First Adventure

So last night I had my first "adventure" in London. A couple kids from my dorm--Adrian, Anton, Emily, and Camille, and myself walked all around London. I should note that Adrian is from Seattle, Anton is from Toronto, Emily is from NJ, and Camille is from France... so I've been meeting a very diverse group of kids. Anyway, we walked all the way from my house, which is in Bloomsbury, to Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye. We walked over Waterloo Bridge and past Convent Gardens. This probably means nothing to the people who don't know anything about London, but it was a VERY long walk! My feet still hurt today! Everything was gorgeous, especially Big Ben which looked amazing all lit up. I will be posting pictures on both facebook and my new picturetrail website right after I post this, so check it out: http://www.picturetrail.com/justinekelly

I have also been doing some academic-related things lately (shock, I know). I'm going to try for 2 courses in the Economics department, as required, one class in the History department, and one class in the Slavonic and Eastern European department (I know that may sound surprising, but there is a class called "European Macroeconomics" that I am interested in). We basically finalize everything next week, which is why lectures and tutorials don't actually start until October 1st.

Tonight I hope to meet Samantha (who is studying at King's, for those who don't know) for dinner and then hopefully go out with some friends. It's hard because tonight Yom Kipur begins, and every person I've become friends with is Jewish. One girl, Maya, is half-jewish and not very religious and she agreed to go out with me later. Anyway, it's pretty funny because every time I say to someone "Oh it seems like everyone is doing something for Yom Kipur" the response I get is "Oh yeah... I should do that, too."

My only complaint so far about London is that the drivers are nuts. There is no such thing as "yield to pedestrians" over here, and it doesn't matter if you're standing in the middle of the road--the cars will not stop. There is also definitely some anti-American sentiment over year. My friends and I got this awful look in the grocery store yesterday when we didn't realize the queue started farther back. I apologized to the woman we almost cut in line, saying "I'm so sorry, we didn't realize the line was back here"... my American accent must have ticked her off because she didn't say anything, just gave me this horrified look. We learned during orientation that the British are very shy and reserved, and they don't like Americans because we are apparently very loud and outgoing and likely to embarrass the Brits we encounter.

Few last pieces of news:

I bought a travel size hair dryer at Boots for only 2.5 pounds.

I ate Thai food last night at this cute place right down the street from me

I found a Chinese place that you pay 3 pounds and fill up this tupperware container full of food to take out.

Tesco > Sainsbury's