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Tag: GW England

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By austineliasdejesus

When I got here, everyone--from other students to advisors to professors--told me that London is an expensive city. Turns out, they're absolutely right. So far I've lived in D.C. and New York City, and London is by far the most expensive place I've lived. But London does have some great hidden gems, though, you just have to look a little bit harder and be more willing to accept the fact that we're all still college kids, and it's probably not yet our time to go around spending money like we're 30-somethings.

1. 5£ Groundlings tickets at The Globe 

We've all heard about Shakespeare's Globe, so I'm not going to explain it any further. But it is worth mentioning that Globe tickets are actually pretty cheap if you're willing to stand the entire time. These are called groundlings tickets and they're definitely worth it for their cheap price. Yes, you'll be standing for the entire show which is actually pretty long. And, yes, you run the risk of getting rained on and you're not allowed to open your umbrella. But it is still a once in a lifetime experience, and, speaking from experience, you actually feel like you've really experienced the Globe after your feet and back are sore because you've stood in place for 3 hours and you're kind of cold because the heavens opened up and you got rained on for about 20 minutes. That just made this sound very unappealing, but I mean it. Get the groundlings tickets.

2. Go to your school's hangouts

I can't speak for other unis, but UCL has their own pubs and coffee shops. A lot of these are lively and full of other students almost every day and night. Also, beverages tend to be a lot cheaper here, and a lot of them host student performers who are actually pretty good. If you and your friends are looking for a place to go on a Wednesday or Thursday night, try going to one of these places. Also, who knows, you  might even make a new friend or two by hanging around.

...continue reading "5 Fun Things to do in London When You’re on a Budget"

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By austineliasdejesus

This week marked UCL's first week of classes, and I learned two things:

  1. I'd sooner attempt to swallow a minivan than draw attention to myself/be a disturbance to a group of people.
  2. I've never questioned why a world map looks the way it does.

In regards to Lesson #1: I've always hated bothering people, even if only for a second. That's been a theme throughout my life. But I've never known just how much I hated bothering people until this week. I had to go to my Art History class on Wednesday, and I got terribly lost trying to find the lecture room because a construction site obscured the normal entrance to the building. By the time I found the building that housed my destination, I was seven minutes late for class. Once I got inside, I still couldn't find the correct room. The room I was supposed to be in was 104, but the only room I could find was 104. I thought I would take a gamble and see if 103 was some weird room connected to the inside of room 104, because that's the kind of thing that I tell myself is logical when I'm desperate and sweaty and fed up with being lost. I went into 104 to find a class was in session.

The professor whose class I'd disturbed kindly told me to take a seat, which I did. It took me about three minutes to realize that I wasn't, in fact, in the room for 19th and 20th Century Art and Architecture in London. I was in some class about Modern Art. And, obviously, there was no "connecting room" inside this room. So I was just in the completely wrong room. The way I saw it, I had two options: 1.) I could face my fears and just get up, disturb this lecture for the second time, and look for the correct room and, in turn, disturb that lecture, too; or 2.) I could just sit in on this lecture, suffer in silence, and not disturb anyone.

...continue reading "Britishness, Americanness, Questions…ness"

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This week, people at GW began to brace for mid-terms while UCL students tried to figure out how to spend this week of nothing before classes start on Monday.

I really had no idea that UCL classes didn’t begin until the first week of October when I applied to the university last spring. I’m not complaining about it. If I were doing anything close to that, I’m sure everyone back at GW would remove their world’s smallest violins from their tiny cases and play a concerto just for me.  I’m grateful for the free time; it makes me feel like summer is breathing its last breath. But deciding what to do with free time is a challenge, and one that I’m sure a lot of American college students can sympathize with. Like a lot of American college students, a dogged pursuit of learning about who you are has led to me being very busy since I was probably 12 years old.

This is really the first time in my life where I don’t have some kind of club, activity, practice, class, internship or job I have to go to every day. It’s jarring to be taken out of that as abruptly as I have. While a lot of college students quickly stumble into adulthood, we build up a culture among young people where one’s busy-ness and even lack of self-care is a telltale sign that you are a Very Serious and Very Motivated young person. So to have a week in London as a study abroad student where I don’t have any responsibilities would surely make anyone in my situation feel anxious, and even a bit guilty.

