Completed First Week of Class

Harry Potter Ticket!!

Today I officially completed my first week of classes at the university. Class went pretty well today. I left a little bit earlier to avoid any issues with the strike that took place. Good news, I did not end up running into any of today, except the guy standing outside the school just handing out flyers. During class we learned about consumer behavior and then at the end we had a competition where we had 40 minutes to create a company name, slogan, logo and description to target teens. Our group came up with the idea for a BORED? Card that gave teens discounts at places they regularly shop. (Brand Organizations Retailers Entertainment Discounts) Our slogan was "When you get bored, you can earn some rewards" and our logo had two stick people, one said they were bored and the other said let's use our BORED? cards. In the end we ended up voting for which one we thought was the best and our group actually got all of the votes. It was a pretty great way to start the day. 

Then on my way back I stopped at the BFI Imax and picked up my Harry Potter ticket. The only thing was, it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to get to the door. Below I will have what it looks like and you'll understand why I had some complications. You actually have go down a set of stairs which then leads you to the entrance. I will say I was amazed once I found it how it is partially hidden, but yet the building is in plain sight. Once I got the ticket I headed back and worked on my schedule of events for the rest of the time here. I also planned out tomorrow.

Before I get to tomorrow though, about 6:15 I headed to the hotel we had orientation in because that is where we were meeting up to go to the musical. We saw Dreamsboats and Petticoats. The musical was actually really good. I enjoyed it and I think everyone else did as well. It had a lot of music from the 1960's such as run-around-sue, the wonderer, the twist, etc. The musical reminded me a lot of grease from the setting and how the characters acted. The plot was different, but I still really liked it. Additionally, at the end is when they sang The Twist and people got up and were actually dancing, it was quite a sight to see. Then following the musical we waited outside the stage door for the main character, Bobby, to come out. And he did not to long after we got outside and we got to take a picture with him and talk to him for a bit which was neat. Then I called it a night.

For my plans tomorrow, I plan on getting up early and heading down to the Wimbledon because I would be able to get a ground pass for about 15 pounds and be able to sit on a hill and watch it and be in the atmosphere of the Wimbledon, versus paying about 40 pounds. On the hill there is a huge screen that allows you to watch the match so you aren't missing out. I decided it was one of those things where I'm here and probably won't get another chance so I might as well do it. Then I plan on taking a short nap and working on my paper for class. Finally I will get all packed up for our weekend trip to Wales. 

Cheers!

Outside the movie theater (cinema)

An Independent Day

Weather wise today started off kind of chilly but the sun ended up coming out for a couple hours, but then managed to disappear again. Towards the end of the day it did look like it could rain any minute, but didn't.

This morning I had all intentions at leaving at 9:10 for class because that would give me plenty of travel time plus extra time in case something happened. But when I got downstairs people from my group were waiting and they were only waiting on one more person, so I decided to wait, I gave them until 9:15 and then I was leaving no matter what. I don't do well with being rushed or late. But we left around 9:15. The trip wasn't bad. On the way one of them mentioned getting of at Oxford Circus, the stop I originally on getting off the day before because I knew how to get to class from there, but I said that after class the previous day I figured out how to easily get there so I could lead us there. When we got to the Regent Park tube station we got off and we usually take the life (elevator) up but there was only one working and there was a line and waiting in line would have made us late. Case in point why I wanted to leave earlier, for such delays. So ended up we took the stairs. Unfortunately, there were about 80 stairs in a spiral stair case we had to go up. My thigh were burning by the time I got to the top, but definitely got the work out in for the day.  Then we managed to make it out of the station and I then lead the group to the building where our classes are held. It is actually fairly simple. Once exiting the tube station we head right and then we make a right at Cleveland Street and another right at New Cavendish Road and it puts us in front of the building.

For class today we talked about Porter's 5 forces and we did an activity with it. Following that we got to do an activity where we had about 45 minutes to go to 3 retail stores and look at the trends and what products they had to satisfy those trends. Being in central London made this a fun assignment because we ended up going to Blake's (outdoor store with high end product like North Face), Nike Town, and Zack's (a dress shop with cheaper prices). This class might end up being one of my favorite classes in my college career just because of the opportunity to have easy access to so much marketing just by walking down the street. It allows the class to be hands on and use real world application. 

