School and Shakespeare

Wow! It's hard to believe it has already been two weeks since I've been in London! This week began with scheduling some of our first trips to visit a few of the other lovely cities that Europe has to offer! So up first comes a trip to Paris next weekend! I could not be more excited, but first lets get to what happened this week here, in London!!
This week also began the first full week of classes. For my English class I must read a book for every class, which results in my reading of two books per week for the next few weeks. Although it will be quite a bit of reading I am excited to have an inside glance into contemporary British literature and what titles have been popular over the last few years on this side of the pond. One of the best parts of the class is getting to meet the authors of each of the books we read. So far we have only met the first author, Stephen Brown, of the first work we read, which was a play titled Future Me. In my Journalism class we have mainly focused on learning about the political system in the UK and how Parliament functions. We have also discussed the wide variety of print media that the city of London reads every day. Did you know that in one day you could pick from 10 different newspapers when choosing to buy your paper in the morning?
On Tuesday Leah and I got to see the show Richard II at the Barbican Theatre. Naturally being the newbies that we are to London, we left for the theatre probably later than we should have and once the tube that we were riding got delayed a few minutes we ended up arriving late to the show. After running around the Barbican Center for a good five minutes we finally located the correct theatre and made our way to find our seats. Since the show had already started we had to wait until a quick scene change to open the door to our row and find our seats. Well, when the time came of course we opened the door to complete and utter darkness with little aisle room to locate our exact two seats... long story short there was only one seat open in our row and Leah and I shared a seat for the first act of the show, which of course ended up being two hours long! Yes TWO hours long people! Basically I got a really good workout for about two hours where I was half sitting on the arm of the seat and half sitting on Leah, so it was a good time. Once intermission came we felt a huge sigh of relief when the British lady sitting next to us voiced her concern over my uncomfortable situation (the whole time I thought she was going to attack us once the lights went up) and we eventually made our way to our actual seats. Anyhow, the second act was great once I had my tush in my own seat... this evening will certainly be one for the books!
This week I also discovered a small street, which has become my favorite street in all of Kensington. The street is Stanhope Mews East. It is barely a street in fact. There are hardly any cars on its tiny roadway. But around half past noon when I take Stanhope Mews on my way to class everything in the world becomes right for a few minutes as I make my way to the end of the street where on the corner sits a small schoolyard for the Glendower Preparatory School. Everyday when I walk by the little school girls are playing in the yard and it is absolutely the cutest thing I have seen in London so far... they have uniforms that remind me of Madeline and everything.
Anyways, the rest of the school week finished up well and now onto a great weekend of checking out the local markets and exploring more of downtown London!

Getting to know London

Today is Thursday and also the day we start classes. The way our schedule works is that we have one class each day, except the class runs for four hours in length. This will certainly be a test for most of us I think, but I imagine that with time it will feel like a no brainer and just fly by.
Over the past couple of days I finally got a better sense of the areas surrounding The Crofton, where I am living. After orientation sessions in the morning yesterday I walked around for a bit and discovered some of the other streets beyond Queens Gate. There are lovely shops, pubs, cafes, and more on quite a few corners in the Kensington neighborhood. Walking around at lunchtime the vibe is so relaxed. Yesterday we walked through this square area that was lined with bakeries and cafes where people sat outside sharing tapas and sandwiches.

Not before long though it started raining again. I've come to learn quickly that it rains just about every day here in London, but only for 20 minutes or so at a time. It has rained every day since I have arrived so I am learning to deal with that quickly and have prepared myself to expect the sudden change in weather pattern.

Yesterday evening I also got the chance to have dinner with some friends that are also studying in London for the semester. Scott and Tim are both studying at the London School of Economics (this is their second semester in London) and with their expertise of the area of Covet Garden they were able to take Reid and I around a bit last night. It is great to have friends from home here in London and its all still a bit surreal that we can all meet up in this city.

Besides orientation sessions, which have filled up most of the week so far, on Monday we took a boat tour on the Thames River, which gave us the chance to see some of the cities' most recognizable sites from the water including Big Ben, the London Eye, Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral and more. The boat took us all the way to Greenwich. It was beautiful there and we were able to walk around for as long as we wanted before having to find our own way back to Kensington by train. While exploring the Greenwich area we came across some beautiful buildings and climbed up to the top of Greenwich Park to the site of the Royal Observatory. We also came across the filming a commercial, which was supposedly for McDonalds, so we will have to keep our eyes peeled for that one on the TV! With all of the boroughs in London it will be hard to visit every last one throughout the semester, but visiting Greenwich was a good start. Overall the area was very quiet and serene. I think visits like these to some of the rural outer boroughs of London will be added to the list of things I would like to do while here.

Monday afternoon ended with hopefully the worst experience of the semester (I may be exaggerating a bit), but on my way back from the grocery store, with a full load of bags, it began to rain. And of course this rain wasn't the light mist that I had experienced prior; it was a complete downpour, but with only 10 minutes to walk I sucked it up and walked in the rain back to The Crofton. I managed to soak my shoes, which dried rather quickly so that was a plus, but now I know to take a better look at the weather forecast before I buy a huge load of groceries. Luckily we finished off the night by visiting a local pub called Gloucester Arms, where I purchased my first legal drink!
Well that is all for now!

Update: Second pillow purchased! The bed is now much more comfortable and I'm sleeping like a baby :)

I've made it to London...

It has been approximately 24 hours since I arrived in London. Once our flight arrived and we made our way through customs we took a cab to our building, The Crofton, which gave us a chance to see a bit of Kensington on our ride. My room, shared with my friend Leah is fantastic, we each have our own nooks of the room and our own bathroom too! There are two kitchens and living spaces per floor so we share one of those spaces with about eight other people. Our building is less than a block from Hyde Park and Kensington High Street, so Leah and I walked around a bit yesterday getting the lay of the land. We found a few grocery stores (yayy for Whole Foods down the street) and had quite the adventure trying to buy a hairdryer and pillows. At a local store called Argos, instead of browsing the shelves for the items you need, customers look through a HUGE magazine of items that they sell, once you decide what you want you write down the item numbers and then you bring it to the cashier who checks you out and within minutes your items have been brought out from the magical storage in the back and there you go, you've just bought a hair dryer and few pillow! We also made a quick stop in T.K. Maxx, not T.J. Maxx for all of you common folk, however T.K. did not live up to its American counterpart. The rest of the day finished up with a walking tour of the area to see the other BU buildings and then finally a long good nights sleep. Not too eventful for a first day in London, but the perfect amount of exploring due to all the jet lag that we were experiencing. Today we have a few orientation sessions this morning and then a Boat Tour on the Thames in the afternoon! Should be a fun day! 

P.S. I must get another pillow and a mattress pad, otherwise by the end of the semester I will have a bad back and a strained neck! 

Next stop, London

In a matter of just 12 hours I'll be driving to the airport to begin my semester abroad in London. Coming off of a fantastic semester in Washington D.C. I am super excited for what this semester has in store for me. I'll be updating from abroad about daily life in London and highlighting some of the trips I take around Europe! Here's to a great semester! Cheerio!