It’s really hard to find a turkey in London. You wouldn’t think so, and neither did I until I looked around Sainsbury’s, our local grocery store. Turkey’s not a big thing to eat here — as one of my British friends said, nobody eats turkey here except for on Christmas, and even then most people don’t like it. Hence my flat’s makeshift bird: a small turkey breast accompanied by two massive drumsticks. It was a mutant turkey, but it was a delicious mutant, so it all worked out.

Small adjustments were a recurring theme this past Thanksgiving. First of all, I had to cook two servings of my mom’s famed sweet potato casserole, since not only did my flat have a Thanksgiving dinner, but so did a big group of my American friends. Half of my night was spent bouncing around between Thanksgivings, making sure I didn’t spend too much time in one place while neglecting my other friends. The other half was spent in the kitchen with my two American flatmates, converting recipes to the metric system and feeling like a grown-up with my own cooking responsibilities.

Thanksgiving dinner in London. Photo by the author.

One of my favorite parts of the day was showing my British friends and flatmates their first Thanksgiving. At one party we made old-school hand turkeys and proudly displayed them on the wall, and in the other I had to defend the tradition of Thanksgiving (even though it’s now kind of associated with killing Native Americans). The Brits came to the decision that Thanksgiving is essentially a preview of Christmas dinner, and that it’s quintessentially American to require two Christmas dinners in the span of one month. I can’t say I disagree.

Though I did have fun, Thanksgiving Day was the first day where I really started to feel homesick. And all you guys with your Facebook statuses saying “Steve is home for Thanksgiving” didn’t help much either. Thanksgiving is nothing if not about family, and long phone calls and Skype conversations with my parents didn’t really cut it. It was my first Turkey Day away from home, and it was tough being in a place that didn’t even acknowledge the holiday’s existence. Luckily, my friends were there to make our London dorms feel like home.

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During one of the first days of my program’s orientation, one of the staff leaders brought out several bags of candy. Being students, we all immediately stopped making small talk and stared straight at the processed sugar. “Who wants a Milky Way?” the staff member called out. He threw several fun-sized Milky Ways into the audience, and told the lucky catchers that they must eat the bars at that moment.

“Wait a minute,” one participant called out. “This is definitely not a Milky Way. It’s a Three Musketeers!” Similar sentiments echoed around the room — the caramel was missing, yet the wrapper clearly stated it was a Milky Way. “Okay, now let’s try some Mars bars,” our instructor called out. It turns out that in the United Kingdom, Mars bars are what we know as Milky Ways, and Milky Ways are our Three Musketeers. “Take this as an example,” the staff member said, “that things here are not better, and they’re not worse. They’re just different.”

After the candy bar incident, I walked around assuming everything was going to be different. I found that most things in England are only slightly different - but food here is really different. At first I was simply amused by the food differences, but I’ve grown to strangely like British food — and I know I’ll miss it when I head back to the States in a few weeks.

The first thing that scared me was breakfast. A traditional English breakfast is about the heaviest thing one can possibly eat. It includes fried eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes and baked beans. A smaller version of this could be baked beans on toast. Either way, your breakfast will probably contain baked beans and make you feel like you gained ten pounds before leaving the house. I’m typically used to grabbing a granola bar for breakfast before I run to class, so this was definitely a shock.

I have yet to have a formal high tea in England, and that’s because the fancy ones cost about 40 pounds (about 60 dollars) per person. But I do love typical teatime foods. The answer is yes, I have tried crumpets, and they are delicious. They’re essentially squishy pieces of bread with lots of nooks and crannies to absorb your butter. English muffins here are just called muffins, and they’re thicker and denser than our English muffins. Scones here are ridiculously cheap (I got a pack of ten for 38 pence, or about 56 cents), and just as delicious. I’ve also noticed pre-cooked waffles and pancakes in the “teatime” section of the grocery store. I’ve yet to unravel that mystery.

And then there’s dinner. I have come to adore fish and chips, and have learned that they always come with peas, whether regular or “mushy.” My favorite food in England, however, is the Cornish pasty, which is a flaky pastry filled with meat, vegetables and sauce. It’s kind of like a portable chicken pot pie, and they serve them at most train stations for cheap. Needless to say, every time I get on a train it’s with pasty in hand.

