Off to Paris!

Another week of excitement here in London. Not really, just another week, but no less exciting I suppose. Another flat crisis has been on our hands for the past couple of weeks. The fact that we have had 2 days of Internet in the past week in a half has not been part a pleasant study abroad experience. Having to do all my Internet-ing at work is probably not the best work ethic to have, but I have no other choice. Also, our shower, which has always had its quirks, decided to be unpredictable in terms of hot water and water pressure. Water pressure is of particular concern because there will literally be NONE. By that I mean, NO water coming out of the showerhead right when you’re in them middle of washing your hair. And then after a few moments of initial panic, it’ll come back on. Anyway, the real panic is that now our showerhead is broken, so no shower! Joy! Hopefully, it’ll be working soon and we won’t have to go to other people’s flats to shower.

Anyway, all my complaints aside, London has been the same as usual. I went to the premiere for a new television network called Blighty (which apparently is slang for English person). It was all British themed in this extremely retro locale. It was in a bar, I think, that was adapted into a bar from what used to be horse stables a million years ago. There were cobblestones beneath your feet and British themed everything. My goody package included a Blighty umbrella, Blighty tea, Blighty ginger, and Blighty bags. The entire room was decked out in lights and umbrellas. And we were served Blighty cocktails and Blighty snacks. It was so cool. I was glad to be invited.

Yesterday, for our field trip we ventured to Dover and Canterbury to see Dover Castle and Canterbury Cathedral. It took a while to get there, and I have to say I was no wholly impressed with either locale. The Dover Castle was kind of interesting and has a cool history, but it wasn’t worth a two-hour bus ride to see. Canterbury Cathedral was very pretty, but after about 6 weeks in London I am very churched out. That is an understatement—I am VERY churched out. I cannot take seeing many more churches. They are everywhere. Anyway, the church was kind of pretty, but I quickly walked through it because I was more interested in exploring the town of Canterbury. Our Italian lunch was very good, but besides that I was very disappointed. The town was very commercial. Even more commercial than Bath, which still kept much of its small town charm. However, Canterbury had very few small-town shops. It was mostly dominated by McDonald’s and H and M’s, which I found very disappointing.

I spent my evening using the Internet for a whole hour before it died again, doing laundry and counting down to our weekend in Paris for which we leave before dawn (literally) on Friday morning. Speaking of Paris, I am leaving Friday morning for Paris and will not be back until late Sunday evening, therefore I will most likely be out of contact until Monday, but I promise to blog as soon as I can when I get back. Hope everyone else has a terrific weekend!