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This morning we woke up at about 7 because we had to be at Imperial College for more orientation. We met outside the flats at 7:45 and followed our RA on the scenic route to campus past Hyde Park. It was really confusing and I had no clue where we were because it was such a round about way, but eventually we ended up back up the college. The professors introduced themselves and then we split up into our classes and our journalism professor talked to us about our class. Our reporting class will be on Monday afternoons an our internships on Monday mornings, and all day on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday afternoon's we will have an internship seminar where we all get together and discuss what's going on in our internships. Friday's we have British Life and Culture in the morning, and we actually start that one tomorrow. BLC is supposed to be a class that has guest lecturers and takes us on excursions, but ours is going to be a bit different than normal because it was set up last minute to give us the 9 credits we were supposed to be getting from just International Issues Reporting and the Internship, but earlier this spring visa permissions cut internship work back to 20 hours per week instead of 40.

Then we went on a little tour of campus which was a little silly because our classes aren't even going to be there. We had a bit of a break then and since we were all starving and still half asleep, a few of us went over to Starbucks, but they like had a sit down section, so we unwittingly sat down and it took forever to get our stuff and our bill and then they don't split bills over here so we had to figure out how to split it about 8 different ways. I guess we still aren't used to how much time it takes to sit down someplace here, we though since we had 45 minutes we would be alright, but we ended up just making it back in time and only because we rushed the server.
When we made it back we had a travel orientation where people from three different travel groups came and gave us brochures and little speeches about what they offer for traveling in and out of England. It was really nice because it gives us some ideas of the things we could do and got us to start really thinking about where we'd like to go.

We had about a 2 hour lunch break after that so we went back to the flat where Linden and I finally finished unpacking so that we don't have to dig through three suitcases to find what we were looking for and we actually have some room to walk in our bedroom. I don't know if I've explained this before, but we have six girls living in one flat, three in each bedroom and then we have a common room and a kitchen and a bathroom. One bathroom for six girls, it's going to get crazy when we all have to be to work at the same time and look nice. At 2:15 we had to meet our professor outside of our flats so he could take us to our internship orientation with the woman from the International Enrichment program about what to expect from our internships and the interviews. That was in the CAPA building which is the English program involved in our trip and that is where all of the journalism classes are being held. It's much nicer and much closer than Imperial College so were all very happy about that.

CAPA is also right next to Sainsburys, the grocery store. We actually found out that the one we went to our first day here is called Sainsburys Local and is very small compared to the huge Sainsburys. So after our internship orientation we went grocery shopping, and my mom will be glad to hear that I bought a lot of water because I've been very lacking in that since I left home. I also bought a loaf of fresh baked bread, however it's not sliced and without a bread knife I'm beginning to regret that decision...

When we dropped off our groceries we rested our feet for a bit, we have been doing so much walking lately I can't even estimate how much. Amanda, Linden and I then went off with our other flatmate Kristin, who isn't doing the journalism program and is just staying until July, to find the Hummingbird Bakery in Kensington since our friends here last semester spoke so highly of their cupcakes. It was quite the popular place and about a mile walk, but the red velvet cupcakes were excellent and very worth it. After that we headed back to the flat and Kristin stayed behind while the three of us went off to explore the area around our flat. Beyond Earls Court Road, which is where the Tube station is and many restaurants and stores it is mostly a residential area, but all of the buildings are so gorgeous and there were a lot of private gardens we couldn't get into. It's so pretty because nearly every person has their own little mini garden on their porch or the entry way to their flat depending upon which floor they live on. The Londoners certainly love their gardens.

When we got back to the flat again we ate some dinner (Linden and I made sandwiches out of our bread that were really good because of that bread) and Linden and I then sat down in our room to come up with a list of things we want to do within London and England. We got a pretty long list and I'm sure it will just keep growing as we become more familiar with the area. We also tried to figure out rail passes but it was just too confusing, so we gave up for the time being. After a while we met up with two of our flatmates, Claire (two of our flatmates are named Claire actually) and Kristin at the Earls Court Pub for a drink and then the four of us headed home to chat in the kitchen a bit before going to bed.
I have some exciting news about my internship, but I'm going to hold off on that and try to write about today this evening since this is already a pretty long post.