Although the things I’ve noted are delicious, there are some things that just continue to weird me out. Lemonade here is essentially Sprite. You have to ask for “clouded lemonade” to get real lemonade. The Brits are also big fans of spreads like Marmite or “pickle,” which are essentially bitter, brownish-black vegetable-based spreads you put on sandwiches. I have no idea who could find that appetizing.

Cultural differences are certainly obvious here, but England is a whole different world when it comes to traditional food. And my orientation leader was right — it’s not better or worse, it’s just different, and that’s what I’ve come to love about British life.

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You know how in Evanston, Reading Week either means constant cramming or constant partying right before finals? Prepare to be jealous.

At Goldsmiths, Reading Week is right in the middle of the term. You’re supposed to “catch up on your reading,” but most full-time students go home or just get drunk. For me, Reading Week meant a whirlwind trip through Rome and Paris and a realization that I picked the right place to study abroad.

Before I set off, my friend Sarah, who’s currently studying in Prague, came to visit me in London. I showed her the requisite tourist spots, took her for a full English breakfast (which is massive and includes baked beans) and stopped at museums I’d yet to visit myself. It was nice for once to openly look at London A-Z in the middle of the street and not pretend to be a local.

After three days, it was time for Rome — and the first of two mornings where I woke up before 4 a.m. to catch a plane. The early wake-up was truly worth it once I was enveloped by the 75-degree weather. I’m originally from Florida, so the sun and heat in November felt like home. While in Rome, we ate gelato and pizza every day, visited the Colosseum, the Forum and the Vatican, where we ran into the Pope giving a blessing to a gigantic crowd in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.

If it weren’t for the language barrier, I’d move to Rome immediately. It’s just the perfect mix of nice weather, amazing food and friendly people scattered among ancient ruins. I’m glad, though, that I was just visiting for a few days — the entire city is jam-packed with tourists and people seeking to take advantage of tourists, and I’m sure that gets old pretty quickly.

Speaking of people trying to rip off tourists, our next stop was Paris. I was so excited to see Paris, since taking French during middle school and high school made France seem like paradise. Maybe it was my high expectations, or maybe it was the dreary cold, but I kept wishing we would have stayed in Rome. Not that Paris wasn’t beautiful or interesting — I loved visiting the Louvre and Versailles and climbing the steps of the Eiffel Tower — but it just didn’t sweep me off my feet like I expected. I won’t go on and on about Paris, since you should read Sara’s posts to learn more. Maybe if I had eaten a few more Nutella and banana crepes I would have liked it more. Those always do the trick.

By the last day of our trip, I was exhausted. Late nights and early mornings, combined with constant walking, really wore me down, and I was ready to read signs in English again. I had been to so many art museums that marble statues of naked people began to frustrate me. Overall, I was glad I had the opportunity to visit places I’ve only read about, but it’s also reassuring to know London is the right place for me. When you combine the lack of language barrier with a more laid-back attitude towards tourists, it was refreshing to get on the train from the airport and hear a reassuring “mind the gap.”

Now, on to actually catching up on my reading.

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I’ve hit the halfway point of my time here in London, but my to-do list couldn’t be longer. The list in my planner includes the usual — laundry, grocery shopping, trip planning — but also includes doing required reading from about four weeks ago. I’m well aware that before any of that reading gets crossed off my list, I’ll have crossed everything else off first, then spent about three hours on Facebook and Skype. It’s not that I’m a slacker — well, okay, I admit it, I am. At least here, where the “study” is pretty much removed from “study abroad.”

See, there isn’t one thing that motivates me to do work while I’m at Goldsmiths. First of all, I’m in London for three months and I ought to take advantage of the city. I know I won’t be able to visit every single neighborhood in the city or fly off to every country in Europe, but I feel like if I sit and read, I’m wasting time that I could be spending in museums, markets or restaurants that I’ll never get to see again. Now mind you, instead of reading I often just sleep in, but it’s the principle of the thing, of course.

Also, the academic structure in London universities makes it so easy to procrastinate. Classes meet only once a week for a few hours, and lecturers expect you to do most of your work outside of class. And all of my classes are assessed by just one paper of around 2,500 words, due the tenth week of the term. Until then, I can sit back, relax, and watch all the episodes of Mad Men I missed.

