four bunk beds but the six of us were the only people in it) and we decided to take a nap so that we might be able to enjoy the rest of our day without being too tired. After our nap, we went into City Centre to grab some dinner at Madigans Drinking Emporium, which was a cute Irish pub. I had a yummy fish finger sandwich with fries. Then, we took the bus down to the Guinness Storehouse where we took a self-guided tour of the facilities. It was really neat to see how complicated and exacting the process is! The last part of the tour included pouring our own complimentary pints of Guinness and enjoying them in seats overlooking the city. When we had finished our beers we went up to the seventh floor, the Gravity Bar, which had huge glass windows and a gorgeous view for miles over all of Dublin! After taking pictures, we decided to walk around the city, especially the Temple Bar area, just to do some shopping and looking around. Temple Bar was very touristy but had some interesting street performers and open, cobblestone sidewalks and streets.
Our group got separated while shopping, so Brittany, Thao, and I made our way back to the hostel to regroup and make evening plans. We booked a bus tour for the following day into the Wicklow mountains and other surrounding areas south of Dublin and then we took the bus out to the peninsula/island to the east of Dublin, called Howth. The bus ride was about twenty minutes and we got our first glimpse of the coast, mountains, and green landscape that we had anticipated to find in Ireland. It was, of course, gorgeous! We took the bus all the way to its last stop on the summit of the island where we got off and ate at the Summit Inn restaurant. I ordered “bangers and mash” which was sausage, mashed potatoes, baked beans, and gravy since I thought it was the most original meal on the menu. It was very tasty but incredibly filling! After we finished eating we went outside to take a few pictures and to catch the bus back into the city. The ride back took us through the fishing town, Howth. Once we made it back to Dublin, we went back to the hostel to try to get a good night’s sleep before our day trip the next day.


Saturday, July 24
We got up around 8:00 a.m. to get ready for our bus tour. We walked down to the bus stop and got on our bus with Day Tours Unplugged and an adorable Irish bus driver/guide with an awesome Irish accent haha. (Brittany, Thao and I were all on the same tour and the other girls along with a group of MSU boys that were also staying in our hostel went on a different tour since ours was sold out by the time they tried to book it.) The tour was absolutely amazing!! We got to see so much of the Irish countryside and landscape and everything was picture-perfect! The bus took us on an eight-hour adventure to the Wicklow mountains, Sally Gap (where we saw the bridge in the movie P.S. I Love You!), Lough Tay, Glendalough (we got to walk around for an hour and a half on a trail through the hills and past the two lakes in the area as well as walk through the old cemetery of a monastery), and Avoca (the oldest hand-weaving town in Ireland, where we got to watch a demonstration of the weaving process). The tour gave us all the Irish landscape experience we were dying to have! When the tour was over we went back to City Centre (I ran back to the hostel to get Dave’s gift to try to ship it but it turned out to be 40 euros so I decided against it but still had to pay 3.50 for the box I didn’t use since I had already written on it). We did a little bit of souvenir shopping and then got dinner at a fish and chips fast-food type restaurant. Luckily, after dinner we ran into the other girls we were staying with so we all went back to the hostel together to relax for a little bit before we went out to a pub for a drink on our last night in Dublin. After searching around for a good pub with live music, we finally settled on Madigans again (where we had had lunch the day before) since they had a live musician and open tables. Most of us ordered pints of Bulmer’s, an Irish cider, and we enjoyed an hour or so just talking and listening to the music. It was a perfect end to our stay in Ireland! After our drinks we went back to the hostel to get some sleep before another early morning and long day of traveling back to London.


Sunday, July 25
Got up after three hours of sleep to catch a shuttle to the airport at 3:30 in the morning. We waited around for our flight, which boarded unusually late, but after that everything went smoothly and we arrived on time. Once we got back to London, we waited for the 9:00 EasyBus we had booked ahead of time, and we took that back on a very slow, long ride to Baker Street. From there, we hopped on the tube and came back to our flats. What a relief to finally be back to a familiar location after our long weekend of traveling! Back at the flats we all just decided to take naps, shower, and spend the rest of the day relaxing and working on our upcoming homework assignment. We were all due for a day of resting after having been on the go for what seems like the entire first two weeks of our trip. Ireland was a great time and I absolutely loved it there, but it’s great to be back on the familiar streets of London!

