Day 25: These are a few of my favorite things

Here are the best things about London thus far:

• Chocolate Digestives- actually all British junk food and candy is absolutly amazing. I especially like the chocolate bars with cadbury creme egg filling.
• All the green space and beautiful squares where people hang out, read, and eat their lunch. Plus the fact that there are no leash laws in London so cute dogs frolic freely in the park
• The accents ;-)
• The fact that everything, the bus system, the trains, the underground, are computerized so you never have to talk to a human being ever.
• * The sensational headlines on the newspapers, such as these which are advertising for a television movie about the assasination of George Bush. Seriously could you imagine a newspaper in American printing a front page like that? Also the celebrity gossip magazines and the fact that when you buy cosmo or vogue you get a free gift, like an umbrella or a hand bag
• Reading fantastic books (like Great Expectations) mere blocks from where they were written
• the fact there are so many young people here from soooo many different countries. Even living in DC I never saw diversity such as this
• The weather. Up til now I've been super lucky with fantastic warm weather. I didn't even need a jacket to go outside today which I think is pretty unusual for October in London. They just had one of the warmest September's on record, it seems I do bring the sunshine wherever I go. Even when it rains it is still fantastic because it is London. Today I woke up to my first sighting of London Fog. Unfortunatly it didn't turn out that great because it was out my window and because, well because it is fog and fog doesn't photograph very well apparently. By the time I left the flat at noon the fog had cleared and turned into a bright sunshiney day. Like I said, I love the weather!

So that is all for now, I could go on. Maybe one day I will write a post about the things I do not like about London. I can certainly think of some (the UCL library, the fact that everything closes before midnight), but being an optimist I will just stick to loving London for now.

Coming up soon: Dover, and next weekend, Brussels and Amsterdam!

Day 18: English major overload

My first week of classes is over and I would say things are a bit intense. It is kind of unnerving going into a class without a clear idea of the format or the way things are run. Their teaching structure is definatly very different from what I'm used to. This was the first time I really felt like a foreigner; I can't even imagine what it must be like for my roomates who don't even have english as a first language. Nevertheless I think my classes should be pretty interesting and totally doable. My London in Literature class and my Anthropology of Religion class in particular seem pretty cool. I wasn't worried about the workd load at all until I met with my English tutor on Thursday. One of the "perks" of being an English major at UCL is that you get your own personal tutor who you write your essays for and who is basically in charge of your evaluations. This is only done at UCL, Cambridge and Oxford still. My tutor is very nice but the pace of this semester is definatly going to be intense- I have a paper due in less then two weeks on Great Expectations, which I haven't even read yet! Needless to say I picked up a copy on my way home from the meeting and am desperatly plowing through it. I guess I can't complain, this is what I get for going to a top university. Still, I am definatly a little stressed.
Friday I had no class so I went to the Globe theater, the reproduction Shakespeare era theater on the Thames. It looks very odd with its thatched roof nestled in between an office building and the Tate modern. We saw Anthony and Cleopatra which I'd never read but enjoyed. Cleopatra was played by Frances Barber who was totally amazing. For six pounds you can play the part of a 17th century groundling (also known as a poor person). You get to stand at the foot of the stage, exposed to the elements and watch the show. You can literally lean against the stage and the actors will come within inches of you. In my case Caesar himself spilled his drink on my head. Quite an honor. The Globe is an open air theater and our experience was intensified by pouring rain. We were all soaked despite our rain ponchos. After three plus hours of standing in the rain we were all pretty exhausted.
I'm starting to get a feel for the way this semester is going to run and I think it's going to be pretty intense. Intense reading load, intense work load, intense sightseeing goals, socialization and basically little sleep. I am definatly up for it though and optimistic as ever!