The structure also affects the attitude of my British classmates. Often they’ll stroll into class 15 or 20 minutes late and feel entitled to ask redundant questions, since they didn’t do the reading either. I’ve never seen any of my flatmates doing reading for class, and most of them stay up until 4 a.m. most nights and skip their morning classes. If the full-time students can do this, why shouldn’t I join them?

And it isn’t like Northwestern is combating my laziness. Grades I get while abroad won’t factor into my overall GPA back home — they’ll just show up as transfer credit as long as I earn above the equivalent of a C. It shouldn’t be difficult to get a passing grade on a six-page paper that I have twelve weeks to work on.

Now I’m sure you are playing a tiny invisible violin for me, poor Megan in London with zero midterms or academic stress. I know, I’m really lucky to be in this situation. I’m just afraid that during week nine, I’ll suddenly be buried under the weight of my impending papers and curse the day I decided my academics didn’t matter at Goldsmiths. But that’s so far away, right? I have plenty of time to check Facebook for three more hours.

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Before I begin, an apology: Lots of my posts have been about (and will continue to be about) places other than London. See, the moment I got here I knew I wanted to travel everywhere. England is amazing, yes, but if I just stayed on the island, what good would I have accomplished? I had never been to Europe before this trip, and I plan on taking full advantage of my proximity to cool places and the cheap airfare throughout the continent.

That being said, this past weekend I took a trip to Sweden. Scandinavia doesn’t typically make the list of a study abroad student’s top vacation spots, but I went to visit my cousin Pearl. Pearl is similar to an aunt or a grandmother to me - she’s in her seventies and has lived in Stockholm for almost 28 years. She moved there in her forties and met her Swedish husband Bo (pronounced “Boo”) while she was teaching at an international school there. Pearl and Bo spend half their time in America, so I’ve seen them occasionally through the years. Nobody in my immediate family has trekked to Stockholm to see them before, so I knew I’d get quite a lecture if I was in Europe and didn’t stop by. Plus, free lodging in Sweden! Why not stop by?

I arrived in Stockholm with no expectations. The only references I had in my mind were the Swedish Chef from the Muppets and Ulla from The Producers. (Ironically, there was a production of The Producers going on in Stockholm while I was there.) I was relieved to find that most people speak English very well, and amazed to see the variety of architecture and landscapes there. Stockholm is built upon a series of islands, all connected by bridges, so everything has a view of the water and there are boats docked year-round. Also, Sweden has not been involved in a war for hundreds of years, so buildings have been standing for centuries. And the Swedish language doesn’t sound at all like the Swedish Chef. Sorry to disappoint.

Aside from the great views, my trip was special because I had a chance to connect with Pearl. Over homemade meals (that made me wish I could cook) we constantly chatted, and I found out she wrote a book about one of our distant cousins who was exiled during World War II and that Bo designed water towers for a living before he retired and is also a talented abstract artist. I found out that Pearl and I have a lot in common, from political leanings to thoughts on certain family members. And I got to do this all while strolling through one of the world’s most beautiful capitals. Not too shabby of a family reunion.

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When Northwestern’s study abroad staff e-mailed the list of students studying abroad, I was shocked. I figured I’d be the only person from my school headed to Goldsmiths, but I was very wrong. Instead, I saw 12 other Northwestern students listed as heading to my school. Though I didn’t know any of them very well at the time, the Northwestern students here have helped me to adjust, and some of them have become my good friends.

When I was writing my last blog post, I realized that I can’t have the only perspective of life here. I asked my fellow Wildcats what they thought of their time at Goldsmiths so far. Here are four of their responses, and look out for more throughout the quarter.

Kayce Gentry, Communication junior
On her trip to the Tower of London: It’s a real eye-opener to stand in a building that people have been standing in since 1066. I just kept thinking, how many historical figures that I’ve been reading about since high school have actually walked through this courtyard?
On culture shock: [I get the] feeling that I’m lost in the sort of cultural understanding I took for granted back home, like knowing how the government works, or who the people in power are or in what direction Birmingham is.
On good decisions: I definitely miss my friends at Northwestern, but I’m really glad I decided to do this.