High Tea

Our morning class was just a discussion with Dr. LaPine about our opinions, impressions, thoughts, etc. about the first two weeks of our trip. It was his last day with us since Dr. Cooke is flying in on Friday to take over. After our discussion class we came back to the flats for lunch and to get dressed up for our high tea event. At 2:30 we went over for tea at Fortnum and Mason, another ritzy department store with a restaurant on the top floor, which is where we had tea. Apparently it is where the queen buys her groceries and tea from, too! We had a long table for 17 people and then a smaller round table for five and each place was set with pretty, turquoise china and silver cutlery. They started off tea with small appetizers (toast rounds with dill salmon, pesto and cheese pastry-type finger appetizers, and pork slices). Then, they brought us each an individual tea pot with loose-leaf tea, sugar cubes, and milk. The rest of the “meal” was brought out on three-tiered platters (one platter for each set of two people). On the bottom plate was an assortment of finger sandwiches (curried prawn, cucumber and cream cheese, smoke salmon, and chicken), on the middle plate was scones and lemon meringue cookies, and on the top plate was an incredible assortment of desserts including chocolate cake, lemon tart, raspberry jam shortbread sandwiches, raspberry tart, and a funny cake with pink frosting that tasted like flowers or old lady perfume or something haha. Most of it was very delicious and it was a very fun experience! Even though all of the portions were small, there was so much food that we were all stuffed afterwards. When we were finally done with our feast and finished our socializing we headed downstairs to do a little shopping. From there, we headed to the Ritz Carlton just to see it and take some pictures. After that, we came back to the flat to pack and finish our planning for our trip to Dublin, which will begin in just over three hours haha. That being said, I’m going to try to get some sleep and I’ll report back on Sunday after our weekend in Ireland!

Platform 9 3/4 & Billy Elliot

We had a “Thinking in Communication” lecture in the morning. At lunchtime, we ate in a cemetery park down the street and then went to King’s Cross to see Platform 9 ¾. After our break we had a Camden Early Years Therapy presentation in our classroom since their clinic was too small for us to visit. Next, we went to Regent’s to get dinner and print off our boarding passes for our flight to Dublin on Friday. We ended up running a little late so we rushed and got on the tube to go down to Victoria station to go see Billy Elliot, but the Victoria line was delayed indefinitely because a person got stuck under a train on the Bakerloo line. So, we had to get off and speed-walk our ways all the way to the theatre. When we finally got there it was two minutes after the show already started, but luckily they let us in anyways. Phew! The play started off a little slowly but turned out to be awesome! The kids were incredibly talented and everyone spoke with Scottish accents. I decided that I could go see a play every night in London and never get sick of it! Haha After the play we headed back to our flats and called it a night.

By my mom's request, I've finally caved in and put up a picture with me in it

Wicked!

Our morning lecture was about computers in aiding in speech. We then had an afternoon visit to Royal National Throat, Nose, and Ear Hospital where we listened to lecturers speak about cochlear implants, laryngectomies, childhood apraxia of speech. Talked with two laryngectomees (people who have had their larynx removed) about their experiences. It was great to get some more personal insight into clients of Speech and Language Therapists! After our site visit we made a quick trip up to Regent’s College to pick up our Billy Elliot tickets and we got dinner and stocked up on food for the week. Came back, dropped our stuff off and ran to Apollo Victoria Theatre to see Wicked. Even though I had already seen the play at the Wharton Center last summer, I thought that is was fantastic! Great music, singing, and talent and definitely a great evening! That’s about it for today…another update coming tomorrow ☺

Stonehenge and Salisbury

Brittany, Hope and I took another day trip today and went to Stonehenge via Salisbury. We took a train ride that was just over an hour from London Waterloo to Salisbury and then got off and bought tickets for a Stonehenge bus tour that included an extra stop at Old Sarum (we had absolutely no idea what this was before we got there but it turns out that it is an extremely old castle that was built 500BC and is now basically just ruins but still pretty cool). So we took the bus through the countryside of Salisbury and the nearby towns and got to see a different side of England with the beautiful landscapes. It took about 25 minutes to get to Stonehenge but when we did it was awesome! Even though it was just basically a “pile of rocks” it was very cool to hear about the history of the monument and to see it all up close. On top of that, I really enjoyed a day out of the cities and in the open air of the English countryside. ☺ After we finished our walk around Stonehenge, we hopped on the bus and were able to see some more scenery and some burial mounds that are scattered throughout the area. The bus stopped near Old Sarum, but just let us off and didn’t direct us anywhere. We had to make our way up a footpath past farms and up a hill to get to the site before we even knew what we were going to see haha. It turned out to be another pretty visit and worthwhile, but we only stayed for about a half hour so that we could catch the bus back to the train station. When the bus finally did come back it took us back to Salisbury, but instead of dropping us off at the train station as it was supposed to, the driver just went to the bus garage and parked it and told us that that was the last stop. So we were left to fend for ourselves. Eventually, we found another bus that was headed by the train station and were able to plead our way on for free and finally made it back to the trains. From there we took an hour and a half train ride back to London, found out that our tube line was down so had to plan an alternative route, and after all the transportation difficulties we arrived back at our flats at last! The rest of the night was just spent eating dinner, sharing stories, and relaxing after our long weekend of travels. Despite the transportation troubles, it was another great day in England!

