Week Two: Landing in London, an Epic in Three Parts (3)

Today was the LAST day of orientation (and re-orientation and re-orientation). I am so happy. Afterwards, my friend Alisa (also my roommate back in DC) and I went in search of my internship location off of Victoria station, because I have an interview scheduled for tomorrow and didn’t want to be lost on my first day. I made friends with the security guard, Paul, in the lobby. I think that this will be a good experience. Yes, simply based on meeting the nice security guard man in the lobby. I am that optimistic. (As a side note: I have also made friends with two old security guards where I live, Bailey and Junior, because of my problems with my key and being locked out and whatnot).

Afterwards, we decided to go absolutely crazy and travel all over London. We roamed the Victoria station, which turned out to be huge because it also houses a train station and has a mall attached to it. Then we got on the tube and headed over to Covent Garden, where Alisa’s internship is supposed to be… “supposed to be” being key in that previous sentence. We marched up and down that area and could not find where her internship site is located. Oh well, good exercise. Then we went to explore some more and found ourselves at Leicester Square (also where Chinatown is, although I think we completely bypassed that). We took some pictures, and began to act like very obvious tourists (i.e. taking pictures in the red telephone booths… I know, it’s a little bit embarrassing, but necessary).

Leicester Square

I began to get hungry and so we moved on in search of food – except that I only wanted to go eat at this Vietnamese restaurant that I had read about off of Old Street station… far away. But we decided to go anyway. We traveled all the way there, got off, it was drizzling, and we didn’t know where we were going… I attempted to use the map and opened it upside down (hey, I realized that it was upside down in a split second!). It was a long trek over to the restaurant (which we didn’t even get to, because we were distracted by seeing another Vietnamese restaurant and were too lazy to walk any further). The food was so yummy! It was just what I needed after more than two weeks of eating meals consisting of peanut butter sandwiches in order to save money (yes, it’s that drastic).

Viet food at the restaurant we hunted down!

Then Alisa got the brilliant idea of going to see Tower Bridge in the dark. That led us to board the 149 bus right outside of the restaurant and go down the street to Liverpool Street station. I proceeded to be very tourist-y, taking pictures of random buildings on the street that were remotely attractive to me. We got on the tube there and got to the Tower Hill station. We got out and took some more ridiculous but priceless pictures (trust me, they’re pretty good).

View from outside Liverpool Station

Then we walked across Tower Bridge and along Queen’s Walk, parallel to the river until we reached London Bridge. London Bridge, despite all the hype, is not special whatsoever… it looks like a normal bridge. Tower Bridge is the crazy looking one! (Just a tip, so you know how to distinguish the two).

Tower Bridge, next to the Tower of London

We walked down the street and got onto the Jubilee line at the London Bridge station and did some tricky maneuvering to arrive back at Victoria station – yes, where we began. That was because we wanted to see how long it would take for me to travel to my internship by bus (buses are quite useful too, especially after the tube closes at midnight or so). That whole experience proves that spontaneity is sometimes better than making plans! And that being random and entertaining your whims are actually quite rewarding!

In any case, enough rambling from me for now! I can’t wait for the interview tomorrow and to really get into the vibe here!

Keep you posted.