My first full day of London dawned with a morning full of orientations. The main message of the first orientation was GO TO CLASS. Teachers are required to take attendance and report missing students to the UK border control. Missing classes too many times could make you eligible for exportation. The alcohol awareness meeting afterwards was kind of interesting though. Realizing that nothing would stop a bunch of students who were all legally allowed to drink, they pretty much just asked us to be safe and try not to take drugs as we drank.
In between this orientation and the next, I managed to work my way to a grocery store to pick up something for the next couple lunches. It shouldn't be too surprising that there aren't any Wal-marts, Costcos, or Publixes, so I looked up a place called M and S Simply Food, and walked about 15 minutes to find it along a busy street called Oxford.
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| The grocery store I went to. |
One of the larger chains of grocery stores, it takes up several floors, selling things like clothing and cooking ware. Not realizing this, I rode up and down a few escalators looking confused, before I found the food section.
I had previously been to a smaller, slightly lesser quality store here already, but this one was fairly spacious. I thought I was going to be able to get in and out fairly quickly, but I had never realized just how dependent I was on brands. Being familiar with brands means you know whats good for your money. When you are staring at a aisle of chips (crisps) and are trying to pick just one, it can be a little unnerving to have so much choice, and no idea which to pick. One particularly interesting bit about shopping in London is that because of it's proximity to the other European countries, you get a much wider selection of cheap foods from other places. So it's pretty easy to pick out something like Belgian Eclairs or Italian Lasagna for cheap. It's also interesting to see what type of ready-to-serve meals they have. You can get something like a prepared sandwhich with prawns, or a heatable Fish and Chips or Cottage Pie meal. I picked up a cheap half loaf of crusty white bread, some sandwhich meat (they don't really have turkey here,) cheddar cheese with chives, condiments, lemonade, and some Scottish chocolate chip cookies.
The really difficult part about food compared to the states is the lack of preservatives. Europeans are very strict about keeping their food natural. For example, although many food in the U.S. is biologically engineered, they've completely banned the import of such products. They also don't have food preservatives, so food goes bad quickly. I'm fairly sure everyone didn't notice this fact while purchasing, and ended up buying a little bit too much food at once. One guy here bought a box of pita bread, that said it expired within 24 hours of opening it. So you need to buy food for only a few days, and come back again in another couple of days. This can kinda be a pain with the amount of times you visit the store, but at least it's in walking distance.
After I dropped off my food, I went on a practical walking tour lead by some of the graduate students working here. They showed us places to get phones, food, and send mail. They also showed us some of the nearby sights and shops through Soho and Covent Gardens. We also stopped at a nearby market in Covent Gardens.
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| Covent Gardens. |
It was a pretty bustling place; a comedy act was performing a routine, costumed performers took pictures with tourists for coins, and merchants sold small goods and produce outside of stores. We stopped and had some cookies from a store called Bens, and they just might of been the best cookies we ever had.
After our practical walking tour, my flatmates decided to see Big Ben's tower, and I decided to come along as well. After navigating through streets with names like Bloomsbury and Shaftsbury, we found ourselves in Trafalgar Square.
Trafalgar Square is undoubtably one of the most famous places in London. It was dedicated to one of the most important battles Britain ever won, at the Battle of Trafalgar Cape in 1805. There, Admiral Nelson defeated the combined fleet of Spain and France. Nelson's tactics completely devastated their armada, without losing a single ship (though Nelson perished in the fighting.) This left Britain with the most powerful Navy in the world at the time, and Admiral Nelson, although he died, became a war hero. The center of the square is dominated by an enormous column supporting a statue of the Admiral, with four lions sitting at the base. We ended up climbing these lions and taking some pictures.
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| Us straddling one of the lions on the pedestal. I'm on the far left. |
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| Admiral Nelson. |
It's also the site of a giant clock, counting down the time til the start of the Olympic games next year.
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| Sadly, there weren't any fireworks when I saw this. |
Surprisingly, a smaller statue stands along the side of the square of George Washington. Donated by Virginia, it stands upon soil imported from America, honoring Washington's declaration that he would never step foot upon British soil again.
