London Orientation

January 6, 2009

6:00 pm
Hi there! I am in London on orientation until Friday. On Friday, I go to Swansea and move into my new school! I am so excited. I had a wonderful week in Oxford, saw all of the tourist-y colleges, missed Ang way too much, and pretended like I was an Ivy-League chick for a week. (Just kidding, no one was even there). Anyway, I am now in London and the view from the hotel is absolutely amazing. My roommate is super nice and so are the other students on my program.

10:30pm
We just got back from the first official day of orientation. After the whole safety and introduction to Britain bit, I went to lunch with a few friends at a pub in the train station. We have been taking the subway everywhere and I really love it. It's extremely easy to navigate (even though some people think I am directionally challenged, I am not), and it is pretty clean. We went to this Mexican restaurant after dinner and they played Mexican Radio. . . and now I'm watching a TV show and it's playing the Electric Light Orchestra. Basically in the UK (Which I found out, isn't called the UK, but the whole area including Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland, and Scotland is called something else that's really long. The UK only stands for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Britain without Ireland. Also, I found out that the Great in Great Britain is supposed to mean something or other about that it was the greater part of the area.
Although orientation was extremely boring, it did have some "legit shit" (Ang) that was covered which I though was important to know. The previous paragraph is just an example of this.
So anyway, after orientation we went to Camden in London and took a local tour. Just to let you know, Camden is nothing like the Camden that we know in New Jersey. It's like, actually nice. Who would have thought? I'm wondering if all of the areas of England that were inspirations to many names in Pennsylvania are as contrasting as the two Camdens. I want to visit Bristol. . . I wonder if there is a Croydon..? (Just kidding, there's no way I'd go there anyway). There was some really nice scenery and lots of rich fancy houses. We went by the house that Charles Dickens lived in at some point, Nan would be proud. I made sure to take a picture of it but since my camera screen is broken (That's a long story), the picture didn't come out excellent. But it was good.
Camden has a market area that is much like South Street, in that there are crazy trannies and stores that sell things you would find at Rice's. I think it's like South Street, Philadelphia, and Canal Street, New York combined. I got some minutes on Chris'/My phone, (By the way, thanks for the phone Napster!), but I ended up using almost all of it calling home tonight. I think it charges like a dollar a minute, which is why I haven't really called anyone. Hopefully my Skype will be set up next week, and if it isn't I'm definitely going to buy a Skype phone so that I can call everyone for free. I miss everyone a lot, and am already a little homesick, but London is really nice and I'm interested to move into school on Friday.
Tomorrow, more orientation, then going to see the play Billy Elliot at Victoria Palace. On Thursday we have a free day, and then on Friday morning we leave for Swansea. There are three other students here who are going to Swansea with me. Maureen, my roommate during orientation, is from the Boston area and is currently singing in the shower. It reminds me of Ang and it makes me a little sad but it's almost like a small comfort from home. The view from our hotel room is extraordinary. I like cannot get over it.
So today at the panel discussion we had three speakers who were all in British politics and graduated from some fancy ivy school tens of years ago. They talked to us and answered questions about British affairs and how Britain is politically involved in the world. One of the speakers was a woman in Parliament who is the first female black Member of Parliament. I thought that this was really interested, and she was a very intelligent and informative speaker.

I'm not as annoyed by accents as I used to be. I actually think that I'm used to them. I've been in the area for 9 days. I think that's the longest I've ever been away from home.

P.S. In case you didn't know, in England, Milky Ways are called Mars Bars and Milky Ways are 3 Musketeers. That means, if you open up a Milky Way, you are going to eat a 3 Musketeers.

Julia, I heard Akon while walking by a store today.

The music that they play in pubs and in public places is so much better than America so far. In London and Oxford that is. It is American music..I'm sure it will be much different in Swansea though.

I love and miss you all. Until next time, take care! J

Hopefully I will have Skype set up sometime next week and can virtually update everyone!!


