How lucky am I that I not only get to study abroad in London, but my family got to join me for a week! That's right London, the Utech clan was together again!
I picked up the family from Heathrow Airport on November 22 at 8a.m. (which means i had to leave my flat around 6:30- eek!). Everyone made it okay and everyone's suitcase arrived (Yay for clean underwear)! We hopped back on the tube and traveled the hour long distance back towards my place. They booked a place not too far from my flat through airbnb, so that's where we headed.
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| Dad and Ann crashed to take a short nap |
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| Mom hauled some wonderful goodies all the way from America for me! Thanks Mom! |
So the best way to adjust to a different time zone is to:
A) walk a lot that day and
B) to stay up at least till 10
So what did I do? I took my family on a little walking tour of the places around me and to the major touristy sights. We were constantly moving and only stopped to have a proper Afternoon English Tea at a restaurant called Bill's. Not only did this poop them out, but I also had to poke them every now and then to stay awake.
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| At Covent Garden |
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| On the tube with the fam! Had to tell them to stay on the right |
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| At Bill's! |
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| Our wonderful treats! |
We ended the evening by going to the London Pub which was located not too far away from either of us and had ourselves some ale. It was a great way to end the day, and everyone was ready for bed.
The next day we headed off to Oxford since Ann was adamant on going there. So we hopped on a bus and soon we were there. It was rainy but luckily we came prepared. We walked around for a little bit and then bought tickets for a sightseeing tour bus. We made a stop at The Eagle and Child Pub where C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkien met to discuss their latest writings. We had a fantastic meal looking around and wondering if they had sat where we were.
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| Where the Inklings met up |
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| On the sightseeing bus! |
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| Picture of Oxford University |
So since I still had to go to school and work on papers, I would usually meet up with my family for coffee in the morning, head to school while they did the touristy stuff, and then I would meet up with them in the evening for dinner. I got the chance however to spend a Tuesday morning with them since I only had night class that day. We decided to go see the Queen and say hello. She was frightfully busy that day, so we were only able to wave at her from a distance. We then walked to Westminster Abbey where we went inside and toured around until it was time for me to head back. They went off to do more touristy stuff while I had to get ready for a group presentation.
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| We got a photo with a guard walking in the background |
Guess who was in my group? That's right, these 2 ladies were and we knocked our presentation out of the park! After we presented, Kelsey and Adrienne joined my family for dinner where the embarrassing stories started to come out. It was a great evening and I was so happy that my family got to meet these two girls who have been the best travel buddies ever!
Happy Thanksgiving from London! Even though they don't celebrate it, I wore my red, white, and blue for the occasion! I again met up with my family for breakfast and then had to go to school....
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| Eating at Cafe Nero on Thanksgiving! |
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| It was just wrong that I had to go to class. |
After class I met up with the family at St. Paul's cathedral where we toured around and climbed the dome to the top.
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| Dad holding on to something solid. |
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| At the top! |
After St. Paul's, we took the tube back and got ready for the Thanksgiving meal we were going to be having at Bill's (we didn't have enough room or the right appliances to make our own meal. They also don't sell turkey in London, we looked). They had a Christmas meal option that you could choose to do, which conveniently started on Thanksgiving, so we signed up for it!
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| Our table came with poppers! |
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| I got a fake mustache in mine! And we also got crowns! |
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| I thought my mustache was pretty cool. |
Turkey was one of the options for the dinner so we did get to have turkey which was nice. We also got to try some London cuisine like figgy pudding. Now the Christmas song "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" has a line in it where it say, "please bring us some figgy pudding" and after trying it, I can tell you to please NOT bring us figgy pudding. It was hard and you couldn't distinguish what was in it. The closest I can get to describing it is a scoop of black stuff that contains figs and other stuff. It was disgusting!
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| Example of figgy pudding. It even LOOKS disgusting! |
The day finally came readers where I could no longer boast to my family about me being the only Utech to have gone to the London behind the scenes Harry Potter tour. That's right, it was their turn. It was awesome that we could all geek out together and be the nerdiest family ever. We ended up spending 3 hours there and I considered that a success since we are a really nerdy Harry Potter family.
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| Dad was super excited. He was acting like a kid on Christmas! |
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| Mom and I are pretty cool. Be jealous. |
The next day was the families day to head back to the States. We met up for coffee and then headed to Heathrow. It was sad to see them go, but I knew I would be seeing them again in 2 weeks.
The greatest thing is family and I was so blessed to have them come and visit me. They got to see my life in London and what it's been all about for the past 3 months. The last 2 weeks would be flying by for me, but I still had to get a lot of stuff done in that time.
Bring it on papers.
-Claire
