Day 2- The beginning...of?

So I have come to the decision that typing up an email to everyone repeatedly becomes very confusing. Thus, I have done what so many other college students have done, and sold out to the concept of blogging. Hopefully family, you will be okay with this, and yes, I will do what I can to still protect my privacy while also being able to easily describe to everyone the events of my days here in a weird country before I forget them or muck up the details of my stories. Besides- I can always edit the posts later.

Also- don't expect any of this journal to make sense, or for me to slow down and explain everything all the time. My mind makes my room look organized and clean, and I don't have enough time with all the thoughts in my head to sit, slow down, and file them in a chronological timeline. So bear with me. I'll do my best, but no guarantees that I won't totally jump topics then go back to whatever else.

Finally- DO NOT CALL ME. Yes, my phone will ring if you call it. I will hate you. It costs an obscene amount in international rates, for some reason people can't hear me talk when I answer the phone anyway, and I've already gotten two phone calls while in London, however brief they were. When I get a skypephone, I will let everyone know my number so they can call me. Otherwise, I would definitely prefer my phone remain a timekeeping paperweight.

So, with the disclaimers out of the way... (for now at least)

~*~*~*~

It is currently 3:29pm, I am sitting in my tiny dorm/flat room with my roommate Rachel, we just got back from our second tour of London for the day, and I have taken somewhere between 200-400 pictures already. I have no idea how I am going to show anyone all of them.

I woke up this morning at around 7am, unable to sleep anymore. My room is warm (helps that I claimed the bed next to the heater) and we have heated blankets, which is nice. When they said these dorm rooms were small though, they were not kidding- Rachel and I both mistook a bathroom with a shower, toilet, and sink in it for the closed door of a closet when we first walked in. there's a narrow path for walking, and my clothes are currently stored under my futon-thin bed. It's a pretty sweet deal though- we're across the street from the Natural History Museum, Victorian Alberts Museum of Fine Arts, and the Museum of Science. Down the street is a pub where the two princes go for drinks sometimes, the Imperial College, a great baguette shop, and a Starbucks. Two blocks down is the Underground/Tube station (amazing subway system) and in the other direction is the Coach (double decker red bus stop).

Right. So. Today I got up, went down to try the baguette shop (bacon and eggs in a crispy crunchy soft baguette for 2.70 (assume money is in pounds unless I use a $- I can't get the alt symbols to work on my laptop) I really wanted a shower, but alas, there is apparently no hot water, and it was too cold in the morning for me to attempt to deal with that.

At 10am we got on a coach for a tour of London. I bet at this point you want to ask "well, where did you go? what did you see?! what was it like?!" But alas, I have no idea where we went or exactly what I saw, because I got lost about two streets in. Names I remember being tossed at me were Parlament, London Bridge, a statue of Nelson Mandella, (we also passed statues of Nelson Mandella and Teddy Roosevelt, which I thought odd) Winston Churchill, etc. What I can tell you from the experience though is that London is beautiful and incredibly detailed. The buildings get sort of repetitive in places so its hard to pick out landmarks or know where you're going, but they're also repetitive with extreme details. Columns, arches, handmade bricks, sculptures of people...I was impressed by how fancy everything was, right down to the McDonalds and Pizza Huts. You would have thought Pizza Hut was somehow a semi-classy restaurant or something. Also- just how big.

Everything is huge! I couldn't take really good photos of most of the buildings or monuments due to the sheer size of them. Everything here is tall, and big, and beautiful, and doesn't fit in my camera lens at all. I really especially wanted a fisheye lens at one point when we were looking across at the Tower of London and the beautiful bridge next to it on one side, and then super space-age nice glass buildings on the other. Victorian meets the Jetsons, basically. It was awesome.

After the coach tour we had an hour break where I went back to the Sandwich shop for lunch (Salami win!) where I learned that if I didn't look at them and they were covered in Salami, I could eat cucumbers. Yeah yeah, gasp here. Moving on.
After lunch we went on a walking tour around Kensington, which was pretty sweet. We went to Kensington square and saw T.S. Eliot's old flat, and the noblemen's old townhouses, walked around Kensington palace where Queen Victoria II grew up (Emdowd feel free to totally fix all of my historical errors, I know I'm probably botching them and they're probably wounding you tremendously. Lou, Maisha, my spelling is also up for editing. ) as well as around the Kensington gardens and Hyde Park.