January 7, 2009

8:45 am
I finally slept a whole night without waking up in the middle! I just had breakfast in the hotel, they have this ballin' free breakfast in the mornings. It has some weird stuff, like some food Americans would only eat for dinner or lunch, but they also have cool things that we don't have. Today is another orientation day, which is going to be followed by a play during the night. We don’t have anything on our schedule from 2-6, so I'm hoping that I can get an adapter for my computer because I have been borrowing my roommate's because I got the wrong kind. But Arcadia might have planned something so we will have to do that. Well, off to more boring lectures about English things, academics and whatever else, so good-bye!

January 8th, 2009
1:45am
Hello there! So yesterday, as in last night about an hour ago, I had a wonderful day! Let's recap.

1. I don't have internet and probably won't have it until mid-next week. I apologize for not staying in contact with everyone and I miss you all! I am going to an internet café around 11 tomorrow (like 5 am U.S. time), so I'm going to post all of these entries that I have been typing and saving on my computer. I will hopefully get on Skype with a webcam by Tuesday J
2. Thanks to everyone who's reading and wants to stay with my on my journey! I also haven't been able to check my e-mail so I will do that when I get internet next week as well.

Anyway, we had some orientation time today where we met with our Study Abroad Advisor from our university. The lady I had was named Angela and she's this little old British lady who seems really happy, excited and helpful. She was more than willing to answer any questions we had and kept expressing her appreciation for our choice to go to Swansea. It was weird but really nice at the same time. After this, a bunch of us went to the Victoria Albert museum in South Kensington (Again, nothing like the section of Philadelphia…) It was a really nice museum and I managed to sneak onto this internet computer and e-mail my mom (I miss you!). At this time I also saw that I had 27 unread messages in my inbox, which told me that I need to get to an internet café and sort through the mess.

You will be happy to know that I, yes I, navigated us home from the museum. Not like it's that difficult or anything, but I'm so used to people always giving me directions that it was nice to finally have the direction.
Having a direction is great.

Later that night we went to see the play Billy Elliot at Victoria Palace. Beforehand we went to this nifty Italian joint which was really good and we got to walk up these cool spiral stairs to eat. The musical itself was good, there was extremely talented people in it and the child dancers they had were really amazing. They did a lot of tap dancing and I thought that was neat because I have never really seen tap dancing before. Especially by a bunch of 12 year olds.

Even though I knew about this, I am extremely surprised to hear children cursing in a musical and it be okay. The kids were like saying curses left and right and it was no big deal. Why should cursing be a big deal anyway…I mean who actually determined connotations behind words that are considered bad? (This is rhetorical)

The musical had an extraordinary ending that involved this dance routine where all of the actors and actresses danced rather than just stood there and bowed. It was really cool to watch.

After the musical we strolled to a nearby pub, where I ordered some Bacardi drink because I was so thirsty, and it was scrumptious. There were probably about 12 or so of us, so we just got to know each other and asked questions about where everyone was going to school. Most of the people there were going to London or the London area, but my whole Swansea group (There are 4 of us) was there as well.
We left the pub at 11:30 because the subway closes at 12. Also, everything here closes early. One would think the subway would close later because its' so popular, but it doesn't. Tomorrow is my free day, so hopefully I will post my entries and get some other preparatory chores done before leaving for Swansea. I leave for Swansea at 10:00 on Friday morning and will probably get there around 3, but most likely won't settle in until the afternoon. Because we aren't registered students with an ID until Monday, we may not be able to get on internet in our rooms, but I'm hoping and was told that we could probably get on in the library. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to get my computer registered early so I can Skype my loves back home. On Saturday, orientation at Swansea starts at 10:00 and it's all day because we are taking a field trip somewhere. We have off on Sunday, and Monday we start more orientation. The Saturday following we are going to Cardiff. I'm excited about that and I'm glad the school is taking us there for free.

So, there's my week, hopefully I will have internet soon, but until then, I'm off!