Duck Tour and other stories

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Sitting on my cute little yellow bed, listening to Coldplay, with the London Daily Telegraph sprawled out across my lap. Am I an Anglophile yet?
Perhaps.

So, I'm very determined to get caught up with each of my little adventures before I get too caught up in my school work, which actually seems like it's gonna be pretty time consuming. Boo. Except for its all writing projects that sound fantastic. Not so boo.

Sunday was another program orientation day. All of the journalism students congregated in the courtyard of our building to make the 30 minute trek down to campus together. Our house, Kamen House, is in the Clerkenwell district of London, while the NYU London Mansion known as 6 Bedford Square is in Bloomsbury, near the British Museum. It's a nice walk of a little over a mile, with lots of sites to take in along the way. Since most of us go to NYU, New York has forced us to be unafraid of cars and buses as we cross the streets at inappropriate times. If we're late for class, we'll dart across four lanes of one-way traffic on Broadway to make it on time. The cars will stop. They always do.
They definitely DO NOT stop in London. No matter the size or shape of the vehicle, they do not stop. They will run you down faster than you can say "cross walk." We learned this the hard way and darted across the street with the little man was lit red instead of green, and almost got hit by a double-decker bus. Lesson learned. I'll wait my turn.
Once we got to the Mansion, we had a informal meeting with our professors over English finger sandwiches and cookies. PS: the English put butter on things that clearly do not need butter. Like my grilled veggie sandwich with balsamic. Delicious until I bit into a Paula Deen sized scoop of butter. Anyways, we talked to our profs about what we should expect from the class and learned a bit about their backgrounds. Both of mine are insanely knowledgeable journalists and I'm greatly looking forward to having them instruct me on my writing techniques. I know I have room to improve in many different areas, but the intensity of this program and of my courses sound like they will whip me into shape by the time Fall semester starts.
After the professor session, the whole program was sent on the tube (London's subway) to Waterloo station on the South Bank of the river Thames to begin a guided bus tour... or what we thought was a bus tour. I assumed we'd be on one of the traditional double decker hop-on, hop-off bus tours. Instead, we see something bright yellow waiting for us. We went on a "Duck Tour" of London instead.
The Duck vehicles themselves are actually an important part of English history. Used during World War II, these "duck" mobiles can travel both on land and on water. These were the vehicles that carried the English and American troops up on to the beaches of Normandy to fight that historic battle. All of the ones used for these guided tours have been preserved in the same state as they were in during the war (except for the bright yellow paint).
Now, I'm not one for guided tours. When I travel, I absolutely hate standing out as a tourist. I always try my best to disassociate myself from America as much as possible and I try to blend in with the local people. I like to observe what they do and where they go, because I think that is the only way to really see and understand new territory. Do as the locals do. And nothing... NOTHING screams "I'm from America!!" more than riding around on a silly yellow boat car for two hours.
Despite my best efforts, I actually enjoyed the tour and learned a lot. It helped me get a feel for the city and see where things are in relation to other things, so planning for future excursions became a whole lot easier.
We began by driving over London Bridge so that we could get a view of the Tower Bridge. I always assumed that the Tower Bridge was actually the London Bridge, based solely on the evidence of millions of pictures and postcards existing of Tower Bridge. That is definitely the most famous bridge in London, and the one the rest of the world is really familiar with. London has a bajillion bridges (ok, there are actually 12 important bridges. Not a bajillion. I like to exaggerate.) that cross the River Thames, and I already have a favorite. It's the Vauxhall Bridge. Why is it my favorite? Because on the sides of the bridge stand a series of magnificent bronze statues of women depicting important events of the arts and sciences. All female statues. No male statues. Londoners sometimes refer to it as "The Sexist Bridge." The rest of the land tour had us driving all throughout Old London. London is considered to be comprised of two actual cities: Old London and Westminster. Old London is pretty self explanatory: it's what used to be the city central back in the day. It's expanded and modernized a bit, but still maintains its history and many of the original buildings and structures. London also has a number of boroughs, just like New York does. Imagine that. So, we drove in the Duck past Westminster, St. Paul's Cathedral, the financial district, and a number of other buildings and sites. The problem with the Duck was that we moved quickly and I didn't really have a lot of time to absorb what I was seeing. The Duck then turned off the road and drove into the River Thames, where we sailed down the river under a number of the bridges, past Shakespeare's Globe, Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament. Very lovely to see. I can't wait to go back and see those things close up and on my own time.

After the tour ended, the big group split up into smaller groups to go gallivanting about as we chose. Susan, Hayley, Jessica and I went off to tackle the Tube. It seems very confusing... but so did the New York subway at first, and now I know how to get anywhere on any line (almost). We went to Leicester Square (pronounced "Lester"), a bustling area around a large park that houses a lot of shops and the National Gallery. The square was very crowded because there was an Israeli Independence Day celebration going on. I watched an Israeli musician named Miri Ben-Ari, who is a self-proclaimed "hip-hop violinist." She was spectacular. She plays the violin while a DJ scratches behind her. I've never seen anything like her. I'll definitely be downloading her when I get back. What made me sad is that some of her performance was drowned out by the sounds of pro-Palestine protesters. Now is not the time for me to get into my opinion of this conflict, but I do feel that the protesters were just as entitled to be there as the celebrators were. Next we went into a local bookshop, where I found the "prequel" page JK Rowling had written for a charity event. I was tempted to buy a set of the Harry Potter books as well, because the UK books have different artwork. The American artwork is much more elegant though, to be honest.
The bookshop we went into didn't carry our school books, so we got back on the tube and set off to find more books. We got off near the University of Central London and began walking. And walking. And walking. No bookstore in sight. We were flat out lost. We didn't mind much, getting lost is the best way to learn about a new place and to discover new sites. We headed back towards the university and explored the area around there. We asked a few students for a restaurant recommendation, and away we went! I absolutely love the area where the university is located. It is a young area with amazing vintage shops and more restaurants than where our dorm is. We randomly bumped into Patti, another girl from the program, and the five of us had dinner at this place called Metro Thai. Again, very tasty. I guess I'll stick with Southeast Asian cuisine the whole time I'm here lol.
The soccer final game was on that night, so we found a nearby pub to watch the festivities. Spain versus Germany. For me, the fun was in watching the other spectators. There was a table of Spain fans sitting right next to a table of Germany fans. Whenever Spain would get ahead, their fans would jump up and down yelling "vamonos! vamonos!" while the Germany fans would curse in German. Hilarious. Spain won 1-0. Great game. I really wish America had a sport that really united the country like soccer does for so many countries world wide. The national pride that these people feel for their countries soccer team is unbelievable. We just don't really have any sport like that in America. Baseball, football and basketball are only played against other American teams in the league. Hopefully soccer will take off in the US as well, so we can join in the soccer festivities.

Can you believe I still have two full days left to catch you up on?

Until next time....


Cheers,
Leah

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Photos

The Duck
In all its yellow, WWII glory.

Vauxhall Bridge
One of the lady statues on the Vauxhall.

Parliament
The House of Parliament and Big Ben, as seen from the River Thames

Swans
A cute married pair of swans on the Thames.

St. Paul's
Way down there is St. Paul's Cathedral. See it?

Faces
...on the side of the Cathedral.

Leicester Square
Yay Israel

Leicester Square 2
Guarding the Square

UCL
University of Central London. They don't make 'em like that in the States.