One Week Down

Hello everyone! So at this point I've been in London for a little more than a week (it was a week on Wednesday) and I feel like I've been here forever and only for a few minutes at the same time. This week was my first full week of classes. I'm taking British Life and Culture, British Politics, Islam and the West, and Transnational Studies. I really like three of my professors, the other one's nice enough, but kinda dry and since our classes are three hours long his tends to drag. But all-in-all one ok professor and three great ones is pretty good. Since the classes are three hours long we have time to do things other than lecture, at least once a week I have a field trip in one class or another to a different section of London and they all seem really fun, they start next week.

Last night a large group from the school went to see the play The 39 Steps which was hilarious! It's a murder-mystery-comedy preformed with four actors, all but one playing multiple parts. It was fantastic, I highly recommend seeing it if you ever have a chance. The show was in Picadilly Circus, which is kinda like a toned down version of Times Square in London, and there are a ton of good restaurants in the area.

Here are some observations about the city that I've made in my first week:

1) London drivers could eat Massholes for breakfast. The drivers here are INSANE! As soon as a light turns green they floor it, and God help you if you are in a crosswalk when this happens, I've almost been run over  several times already and consider it an accomplishment that I've made it this long without being hit.

2) You know those really cute red phone booths that you see in the movies all the time that are essentially the universal symbol for London? (If not there's a pic below) They really are all around the city, along with some modern versions, but they aren't quite as cute as the movies, or my picture, make them seem. In reality the inside is full of pictures of women not wearing much and numbers to call said women (lol gee I wonder why the movies omit this?) This my not be the case in the more touristy parts of town, but in the residential neighborhood I live in it seems to be the rule.

3) Everything here is prettier than in America. Seriously. I have come to the conclusion we don't know how how to build things. Plenty of these building are, as one of the speakers at orientation put it, older than the country we come from, and they are BEAUTIFUL! The pictures below are from the inside of the Museum of Natural History which looks like a palace.

4) Museum's that are owned by the government, like the one pictured above are FREE! Which means I get to see cool stuff, like this life sized model of a blue whale, and dinosaur skeletons without paying a single pence (penny). (I should probably add that those skeletons are of various whales I didn't get any good pictures of the dino's). 

5) This song is more accurate than I ever expected, and I spend way too much time with it stuck in my head while walking around the city. 

6) I enjoy living in the city a lot more than I expected to. It's nice to not have to rely on a car and be able to walk or take the train to where ever I need, or want to be. And there's always something to do or see if you're board. As I get more used to being in the city I'm more willing to just aimlessly wander, and I'm getting better at doing so and not getting lost (a very useful skill to have in case you were wondering).

7) As strange as it sounds English isn't all that common in London. There are over 300 languages spoken in the city, the most in the world, with the result that any time you talk to someone there's only about a 50% chance they have an English accent. Despite this I still feel like I stand out whenever I talk in public, for some reason I still feel like I'm going to be judged for not being British as crazy as that sounds.

8) On a similar note even though I (obviously) still speak with an American accent I'm beginning to occasionally think in a British one. This is especially true after class when I've been listening to a professor with a British accent talk for three hours. 

Tomorrow I'm going to a place caller Speaker's Corner with my friend's Shira and Morgan. It's an area of Hyde Park where people go starting at 12:30 on Sunday, every Sunday, and make speeches and debate different subjects. Needless to say I am super excited for this!