Hello from London!

I've arrived safely (and with both suitcases!) to jolly old England! The first few days have been a whirlwind, but also really exciting, despite the jet lag. There is so much to see and do here in London, and in all of Europe, that I'm glad I have four months to fit it all in! I'm going to try and get it all down here, which probably means this post will be far too long. But if its any incentive to keep reading, there will be several photos to go with the info. :)

The flight from DC to London went smoothly and I even slept a bit, which was nice, because we had a full day ahead of us once we arrived in England. Traffic meant that it took over an hour to get to the flats in Clerkenwell, where we had some time to unpack before going on our first walk to the London Centre, our classroom building. It's about a 45 minute walk and let me tell you, crossing the street here is an adventure in itself. At every crosswalk, there are directions written on the ground so that confused pedestrians like myself know which way to look and (hopefully) don't get run over by the cars driving on the wrong side of the street.


Orientation for 130 jet-lagged college students probably isn't the best idea, but it was definitely exciting to hear about all the cool places we are going to go this semester. And it doesn't hurt that most of the people involved in the London Program either have a fabulous British accent or are very witty, or both.

And on Friday night, Dan, Dan, Kaitlin and I went to our first British pub of the semester, The Horseshoe. It was a really cool local place, just a few minutes' walk from the flat. I tried John Smith's Ale (or something like that...see Dan's blog for any and all brew related accuracies...http://londanblog.blogspot.com/). A perfect end to my first day in London.

Friday's orientation was equally sleep-inducing, but I registered for classes and luckily got everything I wanted (more to come in a future post). Dinner was an adventure for those of us who no longer have a dining hall to depend on. Dan and Kaitlin and I went to Tesco's, the grocery store down the street to grab a pizza to cook. If only we knew how to turn the oven on. After almost an hour, several failed attempts, and Dan almost resorting to microwaving the pizza, we successfully turned the oven on. We're still not sure how we did it.
But luckily enough, we had thought to buy some french bread and nutella (thanks Dan!), which is basically chocolate peanut butter and the most wonderful thing in the world, so we devoured that while waiting for some pizza. And then it was time to hit the pub, because that's what the Brits do. Tonight's drink of choice was pear cider at a pub called The Peasant.

Saturday was a day for adventure. And a lot of walking. I don't think my feet have recovered yet. I'm thinking I will be in excellent shape before the semester is through. At least I hope so. Gotta counteract all that nutella somehow...
The Dans (that one's for you Michele!), Kaitlin, Kelly, Megan, and I got up early and braved a walk through the rain to Leicester Square, where we got half-price tickets to the theatre (imagine me saying this in a British accent). We picked the cheapest one, because we're poor college students in the most expensive city in the world (which is fabulous, if you couldn't tell yet). It was called Nation and we were expecting it to be something regal, about royalty wearing wigs. But more on that later.
We browsed in the National Gallery, where I saw actual Van Gogh and Picasso paintings. The colors were so beautiful! After stopping at the London Centre for a quick lunch and Googlemap's confirmation that we knew where we were going, we headed towards the River Thames. No, not the Thames River, but the River Thames. Because we are British now, after all. Walking across one of the many bridges over the river, we got a great view of the London Eye and Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

Then a walk along the river to Borough Market, where there is basically everything you could imagine: fruits, veggies, fish, ment, cheese, cheesecake, candy, meat. Even a couple birds for sale with the feathers still on them. I kept walking. Quickly.
We stopped in a beautiful church on the way out, where they claim that Shakespeare once worshipped. And then of course there was St. Paul's Cathedral, which was so tall and beautiful. Our feet were too tired to climb the more than 600 stairs to the top, so we decided to save that for another day.

Dinner was at another pub up the street, and its name is now escaping me (Again, refer to Dan, haha). However, it is definitely my new favorite and I think the Saturday Exploring gang may head back tomorrow night for their Monday Night drink specials. And then it was across the river again to see Nation.

And no, there were no gray wigs or queens or kings. Instead Nation was a crazy, trippy story of an English girl stranded on an island with the natives after a tsunami. But that's not all. Throw in a rotating stage with really cool sets, the devil, a parrot, a god named Emo, some random singing in what was not supposed to be a musical, and dancing and swearing that did not fit the advertisement that said "family entertainment." There was far to much plot and it was just a little weird. And despite a line or two that assumed the audience was too dense to realize that the rotating stage represented a globe, we still LOVED it. That just seems like the type of thing to do when you are abroad, get tickets to a random show that you can never see anywhere else. And lucky for us, it turned out to be great.

So I'd say that part one of the adventure is going pretty well so far. :)
More to come as the adventures come my way!