Harrod's, Hamley's, Windsor, & Oxford

July 17
Went shopping in Kensington neighborhood at Harvey Nichols and Harrod’s. Half of us ate lunch at Pret a Manger’s again, I had a brie, basil, and tomato sandwich. We then went to Oxford/Regent’s street and walked through Hamley’s, a huge toy store. They place give FAO Swartz a run for it's money! We came back to the apartment, got some dinner (I ate a curry pasta and rice salad from Waitrose) and we then got ready to head out to the Zoo Bar and the Absolut Ice Bar. Went to the Zoo Bar, a local bar/club and hung out there for about three hours until we had to leave to go find the ice bar. They played a lot of techno music and we met some funny people. We left the Zoo Bar a little late and were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to make it to the ice bar on time, but we finally found someone who knew where to direct us and we made it there right on time. The ice bar was really cool and super cold but there was not much to do there besides be fascinated that everything was ice. It was only a 45-minute reservation but that was plenty of time since it was only 5 degrees in there. We then found a double-decker bus to take back to our flats since the tube was closed after our 11:45 ice bar reservation was done. Got back to the flats and called it a night.


July 18
After getting ready in the morning we took the train from Paddington to Windsor where we waiting in line for a half hour to get our tickets to tour Windsor Castle. We went on the tour and saw the beautiful, huge castle. We were able to walk around the outside of part of the castle and through some of the courtyards and pathways. Everything was absolutely gorgeous! We were even able to go inside the State Apartments of the castle and see tons of the gigantic, ornate rooms of the residence of Prince Harry and Prince William. They said that the castle was also a sort of “vacation spot” for the Queen and the Duke of Wales. So cool! After our tour of Windsor Castle, we went to the town and got lunch at a local restaurant. Then, since we had seen tons of people with ice cream throughout the town, we found a local ice cream shop and had some very delicious Nutella Bear ice cream…very English and very yummy! From Windsor we took the train to Oxford on a whim where we got off and to our surprise found out that Oxford University is actually made up of 32 colleges that are sprawled throughout the town. Instead of finding a green, secluded university, we wandered through some of the town for about an hour and saw some beautiful, old university buildings that were mixed in along with the rest of the shops and stores in the town. Oxford was not what we expected but, like everything else in England, it was incredibly pretty and worthwhile to visit (even for such a short amount of time). After our quick stop at Oxford we took an over-packed train back to Paddington and came home to relax and recuperate for the rest of the evening. It was a long and fairly expensive day, but fun and memorable! Tomorrow is a visit to Stonehenge…not sure what to expect from a bunch of rocks but I’ll report back with some thoughts tomorrow!

Bath, England

Ok, so I decided that it actually was easiest if I just put my short journal entry as my blog post so that I can keep everyone updated but not spend too much of my time here on my computer instead of sightseeing and other stuff around town. So here's the latest update:

Took a day trip to Bath, a smaller town towards the West of England. We took the train from Paddington station and it took about 90 minutes to get there. Toured the ancient Roman baths in the city and saw the beautiful Abby there. It was very cool to see it all, especially the baths that were over 2,000 years old! We then spent the rest of the day walking around the town shopping and looking at souvenirs. The weather wasn’t great (raining off and on the whole day), but we expected nothing else of English weather haha. I tried a Cornish chicken and veg pasty for lunch and had a pear puff pastry later. It was all delicious! After a long day of shopping we took the train home, but unfortunately missed out transfer stop for Paddington station so had to take the long way back going through Salisbury and ending up in Waterloo which is on the opposite side of London. It all worked out but was a bit longer of a trip that we would have liked haha. When we got back we just decided to eat dinner here and are now just relaxing after a very tiring day. The plan is to hopefully work on some homework the rest of the evening and possibly check out what’s on British TV.

Update!

Ok, so I've been doing absolutely terribly at keeping this blog up to date, but I have been keeping a simple journal of what I have been up to so far on my trip so I think that I will just put all of that into this post and call it good haha. Here's what's been going on in London for the past few days:

July 10 continued...
Had our orientation and got a tour of the school which is very beautiful but fairly small (only about 3,000 students). Got a bus to our flats where we were told our groups and given the keys. The flats are small and scarcely furnished with 3 bedrooms split one, three, and two. I am on the bottom bunk in the triple room. We have two small bathrooms but one has a bathtub with a shower head hose fixture and no shower curtain so it is basically useless. The toilets are weird and often hard to flush. The water comes out hot in one stream and cold on the other.
Went out to dinner at The Duke of Wellington and got a roasted chicken salad with beets, green and red tomatoes, and other veggies. Came back and went to bed after a very long and exhausting day!

