harrods tea&sweets, the tube, brighton pier, to-die-for marks&spencer tea cakes, olympic 2012 stadium, victoria&albert museum, delicious cassis&hibiscus from marks+spencer, green park

English breakfast tastes like darjeeling… I found more England photos I forgot I had! So here they are, last ones I promise. I miss Marks + Spencer terribly and I think Brighton is so pretty. I still have to buy that TeenVogue copy with Alexa Chung the day we spotted her at the pier doing the photoshoot. My one regret: not buying enough mango black tea from Harrods because it is delicious and extremely fragrant. 

I have finals week coming up next week and if I survive, I will be taking my camera for an adventure this December. That means a brand new photodiary series for all of you and it will have nothing to do with Paris, Scotland, or London. I’m excited, this time of my life will be extremely special to me.

ENGLAND PHOTODIARY. Honestly, where do I even begin?

I took a summer abroad program through my university to study design (mainly exhibition + a bit of graphics). We stayed in York but traveled to different parts of England for the first two weeks. The last two weeks were spent in Scotland and London, then I spent my 5th week in Paris for fun (but I’ll post photos of that later!). During our two week stay in Yorkshire, we went to Liverpool, Manchester, Whitby, Bradford, and Wakefield. We spent a majority of our class time in different types museums and narrative environments, so I definitely got to see a lot of art & design.

I love the fact that you can just take the rail through out England and end up in a different city (or country). Some people & I went to Manchester to celebrate a birthday and then went to Liverpool the next day. I actually liked Liverpool and had delicious fish + chips at the Pump House by the water. I enjoyed the little coastal town of Whitby as well— it was very cute. Besides consuming fish & chips, we had loads of sandwiches and coffee because we were always on the go. I definitely enjoyed our sit down meals and afternoon tea as well. Writing about this makes me hungry. I already miss M+S tea cakes and elderflower presse… Why don’t they have these things in America? I’m going to check out World Market to see if they have the presse, but I’m probably out of luck.

Goodbye London. My stay was too short… but now it’s time to explore Paris!

English weather, why so gloomy? Clock by a little shopping area in York.

York, England. One of the owls outside Topshop & Marks and Spencer.

Scones & jam. Breakfast at La Patisserie Valerie in York, England.

Campus. Well, for 1.5 more weeks at least… lack of updates because I’m busy. The last 5 photos were taken from the beautiful, green quad. Today I went to Wakefield & Bradford and then I’m going to Manchester for the weekend!

from sunny California to gloomy Chicago… I’m not a huge fan of O’Hare.

airplane meals and “coffee with milk and sugar please”

amazing how we can be with the clouds. i didn’t sleep during my flight, but i kept looking outside. i can never get over how great it is to be up in the sky.

flying over the Atlantic… it’s sort of felt like being in a time machine going fast forward

after a miserable time running around Heathrow looking for people, I caught the tube and got off at King’s Cross

took the train from London to York, which was about two hours of English countryside scenery. The fields we passed by sort of reminded me of California… except with more shades of green and purple (lavender fields I think). I’m pretty sure a few of us agreed the countryside looks lusher than what we have back home.

a group of us met at King’s Cross, took the train together, and arrived at York St. John University, where we will be staying for two weeks until we go to Scotland.

it’s a small, but beautiful campus— more photos later!


& here’s my empty room 

York, England. It’s only been three days since I got here, but so far, my time in England has been amazing. I’m not really jet-lagged anymore, my body just hurts (feet from walking, shoulders from carrying my luggage)… so yeah, I’m just really tired. Class started today and I can tell that I won’t really have a lot of time updating this blog… (I don’t want to be online too much yet I don’t really want to have a crap load of photos to upload later). I don’t really want to forget small details of my trip either, which will happen anyway if I don’t keep up with writing on my notebook or in here. My first priority is class, and when that’s not happening, I want to explore the town as much as I can.

York has been around for a really, really long time. Ancient romans lived here and built surrounding city walls (which got destroyed at one point but rebuilt during the Victorian Era— I think?) Anyways, it’s super rich in history and you’re much better off reading about it online… there’s so much to say about it and I’m still learning more! Honestly, I didn’t really care much about this place when I first heard about it, but my mind has definitely changed since I got here. The city is very quaint, but it’s super busy. All of the buildings have a lot of character and there are so many restaurants/cafes/bakeries/stores… there’s two of everything here (loads of phone stores— two Orange’s in the same street [AT&T equivalent?], several Caffe Neros [reminded me of Starbucks], Boots [pharmacy], Marks and Spencer, York Hogroast, Cornish Pasty Bakery… Basically, this city is small enough that you can walk everywhere but since there are two of the same store in such a small proximity, it was definitely confusing at first. I’m not so bad at directions, but it’s taking me a while to find my way around. We usually just look for the York Minister to find our dorm.. A couple of us explored and checked out the retail stores [Topshop (that had Miss Selfridge), Mulberry, Vivienne Westwood, Cath Kidston, New Look, Republic…]. Oh, they have T.K. Maxx here instead of T.J. Maxx. They spell Claritin as ‘Clarityn’ and instead of Lays Chip they call it ‘Walkers’.

One thing that surprised me: it’s sooooooooo hot and humid here. The weather is definitely not pleasant and makes walking around difficult. The locals said it’s unusual weather… I hate the rain but I would probably trade that for this disgusting humidity.