Week Two: Landing in London, An Epic in Three Parts (2)

The only reason you can read this blog right now is because somehow, eventually, the internet problem was fixed and I was able to send my blog! Yay!

I started to write this entry then suddenly was overcome with jetlag and wanted to sleep very badly. Now I’m writing at 1:34 in the middle of the night… which I suppose means that I have a while to go before I get rid of it.

Today we had to go to South Kensington to the CAPA office for some orientation sessions… tomorrow we have some more orientation sessions… honestly, I didn’t know I could get re-oriented so many times in such a short period. We had a lot of orientation prepping in DC and now we have some more! I simply cannot wait for our internships to start, to get used to this pace of life and to just run with it. I don’t want to take any more baby steps, believe it or not.

The best part of today was the panoramic tour of London. It’s a larger city than most people think and very historical. We saw bridges, buildings, parks, monuments, museums and had the chance to stop and take pictures a few times.

View of Parliament and Big Ben

Tower Bridge

The tour was from a coach bus, but otherwise we have walked and taken the tube. The public transportation here is amazing! The tube runs practically everywhere, and buses make very regular stops. You can always see a double decker bus or a few passing by – sometimes too close to you.

St. Paul's Cathedral

At pedestrian crossings, they have words on the ground telling you which way to look (for instance, “look left” or “look right,” quite simply), which has probably already saved many of our lives several times on this trip already. I’ve adopted the phrase “Green man!” every time we are able to cross the street because instead of a white man lighting up, there is a green man! And when we can’t walk, a red man lights up.

The area where we live in Camberwell is green and leafy, a little less bustling than more central London of course, but we are still relatively close to the center.

For dinner, my roommate Jessica and I cooked! I was in charge of the chicken and she was in charge of the pasta. We did amazingly, if I do say so myself. I have cooked before, but not often. I think I will really take advantage of the fact that I’d go broke in a week if I keep eating out to force myself to cook more. It will be the motivation that I never had before.

Jessica (my roomie) and I are living the high life in London (we wish)!