The Gallery is in Trafalgar Square and it was a neat area, it reminded me of Paris. 
We thought it was going to be free, but we ended up having to pay 9 pounds to get in, but it was worth it. The exhbit was really neat and we looked at it for a long time, unfortunately we could not take any pictures. 
When we came out we wandered around a little and walked through Leicester Square, where the half price ticket booth is. 
We found one of many McDonalds and Juan and Alicia had to get cheeseburgers, then Ashley wanted a McFlurry, which was really too cold for her to eat anyway. 
Then we stumbled upon Chinatown. 
That was neat to walk around in. We went to a store there and they had a lower story that we could see through a clear floor in one area. 
There was also a lady on the street making noodles, which was cool. 
When we got back Alicia and Juan made stir fry for dinner for all of us, then got ready for our first night at the theatre. It was out in a neighborhood that seemed a bit shady and the Tricycle Theatre was really small, but I had a good seat. 
The play we saw was Joe Orton's "Loot". It was inappropriate a lot of the time, but some of it was funny. 
Overall, I was disappointed. After the play, our teachers abadoned us because "you guys came find your way home, right?" It was true, but a bit unappreciated. 
We got back to our flats about 10:45pm when we got back, so I quickly read a review for class the next day and then went to bed.
walk. We had a couple classes then some orientation with a London police officer, a travel agent, and a representative from the school. It was good information, but went over an hour longer than our classes were supposed to. It was raining when we finished and walked back to our flat, our first of many rainy London days. We stopped and got fish and chips for the first time in England. The restaurant was really small, so we took it to go and ate in our flats. This picture is a bit blurry, but I'm hoping you won't notice if it is just a little one on a blog. We had a mellow afternoon and the maintenance guy came by to check on our heater, dishwasher, and toilet because we wrote them on the list downstairs. The heater there was just another switch on the side that needed to be turned on, the dishwasher was spilling suds on the floor because we were using laundry soap instead of dishwashing soap, and the toilet is supposedly not leaking, it is just the shower and condensation (I'm not so sure about the last one, we'll see). Oops. But our DVD player really is broken and we are getting a new one tomorrow. Other minor catastrophes in our flat include freezing our milk and juice in the fridge (our other fridge lets things spoil because it doesn't get cold enough) 
and one of our flatmates accidently used a bathmat towel that we weren't supposed to use, so she wanted to wash it and put it back before housekeeping comes tomorrow. We gathered a load of whites, including a second bathmat from their bathrooom, specifically asking for whites so nothing would run, and when we pulled the load out, it was blue, very blue. One of the girls had put in a pair of jeans, which had been washed many times, but had a pair of black leggings that had not been washed and are now much lighter, while all of our whites are much darker. The white sock is just there for reference, but I do have an odd pair of socks now because I kept stepping in water in the bathroom and the kitchen from everything that has been leaking and I got tired of changing both socks and didn't want to run out of socks super quick, so I had 3 and a half pairs of socks in the laundry that turned blue.
and a lot of neat neighborhoods before we finally found a store. 
So we did a little shopping, then we wandered around some more and found some tourist stores to buy postcards and such. By this time we were getting hungry and a few of us were planning to go to Hillsong for church, so we found a Chinese restaurant and had dinner. 
The food was fine, but not great. They did have skinny noodles though, which I appreciate. After dinner, we went to Hillsong for their evening service. It is in a theater and was really loud and energetic, like being at a concert. But it was good to go be able to worship together. I wasn't familiar with any of the songs, but I liked them. 
We decided to walk back to our flat afterwards because it was only a couple Tube stops away, but we got lost so it took us longer than it should have. It was a nice evening for a walk though, so we didn't mind. After walking around for 5 hours yesterday in below freezing temperatures, 46 felt warm.
It was fun to drive around and see things though and just continue to get acquainted with this city we are living in. We had a stop at Westminster Abbey and got to see the outside of the church 
and Big Ben, which actually is the bell itself and not the tower, so I guess we didn't really see it. Big Ben was made in the same place as the Liberty Bell. 
