OK so clearly I'm behind in the times. I've now had three of my four classes, my professors are AWESOME. On Tuesday, we had a crazy busy day. We had our first class, British Life and Culture for 3 hours in the morning, and then spent the entire afternoon in orientations for the Senate Library, for our flats, for the ULU (University of London student Union). Never ending. Everyone was teasing me because we walked by ULU and I caught a waft of the chlorine smell coming from the pool that's in the basement and got EXTREMELY excited. Wanted to swim. A lot. But anyway, I got to see the pool during our orientation at ULU (pronounced "you-loo"), and I may end up swimming every once in a while.... or maybe not. I dunno. I'm in London, so I'll wing it :)
Tues night we had a "social" with our new professors (Susie is Brit Life and Culture, Barnaby is Brit Art and Architecture, and Jean is Shakespeare). Holy COW, it was fun. Jean is hilariousssssssssss, and we decided, over beer/wine, that we were going to get along quite well. Again, it's fun to be able to enjoy a drink with dinner, and even, apparently, with our professors.
Weds we had Art and Architecture, and watched some extremely bizarre short films concerning both modern architecture, and antiquated stuff (mostly stuff erected by the druids, so burial mounds and stone monuments for studying lunar motion). Lunch break, in which Hayes, John and I carried some boxes of stuff for Dr. King (*more on that later), and then back to class for Shakespeare. Jean is an actress, and I swear, she's got a love affair with Shakespeare. She ADORES his plays, and gushed about him for most of class. It was ok though, because she got us really psyched for the trip that we then took on Thurs to Stratford upon Avon (AKA Shakes' hometown).
45 minute walk to the Tube (AKA the Underground... have I covered that already?) on Thurs morning to head to Stratford, mostly taken because we're all trying to be frugal whenever/wherever we can to save up for traveling (lengthy side note at this point: I am SO GLAD that I spent the entire summer working at Episcopal with Mom, saving up and being a bump on a log instead of taking fun weekend trips. At the time, it was incredibly annoying having to say no to invites from people from school asking me to visit them, but now I'm glad that all that money can go to work paying for weekend trips in Europe! And to pubs. Let's be real.). 2 hours to Stratford, and we went straight to the bed and breakfasts where we were staying (as you may realize, one B&B would not hold the 14 students plus Dr. King plus Jean, so we were spread out over 3). THIS is where that "carrying heavy boxes across Bloomsbury for Dr. King during our lunch break on Tuesday comes in: Hayes and I got SINGLE BEDROOMS! So I had my own double bed (fantastic mattress), plus my own bathroom, and Hayes had his own bedroom, but had to share a bathroom with two of the other guys (Jack and Chase) who were in a double in the same place. So the four of us were in our own little B&B, and it was great.
Toured around Stratford in the afternoon, and went to see The Winter's Tale in the evening. Went to a pub called The Golden Bumblebee afterwards with John, Hayes, Chase, Ruthie, Jack and some of the girls ("some of the girls" ended up leaving pretty quickly though, but it was basically all 14 of us for a while there). Hung out for a while and then headed back to the B&Bs through a park and appreciated the fact that we could actually SEE the stars (as opposed to in London, where they look more like smudges on the sky-ceiling). Had a beautiful night's sleep, up at 8:30 to my home cooked breakfast, courtesy of Iain and his wife (our host and hostess; super nice people. The boys and I chatted with Iain for a while after breakfast about American TV, and he told us about how so many people in his neighborhood woke up at like 4 in the morning to watch the finale of Lost... it was broadcast all around the world at the same time... and how Brits love the show Prison Break), and then walked to Anne Hathaway's cottage to see Shakespeare's house. Bit of a trek, but it was a beautiful day. Actually warm, instead of the basically winter weather that we've been doing in London all week.
Back to Stratford this afternoon, and John, Hayes and I went to this Italian place on Sicilian Avenue (it's got stone columns at either end. Nice.) and had the most incredible food. I don't even know WHAT mine was bc they brought me the wrong thing, but I was so ravenous that I just ate it anyway. But damn. Some kind of chicken, and the way it was cooked, it had a crisp crust sort of thing (not a breading, just the way it was cooked), and was in this wine sauce, and had FRIED POTATOES ON THE SIDE! Fried potatoes, like HOMEFRIES. But cooked with rosemary. Oh. My. Goodness. Beautiful.
Now am back at home base. Everyone's upstairs playing games (I can hear them through the floor), so I'm going to head back to society. Thanks for listening :)
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