Life On A Slant

Hi everyone! As my first entry from London, I'm going to write much more, from now on I'll try and use pictures to tell everything. These are just from my little digital camera, rather than my SLR.

Parliament and Big Ben from the London Bridge.
View from the top!

I arrived Saturday January 10th at 11a.m London time. We were taken to our flats immediately, where I lugged my two duffles and massive suitcase up nine flights of stairs. I live with two other girls in a room, and then another three-person room, a small bathroom, a nice living room, and a large kitchen completes our flat. Oh, and the entire flat is tilted...on a slant. Westminster Abbey

A statue outside of Buckingham Palace.

I've decided the slant of our apartment reflects my new life in London. The slant as opposed to flat ground represents the differences here as opposed to Missouri. I'm still standing, so the slant does not throw me completely off balance, but when I drop things, they roll across the room. I live extremely close to the Earl's Court Tube Station in South Kensington. The flat is very conveniently located next to the tube and grocery, but not so much my new uni.

The Eye of London is the big ferris wheel just across from the river. Made from Gucci glass, it gives rides all year. Definitely on my list of things to do.

I'm attending Imperial College which is, according to our professors, the second best university in England behind Cambridge. Described as the MIT of Europe, its mainly a medical, science and technology school. As journalism major, I laughed at this- I'm going to Rolla in London. The college campus is gorgeous. Statues are everywhere, and an auditorium that would rival the Fox theatre in St. Louis is planted at the edge, right next to Kensington Gardens. The college has the basics- a student union, nice computer labs and some extremely modern-looking buildings. The student union also has its own pub... amazingly cheap and a great place to hang out after our two night classes.

Parliament

I'm taking International Issues in Reporting and British Life and Culture. International Issues will explore the different press freedoms in European and American cultures and how to report from different perspectives. British Life and Culture is a Tuesday night class and Wednesdays, we take field trips to all of the great landmarks and places in England. Hurt me right? Westminster Abbey, their masses cost to get in, but I know we're going on one of our field trips.

Parliament again.

What else am I going to do with my time, with only two classes? Well, I have an internship. I don't know who with yet, but my interviews are the beginging of next week, so wish me luck. I'm ridiculously eager/terrified/ready for the internship, but have no clue what to expect.

Rachel Glaser and I in our first telephone booth experience.

Aside from that, London is just a fanstastic city. One person in our group described it as New York, but seeing the tops of the buildings. Everything is small, from the buildings to the shops, and very crammed together, but still beautiful. On Sunday, we went on a London-in-two-hours tour where we had about 15 minutes at every famous place in the city: Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, London's Eye, Tower and London Bridge, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Picadilly's Circus. I hope to see these places again with more time, and I'm pretty sure most of them are on our BLC field trips. At the gates of Buckingham Palace. Around the palace is a huge statue with a gold top. The guards: since the queen was away for the weekend, the weren't at the front gates so we couldn't mess with them and their seriousness. Top of the statue.

Ice surrounding the statue and the carvings of mermaids littered the bottom.

The crowded palace.

St. Paul's Cathedral is the place where Princess Di and Prince Charles got married. It's burnt down several times.

Pub Life: Stop reading now mom and dad (just kidding). Their pub (bar) life is very different from ours. See ya later Big 12 and Harpos, here, they start having a drink right after their last class. Their beer is twice as potent and they have many more types than we do. So far, my favority is called Fruli. Its a strawberry beer and tastes delicious. We order drinks by the pint; almost twice as much as back home. Pubs are more common than street signs and vary from ice bars to wine bars to just your average pub. Our first night, we went on a small Pub Crawl through South Kensington. In the four pubs we went to, we saw everything from college pubs to adult ones, and although the locals didn't talk to us, or weren't even particuarly friendly, we still had a blast! Samantha, me, Linley, Dustin and Ryan sharing a drink at the second pub we visited on the crawl.

Terrorism is very real in London, I've discovered. The City doesn't even have rubbish bins (trash cans) in fear of bombs being put in them. A professor compared their terrorist alert to New York's. They're used to the high alerts. These protesters have been living here for over five years.

The Gaza protests in London are supposed to be peaceful, but it was still too dangerous to get out of the bus. The driver had to ask where they were today so she could take a route that would keep us safe. Apparently in London, an organization has to register a protest with the police, and also pay any extra costs to the polics station. Their bobbys (or policemen) do not carry guns, but instead have big sticks they wack people with if misbehaving.

View from the London Bridge.

So far, we've explored around Kensington, Hammersmith, Picadilly and the little bit of downtown London that we toured around. More to come later!!

Picadilly Circus is much like Times Square in New York, all of the shows play there, as well as nice restaurants, clubs, and casinos.