A note about Kensington Gardens- there is a pond. It is awesome. Emdowd, you and Talerra are not allowed to go there. There are birds a billion including terrifying swans. I was even afraid of them. Without stretching their necks, these birds heads were hovering at people's elbows and purses. I'm pretty sure they could take a person down. The pigeons were pretty comical though- they were so fat that they were having trouble flying.

Another point of interest was Princess Diana's memorial fountain and Isis, the bird statue. I didn't know people could manufacture that many patterns of water flow, especially in one round river/fountain path. Oh. Did I mention that Hyde Park is huge, just like everything else? Well, it is.


On the walking tour we saw the Church of St. Mary Abbots...

<--- This is the point in which I left for a meeting. I no longer have recollections of what happened today. When I look at the pics and/or have time, I will write them down.

So. Tonight I went with Jon, Courtney, Jackie, Will, and Ethan on a tube ride across London to the Thames and for a walk on Fleet Street (I took a photo just for you Rebecca, knowing how much you love Sweeny Todd. It'll get posted somewhere eventually.) We ended up at "Ye Olde Chesire Cheese" which is a famous pub from the 1600s which people such as Voltaire and Charles Dickens used to frequent. They had an amazing Fish Pie with mashed potatoes and peasncarrots (yes, I did make that one word). I also bought, drank, and finished my first glass of alcohol. It was a local brew cider (I forgot the name) and roughly 4.3% alcohol. No idea how much that is, but I seemed to be fine. How do I know this? Because after finishing our dinner we went for a very long walk around London. But before I get into that, a funny anecdote:

So we get into the pub. It's an old-fashioned, Victorian-style pub. Gas lighting, very dark, fairly ornate, all dark wood paneling, narrow stairs, etc. We get down into the basement. First, we can't figure out if we're supposed to sit down and have the bartender come take our orders (like we did last night) or if we're supposed to order drinks and food in one place, pick it up, then take it to the other side of a walled partition (left side tables, right side bar) So after a few minutes fumbling, we ask the bartender. He tells us well enough that there's two tables for us to sit at, and where the menus are. After we sit down and Courtney orders, the bartender comes over to let us know that we need to order as one group and sort it all later because otherwise the plates of food will come 10minutes apart. He then begins to look at me and mention that they only have the house brewery of alcohol. No Guiness, no Mohitos, etc. "No Coca-Cola, only Cola." He seemed really worried slash wanting us to leave as though we were going to start trouble because they didn't have anything americans drink. We just stared at him blankly and gave an 'okay' and a shrug, to which he responded with a wary nod and backed up to his bar. (Two of us got the Cider, three got Stout, and one got sparkling cider with extra Hops).

After dinner, we went out and walked from Fleet Street, across Leicester Square, All the way down to Trafalgar Square and then on to Piccadilly Circus. My favorite shop name along the way was "Ye Olde Cock Tavern." I also learned that on the Strand is supposedly an exchange shop which will change my money to pounds without a change fee. If this is true, it would be really nice to have some extra cash. The program gives us 160 pounds to last us for 10 days, about 16 a day. While this is enough to go out and eat 3 meals a day, it doesn't leave nearly enough money for all the theatre productions going on in London.

In London alone are over 50 theatres, each with their own productions going on. There are musicals, a ton of american musicals (including The Lion King, Avenue Q, Mamma Mia, Legally Blonde, etc.) both The Phantom of the Opera and it's sequel Love Never Dies, War Horse, LesMis, Noel Coward's Private Lives opens soon, a new Tom Stoppard play, and Cirque du Solei's Varekai, which is supposedly mind-blowingly brilliant. I also learned that the average hamburger from McDonalds costs roughly $10-14 here. I have decided that pub food is better, and that finding fast food restaurants in beautifully decorated buildings is disturbing.

OH! Today, I also saw a sports car smart car, which was REALLY exciting! It was as small as a smart car, but lower to the ground and with all the streamlined pretty of a sports vehicle. I'm pretty sure it could have raced under a Hummer and not only would it not have gotten a scratch, the Hummer would never see it speeding up or speeding away. It. Was. Neat.

Alas, it is midnight, and the photos from San Fran still have not finished uploading. Eventually, I will have photos from yesterday, today, and all the other days up, honest. Just...don't hold your breath on they photos being punctual. I have class in 10 hours, and a date with the Sandwich Shop in 9. Mmm, eggs.

Goals for tomorrow:
-Grocery Shopping
-Natural History Museum
-Cheap Lion King tickets...?
-Apply for Stage Combat Workshop