So what do you do with all this free time? How do you spend it at least somewhat productively? Well, you try to learn in other ways. You learn about the people around you who are from different nations and cultures. You learn how you can form a daily routine here. You also learn how to save money because it’s finally hit that you shouldn’t be spending money like how you would if you were vacationing in London, but rather like you would when you’re actually living in London.

...continue reading "Much ado about doing nothing"

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By austineliasdejesus

London was not designed on a grid system. It was not even built as a city based on layers of concentric circles. Rather, it’s a hodgepodge of streets and squares and alleys that somehow makes up a city that 9 million people call home. This means that, if you’re walking, unless you have a good general idea of where you’re going, you will become lost. Larger, more prominent streets veer off into slim side streets, which then veer off into even slimmer side streets, which inexplicably lead to a small park, which contains a small cafe that might have WiFi. And by the time you reach that small cafe in that small park off that slimmest of side streets, you realize that you are way off from where you thought you were, and that you are both exploring and lost in a city that you are totally unfamiliar with but will be your home for three months.

Also, you have been here for a week and have yet to buy a UK SIM card. So, whenever you leave your flat, your phone turns into an iPod, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it gives you an excuse to not be on your phone. But it also wrestles the raft that is the “Maps” app from your arms, leaving you to rely on your own sense of direction, which is poor, and then—when that strategy inevitably fails—ask help from strangers, which is just the kind of social interaction that you have spent a good amount of your life avoiding.

Every day of my first week in London, I have become lost. And, every day, I’ve had to swallow the pill dry, and ask a stranger for directions. On Wednesday I ran around Bloomsbury frantically trying to find UCL’s main quad for my enrolment appointment. It took me half an hour to finally admit defeat and ask for directions from a police officer. By the time I found the quad, I was sweaty, late for my appointment, and annoyed by the fact that I had basically been told that I’d been in panicked search of a street I’d been walking directly parallel of for half an hour.

...continue reading "On relearning in the Boston of Europe"

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Cheers from London!

Well, that is from my last week in London... it's so wild that this incredible semester is wrapping up into its final week. It seems like 5 months is almost the same as 5 minutes, as time has flown by faster than I could have ever imagined.

This semester I've had the opportunity to continue my work with LGBTQ+ students. Honestly, this is one of my most passionate involvements. As a student who identifies on the LGBTQ+ spectrum (and growing up in the south), I can personally relate to the issues and difficulties that face students like me. While many of our LGBTQ+ family members suffer from inquisitions and death threats throughout the world, one consistent trend among members of our community is that discrimination comes in many forms. It's up to us - and allies - to educate our communities about what it means to be gay, queer, trans, intersex, or however someone identifies.

...continue reading "Wrapping into an End"

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By erbeeler

Have there been any current international or domestic issue that have affected your volunteer work/research, has your work become more relevant or has it been Hi there - this is my penultimate blog post... which makes me realize just how fast this experience in London is passing by. While it's definitely a sad post to think about, there's also the fact that I get the opportunity to think about and reflect upon the incredible experiences that I've had and the friends I've made here so far.

Also - just an update (mostly for my parents... hah!), but I've gotten some of my first sets of grades back from papers earlier this semester. I've been getting pretty good grades so far, and my professors have been commenting that they have really enjoyed working with me and reading my papers.

As for my volunteer work... there's recently been a release of a really important milestone: the 2017 Stonewall Workplace Equality Index in the UK. This recent report shows that the average UK company in the top 100 has an average 74% score, which illustrates a huge improvement in recent years. Over 439 employers and 91,248 employees across the UK participated in the survey, the largest number of submissions ever.

...continue reading "Hot off the Press: Stonewall Workplace Equality Index – 2017"

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By erbeeler

First off, an update from London: this city has been so incredible so far. I'm finally feeling completely comfortable taking the Tube (the London metro system), can navigate my way around local sites with friends, and am actually really enjoying the modules at my university.

I've continued to get involved with the LGBTQ+ community on campus and throughout the city. As we discussed in my prior blogs, students coming from diverse backgrounds in the United States are much less likely to feel welcome and comfortable in the workplace. I've learned that while the situation is not quite as bad in the UK, it still is a phenomena that affects individuals here as well.

Just recently, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) released a survey in the UK to try and evaluate the experience of LGBTQ+ people in the workplace. Initiatives such as these are taking key steps to really help understand this issue here in the UK.

