As for the last week or so (sans internet, whoa!), here’s how it’s boiled down. Pretty much I sat down and wrote a bit each night, which makes for fun:
2010.01.02
I spent the Saturday with members of Tzu Chi in London. The family that hosted the event (who also essentially entertained me for the day) for the day were really kind, and it was an all-around good day. Food, some Scrabble, and getting to know people. Granted, I don’t think actively participating in Tzu Chi is in my plans for my time in London, but it was nice to see how they operated in comparison to the branch that I was previously involved in back in Ohio, which is very active (and much larger, in fact).
2010.01.03
This day was reserved for wandering around Westminster. It was awesome. Got off the Tube at Green Park and wandered down through St. James’s Park and around Buckingham Palace. It’s a huge area, and it’s quite breathtaking. From the Buckingham Palace stuff, this picture of the gold angel on the very top of the fountain (if I remember correctly) was really neat looking:
Afterwards, I essentially wandered around the park to arrive in Westminster. Unfortunately, my camera batteries were suffering greatly at this point and therefore there are pictures few and far between at this point. But walking around, this ivy-covered wall was especially interesting:
In attempting to alleviate the “dead camera batteries” problem, I ventured around Westminster itself to see if I could pick them up for cheap. The answer is no, not at all. £6.00 around for a set of four AA batteries. A total rip off. I went into one store and asked their price. I was told around £6.00. I looked unconvinced. And then he pressed and said another cheap set was £6.00 for eight. Still, that’s ridiculously expensive. Still looking unconvinced, the clerk pressed me and said, “Well, what are you buying?” and to fend him off I just said, “I’m just looking, thanks,” and left. So a mental note: convenience store clerks will aggressively get you to cave in and spend loads of money on cheap stuff. DON’T DO IT. Do not become Andy Bernard selling his Xterra to Dwight for $1500 (or whatever it was...grossly undervalued). I figure that these clerks or whatnot know a tourist and try to pick on them, so do not do that.
Also, I picked up a cell phone. It’s a ridiculously cheap and poopy £5 phone. In the interest of maintaining phone privacy on a very public internet, I can give it to you if you so desire. It’s free for me to receive calls, so call! Or something like that.
Somehow I was extremely tired at about 2pm, and after a quick lunch I called it a day and returned to the hotel. That itself was an absurdly long journey, lasting two hours just to return.
But this day was significant in one respect. For those of you who know me, I loves me some Wilco. But recently I had not really ever pulled out any of their records and listened to it coming out totally enraptured by the experience. That changed today when I put on A Ghost Is Born and walked around Buckingham Palace and St. James’s Palace. I was just pretty blown away by the combination of both the music and the view. And yea, it verily came to pass that I am back in cahoots with Wilco.
2010.01.04
Finally, this day I got to meet Arcadia people. It’s been a strange experience, I suppose. Not in the sense that the people are terrible, but the realization is that if I’m by myself, I better be making friends, and historically that has never been easy for me. But in some sense most people are in a similar boat as mine, so it’s gone over well. This day mostly consisted of wandering around the area around the hotel (before and after the initial Arcadia meeting) and going to a pub for the first time. Well, for me, I went twice, once for lunch and once after dinner (for a beer). You really can’t go wrong with a Guinness...let’s be perfectly honest. Just a sort of relaxing night. Given that nighttime comes early, though, that also means the nights end early. Like, let’s say, before 9pm on the whole.
2010.01.05
This day was more of the bread and butter regarding orientation. There was a general culture orientation. Here’s the crazy thing:
Milky Way bars as we know them in the States are Mars bars here in the UK. Three Musketeers bars as we know them in the States are Milky Way bars in the UK. Why? Because the Brits hate the French. That’s it. A “Three Musketeers” bar would apparently never sell well here in the UK. It’s just weird. I feel as if the US doesn’t really hate the French. The US just feels like the French are a load of pansies. There’s no real hatred there in actuality, though.
After that, everyone broke for lunch. After a quick lunch, me among a group of people went and stopped by the Natural History museum they have. If you thought the Natural History museum in the US was legit, wait until you see England’s. It blows it out of the water, and that’s only after seeing a couple of the exhibits. More specimens, more species, more everything. It’s just that impressive. Also, the other thing: except for the odd museum, they’re all FREE. So, totally awesome, a great free way to kill an afternoon. With regards to the Natural History museum, I think that taking a week to knock it all off is not really out of the question.
Then there was a meeting with two MPs (members of Parliament): one from the House of Commons and one from the House of Lords. Both of them were, to compare them to here, left of center. The House of Commons representative was from the Labour Party, so that approximates to a Democrat. The House of Lords representative was from the Liberal Democrats Party, which approximates to slightly right of left, but reasonably close to the center. The Conservative Party, which is exactly what it sounds like, conspicuously did not have a representative of this session. The meeting was altogether nifty, the system differences are quite great (the UK does not have a written Constitution, though some call for it). And there’s a watershed election coming up, apparently. The Labour Party may become the minority party to the Conservatives. There do exist more than two parties in the UK, which is significantly different from the US.