Following class I ate lunch in the cafe in the building, my 3 pound deal with a sandwich, chips and a drink. Not too bad for London meal expensive wise. After lunch I headed back down the street to Nike Town to check it out more in depth and I ended up buying a couple things. I was just really impressed by the store appearance. I will hopefully make it back down there and be able to get a couple pictures to show what it looks like. It makes it look like a really upscale store. Then after that I went back down to Argos, the catalog store, and found a mattress topper, the springs were killing my hips, and I managed to find a blanket, but I had to order it and it will be here Monday. Because there are no A/C's I have to use the windows and my fan to try to control the room temperature. There is a lack of A/C's because it doesn't usually get hot enough to need one and they don't have bugs here so you are able to leave your windows open. It is definitely different than the regular Kansas summer that I'm used to. Wearing jeans at the end of June is almost unheard of, but here it is a normal thing.

After Argos I headed back to my room and I managed to put my mattress topper on. I am quite excited to sleep tonight knowing it will be more comfortable. Then I got to Skype with Mom for about two and a half hours which was nice since I haven't really got to talk to her much since I left. But we decided that this would be a good time every week to Skype. Technology  has definitely came a long way in the last couple decades. Following that I ate dinner and worked on planning out everything I want to do while I am in London so that I am able to schedule everything and not worry about not being able to do something.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day. They have a teacher/student strike that will be taking place from 11:30-2:30 and they have actually closed down certain main roads and will be on other roads that will cause more traffic congestion also. But in a city this big they at least plan the event so that people that use public transportation or drive are able to find other routes or allow for more time to get places. Our director sent us a message with the roads to avoid and what would be safe roads so we don't in up in the mass of people. I plan on leaving for class a little earlier to hopefully miss some of it and then I will avoid the certain roads on the way back so I don't have to worry. In addition on the way home tomorrow I will be stopping at the box office to pick up my Harry Potter ticket.

Link to article about the strike: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-104909/Teachers-strike-hits-capitals-classrooms.html  

Extra Info: Saturday at 7:30am we leave for Wales and then we return on Sunday. Afterwards I will let everyone know how it went and everything we did and hopefully get to post some pictures!

Second Day of Class, Slowly Becoming More Independent

Our group in front of White Tower, part of the Tower of London. We visited White Tower on Saturday.

Today was our first real day on our own. We had to get from our dorm to the campus without any help. We got to the tube station just fine, but ended up going one stop past the one we went to yesterday because a couple girls said they had found a way that way, come to find out they just knew the street names of where we needed to go, but getting there is a whole another story. The streets of London were originally made for walking, so there are a lot one way streets and narrow streets. And it is not set up on any kind of grid system so if you miss the street you were supposed to turn on you have a better chance of turning around and going back then chancing that the street will still be there at the end of the block. Streets can randomly turn into other streets and jet off in random directions. It makes navigating difficult. But back to the morning, we got off at the Regent Park stop and when we came out she just knew we need to get to Cleveland Street and we had about 15 minutes til we had to be in class. We ended up walking in the right direction luckily and once we found the main street we were on yesterday we were able to move in the general direction we needed to be and managed to find the campus about two minutes til ten. My class today wasn't too bad. I enjoy business classes, marketing in particular, so I think the three weeks won't be too bad. Basically on the last day of class we have to turn in a 3000 word paper comparing the marketing strategies of two companies in the same industry. And other than that we don't have any other grade. I will later post a blog explaining the British system for school, which is vastly different than ours.

After class I went to the cafe inside the campus and found a cool meal deal which was 3 pounds and you got a sandwich, chips and a drink. Granted this is actually about a $5 meal, but pretty good for the price of a meal in London. Then about 10 minutes before I was going to leave it started to rain, and it came down kind of hard for a bit. But leaving the campus I traveled to the other campus which was about a 15 minute walk because that is actually where the school of business is housed and I needed to find some books for my research. (I will also have a blog on the rain here). After getting to the library I managed to navigate my way around to find the section I needed. Over here students don't have to buy textbooks. The library has all of the text books and you can check them out and there are ones for reference only. These seemed like a pretty good idea to me, we would save so much money. I found the section with the marketing textbooks (an entire row) and went through and found 9 that were about intro to marketing, they told us what kind of books to look for, and then I went to the self check out like we have at KSU-Hale Library and checked them out. They were actually extremely heavy and I had to make it all the way back to the dorm.

After walking to the next tube station I realized I needed to add just a little bit more money to my oyster card in order to get on, but I manage to find the one station where you can't top off your card. So I had to go across the street to top off my card and then get on. (I will have another blog about the oyster card, Tube Station). Then at the Embankment stop I got off because I decided to buy a 7 day pass because I thought it would be cheaper. Then I got back on and went 2 stops to Lambeth North, my stop and trudged back to the dorm to drop off the book.

