Terra Incognita

LONDON, BABY!
Wow. I can't believe I'm in London right now! I'm getting chills just thinking about that. Where to start....I guess I could just let you know what all I've been up to the past two days.

yesterday, saturday, jan. 11
I arrived on the group flight in London after 10 a.m. We went to our flat, got settled in for about 45 minutes and then walked to a restaurant by Kensington Park where we were treated to fish and chips. The park is gorgeous. It's January and the grass is green! It had snowed a couple of days before, which they said is very unusual for London. Overall, the weather since we've been here has been simply beuatiful; cold, but clear skies and no rain. After strolling the park and watching all the dogs wander all over the place (think the 101 Dalmations scene in the park . . . the dogs were everywhere!) we went to the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine for a quick orientation. In the British ranking system, Cambridge is the number one university in reat Britain, Oxford is number three, and Imperial (much to the chagrin of Oxford) is number two. Don't go thinking I'm a genius or anything (because we know that's not true) because we won't actually be taking Imperial classes; our classes are taught by Missouri System teachers.
After the brief orientation, we had some time before going out on an "unofficial, not-program-sponsored, they-take-no-liability" pub crawl. Actually, the group of about 10 that I stuck with ended up just visiting two pubs. We were home by 8:30 and in bed at 9. Sad, but true.

today, sunday, jan. 12
After a night of practially no sleep (more about that later), we were up again at 9 a.m. for a three hour sight-seeing tour of London. It was fabulous! Our guide, Trudy was hilarious. And she loved Harry Potter. She pointed out where Richard Harris, (aka Professor Dumbledore) lived until his death a few months ago (the Savoy hotel) and where Alan Rickman worked as a kid at a fish market. I feel so cool being in a city where so many cool people live and have lived. Trudy told us about the tour she led of about 8 women who, when they arrived at "Buck Pal" completely lost all their lady-like manners and went crazy when Paul McCartney showed up to be knighted. She called her children "kiddywinks" and herself their "mumsie." She raved about Princess Diana and Queen Victoria and the Queen Mum. The weather was perfect for taking pictures. Unfortunately, we didn't get to stop for photos by the Thames of Parliament, Big Ben, the London Bridge, the London Eye, the Tower of London, Trafalger Square, Buckingham Palace. I know I'll be back, but everyone says that the weather is never this gorgeous, so I'm disappointed I didn't get to take full advantage of it. We did get to see the GGs (horse guards) come through Kensington Gardens as they went to their posts for the day, and we did get to stop at Westminster Abbey, so I got pictures of those places.
We were dropped off at Picadilly Circus at the end of the tour. Great place. That's where the half price ticket counter is for all of the London theatre shows. They're day-of tickets and people start lining up in the morning, Trudy said. I'll be spending a few Saturdays there, that's for sure. I already have a list of shows I must see: The Lion King, Contact, Chicago, Mamma Mia and the play with Dames Judy Dench and Maggie Smith (I could actually see those two in person!!!!!). We walked around Picadilly for a few hours and gawked at the shops. I have quickly learned not to look at prices in designer stores. As Sarah McCann, one of my roommates, put it: "Shopping here is just like a free museum. You can look and admire all you want!" I did take a peek in Burberry at the price of a scarf: too much. It was funny, though. We started taking count of anyone who walked by us wearing anything with the Burberry plaid. In the course of a 15 minute walk to a cafe (pronounced "caff"), we saw about 12 people, including a woman in a trench coat and each of her kids with either a coat, a scarf or a bag with Burberry plaid. Crazy.
After wandering for a few hours, we all met up at the Criterion Theatre for the Reduced Shakspeare production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged. Three men, perform all of the Bard's trageies, commedies and histories in 97 minutes. I'd seen the performance in Sedona, AZ about four years before, and it was just as hilarious the second time around.
When the play was over, we were without a "coach" (tour bus) to take us back to our flats and were left to fend for ourselves to find a way home. It was really very easy; just a simple Tube ride. Our flats are about a five minute walk from Earl's Court Tube station. That'll come in real handy when I start my internship.