July 11
Slept in til 11 since we were all exhausted from the traveling. Went to the grocery store (Waitrose) to get some supplies. Went on the city bus tour as a group and were able to see a ton of London sights including St. Paul’s, Parliament, Big Ben, London Eye, Tower of London, London and Tower Bridges, and lots more. Went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant (Spaghetti House) with a group of girls. Went to a pub to watch the second half of the Spain/Netherlands “football” game. Tried a Pimm's which is supposedly a very English drink...it was pretty good but very sweet.

July 12
Woke up at 8:00 to get down to Buckingham Palace around 10:15 to see the changing of the guard. Went to buy our oyster passes for the tube. Stood behind the gates right at the front but behind a lookout hut so we had a bad view so we only watched some of the ceremony and then got overwhelmed by the people and the slowness of it all. We took the tube to Oxford Street and walked along and did a little shopping. Went to Carphonewarehouse to get a phone and had quite the ordeal there. I tried to get minutes on a phone I already had, it didn’t work, went home and set up the other phone that I thought wasn’t working and was luckily able to put my non-refundable SIM card in that phone. Went to Pret a Manger, a sandwich shop, for avocado and chicken sandwich for lunch. Got a straightener from Argos (where you oddly do all of your shopping in a catalog and then just take the item number up to the checkout where they find it in the back and bring it out for you). Came back to our flats to relax before we went to Regent’s College to talk to the travel agent about weekend trips. Went to dinner in the refectory and then went to a short meeting to discuss the syllabus and plans. Came back to the flats to try to plan weekend trips and all became very overwhelmed so we decided to call it a night haha


July 13
Woke up and got ready for class. Took the tube to King’s Cross/St. Pancras and walked to Chandler’s House for classes at University College of London. Had an intro lecture about National Health System and education in the UK. Had a welcome lunch of sandwiches and desserts with some of the UCL faculty. Walked over to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children for our first site visit. Listened to multiple Speech Language Therapists’ (SLT's) lecture about various topics (cochlear implants, dysphagia, TNE department, etc.). Went back to the flats and got McDonald’s for dinner. Took the tube to Westminster and walked around and saw parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, and the London Eye which was very relaxing and gorgeous! We all so excited to finally be seeing everything up close and personal! Took the tube to Paddington because we heard that Platform 9 ¾ was there but it was not haha. Came back to the flats for the night.


July 14
Our morning class was about augmentative and alternative communication (AAG). We did a little bit of role playing and also watched several cool videos of persons with different forms of AAG. We went to City Lit, an adult learning center, in the afternoon for our site visit and had an incredible visit there related to stuttering (in the UK they call it stammering). We first had a bit of an orientation session and then split up into groups. I first went to a room where two stammerers talked about their experiences and shared how the stammering courses at the school helped them with their stammers. We then went to another room where we separated into groups and had small discussions with other MSU students and a couple of stammerers about perceptions and beliefs about stammering. The stammerers then gave brief presentations about their own personal experiences. It was a very touching and interesting day and was a great opportunity to have personal interaction with these people!
After the site visit we went out to eat at Wagamama’s in Kensington with the whole class and our professor. It is a modern Japanese restaurant and very tasty. Brittany and I ordered a Chocolate Wasabi cake for dessert…it was very interesting but pretty delicious (at least I thought so...a lot of the other girls didn't agree lol) ☺ After dinner we came back to our flats and spent a very stressful few hours planning our weekend trips to Dublin and Paris. We are all very thankful that we got all of that planning out of the way! haha

July 15
Went to class and had a presentation about lip-reading and deaf communication. Had lunch and then went to an elementary school where we met with a group of about twenty deaf children. Some of the children had hearing aids and many had cochlear implants. The kids came from all sorts of backgrounds and tons of different countries. Many of them spoke two to four languages. It was amazing how well the children could communicate having been brought up in the school system with spoken English as the means of communication. They were absolutely adorable and very intelligent! Even though they were deaf, most of the kids had very distinctive British accents and very normal sounding speech. It was a great experience to spend an hour with them and hear what they had to say about their country and their experience with deafness.
After our visit to the school we went to the British Museum and walked around for a couple of hours. It is a huge museum and would take days to see everything! We did a fairly quick walk-through and saw artifacts and sculptures from all over the world including Egypt, Greece, China, and Europe.
We then came back to our flat and had dinner and planned trips for the weekend. We went to the store and bought some Marmite as recommended by the woman who gave our presentation this morning….it’s definitely some interesting stuff haha. That’s about it for today. We’re off the Bath tomorrow for the day and then heading into a whirlwind of activities and day trips this weekend. Still doing well and having a great time here in London! ☺