Week 2

    I can't believe i've been here for two weeks already, I feel like I have been here forever! I feel like I have learned so much in the short amount of time that I have been here and I hope to share some things with you. We had an academic orientation where the academic director gave us some very useful advice on what we should and should not do while abroad. It is important to have a new experience while abroad and we can't do that if we are constantly on facebook, updating our statuses, and connecting with our family and friends back home. I love you all but he does have a point. By me constantly being on Facebook, I am not getting to experience everything and live and learn in London. I am here physically but mentally I will be back in NYC and I do not want that. This experience will allow me to deal with daily life occurrences and this will teach me to miss people, as the director said. All of these emotions are a part of life and this is the perfect experience to see what the future will be like. This is an experience I am using to better myself but I can't do that if I am still looking to what's going on in the city. In order to see London from a different perspective and live as a Londoner I need to stop approaching things through the eyes of an American.
     Something that I used to do when purchasing things was comparing the prices to those of US dollars, because the currency is much higher. 1 British pound is worth $1.55 US dollars. Can you imagine that! This makes it very difficult because I am trying to budget my money and sometimes I feel that this is very hard. I have to buy groceries and other things but I have five other roommates so this is not too bad. The point that I am trying to make is that comparing prices to the US is something that is preventing me from adjusting to London. The British pound, although very expensive, is what people have grown up using and to them certain prices are reasonable. This experience and many others have opened my eyes to many of the differences between the US and London. There are many things that are acceptable in the culture that are not acceptable in the U.S. and vice versa and a part of this experience is learning and understanding the cultural differences here in London. I hope to tell you all about these experiences when I return.