First week of classes

Hello there my dearest friends, life in London is still great. It's settled down a lot, but I'm still having lots of adventures and enjoying myself to the fullest (also doing school for like, an hour). Also I've just been exploding with love for Jesus lately, so don't worry about me, I'm doing grand, just missing all of you fantastic people with my whole entire heart and soul.
Monday was the first day of class, but my schedule here is super not demanding, so I'm only in class three days a week, and two of those days I only have one class. Yay, British education system.
On Monday morning, Alex and I went into Putney so she could get her phone set up and I could grab some groceries and go to SuperDrug and Poundland and stuff. So I got a lot of things that I needed (silverware, no more making tea with makeup brushes, holla) which was good. We also got hot chocolate at this cute little place for only £1 which was A+.

 First ever time legitimately grocery shopping and of course I got in the "Five Items or Less" lane with an entire basket, got yelled at by an old woman, yippee.

Cute little brekky courtesy of the man who was harassing us to come inside and try it.

So in true Rachel fashion, I had no idea where my first class was and ended up how I usually always arrive places: late and sweaty (that should literally be my Twitter bio). The class was pretty similar structure to classes in the States, minus the fact that we got a tea/coffee break in the middle. Also, their classes here are a year long, not by semesters, so I'm coming into all of my classes right in the middle which is strange. So, teachers are talking about essays that are due by this weekend and I just have to break it to them that that's not gonna happen. And there's pretty much no homework, ever. For all the classes that I've been to so far, all we have is one essay or test at the end of the semester and that's it. That's our grade. Scary, yet awesome.

Lunch courtesy of a local café, these people are serious about eating "chips" with everything.

So Monday and Tuesday were spent just going to class and then having pretty chill evenings, watching movies and eating in our rooms. Alex and I may or may not have watched This Is Us twice this week already, oops.
Wednesday though, none of us besides Alexa have class, so we decided to go into central London to explore some more, shop, get food, and most importantly, see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. So we woke up and got on the bus to the Hammersmith bus station where we grabbed a quick Starbucks and then got on the tube to Green Park. When we got there it was conveniently raining, so we hurried across the park to get to Buckingham Palace which was freaking beautiful, even in the rain. It's just incredible how much history there is and how long things have been around for and everything's just so old and beautiful. When we got there, tons of people were pressed against the gates and were gathered along the sides of the streets, etc. because the changing of the guard was happening at 11 and we got there at about 10:50, so we were right on time. We ended up getting a pretty good view of whatever was happening, but it was really extravagant. It took around an hour and there was a small musical number performed, a parade, and ridiculous amounts of marching. Obviously, I'm not really up to date on the whole changing-of-the-guard scene, so I had no idea why any of it was happening and it just seemed like a really drawn out way for people to clock in and out. Either way, it was really cool to see and now I can cross that off my bucket list (jk it was never on there).

I've decided to make it my mission to leave a trail of lipstick marked coffee cups across the continent of Europe.

 You are now watching the throne.

 Obvi a selfie was necessary

 Green Park gate, seriously so beautiful.

It's crazy to think that they go through that ceremony every weekday morning, just another cool little piece of the history of this city that I'm quickly falling in love with. So when that was finished, we grabbed some pictures with the incredible Green Park gate and then hopped back on the tube to go back to campus (Alexa) and to Oxford Street (Paige, Alex, and I) to get some food and walk around and stuff.
We got off at Tottenham Court Road and ended up once again in front of Primark, oh the beauty. This one was huge (who knew that was possible after the 3 story one we saw the other day), but way less overwhelming because it lacked the hundreds of people and scary huge piles of clothes and hangers that the other one offered us. This one was surprisingly empty and so it was a lot easier to navigate. However, I quickly found myself realizing that I could spend hours upon hours in there, so I made myself buy the couple things I had found and then leave and immediately take refuge in my happy place (McDonald's). So I hung out there and used their free wifi (that my phone so conveniently automatically connects to now) while I waited for everyone else to finish shopping. When Paige was done, she joined me and we ate there and then met up with Alex and Allison when they finished.
Topshop was our next stop, and oh if y'all only knew the magic that this store held. It was by far the most intimidatingly beautiful (basically Candice Swanepoel in store form) thing I had ever experienced. Five stories. Bubble tea bar. Restaurant. Froyo counter. Cupcake shop. Tanning bed. Tattoo and piercing parlour. Shoe store. Hair and nail salon. Beauty bar. Literally not even all that this store offered. Immediately after walking in, I got separated from the group so I just wandered around by myself looking like I had died and gone to heaven (I'm still waiting for confirmation that that's not what happened). It was just beautiful, but so huge and crowded and overwhelming and hot, so I ended up having to leave before having a stroke. Then I was exhausted and I had a FaceTime date with my cuties Spell and Han Man, so I left and headed back to campus while the rest of the girls stayed and shopped and ate. I wish my energy would've lasted long enough to allow me to further explore the 6-story H&M that was across from Topshop, but that's another adventure for another day, I guess.

