time flies when you are having fun!

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Well a lot has happened since I last logged in. I have been to the Museum of London, the british library where many famous documents are including the magna carta, the British Museum twice, the National gallery in Trafalgar square, the Wallace Collection, a tour of BBC and a few other places. Sunday was the chinese new year celebration in Trafalgar square and of course Chinatown. We were able to get very close to the firework display which was amazing. The chinese know how to do it big! Apparently London has the 4th largest celebration in the world! I have held all of my seminar and art history classes in museums/famous sites thus far and I have been fortunate to see some heavy hitters. I have seen works from Da Vinci, Monet, Turner, Peter Paul Rubens, Holbein and Gainsborough just to name a few. We hold class where some of the most famous cultural pieces of our history are housed like it is an every day thing. It is mind-blowing! I feel so lucky to be able to study here! This week we are taking our first day trip to Greenwich, where we can stand in 2 places at once and see where time "begins". We of course are all having a blast still. Frequenting pubs and night clubs on the weekends and just walking around becoming wrapped up in the city. One day we just took a bus around the city as far as we could go and looked at the sites in the 2nd level of the local double-deckers and watched the variety of people that come to London walk past. We kept a running count of how many people nearly escaped death by the insane bus drivers, which turned out higher than one might expect..
the downside is the weathers ups and downs. It has been freezing today and probably the rest of this week.. And unfortunately I am getting re-sick because of this awful weather. Today we walked 20 mins in the freezing rain and let me tell you that was not fun!
I am starting to really see the cultural differences. We have been pickin up the accents nd slang words which we all find halarious. The customs are set in stone it seems. You walk on the left not the right side of the road. We learned that by a man screaming at us, "This is England!! We walk on the left side of the sidewalk!!" To refill anything is to "top up" and they don't know what garbage can means. Literally they have no clue. It is rubbish not trash or garbage. I had a chinese woman with a british accent teach me that. That is the other funny thing. You will see every race here and lots of them have an english accent! So bizarre! There are too many odd customs to list here or to remember but it is quite funny to live in such a different world.
I have booked everything for my excursion week coming up in 2 weeks. I am going to Scotland then Ireland the weekend b4 st. patties. It is going to be crazy I can not wait!
I am pleased to find out my roommate is crazier about LOTR than I am so we started watching the series tonight and have begun the quoting! I have made a close group of friends with Mallory, Stef and Julia and myself so I am rly glad I have some people I can always hang out with. I have always been known as Anna Banana but recently they have given me the new nickname of "muppet". Dont ask why or how it is a had to have been there moment, but from now on i am banana or muppet!! lol.
It is late so I am heading to bed, hopefully I will update again sooner rather than later.

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