I arrived in Paris on the Eurostar on Saturday night. My first task was to figure out how to get from the Gare du Nord to my Hostel. It took me about fifteen minutes and several failed French conversations to figure out where I had to go and how to buy a ticket. My hostel was next to the Crimee train station, which may mean "crime" in French, I'm not sure. But I did manage to arrive to the hostel safely and with all my belongings. I got up on Sunday morning at 8:30 for the free breakfast at the hostel. [View Full Entry]

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Hello, and happy Easter! Today is my last day in London before I take off to France and Switzerland for three and a half weeks in the first chapter of my European adventures. I have no schedule at present, I take the Eurostar through the Chunnel to Paris tonight, I have a train ticket to Lyon on the 30th, and then I fly home to London from Geneva on April 16. The rest is to be filled in as I go. I plan to visit Normandy to feed my unusual and slightly disturbing fascination with war, and I also want to [View Full Entry]

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I left London on the night of Thursday the 21st to visit an old family friend Huw at University College Dublin in Ireland. I bought Ryanair flights for ten pounds return including taxes, which is incredible. Actually the train to and from the airport cost more than double that. One of Huw's flatmates was in Paris for four of the five nights i was staying, so i had my own room and bed which was really nice. I arrived at Huw's at about 11:30pm on Thursday night, met some of his friends and we hung out in an apartment. On Friday [View Full Entry]

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Last week was reading week at UCL. I regret to admit that I didn't do very much reading, but did enjoy not having classes. I worked a lot over the weekends and did some touring during the week, including Tate Modern, Stonehenge and Bath. I went to Tate Modern with my flatmate Martin and his friend from Brno in the Czech Republic who was visiting London for a few days. We started downstairs where there is a crack in the concrete at one end, which gets bigger and bigger and by the end of the room is a crevice that you [View Full Entry]

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Greetings from sunny London! It's not really sunny, as I'm sure you can guess. In the last few weeks I've been getting myself organised, jobsearching, not studying and seeing London, although I have definitely been guilty of procrastinating on the tourist front (I have six months... yeah yeah). My classes are quite interesting, I'm taking Social Psych, Developmental Psych, Cognitive Neuroscience and a masters level course on Transport planning. The classes are far more independent and flexible than the American system, and you are definitely required to think for yourself, rather than remember [View Full Entry]

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I arrived at Heathrow airport on the night of the 28th of December. I met Hazel at the airport and her Dad drove me back to their house in Bushey, near Watford within Greater London, where I spent the next few days until I could move into residence on January 2nd. On arrival in Bushey, I took the opportunity to do not very much for the first time in a while. I met some of Hazel's friends and she showed me around her very English neighborhood, we went to the park and to a couple of bars. On New Years Eve [View Full Entry]

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Hello and a very late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! I've been very busy in the last few days getting myself organised in London so apologies for the delay. My memory of events in New York may be slightly tarnished but I'll do my best. I arrived in Manhattan on the night of the 22nd and left on the morning of the 28th, which would mean I had five days to see the sights. I arrived on a Saturday night, checked into the hostel and then went and met a friend in Times Square. We walked around [View Full Entry]

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I arrived at my hostel in the Back Bay area of Boston at 2am on Wednesday morning, after a 14 hour Greyhound trip which was no fun at all. I got up at 9am to cash in on the free breakfast, and then phoned a friend from Penn State who I knew was in Boston with another friend. Turned out they were both staying two doors down the corridor from me. I had a well earned shower and then headed to the middle of town, the Boston common, with Lois and Sam. The girls went shopping, and I went to the [View Full Entry]

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I write this from a Greyhound (promise me you will never catch a Greyhound bus EVER) bus en-route from New York City to Boston. This is my fourth transfer, along with the customary Greyhound frustrating delay on a 14 hour trip which could have taken 8. I started and finished my exams yesterday (Monday) with two finals. Both were pretty easy so I should do ok. I finished my second at 4:30pm and went straight back to my dorm and started packing up. In that time I also managed to organise a farewell dinner at an Indian restaurant downtown to say [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys apologies for the delay but I've been flat out. At Penn State there is a week's break for Thanksgiving, where all the students go home to their families and eat, drink and sleep way too much. They kick you out of the dorms so us international students took the opportunity to take a sightseeing trip. There were about five of the PSU international kids in Chicago. Most of us stayed at Hostellers International in the Loop in downtown Chicago. It's a good hostel, very reasonably priced and an excellent location. The Greyhound (I hate Greyhound possibly slightly more even [View Full Entry]

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