 Oxford Street

6-story H&M *heart eyes*

I got back and FaceTimed with them while they ate at Alpha Gam (shout out to my squirrelies) which was so great to see their sweet faces. Then I took a quick nap and tried to work on figuring out how my Chinese homework works. Alex returned and we made dinner and I watched a movie and then headed to sleep. Super exciting, I know, but the UK Netflix is chocked full of glorious movies that we don't have access to, so I have to take advantage of that, right? Also, two strange things that I've noticed that this country seems to be foreign too: credit or debit cards that you have to swipe, and multiple choice tests. When I was checking out at Primark, the guy at the till had to bring his manager over to show him how to swipe my debit card because they literally don't use them. So weird, and then in my class on Tuesday, the professor was letting us know that we'll have an essay and an exam as our assessment for the class, and he had to explain what a multiple choice test was because people actually didn't know what a multiple choice test was. What? Have they even gone to school before? What? So insane.
Life has been amazing lately, partially because I'm living in the greatest city in the world, but mainly because Jesus is so great and fun. The words, "Who the Son sets free is free indeed" have really just been my anthem lately, and I'm not sure why. Probably because they're the Truth, but for some reason they have been truly resonating with me. It just brings me so much joy to think about the fact that I am so free. Free to be happy. Free to live without worry. Free to do what makes me happy. Free to think I'm the greatest (because Jesus thinks that about me, so why shouldn't I?). Free to love people. Free to explore. Just free to do whatever I can to glorify God! Like whaaaat? So awesome.
Also I've just been really thankful lately for long-distance relationships and the fact that I have so many people I love scattered across the globe and I've just been realizing that you don't have to be constantly attached to someone's hip to be close to them or to enjoy their friendship (I mean if you can be, that's so great), but I just think it's so awesome that there are people with whom my path crossed for just a smidgen of time and I got to meet them and now I get to share with them in the joy of them following the Lord's path for their lives until our paths meet again in Heaven!! What a cool thing we get to do with each other! I digress, and now I'm basically just talking because I'm happy and excited about life.
I love you all so incredibly much and wish I could hold you all in my arms at once (which is exactly what I plan on doing when I return to the States) and I miss you. Also, someone tell my friends (you know who you are) to stop going to the tanning bed because they won't listen to me. Stay rad, y'all

xx

Also, I'm trying to win a free ride to the airport at the end of my program so I don't have to carry all my bags on public transportation and be a sweaty mess all over the city of London. Basically, all I need is the most Instagram likes on all my pictures with #CISLondon, so if you would like to help me out with that you can do so here.

First Weekend In London

Hey friends, me again. Still loving life in London. It has been a really crazy couple of days here, and I'm really appreciating sleep and also missing my bed back home where I had ten pillows and four blankets and I didn't have sheets that smell like salt and vinegar chips like mine do here. Good times.
Anyways, on Friday, the university had set up a program for all the international students (weird that that's me now) to break into groups and go on a Sleepover-esque photo scavenger hunt around the city and get pictures with the main tourist attractions, i.e. London Eye, Tower of London, Sherlock Holmes museum, cool ish, etc. The point was to force us to have fun and get to know each other while also learning the ins and outs of public transportation. So that happened on Friday, and was so cool to see so many things that I'd only seen in pictures and movies and here I was finding out they were actually real, like what? So here are some bits of that...

