Athena Sobhan

It has taken seven weeks of being in London to realize that I have to be studying.  You maybe asking yourself, “How is Athena so dumb that she forgot about studying?” which I would then answer, one, don’t be rude, and two, I have been studying, but some of my work started to be due this week and its brought me back to reality.

Since I had a presentation and a midterm in class this week, I opted out of exploring as much and took time to work on school work.  For my midterm, my friend and I went to the Timberyard Cafe in Covent Garden to study.  I had a lovely cinnamon and spice tea with a salted caramel brownie to help to get my brain cells working (sort of, but it was still delicious). 

I personally thought that the midterm went pretty well for the most part.  I may or may not have forgotten to study the spelling and the names of the painting… (let’s be real, I forgot) BUT, I did the best I could.  

In my British Life and Culture class, we discussed British media, which I was excited about since I am studying communications and would be going into the mass media field.  One of the main things I noticed while my time here in London was that newspapers were everywhere, on the tube, the bus, in the streets, everywhere.  Newspapers are a huge part of London life, I have even found myself grabbing a free paper for myself and reading it on my commute. Even though in the lecture it was mentioned that the readership of newspapers has decreased thanks to the news moving to the internet, it felt like people were still reading newspapers anyway.  

With my midterm and presentation out of the way, I began to prepare for my short trip to Cambridge.  

One of my cousins a few weeks back graciously offered to buy my coach ticket to take a trip with her to meet up with our cousin and her husband who live in Cambridge and I graciously accepted.  We planned to meet at Victoria Station and walk to the coach station together to take the bus there, however her train was delayed and we ended up getting to the station late and missing the coach.  We took the next bus and arrived at their house in the evening.  

The next morning, I went with my cousin’s husband to visit the university and other parts of the town’s center.  Her husband went to grad school at Cambridge and was able to get me into different parts of the university for free, which was nice since admission was quite pricey.  He showed me around Trinity College in Cambridge and some of the areas he would go to when he was a student.  It was a bit of a hazy day, but it was still nice enough with all the punters out on the river and all the families out, enjoying the weather.  Unfortunately, we only could stay a night so we left after sightseeing. 

 It has been really nice to be able to meet my family and spend time with them, especially since this is the first time that I have been away from home for so long.  The sense of familiarity and support has played an important part in my overall experience and everyone has treated me so well and I feel so grateful for having that support system available.  

Well thats all for this week!  I am actually writing this post while on the train towards Edinburgh, which you guys will hear about all next week!  Cheers for now lovelies!!