This is Claire coming at you live from London town. WE ARE HERE!!! I am so stoked to be here with two of my best friends, meeting so many new awesome people, taking in all of the beautiful sites here and learning more about the culture!

Some things I have learned this week so far:

1. I want to raise my children in England just so that they will have accents. I am tempted to kidnap a British child to take home with me.

2. British men have no shame. My new favorite game is walking behind the group and watching the men of this country check out our beautiful, bronze friend Jess.

3. The humidity here gives me lioness hair in the morning.

4. British people are much more reserved than Americans.

5. The tube is much easier to travel on in small groups. Friday nights are not a good time to travel on the tube. (although drunk british women with umbrellas are pretty entertaining)

6. We are going to look like Americans here no matter how hard we try to fit in.

7. Mark Jensen has corn flower blue vans.

8. British people can tell when you try to fake an accent.

9. England is full of understatements and irony.

10. I am not going to sleep at all the next 2 months.

Here are some pictures from the first two days (I have taken 376 so far... that is just pathetic).

Hello from London!!!!!!

     So I decided that I would take the liberty of making the first post on our blog. Staley, Claire and I arrived at the BYU London Centre on wednesday night!!! We are here studying abroad for spring semester until June 16th. We have been looking forward to this trip for months now and it is UNREAL that we are finally here.  I decided that I wanted to come to London about three years ago when my friend Whitney came back from her study abroad here and told me how amazing it was. Ever since then, I've had a picture of Big Ben on my wall. And Staley called me a nerd when I told her this, but I seriously got chills when we walked out of the tube station yesterday and I got my first look at Big Ben in real life. Haha. yep I'm a nerd but seriously it was so cool.
     These first two days have been crazy busy. We've filled our days trying to figure out how to navigate the tube, taking 250 pictures on the first day (Claire), eating at delicious restaurants: waffles, gelato, nando's, etc., exploring, and getting to know all the awesome people living with us at the centre.
    Yay!!! We're here. It's already been so fun and its only the beginning.

Here are a few pictures...

Big Ben!!!!

cute

Claire, the pro photographer!

part of the group with the tower bridge in the background

Note the random Asian woman who wanted to take a picture with us. "Woooo!" haha she was loco

The Thames

Me and Clairebear in front of Parliament!