Week Two: Landing in London, An Epic in Three Parts (1)

Technically I still have 20 minutes until it is officially June in London… but we can overlook that. We landed in Heathrow today nearly an hour late, which I barely noticed. Surprisingly, I was able to sleep most of the 7 hour flight over the Atlantic Ocean, with a few negligible neck problems. It took another hour to drive to our student housing in Camberwell, during which I completely fell asleep on the bus.

The neighborhood tour came right after we had just a few minutes to check in and drag our baggage up a couple flights of stairs (no elevators here). It was pleasant, the weather was nice and cool--no humidity like in DC. The walk to the our nearest tube station isn’t that bad, and it was there that most of us spent our first substantial amount of money in London – 93 pounds or around $200 for a month pass on the tube between zone 1 and zone 2 (which also includes unlimited bus use). We live in zone 2 but have internships and classes in zone 1 (more central London), so we had no other choice. For dinner, the majority of us happened to go to a nearby bar named… something with “black sheep” in it. I only remember its website that was displayed on a sign, “barbarblacksheep.com”… because I thought it was quite funny. We had a great time, laughing and just letting loose… after which we all decided to march over to a local grocery store, so we wouldn’t wake up in the morning hungry and without anything in our rooms.

So far, I’ve had a pretty unlucky experience with the housing here. My landline phone does not work. The internet which we are simply supposed to connect to with the provided Ethernet cable does not work. My key to get into the building was actually a deactivated one, which means that I have the key to get into my room but not to get into the building where my room actually is. Because it's the weekend, I've had a tough time resolving my problems immediately. The person who answered my call to the support line for the internet provider was confused, and the best response he could give me was “Oh… it’s not supposed to do that.” Technology always has a way of ruining your day, doesn't it? I consider all of this part of the transition process, I suppose, and hope that these problems will all resolve themselves soon…. On the other hand, I guess without technology we will all be bored in our rooms and be more encouraged to go out on the town – though I doubt that many of us were planning to stay cooped up in our rooms anyway!