I’ve been in London nearly a week now, so I’m finally settling in and figuring things out. We think we’ve figured out the quirkiness of the hot water heater. I don’t think we ever worked out how the radiators work, but it’s not that cold to begin with so that’s okay. I’ve bought a month-long Tube pass and finally got a local cell phone. I am also beginning to learn the street names and how to get from place to place so I feel as if I have learned a lot in six days.
Our British Life field trip was yesterday and we went the Museum of London, which was kind of far away from our flat. It was incredibly disappointing! I expected it to be huge and full of the history of London, as its name suggests. However, there were only a few exhibits one of the London Fire in the 1600s, which has many similarities to the Chicago Fire, and a few rooms on more ancient times. It was hard to spend the required two hours in there.
After that, my flatmates and I felt a little disappointed, but didn’t want to waste a museum day, so we grabbed a quick (and delicious!) sandwich at a local café and took the Tube to the Natural History Museum. It is in the most beautiful building I think I have seen in London so far. It looks like a grand, royal castle with engravings all around and meticulous carvings. It is actually kind of deceptively large because the museum was also cool but did not take a huge amount of time to go through. Another tip for travelers—all museums in London are FREE! They often charge for special exhibits, but student rates are usually available. I think it is almost expected that patrons donate at least a few pounds to the museum, but being a poor college student, I have yet to do that.
Anyway, as most people know, I am not a huge fan of natural history, so I skipped the dinosaur and bug rooms and wondered around other parts of the museum that were interesting. I stumbled across a special exhibit featuring the 2008 Wildlife Photographer Winners. I debated about paying the 4 pounds to go, but I love wildlife and environmental photography so I decided to pay and go on in. It was the best 4 pounds I have spent all week! It was absolutely amazing. There were probably 100 photographs that were the best of the best and they were all so stunning and wonderful. I would highly recommend that to anyone with any slight interest in photography. That was definitely the highlight of the day.
After a long day of walking through museums, we were ready to return to the flat where my other flatmates were planning to host a big group dinner that we attended. There were at least 10 other people in the flat, so I’m surprised that it held all of us and we cooked dinner, so that was a pretty fun night.
Today, we unfortunately had our first internship orientation right smack in the middle of the day, which did not leave much time for us to do a whole lot of things. Afterwards, we went to a mall a few Tube stops away where we were told there was a cheap shop for clothes and stuff. As most of you know, I do not like shopping. That is an understatement I hate shopping, it is my least favorite thing to do ever. However…my first English shopping mall experience was quite interesting. In the mall, they had a One Pound store, which is the equivalent to our Dollar Store, so that was amusing. We went to a store that was a lot like Old Navy, except really, really cheap. I did not buy anything, although I did not bring enough long sleeve shirts that are not sweaters, so that may become a problem. Sorry Mom, but you were incorrect on this one. Don’t worry though, you were right on most other things. But I should have brought more long sleeve shirts that weren’t sweaters.
Afterwards, we had not eaten a whole lot during the day, so we went to a local pub near our flat that we went to before on our pub-crawl. I ate chicken kiev with chips (fries), which was very good. I was happy to eat in the pub, since pub culture is a big thing here. In our internship orientation, they said that it was not at all uncommon for workers to drink a pint and ask you to join them at lunchtime. It is interesting the different customs and commonalities between here and the U.S. that come up every day.
Anyway, I’m really enjoying London, although I am looking very forward to seeing the English countryside. We are going to Bath and Stonehenge next Wednesday for our BLC field trip, so I’m really excited for that. Other than that, I will probably find out my internship placement and start within the next week, so I’ll keep you posted on that. Hope all is well with everyone and talk to you soon!
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