After that was a walk around a bit of Westminster which led us to the Globe Theatre. The older versions of it hosted Shakespeare’s plays before facing the wrath of higher powers and burning down. The new one, which is a hardcore recreation of the oldest one, is cool, and to see a Shakespeare play there (the current one does mostly Shakespeare) would be awesome. There would have been a great amount of picture-taking, but I was not aware of the sightseeing and did not have it handy, so I suppose I must come back some other time.
After a traditional English dinner where I had sausages and mash (“Oh, I forgot, in the colonies you call it a ‘sausage in the mouth’”), me and some other abroad students going to UCL went wandering around for a bit. We walked across the Millennium Bridge which was awesome (if you don’t know what it is, just think of the sixth Harry Potter movie where in the beginning the Death Eaters destroy a bridge. It’s that one, I’m almost certain). We ended up around St. Paul’s Cathedral, but obviously being late we did not observe. Around there is a financial district. The goal was to find a ratty and mangy pub, but being in a business district is not quite conducive. We did find a quaint, small pub known as Nicholson’s, where I tried some ale known as Mandle, if I remember correctly. It was not bad at all. It was about equivalent to Blue Moon, so in the “ale” category of beers.
Of course, we were back by 9 o’clock or so, since still no one’s body clock is currently matched up in the least. So that was that day.
2010.01.06
More Arcadia meetings. Apparently professors don’t command the same respect in the classroom in the UK than in the US. In the UK, kids blab on all day, text all day, and all sorts of shenanigans rather than listening to lecturers. That’s totally weird. Also, less time spent in class. This is exciting, but it also implies that procrastinating will get me killed much, much worse here than back home.
And then I moved in to my real location. For those of you with my address, it turns out a room number is NOT necessary (mail is sorted by last name), the address given is good enough, so mail me something awesome. Or not. I’ve been put up into a flat, which is basically a hallway with adjoining rooms and then a kitchen and a couple of bathrooms coming off of it. The bedrooms are rather small, but I should not have expected anything less. I need to organize it, though. Like, I need to be very womanly and get containers to organize my clothes because I wasn’t given a dresser. There’s not enough room for one, really, so I’ve got to improvise. But here’s my room:
Not a whole lot going on. The rest of the night consisted of going around to the local supermarket and picking up some necessary stuff. Still...not done yet. Watching my wallet get lighter will not be a particularly pleasant experience.
Tomorrow, UCL orientation starts! Cool, ya know.
2010.01.07
Alright. So while it’s still fresh in my head, here’s how today boiled down to...
Orientation started at 1330 but I arrived at 1230 to wander around a bit and see if I could use the library computers and get internet as a guest. The answer is no, sadly. Of course, at Thompson Library, I would have been able to access internet as a guest, but alas, not meant to be.
But orientation for international students happened, and it was a whole lot of talking, but it definitely appears like there are a whole lot of opportunities that I can take advantage of to make my time here as awesome as it will ever be. Like, uh, Harry Potter tours and the ilk.
After orientation was an orientation reception at the Phineas Bar, which is in UCLU (UCL Union). Here’s what I’ve learned about the whole thing, as it sounds incredibly strange:
Quite obviously, you only need to be 18 to buy alcohol in the UK.
The campus bars are subsidized by taxpayers in the UK.
This means cheaper beer, and hopefully providing a safe environment for alcohol consumption. Of course, given Americans and the need to “rebel” or just get supremely hammered, this isn’t necessarily the case.
I did, however, meet a ton of people. Granted, I hardly remember any their names, but my guess is that is really the pub or bar atmosphere. You kind of drink a bit, meet loads of people, but contact is never really on a substantive level, really. There was free wine at the orientation reception, which could explain the particularly cheery atmosphere.
After that, a whole bunch of people (myself included) went to a bar and/or pub place, whose name I never really learned, though it is on the corner of Tottenham Ct. and University St., which is about as good as I can give you. It was cool, meeting a ton of other international students, in addition to a few locals and getting to chat with them. With British people, it’s quite interesting as many of them enjoy meeting Americans and learning about them and the culture. As an American, I’m slightly surprised by this turn of events as American culture is sort of like a cesspool at the moment (at least in my opinion, though there are many bright spots).
But after that, it was done. It’s currently 2345 as I finish this day’s entry. I didn’t drink a whole lot tonight, my estimation is two pints of Guinness plus some free wine, which put me in a perfect state with which to not be totally sober and curmudgeonly, but not enough to be drunk in the least and embarrassing then. Tomorrow is the day that my internet problems are resolved, so there will not be such mega-entries like this one.
See you soon (contact me!).
NP: Bob Dylan - Modern Times
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