Finally Getting Out

After sitting in my room for pretty much all of Friday and Saturday, I finally got out on Saturday night after Jon came to visit me. I was desperate to leave my room and my ankle was doing ok so we just walked down the road a bit and had a pint at the only pub in Kensington and Chelsea still open at 1130. It didn't hurt my ankle all that much and did a world of wonders for my mentality. We talked a bit about travel and came to the kind of same conclusion that we'd like to see more of the UK and will regret not doing that more than we would regret not going to the continent. The prof in class today also said how odd he found it that his students will go all over the continent but will never step outside the city of London.

I have the same Professor for 2/3 of my classes. So i spend 16 hours a week (4 hours a day) with the same teacher in the same room. Four hour classes are definitely one thing in theory and quite another in practice. I have no problem listening for four hours, but it's just hard to sit still for that long. So much gets covered that it's also difficult to really put a whole topic to one class, it seems really spread all over the place. I do feel like I'm learning a lot and there's not a whole lot of work outside of class, so that works.

Overall, my ankle is doing pretty well, but all the activity of recent days has kind of caused a levelling off of healing.

On Sunday, I was out and about all day. I went on a bus tour of London and saw a bunch of famous sites and took a lot of pictures (which you can see on facebook). We stopped briefly at St Paul's Cathedral and saw the London Stock Exchange and then went for lunch in Covent Gardens. The tour ended at the Tower of London. There, a few of the BU kids were able to attach ourselves to another tour group and get into buildings and hear things we might not have heard or seen on our own, which was nice. We saw the crown jewels and they were all a much bigger deal than I had remembered. It was definitely cool to go there even though I had been there before because I know so much more about London and English history this time around so I got so much more out of it.
One thing that was very overwhelming throughout the whole day was the sense of tradition all over London and the UK. The US really can't compare to any of it at all.

During the tour, I think a lot of us became overwhelmed with just how much there was to do and see in this town. Steve was keeping notes of someone he was interested in everytime the tour guide mentioned something and ending up with tons of filled post-it notes. What I need to work on is getting up early and doing stuff before classes at 1:15. I need to do it all then because by the time I get out of class, most things will be closed. Hopefully I will be motivated enough to do that and it will happen. My plan tomorrow is to wake up early and do some more of the Natural History Museum. There's a lot I missed last time but luckily it's free so I'll go until I finish.

I really want to go to Question Hour at Parliament, but it starts at noon and I have class at 115, so I'm not sure I'd be able to make it. I won't be able to make it once I start my internship (they only do it on Wednesdays), so hopefully I'll be able to squeeze it in one day. It's definitely a legal tradition here I do not want to miss out on.

In the evening yesterday I went down to a pub and watched the Patriots with a bunch of BU students, most routing for the Patriots. Most people were expecting the Packers to win against the Giants, but so much for that I guess. The Patriots obviously won and people were pleased. I think after a rough weekend for most people were eager to kind of take it easy and just watch some (American) football. It seemed like people went a little overboard on their first weekend here and then just needed to crash.

I found out today that my interview for CAABU is this Friday. I need to do a trial run at some point to figure out how to get there. I think I will wait until Wednesday or Thursday for my ankle to be a bit better incase I get lost and have to do a lot of walking. It apparently takes about 40 minutes to get there, but it's right downtown and in a nice area, so it'll be nice to go down to a nice place everyday.

Haha, so apparently they have this show called "The Palace" which is sort of like a less dramatic West Wing. I think it's kind of supposed to be like when William is King. Nice young man with a little Prince brother that likes to party. But neither are as good looking at all. I just saw a commercial for a place called specsavers that used a clip of Edith Piaf singing with subtitles about not regretting anything but not getting two pairs of specs for 75 pounds at specsavers. I mention this only because I just recently saw La Vie En Rose and was pumped that i actually recognized who it was and recognized the absurdity of the commercial.

One thing I've noticed about London is the traffic lights are slightly different. They're red, yellow, and green, but the yellow light goes on along with the red light as soon as they're both about to change to green. This is helpful for both motorists and pedestrians I think because it helps the pedestrian know when the absolute last moment they can cross the street is (unlike in the US when the walk hand stops but the light is still red and you feel like an ass standing there for 30 seconds while no one moves) and the drivers can get ready to go. While this is a good thing, th English have no idea how to walk down the street. I think it has something to do with driving on the wrong side of the road. In America, you walk down sidewalks and hallways as though you're driving. Pass people on the left, use the right door, right side of the stairs, etc etc. Here, if they did the same thing, only on the left, I would be able to handle it, but no, it's all very willy nilly. And no one moves out of your way, and no one notices really anyone else in the sidewalk so it's all very chaotic. I can't say I'm a fan. I'm very into sidewalk order.

I finally took the trash out yesterday from the kitchen (it was my week this week) and it involved going outside, then going down stairs next to the building off of the sidewalk to what amounted to this underground labyrinth of door and hallways of trash rooms. Each building has a room for their trash with a code for it to get in. The trash people, whenever they come around have to go down the stairs, go into these room and bring the trash back up. This only happens in this neighborhood. Other place I have seen, the trash is out in the road ready for them to pick up. This is just another example of how posh things are here. It was smelly, but pretty badass.

HAHA! Watching TV is my new favorite thing to do here. There's apparently an insurance company here called Churchill and their "mascot" is a very jowly bulldog. Very clever. I wonder what Winston would think of this legacy.

I just figured out yesterday that you can get 1/2 price admission when you buy tickets to Madame Tussauds and the London Eye together online. I think I'm going to do that this weekend. I really want my picture taken with the Princes and Winston. Hopefully the weather will be nice and the Eye will offer a nice view. I guess you can see Windsor castle on a good day.

I guess that's it on my end, I'm missing everyone in the US, especially the fam, hope everything is well on the other side of the pond :-)
Lots of love, Kate