Fourth of July Weekend!

Happy fourth of July!!


So far it's been a great weekend. Friday night was great as I got to socialize with some of the MSU students here and even meet some new people from England. I met one man in particular who lives and was born in London. I figured I would ask him about great things to see and do there since we will be going there next weekend! I was surprised that he suggested rather "touristy" places to see like the London Eye and the Tower of London. He then told me that if I really want to experience London I should see a football match. I think I'll have to do more research still about activities to do because from what I hear from the locals, the football matches can get PRETTY rowdy!

Today was some pretty awful weather. It rained hard all day and was very windy. Since our planned trip to Tintagel didn't pan out (climbing 100 steep steps up towards a castle sounded a little dangerous to us in this weather), we decided venture around the city of Plymouth. I went to Drake Circus to see how the shopping experience was here. This was particularly interesting for me because back in Michigan I work at a mall. It was very interesting to compare the customer service here to back home. It's strange that sales associates rarely greet customers when entering the stores here in Plymouth. Back at home this is a very important aspect of my job. The sizes were another thing to get used to. Apparently I have a size 5 shoe and am a 10 in tops.

I've also noticed that in credit and debit cards here in England there is a chip embedded in it. There is a machine used at the cash register in which the bottom half of your card is scanned instead of having to swipe your card through. Every time I bought something today I had to explain that my card didn't have a chip in it and that it needed to be swiped because I am from the US.

Walking around today reminded me of how expensive things truly are here as compared to back home. It's interesting to talk to people here about how the US is having rising gas prices. They laugh about how we are complaining about the price of our gas while their gas here is nearly $10 a gallon!


I feel like I've learned so much on this trip already, and I can't wait until next week when I will get to go into the Elementary Schools!


Cheers,
Tara