You can also see the London Eye to the left of Big Ben. This was one of the streets we parked on, but it was cool because the sun was shining on a building across the street and all the patches of light are reflections. 
Of course, we also had to make a stop at Buckingham Palace. The queen wasn't there, apparently she spends most of her weekends in a country house. 
We also saw St. Paul's cathedral, the London Bridge, and the Globe Theater again. Our bus driving was crazy amazing. He drove through some of the tightest spots with just inches of clearance on either side. I would not want to drive or ride a bike in London, they are crazy.
and our closet: 
Here's the bathroom that is connected to our bedroom: 
and the shower: 
The water pressure is not great, but it is nice to have a real shower. Then on the left when you come in the front door, or straigt across from our room, is a dining room table with Juan's bedroom (his roommate is not here yet) across from the table. 
Opening up from that area is the kitchen: 
and the living room: 
Juan bought these flowers to "spice up our flat". 
So there's our living area for the next three months. It is a pretty nice little flat and I like my flat mates.
There was a fairly large portion of the wall left and we got to walk around and explore it. We found a frozen pond by the wall, it is cold in London right now. 
Then we decided to go to St. Paul's Cathedral since we were close. That was cool, but we didn't go inside because you had to pay and we weren't ready to do that. 
We continued wandering around and crossed the Millennium Bridge. Then we stumbled upon the Globe Theater and we went into the entry way, mostly to warm up since there wasn't a lot to see without paying for a tour. Then we ran into our teachers and they pointed us toward a market that was open. It was a nice large market and it was encouraging to go somewhere with lots of food choices for cheaper prices. We got some food there and it was delicious. 
We were really getting cold by then. The weather was foggy and I think it was below freezing all day. When we were walking across the Millennium Bridge, it started snowing! Of course, it didn't stick to the ground and was just some little flakes, but still it was cold enough to snow. After the market, we decided to head back to our flat. We walked across the London Bridge on the way back and decided we didn't want to walk all the way back since we were all really cold. So we bought our oyster cards and rode the Tube for the first time. 
We made it back to our flat and unpacked and got organized, finally. Plus, it was nice to be warm again.
sleep, which means I have been up since Thursday morning and it is Friday afternoon here now. Surprisingly, I'm not all that tired, but I'm very much looking forward to going to bed tonight. We arrived at the Heathrow airport at 6:30am London time and it was only 30 degrees out. It is cold here, but it is nice now because the sun ended up coming out today so it is pretty. We all made it through customs and no one lost their luggage, so that is good. We also got our passports stamped, which was especially exciting because we had been told they don't do that anymore and you have to ask to get a stamp. Our two teachers meet us at the airport and we took a bus to our flats. The bus driver has been working with the London Semester
program for awhile, his name is Tony. The drive to our flats was about an hour. It was fun to get our first views of London. The flats are pretty nice; we have a kitchen, living room, dining room table, washer/dryer combo, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. I share a room with two other girls and we have a bathroom connected to our room, which is nice. These are views from our bedroom windows. We had a tour of the neighborhood to get oriented and got some lunch and groceries. It was hard to shop for groceries because the store was really small and didn't have much selection, so I didn't know what to get. We have a meeting with our flat manager in an hour, then the goal is to stay up until a reasonable bedtime.
We had dinner at Sizzler and got a good deal on a 4 star hotel that was pretty nice. I was impressed. We didn't do much after we got there, except copying some music for me. In the morning we had breakfast in the garden atrium and saw my art teacher and Carla. Then we took the shuttle to the airport and walked around for awhile before it was time to say goodbye. That was hard, but I was glad to have my family there to send me off. The rest of the time in the airport was pretty boring.
Wednesday I had breakfast and chai with Jaime at her house. We made some delicious melt in your mouth pancakes. 
