Day 4

What does Monday mean? Classes! I have History of London from 9 am to 12 pm Monday through Friday. It’s nice to get done with class so early. My class is in Asa Briggs Hall which is just a block away from the dorms. My professor is a cool British guy, but he paces a lot when he talks. I can already tell that’s going to drive me a little nuts. And he says um about 13 times in a row, which is strange. He says a lot of funny little British sayings that I’ve never heard before, like “My voice is packing up,” and “Just top up your oyster card.” The class itself is going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to be traveling around for most of the days, about 7 out of 13 of the classes. Today though we went over the syllabus and started talking about the very beginning of London and the Roman invaders who came and built up London, or Londinium as it was called back then. The Roman streets are still there about 20 feet underground. Where the City of London itself is now is roughly where London began, and it wasn’t until much later that it expanded into the 32 boroughs that it is today. Also in class we talked about the requirements, which are two tests and two papers. The first paper is due next Tuesday and is only 10% of our grade and only 1,000 words long. The first test is only one essay question (which he’ll give us the two options a few days before the test so we can prepare our answer) and it’s also only worth 10% of our grade. Then there’s the final essay which is worth 40% and is 2,000 words long, and the final exam (which he’ll also give us the options of the essays) and is also worth 40%. He says he doesn’t believe in testing our memory and it’s more interesting when we have a chance to prepare our answers so that he can read some thoughtful essays instead of just gobbledegook that we pull out of nowhere. I definitely appreciate that. But I do already have homework for Wednesday. I have to read a big packet about the hospitals of later medieval London. I was going to go sit in Hyde Park and read it but the day has gotten grayer and grayer by the minute. It’s also been very windy.

After class was over I met Jamie and Racki (pronounced Rocky) to walk over to Kensington Gardens to check it out. We only walked through about a quarter, if even that, of the gardens and we didn’t make it to Hyde Park because they had to be back for class by 2. We took some cool pictures though and saw a few interesting statues. I can’t wait to go explore the rest of Hyde Park. I especially want to find the Peter Pan statue. After we got back I chilled for an hour and then went to find an American Express so I could cash some travelers checks. I walked all the way down High Street, past Holland Park and didn’t find one, even though Kelly (our Resident Director) told me there was one there. So on the way back I decided to stroll through Holland Park. It was very pretty, and there were tons of people out. It’s interesting how people here will walk in the park and take their kids and dogs to the park all the time, but in America you don’t really see it as much. So I walked through the park for half an hour then headed home. We had to turn in our choices for the cultural activities being offered by the program at 5 and I thought getting there 10 minutes early would be enough, but apparently not. When I got back there were tons of people already in line. I ended up not getting a ticket to Spring Awakening, a play I definitely wanted to see. But at least I got a ticket for Phantom of the Opera and Romeo and Juliet (in the Globe!!!). I also am going on a day trip to Oxford and a night walk of the Thames River. So I got signed up and then we all ate dinner down in the cafeteria, which I’m happy to say was much better tonight than last Friday night. I was definitely hungry after just snacking on pretzels for lunch.

After my walk and signing up for cultural activities I wanted to just chill out at home for a bit, so I decided to just go up and hang out in my room for a while. At 8 pm we went to the Imperial College Union because our college rented it out for the night. What that meant was basically that we could get in. We tried to get in Friday night and they wouldn’t let us. Jamie and the girl’s and I had a great time tonight. We tried some traditional British drinks and met some fun British guys. All in all we had a great time at the Imperial College Union. We met cool people and had a great night. Now it’s time for bed before my 9 am field trip in the morning.

Love you guys!
Jaime