Back to London Life

I don't think I've written anything about life post-Spring Break yet, so here we go.

Things seemed to have slowed down a lot. Only having class once a week and going to work the other four days really puts a damper on doing, well, anything. Work is exactly what I expected it to be. I won't say much here about it (obviously), but it's fairly mundane and frankly keeps me from exploring and seeing London in the most obnoxious fashion. Getting up every day is a drag, too.
We have to maintain a portfolio for work which mainly consists of daily logs. If anyone is interested, let me know. I can readily tell you though, they are not riveting. The portfolio also consists of two papers and some other things. It seems kind of complex, but I'm sure once I work there and have a better idea about what CAABU does, it will make more sense.
Class is good, so far. It's been fairly interesting, although I don't really see a common thread. The teacher is cool, the kind of guy that has clearly read and retained everything that there is to know. He's perhaps a little too philosophical for my liking, but I think I'll really enjoy the class. Having class only once a week is a little weird, because I feel like I forget a lot from week to week. There's no assigned textbook, just about 300 books of suggested reading to pick and choose from which I really hate because it totally destroys my motivation and makes me feel like whatever I'm doing isn't enough. I actually have been conquering the London Syndrome so far, and even took books out of the library and have even started doing some vague research for my paper topic. Woot!

I forgot to mention something I learned on my spring break trip about tourists. Someone told me that in some report (I can't remember either, so it must be legit) that they had read that Americans are the 2nd best tourists (I think Canadians took the best), and Italians were the the 2nd worst. The worst, of course, were the English. This mostly stems from the fact that all they ever do is go on vacation to get wasted and wreak havoc. It was vindicating though. Italians I think come in 2nd for being loud and obnoxious in general when traveling. Having run into many throughout my vacationing, I can see it. Just wanted to add in that nice little US news.

I'm sure most people know what facebook is, and if you don't, don't worry about it. Anyway, London / the UK has only recently gotten facebook, within the last year I guess. Therefore, all people my age spend inordinate amounts of time there and use it frequently. As I'm now in the London network (you can belong to a geographical location, as well as a school), I've noticed that even though I have no connection to really any Londoner, people are randomly requesting to be my friend, commenting on my photos and other weird stuff. Someone actually saw my photos and corrected something historical I said about something. Weird... get a life people! I'd like to think Americans are not as bad, but I'm sure they are somewhere (the high schoolers). I think they got excited about finally getting it and went a little overboard. And haven't quite gotten over it yet.

I keep meaning to mention this, but always forget it. Everyone knows those fancy famous London phone booths. Well, they don't really exist anymore. They are still the general shape, and red, but not quite the same as people usually have in their mind. You can still find them, but only few and far between. Unlike US cities, though, there are still many phone booths around. They aren't hard to find. What's really great about them (and by great I mean bizarre), is that any one you go into, literally any one-- in the East End, South Kensington, the North, the City, wherever, they are covered in porn ads. You know the "call hot sexy red head at 29837432874 for XXX chat" with pictures of naked women with stars over their nipples and nether regions. I have no idea why this is. I'd really like to think that it's not because people frequently go in the phone booths looking for those kinds of things, but I guess this happened frequently enough that it became good business to put those ads up. Very interesting. Thanks, London...?

I definitely have become more attuned to transport now that I'm a regular on the system. First of, my monthly pass was wildly expensive. My coworkers were saying that the London Tube is the most expensive underground in Europe (and therefore, probably the world) and isn't nearly as efficient as other systems. I have never had a problem with the efficiency of the tube, although I must say that there are frequent closing and issues, they just haven't seemed to affect me. One morning, during rush hour, they shut down the main line (Piccadilly) for whatever reason, which caused a tremendous amount of problems for a lot people, and a lot of train crowding, but didn't make me late so it wasn't an issue. My main issue with the tube is a Londoner's inability to navigate the Tube station. Once on the tube, they act basically the same as anyone else... don't move into the center, stand awkwardly, don't hold on right, etc. It's the getting through big crowds and up and down stairs that people just can't handle. Much like they are unable to decide which way they would like to walk down the street, they deal with the stairs. There are even signs saying to stay left, but it is very evident that everyone prefers middle. Those going up, down, whatever, they all want the middle. Such an advanced city, you think they would have gotten that down on the oldest subway system; I guess not. Not all that surprised though.
I will say something unique about Londoners and transport though. I was on a bus the other day for a long trip to the Imperial War Museum and at one point, the bus had to squeeze through a small fork leading into a bigger street. Unfortunately, someone had parked in an inconvenient spot there, and the bus had a hell of a time accomplishing this. Someone from the bus actually offered to get off and stop traffic to help out, and although she didn't, she did make help the driver tell how much space he had between the car and himself. A passing motorcyclist also pulled over to give an outside perspective to make sure the bus got through. I don't ride buses enough to know how this would work in the US, but it was a very unique experience. It was nice to see such working together.
Speaking of motorcyclists, I do hate them. A lot. They are just annoying, especially from a pedestrian perspective. I don't feel like getting into examples, just trust me, they suck.