As for me, I've been continuing my involvement with some individuals at the King's Career Center, connected with multiple students through a flyer/outreach campaign, and am preparing for my first open-attendance meeting. I've also had the opportunity to stay involved with MyGWork (click to link to their website).

...continue reading "Keep Stepping Forward"

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It's April 25 today, and Easter term has finally begun. It's been a really long break - 5 weeks to be precise. But these past few weeks have also been really exciting and adventurous, while simultaneously being quite tiring from constantly moving about. My wallet's also taken quite the battering, but the memories made and the places I've seen, smelled, and heard were unforgettable and worth every penny.

Before heading back to school-related matters, I thought that I'd dedicate this last blog post to one more travel experience that I had. This past weekend, I visited Geneva, Switzerland - an astoundingly beautiful and clean city. The city struck me as beautiful, less out of the organized structure and classy modern architecture and more out of the remarkable scenery, from the crystal clear waters of Lake Geneva to the snow capped peaks of the Alps. I was shocked by how clean and transparent Lake Geneva was - never had I witnessed a body of water next to a metropolis so untouched by pollution.

I've lived next to the Han River of Seoul, the Potomac of DC, and the Thames of London, and anyone can tell you at first glance that these rivers do not exactly seem like the best place to take a dip. Naturally, these cities are significantly larger and much more industrial than Geneva, so perhaps this would not be a fair comparison. Nonetheless, I was impressed by how pristine Lake Geneva looked, as well as the efforts made to keep the city clean and the surrounding natural landscape environmentally healthy.

On Lake Geneva, I took a ferry to a small Swiss town called Nyon. I walked through the small, yet lively marketplace and sat down for a fantastic lunch special at a French eatery. The dessert that concluded the course was to die for - a mouth-watering sampling of creme brulee, raspberry pudding, and chocolate mousse, along with an excellent cup of espresso that woke me right up. Despite being a lunch special, the price of the meal was quite pricey.

...continue reading "One last stop at Geneva"

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By bmlee18

Prague was possibly one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen, especially during the day, when the sun shone brightly and accentuated the orange tiled roofs of homes and buildings. What was particularly convenient about the city was how easily accessible all the main sites were on foot. It certainly helped to have booked a centrally located accommodation (a charming studio right next to the train station), but generally, I found the city relatively easy to navigate. Now, there's no doubt that Prague could, at times, be rather confusing because of the winding roads that seemed to be devoid of organisation and planning - which could perhaps be said of many older European cities. But thanks to Google Maps, I was able to traverse from one end of Old Town to the other without much problem.

Walking along Charles Bridge was one of my favorite moments. Many have called the Charles Bridge as possibly the most beautiful bridge ever constructed, and true to this statement, the Gothic architecture did not fail to impress me. Adorned with Baroque statues and providing an exceptional view of Old Town behind and Malá Strana and Prague Castle up ahead, the bridge was packed with excited visitors and lined with street musicians and souvenir stalls. The particular day on which I had crossed the bridge and back was beautiful, with the Vltava River glistening from the sun and the pastel colours of nearby buildings all the more highlighted. The chit-chat and lively music further added to the animated atmosphere.

...continue reading "A colourful city – Prague"

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By bmlee18

I remember first watching the classic film, Roman Holiday, starring the beautiful Audrey Hepburn and the charming Gregory Peck. The Rome that I saw in the film was spectacular, and who would've thought then that I would be able to see Rome for myself? After my travels to Capri, I spent four fantastic days touring the Italian capital, marveling at Roman ruins, sampling delicious dishes, and passing by famous Italian fashion brands and gaping at the price tags.

Rome was similar to, but nonetheless uniquely different from the other Italian cities I had visited such as Florence and Venice. While all of these places were bustling with large groups of tourists from all around the world, Rome was especially packed and busy. And given the large amounts of tourists, there were plenty of salesmen and tour guides, waving around their goods and approaching you from all angles possible. I was especially shocked at the Vatican, where I must have encountered at least 50 tour guides trying to sell me special tour packages and skip-the-line tickets as I was walking the relatively short distance from the St. Peter's Basilica to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel.

I tend to be a pretty spontaneous traveller, ready to encounter and learn about a new place without extensive planning beforehand and figuring out things along the way. This worked out quite fine at the other destinations I had visited, and certainly added an element of adventure and surprise, but for the Vatican, I was totally wrong about choosing to go with the flow.

...continue reading "My ‘Roman Holiday’"

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