London, England

Next stop: London, England, the country that represents half of my heritage (thanks mom)!!! This weekend was my first experience with Ryanair, the discount airline that operates within Europe. My flights to London were so cheap! It cost me only 40 euros ($50) for round-trip tickets from France to England. You definitely get your moneys worth with Ryanair. I had heard many horror stories with Ryanair so I was very nervous about traveling with them, especially by myself. Yes, they have poor customer service. Yes, there is practically no leg room with the seats. However, they weren’t as stingy with carry-on bags as I expected them to be, which was a bummer because I paid a lot of money to check my bag just to be safe. I did get pretty worried on the flight when I experienced probably the worst turbulence of all time. I tried to remind myself that hopefully these were still good pilots and not discount pilots. Either way, I made it to London safely on Thursday night!

En route to London!

My friend from home, Lili is studying abroad in London, so I was able to hang out with her for the weekend. On Thursday night, we went out to a ski lodge themed club, which was a lot of fun! I even got to take the tube and ride a double-decker bus to the club. While we’re talking about the tube, it is famous for a good reason. This is by far the best underground metro system that I experienced in Europe. It was amazing. At the club, we randomly met the CEO of Jägermeister (confirmed by his business card and the Internet)! It was a great night with Lili and all of her study abroad friends.

Bodo Schloss!

With the CEO of Jägermeister!

The next day we did some shopping and site-seeing throughout London. The first stop was TopShop in the Oxford Circus, a great store that they don’t have in America unfortunately. Then, we went to Harrods and saw there Christmas section, which was just heaven. We then walked through Green Park to see the Buckingham Palace. From there, we went to see the Big Ben and the London Eye.

Lili and I at the Buckingham Palace

The Queen’s Guard

Big Ben!

London Eye!

I was loving London so much! It is a really great city that still has a lot of great historical sites. Plus, they all speak English! Honestly, after 2 months in France and traveling to other foreign countries, I was so ecstatic to have English be the first language in a country. I was so happy to be able to read everything (yes, even the advertisements), talk to everyone and listen in on everyone’s conversations in the tube hehe. The transportation is also fantastic.

Double-decker bus!

That night we went to a different nightclub in London. It had so many different rooms with so many different themes. The club even offered free face painting! I couldn’t resist.

Face paint!

On Saturday, we went to the Portobello Road Market near the Notting Hill district of London. There were so many different kiosks with all sorts of cool things. However, the best part was definitely the food. I had a yummy middle eastern sandwich of sorts. I have no idea what it was called, but it was so delicious. Then, I had a smoothie out of a pineapple! It was a great day at the market. I felt like a real Londoner 🙂

Notting Hill!

Yummy yummy!

So fresh!

That night, I went to go see the Tower Bridge! It was so beautiful. I didn’t walk all the way across it but I did walk across part of it and see the whole bridge from the side of the River Thames. I also ate delicious fish & chips that night.

Tower Bridge by night!

On Sunday, I went back to the Tower Bridge in the morning one last time to see it in the light and then headed off to the airport to catch my flight. I wish I had more time in London, so I could have gone to see the Crown Jewels, which are housed in the Tower of London right next to the Tower Bridge. I guess I’ll just have to go back (and bring my mom)..Thank you London for one of the best weekends!

Tower Bridge by day!

Tower of London where the Crown Jewels are kept

Traveling to Metz

I’m pretty sure everything that could have gone wrong with my travel, did go wrong. My original plan was to travel from San Francisco to Chicago to London to Luxembourg and then catch a free shuttle provided by GTL to get to Metz. Most of that did not even happen (thanks American Airlines and British Airways).

First of all, my first flight to Chicago was delayed by about 40 minutes to the point where I was worried about making my flight to London. Thankfully, I found out the flight to London was delayed by 45 minutes giving me the time to make that next flight. In the end my flight to London ended up being delayed by about 2 hours, so I was pretty sure I was going to miss my last flight to Luxembourg. Thankfully, I was able to meet up with 3 other GTL students who were on my last 2 flights, so I didn’t have to go through this travel misery on my own.

On a happier note, the person next to me on my flight overseas never showed up! I was so happy to have an aisle seat and a free seat next to me! So happy that I took a selfie 🙂

As expected, my delayed flight to London caused me to miss my flight to Luxembourg. When I got off the plane, the travel assistants told me that the next flight to Luxembourg was full and they would have to put me in a hotel overnight in London and fly me out the next morning. Unfortunately, I needed to be in Metz that night to check into my dorm and attend orientation and classes the next day. The only solution was to re-route to Paris, take the TGV from the airport to Lorainne and then a shuttle to Metz and a taxi to GTL campus. So… that’s what we did! The whole process took about 8 extra hours. Yay for over 24 hours of traveling!

After finally arriving to the Paris CDG airport, I was so happy and relieved!! … Until my two checked bags never showed up. Apparently, the airline messed up my re-routing and thought my final destination was still Luxembourg so they sent my bags to Luxembourg on the flight that I wasn’t allowed on. Getting on the TGV was another endeavor to go through. The TGV is much different than the Caltrain haha. You actually have an assigned seat in an assigned section. In this case, I was so excited to not to have to carry around my luggage. The scenery of the French countryside was the light at the end of the tunnel after a long day of traveling:

On the TGV from Paris to Lorraine

After getting to Lorraine, we took a shuttle to the Metz train station and then a taxi to our GTL dorm. This was a little more challenging since none of the employees spoke English, but we made it!! Shout out to GTL for having pizza waiting for us.

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Current Motto: “Keep calm and make it to Metz.”