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| George Washington. |
Continuing South, we passed by several of the more important buildings of Britain that I cannot remember, until we hit Big Ben. Big Ben isn't actually the name of the clock tower, but rather the bell inside of the tower attached to the Palace of Westminister. However, it had begun to rain on us, so we didn't spend too much time here, and found a nearby bus back to our street.
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| A menace to anyone who wishes to jaywalk. |
Buses are plentiful through all of London. Classic red double-deckers have regular stops throughout all of London, making a cheap, clean and efficient system of transport. Our program had given us special cards called Oysters that gave us discounted tickets on public transportation through the city, with some money already added to each card. So we swiped our cars and sat on the top level, enjoying our dry ride until our stop arrived.
At this point, everyone was starving. My flatmates wished to go eat in Chinatown, but I wanted to eat some real English food, so I decided to head to a local pub. Called the Museum Tavern, it sat right outside the British Museum, only a few minutes walk from our flats. Although it's location meant that it was potentially full of tourists, I hoped that because it was several hours after closing time, that it wouldn't be too crazy.
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| Inside shot of the pub. |
The bar was packed with locals. Looking a bit confused, the bar manager instructed me that the only way to get a seat would be to snag one as someone left. I sat down at the bar when a space opened up, and ordered Bangers and Mash with half a pint of ale. While waiting for my food, I met Simon, a local Londoner, and Olga, from Barcelona. They had headed to the pub after work that Friday, and so we chatted until I got my food and sat at a recently vacated table. Bangers and mash are simply sausage on to of mashed potatoes draped gravy and onions. It wasn't particularly creative, but hearty all the same. After eating, I talked to them a little more. Both of them were extremely nice and helped me with some questions I had about London and pub etiquette. As it got late, I left and walked back to the flat and called my father, before heading to bed.
Day 3
Saturday began with a optional walking tour about the history of the neighborhood. Being unable to pass this up, I met one of the local staff members, and a small group of us followed her through the area. Originally this had all been countryside. At first a church had setup a hospital up here for lepers, well out of the city limits. Eventually the rich, bored with the city, decided to start buying houses out here. The most prestigious houses were along the squares. Although they are now parks with lush trees and flowers, they used to be bare gravel with perhaps a statue in the middle. This was intended to draw the viewers eyes to the nobles and their houses, rather than anything else.
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| Bedford Square, right behind where I live. This used to all be lovely gravel. |
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| A statue of Gandhi in the Tavistock Square. It's kind of a park dedicated to peace, there is also a tree nearby dedicated to Hiroshima. |
These houses were also fancier that houses outside of the square; these changes were noticeable even compared to houses just barely off the square. They also pointed out how the colors of the bricks could be quite dark; this was due to the soot left from chimneys releasing the smoke of coal fires. Bits of yellow poked through the swathes of black to betray the presence of the original paints of the house. It was with the Clean Air Act that this pollution was begun to get cleaned. We also learned a little of the Great Fire of London of 1666. After devastating the city, Parliament passed several strict construction regulations. It was because of these that the exteriors of buildings could only be made of brick, roofs were made of tile rather thatch, and that buildings could not hang over the street. Although made centuries ago, these regulations are still in place today. In fact, the only wooden building in the UK is the Globe Theater (one of Shakespheare's theaters, rebuilt after it was burned down.)
After lunch, we participated in brief scavenger hunt set up by the school. It required us to both run around the city and answer some brief trivia questions. The prize was a free dinner, but we unfortunately we lost to a group with a member who had done the same hunt the previous semester. Regardless, I decided that I was in the mood for fish and chips, and looked up a semi-nearby place with a good rating. It was about an half an hour's walk, but it was interesting to enter a new region of town. Called Marylebone, it seemed to be a much richer part of town. I saw a few Aston Martins and Bentleys on the walk in. The place itself was kind of pricey but it was still good food. Fish seems to imply a couple different types of white meat fish, usually haddock and cod, but they also included skate (like a stingray.) I ordered fried haddock with a side of chips and mushy peas, apparently another traditional side for this meal.
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| The Golden Hind. Has pretty good fish and chips, but not as cheap as I would like. |
By the time I got back home it was kind of late so I relaxed for the rest of the evening, so I could get ready for class.
Tomorrow I hope to write up Sunday and maybe Monday. Hopefully I'll have caught up with my days pretty soon here.
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