Megan Mueller, Weinberg junior
On her new home: Goldsmiths seemed like a great school to contrast my experiences at NU and take some types of classes that aren’t offered at home.
On surprises: A moment that stands out is walking out of the Westminster Tube station and unexpectedly seeing Big Ben and realizing I’m actually here!
On her wallet: Everything in the city is so expensive!

Nick Carbone, Medill junior
On the neighborhood: New Cross isn’t exactly the most happening area. It’s actually pretty run-down, and there’s little to do besides go to pubs - which, don’t get me wrong, is awesome! Luckily, central London is easily accessible.
On hunger pangs: I’m missing the food choices [in America]. I have a major craving for Chipotle!
On being monitored: It’s weird to think that the Brits have their eye on me everywhere I go. The CCTV [closed-circuit] cameras are everywhere - they are very paranoid about security here. When I sign a credit card receipt, they make sure the signatures precisely match.

Margy LaFreniere, Weinberg junior
On fashion: My homestay father asked me, “Do Americans really wear bright colors?”
On adjusting: Little things are harder here. You can’t get webisodes of The Office. The light switches are upside down. The metric system makes food complicated. Normal stuff is just a bit different.
On missing NU: I miss the diversity of extracurriculars and lectures at Northwestern. There is just so much available to students at NU. It’s much more specialized here. Also, you know, friends!

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Hamish the Hairy Coo is a cow. That’s it. He’s a cow (the word coo means cow in Gaelic, the original Scottish language), and I spent a solid 15 minutes taking pictures of him this weekend. I loved every minute of that photo shoot.

That experience pretty much personifies this past weekend’s trip to Scotland, where I visited Edinburgh and the Highlands with a group of about 50. The trip was sponsored by Arcadia University, the school that arranged my study abroad program. On this trip, we saw castles and heard lots of history, but it was the tiny things that really excited me.

Exhibit A: Our tour guide. Yes, he had an almost scary knowledge of Scottish history. But really, all I cared about was how he looked. He rocked a blue and green kilt each day, accompanied by black hiking boots and wavy hair that reached past his shoulders. Whenever we followed him around, it basically created a huge sign above us that said “We’re tourists!” But it didn’t matter, because he was awesome. Apparently he got really drunk one night with some students and got into a fight with a bar owner, all while wearing zebra-striped pajama pants. So that’s something to think about.

Exhibit B: Scottish names. Everything that has a name in Scotland is either adorable, impossible to pronounce, or both. This always made street signs exciting. On the cute front is a (technically English) town right below the border called Berwick-upon-Tweed, where we assumed everyone had to walk on fabric, and Granny’s Green Steps, which was just a big staircase connecting one street to another in Edinburgh. On the impossible-to-pronounce front was pretty much everything else, including towns like Pitlochry and the word loch itself, meaning lake,which requires a ton of phlegm to pronounce.

Sure, Hamish had a backstory. Apparently he was about to be killed to prevent the spread of Mad Cow disease, but Scottish schoolchildren protested, so he was spared. But as touching as that story is, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that our itinerary just said “Hamish the Hairy Coo,” and nobody on the bus had any idea what that meant. It could have been a castle for all we knew, but it ended up being a pretty cool farm animal.

What I love the most about Scotland, aside from its gorgeous mountains, is its tiny quirks that make it so different from England. While England, at times, can just seem like America with better accents but no Chipotle, Scotland felt a lot different. And since I’m going to be traveling most weekends from now on, it was a good transition to what’s ahead.

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Being in London means countless opportunities to go sightseeing. I’ve enjoyed indulging in my tourist tendencies by visiting Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the like. Being in London also means that my friends studying abroad elsewhere want to come and see me. I obviously love seeing them, but I have to take each friend on the same obligatory tour of the tourist traps. This weekend I played host to a friend from Northwestern who’s studying in Scotland. It was tons of fun to meet up with her, but it meant I had to make repeat trips to Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and St. James Park.

Now, these sights are gorgeous and worth a repeat visit, but this time each visit took twice as long. Why? Because every time she or her three friends saw something remotely pretty, the moment became a five-minute photoshoot. At the end of the day, each girl had at least 50 pictures through which to sort on her camera. Most of these pictures were identical - 10 of Big Ben, three of the Thames, and 30 of ducks at the park.

