University of Arkansas Office of Study Abroad: Fulham Football Game + A Perfect London Day #HogsAbroad in England #TravelTuesday

Let me just start off by saying I think it’s crazy that I’ve already been here over a month now!! It’s going by so fast; I feel like while I have done a lot, I also still have so much to do!

FULHAM FC GAME

What better way to experience what it’s like to be British than to go to a local football game? This was another Arcadia excursion (they seriously are the best) and I ended up buying the ticket last minute because as a self-proclaimed professional soccer *ahem football* supporter (S/O to my bro Tyler) I needed to go see a game. And while I would have preferred to see a Premiere League game, those are really hard to get tickets too, not to mention expensive, so this served my purpose well. (I actually turned down tickets to see a HUGE game between Manchester United and Arsenal, a team based out of London, because they ended up being £210!!!) On Saturday, we traveled to the stadium in Fulham (which is in the southwest corner of the city), bought pints of beer and watched what turned out to be a really exciting game against Preston! They ended up tying up the game in the last 30 seconds of the game! The atmosphere was definitely exciting, and I didn’t think it was much different than being at a big college football game back in the states. I did get a kick out of this little boy behind me yelling about how Fulham kept playing like “schoolboys” haha.

On Sunday, I had breakfast with one of my friends; we went to a place nearby that had really good reviews called Table Cafe. I got pumpkin and roasted pecan pancakes (the menu said pancakes, but clearly there is only one), and my friend got a blueberry waffle.

It was yummy, but wasn’t super pumpkin-y. And now that its the middle of October I’m craving ALL the pumpkin things. You can find actual pumpkins in a few markets around here, but canned pumpkin is nonexistent. Which is really unfortunate for me who just really wants to make pumpkin bread, and pumpkin cookies, and pumpkin oatmeal, and pumpkin soup… the list goes on. Soooo last Wednesday I actually went and bought a pumpkin with the goal of making my own pumpkin puree. (If you can imagine me carrying this big pumpkin for 15 minutes through the busy streets of London – hahaha) That was today’s project. And while I got the added bonus of roasting pumpkin seeds, I never want to have to cut a pumpkin into tiny pieces ever again. I was successful in making the puree though, so stay tuned for how and when I use it!!

After breakfast (sorry back to Sunday) I had to go “top up” my phone plan. My phone situation is that I’m using an old iPhone of mine, and I got a British SIM card put in it when I got here in order to have a British phone number and most importantly, have a data plan. It’s my understanding that pretty much all of the carriers here have super reasonable plans, but I was told to go with a carrier called Three. For £15 per month, I get 3000 minutes, 3000 texts, and 5 gigabytes of data. Which is a pretty great deal. Having data here is so nice for 2 reasons 1. I can use map apps and google when I’m out and about to find places and figure out how to get there instead of trying to plan it beforehand. It really allows you to be more spontaneous and I think it gives you more freedom because you’ll always know how to get somewhere and be able to figure out what to do in a certain area. 2. Having data allows me to be able to use iMessage… even when I’m NOT in Wifi! I had no idea about this one. Apparently, because iMessage is hooked up through some data connection (which is normally in the form of Wifi) it can also use a little bit of the data plan to still send messages. This is obviously great because it allows me to stay in better contact with my friends and family back home! Yay!

Ok onto yesterday. On Mondays I don’t have class so on these days I’m literally like welp Katie what do you want to go and see today. And the answer yesterday was the Victoria and Albert Musuem!!

VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

This place was amazing. It’s a museum of art and design, but they actually use the pieces as they were meant to be used, as decor, and not just in rows for people to look at. The Museum used to be called the South Kensington Museum and it was created as a way to give people more access to art from all around the world. A huge amount of the collection is actually copies and replicas, but they did this in order to make these pieces more available for students and tradesmen to learn from.