Day 15: I bet Jack the Ripper never had to worry about homework

Today, October 2nd, was finally my first day of classes. It was a releif to actually be starting although it will be an effort to get back to work after so long. Today was actually very stressful for me. Somehow I have managed to start out on the first day behind of everyone else! The classes here are very different then I am used to. For my English classes there is a weekly lecture hour which is really just a one sided lecture on a certain subject. Then every other week I have a smaller seminar where we discuss a book in depth. The seminar's pick the books so I won't know what to but until I actually go to them. I do know that for my first seminars I have to read Tennyson for Victorian Lit and Daniel Defoe's Journal of A Plague Year for London in Lit. I'm excited for Defoe, less so for Tennyson. I think these classes will be exciting, especially London in Literature, but I am still nervous about staying on top of things. Tomorrow I have history which should be pretty low stress though.

Tonight I went on a Jack the Ripper historical walking tour, which was kind of cool. If you are ever in London you should look into going on a London Walks tour. They have dozens of different ones, Beatles London, Dicken's London, Haunted London etc. The Jack the Ripper one is conducted by this guy, Donald Rumbelow who is "internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper". He wrote the definitive book and even advises on movies, like the one starring Johnny Depp, From Hell. We walked all around the City, learned about Jack's various victims and his methodology. It was dark and creepy and none of my pictures came out very well except for this one of me in front of the Tower of London (which doesn't really have anything to do with Jack the Ripper). Anyways it was really cool and I definatly want to do more of these walking tours, especially because they are only five pounds!

Afterwards we went to this creepy looking pub, called The Ten Bells which was apparently used in the movie From Hell. I haven't seen it but the pub was pretty cool in a spooky Victorian way. No Johnny Depp sightings I'm sad to say, although a friend of my roomate apparently saw him at the Portabello Road Market last week! I will keep my eyes peeled for Johnny, or Hugh Grant, and will keep you updated...

Day 4: Rain

So I have been extremely lucky thus far, my first three days were really unusually warm and sunny. Total t-shirt weather, it was awesome. Today the weather caught up with me and I got to experience some actual london rain! I was excited to test out my new umbrella, I am sure after a couple days of this I won't be so thrilled though. Actualy as I am typing this the sun just came out and it is brilliant again! I love it.
The past couple days have been orientation, signing up for classes, meeting people and such. I am psyched because I got the two English classes I wanted: London in Literature and Victorian Literature. I am so excited for them! I still have to register for the others which is really confusing. Apparently classes do not start on the 25th, they start Oct 2nd. So that is a whole week where I am basically free. Maybe I will go on a trip. Also as of right now I only have class on Tuesdays and every other friday. That will change when i sign up for the other half of my classes but I am still aiming for long weekends so I can travel.
Anyways things are looking good, met some cool people. Went to my first pub, The Jeremy Bentham (whoo school spirit) and am going out tonight as well. Tomorrow maybe I willl actually get to see some of the London sights. I will leave you with this picture (which I actually took yesterday, hence no rain) of Tavistock Square near campus and UCL's most famous alumni: Mahatma Gandhi.

Day Two: Where is everybody?

Not many people around in the dorm yet. As I have no one to hang out with and am too jetlagged for ambitious site seeing I decided to walk to UCL. Went out to investigate the park behind my dorm and found that there are indeed gravestones there. It’s so weird how the bushes are growing in front of them isn’t it? I haven’t figure out what exactly is going on back here but I will. Took a very circuitous route up to UCL. Saw several really interesting used book stores that I will probably spend too much money in. Can’t wait to go back and check those out. Also saw a sign for a book fair. This is not going to be good for my wallet. UCL campus was interesting. I’ve had the campus style school experience for three years and now it looks like I’m going to get to try out the city style school. Hopefully I will get the hang of things soon. Here is the main building of UCL and the main courtyard.






This one didn’t turn out so well but it is supposed to be Jeremy Bentham, the founder of UCL. For some reason he wanted his skeleton to be put on display, fully clothed. They styled a wax head for him because people kept trying to steal the real one. The British are so strange: what other society would keep the headless corpse of a well respected man on display in a university hallway?

Okay 1 roommate has arrived. It is a boy… a 25 year old Italian man named Andrea actually. This is interesting…