I understand the appeal of snapping away. After all, digital cameras make it easy to choose your favorite duck photo out of 50, and delete the rest later. But the problem with this invention is that it makes tourism only about taking pictures. Why can’t people just take in the sight with their own eyes, maybe take a picture of themselves in front of it to prove they were there, and then move on? It seems like the sole purpose for paying to tour the Tower of London is to take pictures of the Crown Jewels.

People, pictures already exist of Big Ben. I swear. You can buy one on a postcard for 10 pence at any shop in London. Or you can get cool-looking ones on Flickr for free! Buckingham Palace has been photographed at every angle imaginable, so trust me, you’re not being creative with your shot. And honestly, your friends want to hear your cool stories about your trip, not see a Facebook album entitled “London Part 60.”

And get this — you’ll enjoy yourself more without your camera. For example, when we toured Westminster Abbey, cameras were prohibited inside. Everyone put their cameras away, grabbed the audio tour headset and walked around breathlessly while taking in the church’s beauty. Everything felt so peaceful, especially as the choir began to practice while we were sitting in pews, facing Sir Isaac Newton’s grave. I guarantee that the moment would have been ruined with camera flashes.

Look, I’m not going to yell at you if you genuinely enjoy taking pictures every second you’re in a new city. But it wouldn’t hurt to turn off your PowerShot, take a deep breath, and just take in your surroundings. Travel is about the stories you make, not the size of your subsequent photo albums. Yes, things are pretty, and it’s okay to document them. But be considerate of those around you, and of yourself. You may only be in London, Paris, or even Chicago once, so treasure the time you’re there.

And if you must constantly take pictures, for the love of all that is holy, limit it to one Facebook album. My news feed doesn’t need any more clutter.

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Luckily, over the past two weeks I’ve managed to hit up a good chunk of London’s touristy finest. Camera in hand, I visited Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and more. So consider the below slideshow my way of remembering what was — the immense amounts of free time I had before I received my encyclopedia-sized course packs.

Thursday marked the 21st anniversary of my birth. If I were in the States, it would mean my first (legal) voyage to Hundo or the Keg. But on the first day of orientation (back when I was still 20), I went to a pub and there were people there younger than me. The drinking age here is technically 18 and, though the country is tightening restrictions a bit, it’s not too difficult to get alcohol as a teenager. Essentially, underage drinking in England happens at a much younger age than it does in the U.S., and the 21st birthday is not a big milestone.

Luckily, there are at least 50 or 60 Americans here at Goldsmiths as visiting students and I’m sure more than a few of them have faced or will face a similar situation. So I teamed up with six or so of my American friends and we headed to Central London. Our destination was a club called On Anon –in Piccadilly Circus, the Times Square of London– where they were having a special student night, so we knew we creepy older people would be minimal. Plus, good drink specials. Overall, I had a great time, and stayed out all night — but I still got home before most of my flatmates.

Drinking is a tremendous part of British culture, and that goes double for university students. Maybe it’s because classes don’t start until Monday, but for now Loring Hall is like Bobb-McCulloch on steroids. It’s extremely rare to see my flatmates sober after 7 p.m., especially because you can buy a pack of Stella or Strongbow (a potent and yummy cider) for a few pounds at the supermarket across the street. Call me a goody two-shoes, but at Northwestern I’m not exactly the hardest partier. I have a few drinks every once in a while, but I’m not the type to stumble down Sheridan every night. It’s different here, though — I mean, I can just walk into the nearest pub for a pint, and it’s no big deal. Even if it’s at noon.

Drinking in England will be a good experience for me, since the British university drinking culture is kind of similar to the over-21 American drinking culture. Sure, people still get smashed (or in their lingo, “pissed”) here, but it doesn’t have to be hidden in a dorm room or shuffled off-campus. When it’s legal for you to get alcohol, it kind of loses that rebellious appeal. I like it that way — the attitude towards alcohol here is that if you’re used to it, you won’t abuse it. And even though that may not be true for my flatmates — or the denizens of the club Thursday night — it’s a good lesson to take in.

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