After resting for about 5 minutes I emptied out my book back and headed to the supermarket, Sainsbury's, to buy some food items. It was about a 10 minute walk. It was a smaller store so they had some options but not too many I was able to find a few things that would work for me then I headed home. (I will also have a blog on how debit and credit cards work here). Once I got back I rested and made some dinner and then got a few things done. One of them being that I calculated it up and next week when my 7 day pass runs out I will buy a month pass and then I will good to go for the rest of my time here. The biggest accomplishment though was purchasing my Harry Potter 7 Part 2 movie ticket. The midnight showing was sold out, but I will be attending the 3:30 am one, which is kinda cool. The reason I still wanted to stick with this theater was because it is the biggest screen in London and it will be an IMAX 3D movie. If you can't tell I am a little excited. We also found out that July 7th is the Red Carpet Premiere so after class next Thursday I am going to head down there to hopefully be able to see Daniel Radcliffe in person.

**For the CES crew, I managed to see a CV and Cover Letter type guide so I took one to bring back to show you :)

A picture of my room.

 

A picture of the theater, BFI IMAX

First day of Class

Today started off quite well. It actually seemed pretty nice this morning, but it ended up getting pretty hot. I successfully made the tube (subway) journey to Oxford Circus where our group meet up to go to University of Westminster's Orientation. During the ride I sat beside a guy and after a girl walked onto the tube he recognized her and said hi and they began talking about the weather. I thought my director was kidding when she said people in London usually talk about the weather most of the time. I learned this is because it is a safe topic. She said only about 5% of people go to church, so most of the churches have been turned into bars. They really enjoy drinking over here. Anyway back to the tube, as I was leaving when we got to the escalator everyone literally got in a single file line and stood to the right so that everyone who was in a hurry could walk/run by on the left. It was an interesting sight to actually see how much they followed this way of doing things. Not knowing about this would definitely cause you to stand out. After arriving at my destination and meeting up with the group we went to the library and they ended up going over a lot of stuff we went over for API about London. Then they gave us lunch, which seemed more like a snack of finger foods to us. Then we headed off for our first class. We ended up in a classroom in the basement and since they don't really have A/C's it as extremely hot. They said today was the hottest day of the year, go figure. So we ended up only having an 1.5 hour class instead of 3 hours. Then I waited for one of my group members and we met up with another group member and went to Argos to get some items. I ended up with a fan, pillows, bowls and plates, and silverware. This is similar to a  wal mart without any food in a way. The main difference is that you walk into the store and go through a catalog and pick out the different items and check their availability and then write down the reference number. Then you head up to the counter and pay for the items and after you stand in the waiting area for your order to be picked up. The one downside is you don't see what you bought until after you pay. But it was a good experience and I got a few essential items. Then we grabbed some food and headed back on the tube station. After returning I had a note saying my room had been repaired so I finally got to move back in and actually unpack everything. Finally feels like I'm actually going to be staying here for awhile now. It's been a lot of fun so far. By the end of it I feel like I will end up with calves of steel though because of all the walking we do. Well that is all for my first day of class! I will let everyone know how the first week goes. And I will also be randomly be blogging about various things I have learned and difference between the United States and the United Kingdom.

On Saturday I will be heading to Wales for an overnight excursion so check back at the first of the week to see how the trip went!

Couples day leading up to class

Friday morning I was up around 6:30 because we had to leave at 8 for orientation of API and England which lasted until about 12:30. We learned about what to expect and things to not say and what they find acceptable here. It was quite interesting. Then we grabbed a quick lunch and had a private bus tour at 2pm and we also go to go through The Tower of London which was pretty cool and she explained a lot of the cool stories about what happened there. Also we got to go to Buckingham Palace and take some pictures. Then about 5:30 we made it to the hotel and around 6 we got to move into our dorm rooms.

Like usual something had to go wrong. The piece behind the door that causes the door to close was literally falling off so half way through unpacking I had to move my stuff to another room, to mostly likely end up having to move back on Monday. So I still haven't unpacked. But then last night I wondered down and found a store with random food items so I found some cereal and milk and frozen pizzas so I was happy.

