Day 9: John Donne was a looker, Virginia Woolf, not so much

Hey Guys,

I spent a lot of time yesterday and today trying to get my schedule worked out and I think it is (hopefully) set. I'm taking two English classes- Victorian Literature and London in Literature, as well as an anthropology class- Anthropology of Religion, and a history class- Early Medeival European History. I'm not crazy about the history class, I really wanted to do Early Celtic History but it didn't fit with my schedule. At this point I am really just happy to be taking anything at all. And my schedule is pretty easy, no class monday, no class every other friday, so most of the time I'll have a four day weekend! Can't really complain about that.

Yesterday afternoon a friend and I went down to Oxford Street, which is the major high street in London, kind of like fifth avenue. The best thing about London (and I know I've said that multiple times already) is that all the stores offer student discounts, even the clothing stores! My favorite place we went was Topshop, which is this huge huge clothing store with jsut about everything imaginable. I mean, walls full of tights, mountains of purses, aisles of jewerly, and this was just on the accesories floor. I found this awesome umbrella with pirate skulls all over it, which I didn't buy sadly. I did buy really cute black shoes though! they were a splurge at 27 pounds (roughly fifty dollars) but totally worth it.
I used last night to catch up on my badly needed sleep. Was supposed to go to Bath but unfortunatly (due to my ineptness at ticket prices) it didn't work out. Instead dragged myself out of bed around 2 pm to go down to Leicester Square for lunch. Today I learned a valuble lesson: the british are not good at Mexican food. Such a shame, i miss my margaritas...
After this late lunch we waundered into the National Portrait Gallery which was much cooler then I expected it to be. Its name is pretty self explanatory, it houses portraits of many of the great rulers, thinkers and movers and shakers of England. I saw pictures I recognized from many years of history text books; Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, Charles Darwin. My favorite portrait was John Donne, he was actually much cuter then I expected! Unfortunatly we only had a couple hours before closing so we didn't make it all the way through the twentiether century, we got cut off around the Bloomsbury Group (AKA famous people who lived in my neighborhood).
Will have to get back over there one of these days...

After that we say out in Trafalger Square for a short while. I am starting to become a nuisance to everyone I hang out with because of my insistance on acting like a total tourist, gawking and taking copious amounts of pictures wherever I go. I can't help it, I like things to be documented (hence this blog)! Trafalger Square is very pretty, it wasn't too crowded either which was great. I think this is where there used to be tons and tons of pigeons (?) but recenly they've gotten rid of them which is great because pigeons kind of scare me. In any case I can tell I need to spend lots more time downtown, I still have so much to see. Most of it will have to wait though, tomorrow I am again attempting to leave town- this time for Greenwich!

By the way, thanks to everyone who is reading this, I know there are a lot of you and I'm glad people actually care what I'm doing over here. It makes me so happy when people leave comments. Love you all!