Greetings from London! We are almost to the end of our first week in London, and about to begin our crazy and hectic schedules for the semester. Things have been about the same, still getting adjusted to the time difference from home...trying not to sleep until noon everyday is a bit of a challenge but we are handling it. We Skyped into the first team meeting led by the captains a few nights ago and got to see all of our teammates and the new additions as well. It was a bit different than what we were expecting. Although it was quite chaotic with everyone talking and us trying to listen I think we all were slightly more excited to see all of them than they were with us. I'm sure we just took it the wrong way, especially since it was mid-night here and for them only 6:00 pm. Yesterday we just hung out around the area and saw a free museum close to our location. It was The British Museum, apparently the largest one in Europe and let me tell you this thing was huge!! They weren't kidding when they said it was the largest, we spent about two hours inside and didn't see one fourth of the attractions available to look at. Oh and a side note about people from here, they measure distance by minutes, so anytime you ask for directions on how to get someplace they will tell you to walk in a general direction for four minutes then turn and walk another seven and so on, it's a lot different. You need to walk and stare at your clock to know how long until the next turn, yes it looks weird but hey you have to do it if you want to make it on time!! Today we had our advising meetings and got some more information about our internships. I will be interning at the Design Business Association. It is an organization that works with all kinds of designers and companies to help them advertise. I am anxious to have my official interview and start working. We also got our "mobile phones" today, I am being brought back to when I got my first cell phone EVER, yes T9 still exists!! But it was only $10 for unlimited text and 150 minutes of calling so totally worth it. I just finished relaxing a bit and now off to shower for tonight. WE ARE GOING TO SEE WICKED!!!!!! Yes Mom, you read that right, Wicked during the first week I am here! Can't wait. So we have that later on tonight and by tomorrow more people in the program should be arriving. For now I have nothing else exiting to share, but stay tuned for my first week of orientation and such! Love you all and miss you. Also I hope that someone out there has been relaying this information to my grandma. I purchased 10 post cards yesterday but the stamps are more expensive than the cards so might not be sending out all 10 at once!

Thanks for reading and talk to you soon,
The Site-Seeing Softball Player

Our First Night Out

As I am sitting here it is pitch black in our room and super quiet...yes Karlee is still sleeping. It is 9:00am(HERE) and our game plan for the day was to wake up at 10:00 and start exploring. If you remember this is a huge stretch for us as we have gotten up at 2:00pm and noon the past two "mornings" being here. I guess you could say we are having troubles getting used to the time difference huh? haha. So I was sleeping really sound...like the best sleep I have gotten here and then there was some knocking on the door, now this was not alarming because the knocking is how we have been waking the opposite roomies up for the previous days out in London. So in response to the knocking I shouted out "Kallie?" There was no answer but a little more knocking, then our door mysteriously OPENED. Yes, PANIC. I popped up in bed, of course couldn't really get there quickly because I am a newbie to this sleeping in the air...we have bunk beds. So approximately two minutes later I had woken Karlee up and gotten down. Yeah, she is already sleeping again and I am here...WIDE AWAKE. What better time to tell my followers how our first "night out" in London went?

So we decided on Sunday we would make a small "itinerary" for the week so we have some stuff to do, since nobody is here and we think we should see some of London. We heard of this pub/restaurant/bar called The Rocket and let's just say we have a feeling we might become regulars. It was pretty cool and super friendly. Lots of nice people and room to mingle. We FINALLY met some Londoners and learned some culture differences as well as places we should visit...SUCCESS. And of course when we got back to our "home" we skyped some of our besties from home. I would say that the overall night was a complete thumbs up. Now we will just have to see what today has in store for us. I believe we are checking out an "Ice Bar" upon Karlee's request...yes everything in there is made of ice and we even have to wear large Eskimo-ish looking coats. Cool right? Okay well it was nice sharing some information with you all and can't wait to keep updating you! Love you all and keep sleeping amazing there...since it is 3:30AM!!

Love all,
The Site-Seeing Softball Player


P.S. Here are some pictures from last night/yesterday for you:

 This was a goofy picture we took before going out last night, of course we were those weirdos who used a self timer so we could get the whole group!

 And this was when we got to Skype some of our favorites from back home, hoping to see the whole team today on a Skype session during a team meeting...fingers crossed that it works!!

