Progress

Hello people.

Tonight is the eve of my officially becoming a student at Kingston University: tomorrow is Orientation, and I'll have a student ID made. I am pleasantly impatient.

I am pretty sure the last five days have actually spanned about three weeks. Every minute has been so completely full. I'll try to give an idea of how everything went down.

Since my program actually didn't begin until today, you may be wondering what in the world I was doing in London so early. Well, my program, Eurolearn, organized a short pre-orientation-orientation in central London, I posit to get us used to the culture. This is a good guess, because it is called the Bridging Cultures Program. QED.

Each of the three full days we had, we would spend the morning in the hotel conference room going over various things we are likely to encounter: British politics and colloquialisms, views about Americans, differences in the British and American education systems, etc. These were simultaneously extremely useful and uncomfortably stressful, especially about the differences in college. I guess British students don't do things like make friends with professors, or ask questions in class. Sorry Schroeders, you'd be out of luck. They also don't have anything like a liberal arts education; when they reach university they study their "major" and nothing else. But then they're only in school for three years.

So, right, mornings. Then, in the afternoons, we would go out into London for sightseeing and to learn the tube. Let's have a ...

~*~RECAP~*~
Wheeeeee!!!!!

Buckingham Palace


The Queen lives here. We took tea with her. NOT! I wish. Her place is pretty damn cool though. Last time I was here I went to see Windsor castle, and it was similarly extravagant. A lot of diplomatic entertaining is done there. Our audio guides kept talking about which staircases and hallways which guests would go through and when, and it just really made me want an invitation to a Garden Party. Unfortunately no pics were allowed inside, but here is a look at the front...

And here is a photo of the back, which you can only see if you go through...

The Queen has quite a backyard.

After this, we went too see what they said was a Medieval Banquet... It was sort of fun, with Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine hosting a banquet for the peasants. But, after Medieval Times in Dallas, I can't say I was impressed. Perhaps that's peevish. Oh well.

Then, that night, there was a festival going on, so we went down to the Thames by Parliament to watch fireworks...

I will be getting better pictures of this at some point, but from the left is the London Eye, the Parliament building and Big Ben.

Trafalgar Square

The second day we took a bus through central London just to pass some of the best stuff. We stopped at Trafalgar square to have a look around...

George Washington is hanging out there, in front of the National Gallery, which is directly behind
^^that...

One of the guys in my group had seen 1776, so we had a lovely chat about what a masterpiece of cinema it is.

Fun fact: back when Texas was a country, it had an embassy in London.

I was going to upload a picture of the Texas Embassy Cantina here, but it is taking so long and I have to get up really early in the morning to figure out the bus to school. So, that's that.

Shakespeare's Globe

This might have been my favorite thing we did the whole BCP. We saw "Merry Wives of Windsor" — have you ever heard of it? Because I hadn't. But it turns out it is hysterical. And of course the actors are working at the freaking Globe Theater, so naturally they were all fantastic. It wasn't even a big deal to be standing for that long; we were in the very front section, right next to the stage. I met someone going to Kingston with me who is a theatre person, so I will have a buddy for going to see Henry IV. Or some number Henry, I'm not completely certain which. But it will be great.

Tower of London

This was our big thing for the third day. I've been here before, but since last time we were pushed for time and had to leave early, I got to see a lot more than last time. Here is where they keep the crown jewels, and it is where several of Henry VIII's wives were beheaded. A lot of high class prisoners were kept here, including Sir Walter Scott. A little out-of-the-way building inside the tower walls is where they would keep the prisoners, and at the top is a room whose walls are covered in all the engravings of the people who have stayed there since something like the 16th century. Some of them were impossibly elaborate, but I guess they didn't really have anything else to do...

After this, we met up with a guide to take us on the Jack the Ripper walking tour. I have heard some mixed reviews of this particular attraction in the past, but I thought it was a lot of fun. Our guide was a character, of course, and I think he must have know everything there is to know about Jack the Ripper. Obviously they really don't know much about him, since he was never caught, but he gave us some pretty compelling theories. He said that one of the only reasons Jack the Ripper is so well-known is that about the time he started his rampage, newspapers had just figured out how to make paper dirt cheap by using wood pulp. So they could make a lot of papers for way cheap. They just needed to sell them, and a Jack the Ripper headline was a total money spinner. If journalists didn't have much to write about, a lot of times they would write a letter from someone claiming to be Jack the Ripper about how the police were fools and he'd never be caught, and that would be the headline for the next day. It was really interesting.

Then we went to eat Indian!!! Piquant.

This brings me to the end of BCP. Today we took a cab to Kingston, which is a fantastic little town that isn't as terrifyingly huge as London proper but still has pretty much an international feel. I already love it. My suite-mate, Lea, and I have a really nice family who cooked for us and took us to get bus passes. This is starting to feel real for the first time — all of BCP pretty much felt like camp or a vacation or something. Now we are actually at school, and in the place we are going to live for three and change months. It's perfectly petrifying, but exhilarating at the same time.

I had an easier time making friends than I thought, so that is prodigiously pleasing.  I am actually kind of surprised how solid of friends I made in such a short time. Weird.

Oooookay everybody, I had a late night clubbing last night (I'm serious. I made a big scene when Stronger came on.) so I am going to pass out.

I love you! Add me on Skype!

C