Me and my buddy Benny Chimes.

Cool chalking in Trafalgar Square where people left change on where they were from. Conveniently, the US and Chinese flags were right next to each other.

Mei guo ai Zhong guo

 I actually don't remember what this was... Awk

 Piccadilly Circus, someone said this was the Times Square of London? Not sure that they're the same.

 Tower Bridge, not the London Bridge, apparently that burnt down and was then rebuilt in Arizona? Confirmed: America literally steals everything from everywhere.

 St. Paul's Cathedral, so gorgeous.

 An actual dream come true. Shout out to the sweet British lad who provided the scarf and held it up for me. Love you.

 No idea what this was.

Architecture is dope.

Trafalgar Square is a crowd favorite.

So after spending seven (yes, seven) hours running around the entirety of the city, we got back on the train and came back to campus. I took a nap and was meant to be resting up for The Bop. Oh, The Bop, this is a party that happens every Friday in the student bar (still weird) and is a "fancy dress party" aka theme party. What I'm gathering is that this is basically like a school-wide swap every week only you have to pay £5 to get in and apparently they're super popular because it sells out quickly so you have to buy your ticket, then pregame, then go back to the actual party. I think they could've picked a better name for it than The Bop, but they're trying. Also next week's theme is American High School, so we'll see what happens.

After naptime, Alex, Paige, and I headed down to Putney to grab some food and do some grocery shopping (I still have no food or hangers) and just hit Poundland for a few things. After waiting thirty minutes for a bus that was completely off schedule we realized that basically everything besides pubs in this country close at seven p.m. Literally, the street was basically dead and it was 8:30. Cool, England. We wandered and ended up realizing that everywhere we wanted to go was closed, so we just went to Gourmet Burger Kitchen for dinner which was amazing and they told you exactly how to work the restaurant so it was super handy because we didn't have to do that awkward tourist thing where we stand in the middle of the restaurant wondering if we seat ourselves or if we pay at the till or what. Also we got a lot of food for not a lot of pounds and I got my Sprite in a glass bottle, so ya girl was pretty content.

I ended up passing on The Bop because I was too tired and we had to get up early the next morning, so I hung out with my good friend Melatonin and got a good eight hours. #NoRegrets

Saturday we were having a traditional English breakfast with our abroad program and then going on a double decker bus tour of the city again, which was a great way to see the city without actually doing any physical activity, holla. 

 Toast, sausage, eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, blood sausage. For lack of better words: hellz yeah. (Also blood sausage looks and sounds scary, but is actually great).

 This gives Tuscaloosa sunsets a run for their money.

 Shout out to my flatmate Renee for giving me her limited edition London Olympics 2012 Oyster card.

After the bus tour, we wandered around Oxford Street and ended up at a little Turkish restaurant because they gave us a great meal deal, so we had to hit that up. We went there because it had a lot of variety and then we basically all ended up ordering the same thing, so, we're totally breaking the stereotype about Americans who don't branch out.

Thank you Grand Bazaar for the cheap and fantastic dinner.

After dinner, we discovered the wonder that is Primark. Oh, I have a beautiful love affair with Primark that is only just beginning. Think huge Forever 21 layout, aka a nightmare, with basically everything you could ever want and also incredible sales. It was so huge and so many clothes I wanted to cry. I ended up buying a pleather skater skirt? I don't know what this city is doing to me. Well, Primark was basically the only thing that mattered after that point, so.

Today was Sunday and was probably the best day here I've had so far. Thanks to JShides, I ended up getting hooked up with a couple who are on staff with CRU over here, so they were the sweetest people ever and invited me to breakfast at their place this morning at 9 a.m. (timing was not so sweet of them) and Jude made pancakes which filled my little American soul with much joy. Also, Sophie did not lie when she said that English bacon was next level, get your hands on some of this goodness asap y'all. So that was fantastic, then I ended up going to church with them and I got to meet the Bridges STINT team that's here, which was so great! They were telling me how they actually do a lot of work with East Asian students who are over here studying, which is just so fabulous. PTL, but they invited me to go to some of their events that they put on for students, which I am way looking forward to.