The Imperial War Museum was amazing, though. It was also free, which I love about London. They realize that free museums are obviously the way to go. There was so much to see, I didn't even see half of the museum even though I was there for 3.5 hours. I don't even think I saw a third of it! It was nice to go alone. I like doing touristy stuff alone because I can see what I want and for how long I want and just get much more out of it that way. I definitely want to go back with Mummy and Daddy. Who, by the way, are coming next week and I am very excited! More importantly, they are staying across the street, which is going to be awesome! Yayy!

The weather has been, for the first time since I got here, usual London weather. It has been somewhat cold, lots of wind, and rain rain rain. Only, the rain here is weird. I was in class for four hours yesterday, never left the building. In the time that I was in class, I saw rain and sun about 3 times each. It rains in spurts, is cloudy occasionally, and then is sunny. The wind is fairly constant though. There were apparently awful storms all along the coasts from some jet stream stuff. It's supposed to be better by the weekend and definitely by next week. I feel like I've definitely been spoiled by the weather so far and all over Europe. Having that one rainy icky day yesterday was an awful downer. To make it better, I realized Sunday that my umbrella was broken. I hadn't noticed because I hadn't used it since about the first week I was here. I had to buy another one, but it was fairly cheap, so it wasn't too bad. Still, very annoying.

It is spring break at BU-Boston and there are tons of kids that came here to visit friends, etc. It's nice seeing everyone, but kind of a hassle to have so many extra people using the kitchen and stuff like that. Luckily, no one is staying with me. Hosting someone is a real pain in the ass here (the rules are ridiculous, 100x worse than BU itself) and after working all day and stuff I feel like i would be too tired to really deal with someone. Most of my friends are abroad anyway, so that works. I'm surprised that so many people shelled out the dough to come visit. Most people always say they will and then never follow through on it. Nice surprise. I did some hanging out with people over the weekend, although for whatever reason, I was fairly exhausted.

I hung out with Emma on Sunday night and we had a really good time. We got a bite to eat and the place we went had WEISSBEIR! Yesss!! Straight from Bavaria. I wasn't even looking for it, but it was an amazing surprise. Better yet, the waiter was kind of incompetant and forgot to charge me for it. Nice. We also went to this comedy show which was very cheap. It wasn't amazing, but for the price, it was definitely a lot of fun and a good friend activity. The audience was really involved and it was a small setting, and we had a really good time. Our ticket also got us free admission into a club down the street. I had been there before and didn't really like it, but it was much better this time. We met two Columbians (and yes, the first thing Emma and I said was some joke about cocaine, which, oddly enough, they didn't appreciate...) and my espanol is still muy bueno. It's always good to know I've got it if I need it. Fun night, overall. Emma and I always have a good time. Something about us that we just always seem to come across silliness and fun. When put in the perspective how long I've known Emma and where and how we met and became friends, if you had told me as a junior in high school that in four years her and I would be at some club in London talking to Columbians (on a school night, no less), I actually probably would have said "Hm, sounds about right" but would still be incredulous to some extent. I need to hang out with her more, note to self.

This weekend I am off to Switzerland (Geneva) to see Dan and Sam at the Shark household (Dan's house). Dan and Sam were my neighbours at BU and Dan lives in Geneva and they are going to be there for Spring Break. The schedule includes sledding in the Alps (in France) and my own tour from a Geneva local. Should be a really great weekend. My flights are at awful times, but I think it'll be worth it!

I actually decided today, I have no idea why, but I've decided anyway, that I would really like to go to graduate school in Europe. I have no idea where, but I think I'd definitely like to spend more time living in Europe, but then get home to settle down. After the Peace Corps who knows where (c'monnnnn Ukraine!), I think a stint at LSE or Sciences PO (what's the English policy there?) would be perfecto. Maybe the dollar will be better by then. Haha, yeah right.

That should about cover it. From here on out, I'll probably be going on a lot less adventures, but will have a lot more observations about London life.

Thanks, by the way, to everyone who reads and comments and what not. Glad to know people are thinking about me and interesting in what I'm doing!