Cheers!

I am considering combining my love for updating livejournal with my... love for getting livejournal comments by extending my pool of possible commenters to the entirety of the worldwide web! Though, if afoxinchile is any indication, the worldwide web has very few commenters within it's virtual walls. A lot has already happened and there's no way I could walk you through all of the details but I will try to make this a somewhat cohesive entry. Onward!

It is amazingly the end of my twelfth day here in London. I am definitely much more London savvy than I was a week ago. I feel pretty familiar with the "tube" and I have taken the night bus a few times now. You see, the trains here stop running at midnight (crazy, huh?), which means all the drunks of London need to stumble on home. This is where the night bus comes in. The night bus is pretty much exactly like the Knight bus in Harry Potter thus I suggest you just watch the movie (HP3, or is it 4?) instead of me trying to explain it and failing miserably.

The lovely Steffani Bangel was in London for most of the time that I have been here; it's been nice having someone familiar to explore new territories with.

Steffani and I at the entrance to the Millenium Bridge, which brings you right to the Tate Modern!

We did a lot of wandering, touristy and otherwise, but sadly she has left me for greener pastures in Amsterdam (get it? they're greener? ...cause weed is legal?). So now I am alone in this big bad city. I am going to miss our night bus rides home together which involved singing the Scooby Doo theme song, making fun of street/stop names, and doing really terrible British accents (excuuuuuuuuuuse me surrr, which way to diagon alley?).

This brings me to the subject of the English language. It is crazy how differently things are named here. I am beginning to question whether it's really the same language we're speaking. Though I know I've already mentioned some of these names in other places, some of my favorites include Imperial Wharf, Shepherd's Bush, World's End, Catford Garage, Cockfosters, and White City.

For now I've been living at my godmother's house in west London. She is in Dublin for the year and her husband's cousin (a 27ish year old woman, if I had to guess), is living here so I have been living with her in the house. I am not yet sure how long I'll be able to stay here but I am hoping that I will just be here indefinitely. We seem to have nearly opposite schedules so my goal is to be as invisible as possible and thus make her forget that I live here altogether! Although the house is quite far from my school, it's really nice to come back to a home. The area is really beautiful. The house is on a street called "The Common." A common is kind of like a small park or a quad—it's a public greenspace and I am right across the street from one! Here are some pictures of it:

Ealing Common

We've had blue skies almost every day I've been here!

Today I sat on this bench and read my first letter.

From Katherine!

My street from the common.

I live in the house in the middle!

My room.

I know you all know this but... this place is crazy expensive! I have been going to great lengths to try and be wise with spending (about time!). This includes the classy beer-in-my-purse routine during a night on the town—drinking on the street is legal here. Trashy? maybe. Economical, yes.

I've found that the cost of food (at grocery stores, not restaurants) is actually relatively reasonable here and offsets some of the other crazy expenses. Many of my staples (read: goat cheese and english muffins), are actually cheaper here than they are in the US! I have found some really good premade food at Tesco such as pierogies, wild mushroom tortellini, and chicken nuggets. Since I still have to fry/boil/bake these foods, it gives me the illusion that I am actually cooking.

On the topic of perogies, there are so many Poles here! It's pretty awesome, I think they are one of the biggest immigrant communities in London. You know what that means? It means there is a Polish food aisle at the supermarket! How awesome is that?

Needless to say, being of legal drinking age is great. I am not just legal, I'm two years over being legal! Social degenerate no more! I've gone out to a few different bars/clubs which has been fun but nothing exceptional just yet. Surprisingly, most of the bars here seem to close by midnight, and many of the clubs close by 2am. This is going to require some adjustment of my usual "going out" mindset. Starting and ending the night earlier sounds good to me, though.

I should add that they make up for the leniency in drinking laws in their identity theft prevention. They are really serious about comparing your signatures when you pay with a credit card and almost always tell me that my signature doesn't match.

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned school—this is because I haven't actually started classes yet and thus have little to divulge at this time. I had a few days of orientation last week during which I manically ran between my two departments—Political Science and Slavic Studies—trying to figure out my classes. This semester I am going to be taking Politics of the EU, Global Environmental Politics, Soviet and Russian Foreign Policy, and Intermediate Russian. I have managed to arrange my schedule so that I have Fridays off, which will give me the flexibility to travel on weekends—woohoo! I am planning to go visit my godmother and cousin in Dublin as well as my grandparents in Poland in the near future. The UCL campus is in central London and is quite nice, lots of pretty buildings and green space.

Here is a Picture of the library on the main quad.

A photo taken from the quad.


An intersection on campus.

Gordon Square, also on campus.

The crowds here are crazy. You'd think that as a New Yorker I'd be used to it, but I can't help but feel like they are exponentially worse here. It feels like times square on New Year's exploded all over this city. It can be a little bit stressful at times, but I am trying to counteract the stress of mass crowds with quality relaxing time in what is considered to be nature by New York standards. The weather has been really amazing since I've been here which has allowed me to spend lots of time outside. Can't complain!

While there are tons of details and pictures I want to share with you, it seems like it would be pretty impossible to channel them all through this neverending entry/wordvomit. I will leave you with this video Steffani took. A few days ago we went to see a free show of rising artists in Trafalgar Square, an older dude was dancing around with a tambourine and then this kid decided to join him. The video does not really do his skills justice, for he is Michael Jackson reincarnated. I apologize on Steffani's behalf for the rotating of the camera.

Much love from London!