Sunday we toured around the area we live so we have an idea of what is around here, and there is quite a bit actually to do. Then we ate lunch at the pub on the corner. They do things a little differently here. They have a two course and a three course menu option and there are set prices no matter what you order. And they aren't exactly cheap. Luckily we already had paid for this through our program cost. But quickness is not something they do well here. We were there from about 1-3 and at 4 we had a treasure hunt through the college. So I ended up just heading straight there afterwards. The treasure hunt took us all over London and it was extremely hot today, they don't really have wind here so there isn't anything to cool you down. But hot days are rare so it shouldn't be too bad. And they don't have A/C's so it'll be interesting. Then at the end of the hunt we all ended at a pub and the college bought us all a drink. I got a cider but really wasn't a fan, not to mention I was so hot and it was only 6:30 that alcohol just didn't sound the greatest. Then we wondered around trying to navigate back and finally managed it. We ended up eating Mr. Fish which actually has more chicken than fish but extremely cheap prices so I can't complain. I just finished getting everything ready for my first day of class tomorrow. I'm kind of excited. I will let you know how day 1 goes!

It has definitely been a learning experience so far and I am sure it will continue to be until I leave.

Post Landing

As soon as we landed I turned my phone on, I have an international plan, and it should of connected...but wouldn't. So I was starting to slightly panic. Once I got into the airport I tried to connect to wifi to get a message to my  mom to let her know I at least made it, but that wouldn't work either. At this point I was more worried about getting my phone to work than going through immigration. Luckily landing at 5:30am meant no one else was really there and ended going through immigration in about 10 minutes, which apparently is quite quickly because my director told me to allow about an hour to make it through the line. So I make through immigration and get to the terminal where I'm supposed to meet the director and I can't see anyone and start to panic a little more. I ended up finding a pay phone where I was able to call my mom, after figuring out how to use it of course, and I was able to contact her and told her about the phone situation but since it was only about 11pm back home she wasn't able to do anything until 6am so I was phoneless and I couldn't get wifi to work still. And based on all my calls I will probably end up paying a quite a bit, but in that kind of situation that was the least of my worries. After talking to mom I called the director and turns out she wasn't going to be there until 8:30am so I at least wasn't lost in London. But I did have some time to kill.

I ended up sitting on a bench and people watching. There were some interesting people who came out to arrivals. Then I was able to find my director and we looked for the other 3 who were supposed to come out of the same terminal before 9 but they never did and so we ended up heading to the hotel and they had to go to the next meet up time at 11:30 and luckily then ended up calling and we figured everything out. Also, before we were going to leave I went to use the pay phone again and found out my debit card ended up getting locked so then I also didn't have access to money. So I was just on a downward spiral and had only been in London about 3 hours. Once we left it was about an hour ride to the hotel and I ended up falling asleep. Then after getting to the hotel I was able to check into my room right away which was nice. Then the director and I went and got some Mexican food down the street, she bought me lunch because of my rough day and not having any money. When we got back I used her phone to call mom and then was on the phone with Verizon Global Support for about 40 minutes. For some reason my did not get activated correctly but mom was able to fix it and then it just started working so I was a little happier. Then I was able to call and unlock my debit card, I was on a roll at this point, and I was able to double check that my converter would work with the plug ins. Luckily, I was then able to take a nap before everyone else arrived.

Then when everyone else arrived we took a walking tour and then had some free time, but had to get up early the next morning.

So it was a pretty stressful first day but it luckily has went uphill.

Flight into London

Because of lack of internet I haven't been able to stay caught up on everything happening so I'm going to posting a couple blogs to catch everyone up!

My flight into London took about 6 hours. When you have to sit in one seat for 6 hours it causes it to be extremely long. Sleeping was challenging and didn't really happen unfortunately. Luckily I did sit beside two nice British ladies who fun to talk to. It got me excited to be in London.

We were on a 747 so it was a very large plane, I thought it was pretty cool. Everyone also got a blanket and pillow. Some things I did in the 6 hours were watched Psych, 30 rock and RED. I also read my kindle and listened to music. For dinner we had beef, potatoes, and carrots with a brownie and roll. It was actually pretty good. We also got two snacks, pretzels towards the start of the flight and a yogurt and scone before we landed. 

One thing that took me a few days to overcome was the time difference because on the flight we left in the afternoon and arrived around 5:30am and I didn't get to sleep so I was tired and still had a full day ahead of me and my body was still set on sleeping when I do back home.

When the plane landed though I had more issues than I thought I would. But I've managed to handle all of them, with some help of course.

Pre-Travel- Flying to London

Hey everyone- Just got to Chicago a little bit ago. My flight left from Wichita, KS around 10am and I fly out of Chicago at 4pm so not too bad of a lay over. Although it is currently raining in Chicago, but I'm sure it will be fine. I'm pretty excited to fly into London and meet the director. This will be the longest flight I've ever been on. Not to mention the 6 hour time difference will be an interesting change. I hope it isn't too hard to adapt too. I will keep you updated with the trip! Next stop London. :)