After church, I had some time to kill before I was meeting Rachel to go to Hillsong, so I wandered some shops and then tackled the tube on my own, completely overestimated how much time it would take me to get there, so I ended up getting to church like an hour early and eating at McDonald's by myself before meeting up with Rachel and seeing her flat, which is huge and amazing, also she is fun and amazing.

Hillsong was incredible. Christ Church was incredible. Jesus is incredible. In Christ Church this morning when they were praying, and hearing everyone pray with their perfect British accents was just the greatest thing in the world. Every time I hear someone pray in another accent or language it is just such an awesome reminder of how huge the Lord is and that He is not held back by any cultural or geographical barriers. He is the same in every nation, tribe, and tongue. How freakin' cool. Just looking around today in church and seeing people who were so different from I, yet we had so much in common because we serve the same King, was really humbling and so awesome to think about. It's like looking around the Alpha Gam dining room and knowing that even though everyone there is so much cooler than I am, I get to hang out with them forever in college. Only it was like twenty times cooler because these people have accents and we get to hang out with them for eternity in Heaven!! I was just really hit with how amazing God is and just how fun and rad He is. Like He knows I love traveling and that I love British accents and that I love Him and so He lets me do cool things like study abroad and live in London and go to awesome churches? Like what a sweet friend Jesus is!! That is so the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me (besides dying on the cross and giving me eternal life, duh).

At Hillsong, the message was about how a relationship with God is like dancing, it's supposed to be fun and loving and totally not scary, and it's something you do with someone you love, and even if you suck they still make you look good and I was just like, "Wow! I am a horrible dancer literally and figuratively in this situation, and yet Jesus still wants to dance with me for all eternity and also wants my friends to come too, what a boss." Also, we sang a song that was just literally the Gospel, and it was just such a great reminder of how free we are in Christ and the weight of what He's done for us and just how He deserves all the praise. Like dang, God is good. (You can listen to that song here).

So yeah, basically just basking in the glow of this city and in the glory and grace of Jesus that I get to soak up on the daily, so I mean, life rocks.

xx

Also, I'm trying to win a free ride to the airport at the end of my program so I don't have to carry all my bags on public transportation and be a sweaty mess all over the city of London. Basically, all I need is the most Instagram likes on all my pictures with #CISLondon, so if you would like to help me out with that you can do so here.

Whaddup, I'm in London

Hello sweet pals!! As you might've guessed, I've arrived in London and am completely loving it so far. Everything has been so fantastic and it's just been so great.
We arrived on Tuesday morning and just hung out in the airport until a bus could come and take us the 45 minute drive to our university. We got to the uni and had to drag our suitcases (four for me, bye) off the bus and into a building where we got our welcome packets, and then across campus to our dorms and up to our rooms (three flights of stairs, also bye). We then threw everything in our rooms and had a couple quick meetings and then they had a pizza party for us at one of the campus cafés. So great. Yay pizza. Then I set up wifi on my computer and got to say hi to some friends in the states before I went to sleep extremely early (thanks, jetlag).
We woke up on Wednesday and had a little orientation meeting with all the other international students. They broke us up into groups and we had a campus tour, then some free time before another meeting in the afternoon. Me and Paige decided to take the bus to Putney high street (downtown, basically) and get our international SIM cards and get some food and just look around. By the way, buses are the great and effective public transportation is where it's at. Took us like ten minutes to get there and it was such a cute little area.

Yay campus is actually so beautiful.

Here's the Putney Bridge that goes over the River Thames (not pronounced how it's spelled) which is so freakin' cute.

So we did some grocery shopping and got some necessities like towels and shampoo and explored the little mall that they have there and all of the adorable stores. Like Poundland, the British version of a dollar store, and a T.J.Maxx knockoff called T.K.Maxx (Mom was excited about that one). Then we came back to drop our things off and have our meetings and library tours.

My flat mate Renee, who is completely adorable, invited me to church with her last night and so I traveled to somewhere in London (who actually knows how to work this city) to do that. Really different from any church I've been to in the States, but still great because Jesus is amazing in any country and any church.

