thursday this girl kelley who has been studying here all year essentially led claire, the girl i met at orientation, and lisa, the girl from wales, and me to two major tourist attractions: platform 9 and 3/4 (of Harry Potter fame) and abbey road. it was also the first time i went to a pub, and got a burger and a beer for under six pounds! i thought that was a pretty good deal.
there i am, ready for Hogwarts with my "new york" bag.
Lisa and myself trying to be the Beatles...
not exactly the same, but it's fun being a tourist..actually, it was quite difficult to get a good picture of us doing that. abbey road is a real road, and really really busy. we had to wait like an hour for traffic to calm before taking the pic, and it was downright impossible to get a direct shot like the one of the beatles without getting run over.
on thursday night we went to this club/bar called o'neill's. i really enjoyed it. it was just your average pub but had a live cover band that was basically doing only american songs, mainly those from the eighties through today. i had a good time there and i think my friends did as well. the night was pretty intense. i will leave it at that. after we got back, it was like 3 AM and i had kind of a problem because i told my friend aaron that i have spoken much about on this so i hope you all know who he is by now, but here is a pic of us at o'neill's:
not the best, but here we are. funny story after that experience, i thought we'd get back with enough time for him to get back to Denmark hill, where his flat is. for reasons that were basically my fault, we didn't leave o'neill's til like 2:30, so when we got the bus back to Victoria station, there were few and far between heading that far out of central london. i felt really bad, but we kind of just decided that he'd stay in my room for the night because it's easier. well, i didn't get the required visitor's pass for the night like i am supposed to, so when we all walked in (a group of six) the security guard immediately called him out. he gave me the spiel about having to get the stupid pass and i explained that this was a really last minute thing, but he didn't seem to be budging soo i decided we'd look for the right bus back. by this point, it was just past 3. we went to look for a bus all around my area and found one that was supposed to come but didn't after 40 minutes of waiting, so we came back to my dorm with the vague intent of doing whatever was possible to get him to stay. the security guard lightened up and then said something like he wanted to tell me it's okay because i'm a new student but i had already walked out the door, which i really find hard to believe. i can understand where he is coming from, though, because he didn't want to get in trouble -- the university asking "why did you let this strange american boy in 4 AM?" is never a thing.. but i am glad he ultimately was compassioned enough for us to let him stay. once we got in my room i remembered how small it was and the fact that i only have one blanket, so we had to share the bed -- not like that -- and it made for a terrible night's sleep. however, aaron had to go to something on his school's campus early in the AM which is just a few tube stops from my dorm, and i wanted to finally register with a doctor. so at 9:30 AM we both left. i had to wait almost an hour but it went well, and he texted me saying he left both money, and his oyster card (travel pass) which sucks but i couldn't help really because i was stuck waiting. it all worked itself out. later that day i had to go to my final orientation thing so claire and i went and basically re-hashed the events of the previous insane night. orientation was pointless information that they already gave us. i was surprised at that because these people aren't the most helpful. but whatever, i was so tired i kind of spaced. the new information in this session was that it was unnecessary for me to register with a doctor, which i was really pissed about because i got up early to do so. then aaron later told me no one showed up to his school thing, so it was pointless for him to have went. so basically both of us could have avoided that situation and it would have been peachy. oh, england.
last night there was a big boat party for all the study abroad kids at my uni, so we went to that. it was pretty lame, because most of the people were being really clique-y and a loud dance floor prevented us from actually branching out and speaking to new people. we left around 9. then i met up with aaron and his brother and we went to this AWESOME pub called Lowlander: http://www.lowlander.com/flash.html that features about sixty beers ALL of belgian or dutch descent ("low-land" countries). they had this thing called a "stick" that was six one-third pints and you let the bartender pick the beers for you, so it's like a little sampler. we got two and enjoyed ourselves. the people sitting next to us were three real Englishmen. the one was absolutely hilarious and by far the most favorite character i have met thus far. he was vulgar and loud and obnoxious and well, quite drunk, but so entertaining. i wish i could have recorded some of the stuff that was coming out of his mouth. a good example of this guy whose name escapes me at the moment was when it was time to pay, he took the hand-held card reader thing to his ear like a phone and started faking a conversation. then he handed it back to the waitress and said "well, i couldn't quite make out what she was saying, but i assure you it was naughty." i was excited to get the true English experience because i have been essentially going out to student bars, and this crowd was a bit older and the atmosphere was really relaxed. i would definitely go back there. unfortunately, the pubs close at 11:30 by some retarded U.K. law meant to prevent people from getting too drunk. but anyone with a brain just starts drinking early. i was annoyed we had to leave so early because we had kinda just gotten there, but in the end it turned out alright because the tube was still running so i was able to catch it back to my dorm. i then stayed up for two more hours and skyped to kelly and then my parents. so all in all i'd say it was a good day!
today lisa showed me the way to both the Regent campus and library by foot. this is a good thing because the Victoria line, the way i get to school, is closed every other weekend for a while for "maintence" which i think is absolute B.S. but my flatmate Martin who is a German here studying engineering kindly explained to me today that the reason for this is because without constant upkeep, the 140-year-old (yes, oldest in the world) tube system would basically fall apart. i guess that's okay.. ha. but yeah it was really good to see london from above the ground. i saw the way to buckingham palace and the eye and big ben etc from my dorm, and we cut through beautiful St. James' park, which is right near my dorm, to get to the campus. london was really buzzing today -- of course, we were by oxford circus and picadilly, so the shopping is insane -- but it was fun to be in the big city with all those people. the library here is beautiful. arizona's is much bigger, of course, but this library was really state-of-the-art and clean. some people were actually studying, which i thought was odd. i was able to print out everything i need to read before classes start, which is good that i learned how to do that with lisa's help because i am SURE i will be there a lot for papers.. i was also glad to get out and walk a lot. it was a long walk, probably about a half hour each way. the park was the best part by far, it's big and green and i think pretty safe, so i was considering trying to run there when the weather gets a little better..
hope all is well in the U.S.A. my love--
No comments:
Post a Comment