tomorrow and further
Tomorrow we meet at 8 a.m. (now that's a tragedy worse than any Shakespeare's plays, especially if I don't get sleep for the third night in a row) for another, more in-depth orientation. We start our first class Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. with British Life and Culter. The lecture is a basic intro to Britain. Wednesday, in correspondance with the Tuesday lecture, we'll head to the Museum of London for a few hours. Some of our other BLC classes throughout the semester will take up to Dover and Canterbury (including the white cliffs of Dover), the Tate Britain, Bath and Stonehenge, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Warwick and Stratford, the Houses of Parliament, Oxford and Blenheim Palace, the Inns of Court, the British Museum, and the Globe Theatre. Through the grapevine, we've been un-officially told that our internship interviews won't be until Friday of next week! That means that I'll be visiting a lot of the museums and sites on my own and getting to have a better understanding of the city!
This weekend, Sarah is going to Paris to visit her brother and his fiancee. Being the nice roommates that we are, Ellen and I have decided to accompany her. We don't think she should travel on her own, her first weekend in Europe. It's simply not safe. ;) So, as my MU friends are moving back to CoMo and are getting ready for classes, I'll be chilling in good ol' Paree!

a train runs through my backyard every 30 seconds
Seriously. There is a train stop directly behind our flat (we could jump onto the tracks from the flat above ours balcany) and the trains seriously run every thirty seconds . . . the biggest gap I counted last night as I pleaded for sleep to come was five minutes between trains. I think they end around 1 in the morning . . . and then begin again around 6 in the morning. So I will consistantly be getting around five hours of sleep every night.
Other than that, our flat is absolutely fabulous. There are six of us living together: Sarah, Ellen, Mary Pat, Megan, Careth and me. Careth is the only one not from Mizzou and not doing a journalism internship. There is one bathroom. The boys below us have two bathrooms and only one of them has an internship. No fair. Really, though, our flat is a lot nicer than many of the others. For starters, we have a huge living room with nice furniture. Some lady last year with International Enrichment misappropirated funds and they ended up with really nice leather couches and a £2,000+ table and chairs set for six and since our flat is on the first level (the boys below us are in the basement and have a separate entrance from the rest of us.) the furniture ended up in our room. We aren't complaining! There are two bedrooms, one with two beds, one with four. The four bed bedroom is smaller than my freshman year dormroom and it's tight tight tight. But hey, we won't be spending much time in there anyways. We have a kitchen with a stove, microwave, fridge and freezer, sink and plenty of cabinet space. Basic kitchen supplies are there too. Our bathroom isn't too bad (except for the window that looks into our shower) and we actually get hot water! Overally, it's a ton better than each of us were excpecting. The other rooms aren't so nice . . . but most of them don't have bedrooms on the side of the train tracks either, so it evens out.
If you ever have a burning desire to write me a letter (or send me pictures, I brought too few and can't develop my American film over here) you can send it to my address:
Eric@ Br**k$
flat 1
40 Hogarth Road
London, England
SW5 OPU

Ellen keeps calling it Hogwarts instead of Hogarth by accident, so that's what everyone's calling it now. Fine with me. :)

If you ever feel like spending an exorbinant (sp?) amount of money by calling me on the phone (and probably not reaching anything but our voicemail) you can call: 001 44 7985 557 656 in the States.
For those of you who are also in the U.K. now, you can call me at 07985 557 656.

I guses that about does it for a "brief" update.

observations
The quotation mark key on British computers is up on the number row, not near the return button.
There are no restrooms or public bathrooms in London. They're called toilets.
It takes a rocket scientist to figure out how to cross a road in London.
The doorknob in all flats besides ours is in the center of the door, a la Hobit style in the Lord of the Rings movies.
It's weird to enter a bus on the left side instead of the right.
So many shopkeepers could be cheating me out of money because I have no sense of what is a pound coin verses a pence coin yet.

tootles
This is an excessively long post and I've racked up a big charge of £1.70 here at the Internet cafe, so I probably will not be posting another novel for a while. Expect brief posts instead. :) Time to unpack!