Today we woke up and had more orientation things, like fixing our class schedules and getting our student IDs. I look Asian again, as always.

I don't know what any of those numbers on the card mean, so hopefully no one can use them to steal anything from me. Fingers crossed.

Then they had their version of Get On Board Day and I accidentally signed up for tae kwon do and sports (ew sweat), but in true British fashion, they said that the sports teams scheduled most of their events early enough where they could still have time to go drinking together afterwards. Also, fun fact, Wednesday afternoon and evening there are no classes in any uni across Britain as that is their sports time, what a handy little break, so Wednesday night at the on campus bar is either a cause for celebration or mourning. Then we walked about ten minutes down the road to go to lunch at the most adorable little café where we're determined to become regulars.

Who serves lasagna with fries? Awesome people, that's who.

This was outside the café, so obvi I had to.

Later, Paige and I were true city girls and we took the bus to the local ASDA (owned by Walmart, so everything is fabulously cheap) to buy groceries and more necessities (nail polish remover and tea). Then I came back and attempted to organize my things and also noticed how much I'm lacking simple things, i.e. I've had to open multiple things with my nail clippers because of a lack of scissors and I had to stir my tea with a concealer brush because I have no silverware. Fun times.

Well that's all for now, folks, we're about to go to a welcome party at the on-campus bar aka the student union (still weird that alcohol is literally everywhere) so wish me luck. I love you all and just want to squeeze your faces.

xx

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I have a mailing address now, so send me fun things!!

And to see video documentation of my journey to London and a campus tour, you can click here.

Holla at ya girl

Let's talk about keeping in touch, pals. Obviously, leaving behind my entire life to go to Europe by myself for six months is the saddest, scariest, and most exciting thing I'll ever do, but I want to stay in touch with everyone as much as possible. Luckily, we do have some options here:

Social Media
No worries, being on another continent will not deter me from being a social media queen and posting up a storm on Twitter, Instagram, and (maybe) Facebook. So at the bare minimum I can still stalk everyone in my sorority and be reached by Facebook messages. Also I'll be trying to post on here with pictures and stories of all the exciting things I'll (hopefully) be doing.

Texting
So, the plan is for me to get an international SIM card when I get to the UK, meaning that they'll give me a British number that I can use with my iPhone, so that way I can keep all of my contacts and pictures and apps and all that business. I'll post my British number so that you can reach me easily when the time comes. If that fails, I'll keep my iPhone to use only on wifi and get a cheap pay-as-you-go British phone. So with that being said, iMessage will work if I have a data plan on my iPhone or whenever I have wifi, which should be all or not most of the time. However, I've decided that my international free texting and calling app of choice is Viber. It's a free app that allows you to text and call internationally and doesn't require you to make a stupid username or anything, it just uses your phone number. How handy. So it would probably be fun if you downloaded that one and we could talk for free as much as possible!

Letters
I'm not sure about whether or not I'll have a mailing address when I get there, but I'll try to figure that out once I'm settled because I'm probs gonna need my parents to mail me some essentials (Chick fil a sauce, basically), but I'm super excited to send letters and postcards back to everyone in the states, so if you would like some handwritten mementos of my love for you, hit me up with your address.

Email
Last but not least, I'll be checking my email, and for some reason my mom is delusional and thinks that this will be my main mode of communication with everyone from back home, but just in case the urge falls upon you to contact me on the world wide web you can do it at raychillo@gmail.com or reortega@crimson.ua.edu


Love you cuties and miss everyone already
xx (that's British for "I love y'all," I think)

And obvi my snapchat will be working and I'll be on there more than I breathe, so

NOLA | 12.7.2013

So we may or not have taken a study break and gone to New Orleans for the day for the sole purpose of getting away and eating beignets...

Yay Christmas decorations!

Just me and my bestie being spontaneous in the coolest city ever.

Great treats with great friends.

#InAOneHorseOpenSleigh

Madame LaLaurie's mansion, I want to live here. (AHS anyone?)

To see video documentation of our adventures, click here.