My first taste of London

Well, I’ve been in London for two and half days now, and I am loving it so much. We arrived shortly after noon on Friday and unpacked a bit. My friend Isabel and I are sharing a room. It’s nice, but quite small. We have a little sink, two large windows, one small dresser and one small wardrope, a little table, a nightstand, two chairs, and two beds. And a radiator to keep us warm. And a lovely green patterned carpet. Anyways, after a bit, we went out with Laura Jackson (one of our TAs) to the atm and the store, called Tesco. I got shampoo and toothpaste and stuff like that and Isabel and I bought bread and peanut butter and apples to share for lunches. And I paid with real British money! It was quite exciting to pay in pounds and pence. After dinner, we stayed up a little longer, but then went to sleep around 7:30 because we were so exhausted and jet lagged. We were going to get up at a decent hour the next morning to eat breakfast and everything before our ten o’clock meeting, but Isabel’s alarm didn’t go off, and so we didn’t wake up until 9:58, at which point we jumped out of bed and into our clothes and ran downstairs. After the meeting, which was full of information and rules about the Highbury Centre (which is where we’re staying) and things like that, we got ready for our first big excursion. Our whole group (twenty-five students and three professors and two TAs and two professor’s children) got on a red double-decker bus and took the bus to central London. We got off right by St. Paul’s Cathedral. We had about 45 minutes to explore on our own and then we started walking as a group. On our walk, we saw St. Paul’s Cathedral, crossed the Millenium foot bridge, saw Tate Modern, the Globe Theatre, the London Eye, a couple of street performers painted as and acting like statues, Westminster Bridge, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, the Horseguard’s Palace, and a glimpse of Buckingham Palace. Josie (the daughter of the Professors Lipscomb) held my hand for much of the walk and I greatly enjoyed her enthusiastic chatter. Later she and her brother Ernie held both my hands and we pretended to be rabbits and skipped and ran. It was great fun, but rather exhausting. I’m finally starting to feel like I’m in London though, and it’s so wonderful! Also, the voice that I always imagine my thoughts in has become exceedingly British. As I write this, I can hear the words going through my head in a British accent. It’s amusing. I'll save more for the next post. Ta ta!