Officially London-ers

Well I am sure that most of you know by now that our planned trip to Greece was a FAIL. Yes, I spent nearly 11 hours in the Heathrow-London airport on Saturday and close to 10 of which were alone. After blogging that I had arrived and checked-in I decided to roam the airport for a while...which in case you were wondering the airport is like a GIANT designer brand store mall, to say the least. But who wants to shop in London...alone...when you are dripping with sweat...and have had about 12 anxiety attacks? NOT THIS GIRL. So I used logical thinking and decided to go right back up and sit outside of the Security area. EVERYONE has to go through Security so I figured I would sit there until the other three came through and we would go from there. Seemed like a great plan to me. I literally sat outside of the Security are for 2 and a half hours people watching and saw NO signs of my friends. Yes I was doing everything...pacing, praying, staring at people and more praying. THEY DIDN'T COME THROUGH. So 45 minutes prior to when our flight should leave I figured I should get to my gate and see if they are there. They weren't there either. PANIC MODE. Finally after more tears were shed there was a phone call from upstairs saying my friends were up there demanding I DON'T GET ON THE FLIGHT. So I didn't. haha. Anyways, long story short...we missed the flight, I got reunited with my friends, we sat outside of baggage claim for four hours, Paige lost luggage and now we are in London for good. I love it here and am happy. We haven't been around TOO much, but definitely have the Underground down to a T and are champs at it. We have already visited Primark twice which is a store that literally has EVERYTHING. It's awesome but is ALWAYS crowded. We also slept in until 1:30PM this afternoon! haha I think we did experience some jet lagging. Don't you agree? haha. So now we are off to the market/store to grab some dinner since it is 7:15pm here we are pretty hungry. Until next time, love you all and can't wait to continue to share my stories!! Pictures will be coming soon.

The Terrors of Traveling

Hello everyone! I am writing to you all from the airport at LONDON. Yes I am here. I honestly don't know how I made it here but I did. Traveling is by far the worst and super disastrous but oh well. I arrived to Chicago early from my flight and it was very smooth, no problems what-so-ever. Thinking the other three girls would arrive just shortly after myself, I lugged my two bags around the airport and got some food, read some magazines and sent some last minute texts/snap chats. Time kept going by and the others still hadn't boarded their plane. Then I got a text message saying that they would not be arriving in Chicago until 4:13pm. Now you all probably think that is no problem at all..EXCEPT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO LEAVE CHICAGO AT 4:05pm!!! Yes, panic set in. But I decided I was going to take the higher route and remain calm. I kept informing the lady working at the desk that my friends were coming shortly but I would not be boarding the plane without them; I was going to stay behind and wait so we could all be together as planned. Time kept passing when I finally went up there and they pretty much said that if I didn't board the plane alone I wouldn't be flying at all today and that I would still be flying alone. Now the real me came out...PANIC! Yes I instantly began to ball and let me tell you it was really awkward. I was just standing there in front of them CRYING! Oh well, they already thought I was crazy. Anyways, I ended up being close to the last person to board the plane and had to walk through every single person on the plane while balling!! haha makes for a pretty good story right? So now I am here in London waiting for my friends. They should be arriving here in the next 45 minutes to meet me so we can start our adventure to Greece! I will try to blog again when I get to Greece so that everyone knows we made it safely and HOPEFULLY together! Thanks for all of the support again from everyone. All of the goodbye texts, phone calls, posts, pictures and more were amazing! Can't wait to share stories with everyone. But for now I need to eat something and get ready to check my bags!

Sincerely,
The Site-Seeing Softball Player

P.S. I stick out like a sore thumb here, first of all I am drenched in sweat! And secondly I am the only person lugging around two suitcases, a backpack and a duffel bag. Yep. American! Wait until you hear about my first experience on the "Underground" haha its a good one. LOVE YOU ALL.

First-Time Blogger

Hello world! As of now I don't have any followers so I'm not really sure who I am writing to out there, but I wanted to have something written so that when people do start following me I will have something for them to read. So if you are reading this, congratulations you have decided to follow me along my journey to see the world! I leave the country in THREE days! Has the anxiety and excitement kicked in yet? OH YES. But as the days pass slowly I pack a little more here and there and get way more excited to see what the world outside of Midwest USA has to offer me. I have spent about two hours today on the computer printing and writing and researching and organizing stuff for this trip, so I better get to finishing up my packing. Thanks for reading and I promise I will have more interesting news to come! Stay tuned: Friday, August 24th my first plane takes off at approx. 10:30AM for the trip of a life time! Love you all.

xoxoxox.
The Site-Seeing Softball Player