London

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Travel Journal

FSU Study-Abroad Program

London, England



7/7/13



The last three days have been a whirlwind. I left Lake Chautauqua for Buffalo-Niagara International, flew to Philadelphia, and then to London-Heathrow. I arrived at Heathrow on Friday (7/5/13) with time to spare, but FSU was nowhere to be found. I ended up wandering the terminal until I decided to call the study center, which relayed that I was in the wrong terminal (despite their explicit written instructions). I met with our Program Assistant, Shauna, and chatted for a while until we found the rest of the 4 people that were meeting. At this point, we had to wait for the bus, which was late, due to a British law that says bus drivers must take a 45 minute break every 4.5 hours. After travelling almost 24 hours, I was ready to be on the bus. Unfortunately, it was an hour long ride to the study center.

Upon my arrival at the study center, I was given my keys and informed of a welcome orientation session that would be occurring in 10 minutes. I quickly dropped my things off at my flat and headed down to the basement of the study center which houses a small lecture hall. The orientation session was little more interesting than could be expected, despite the humor the program director employed; I was just too exhausted to care.

The flat I was assigned was in the building 102, adjacent to the study center, and connected via the basement. A dizzying array of stairs lead up to Flat 11 where I was staying. It must have been around the third story, but as the building is over 300 years old, and the stairs leant no distinguishable pattern, I could not tell. The flat is very nice. Two rooms, one bedroom with three beds, and a common area with a full kitchen, bathroom, couches, and a modern flat screen. The flat could even be called luxurious in most aspects aside the bathroom. I am very comfortable.

I have been communicating with Millie and my family back home using an app called Viber. It is a free VOIP application that uses wifi and is proving very handy. I was concerned about its function and the strength of wifi service in my flat, but so far, the call quality is fantastic, and the wifi is even good enough to have FaceTime calls on. It is good to hear from my family and to see Millie’s face. Homesickness has not set in, but I would be damned to say that it isn’t difficult being away from my loved ones.

My roommates did not arrive until around 1 am that night, as I was already sleeping. Apparently their flight from Jacksonville got delayed 12 hours due to mechanical issues (pleasant to hear prior to a 7 hour trans-Atlantic flight I’m sure). I awoke to light conversation between them and our PA, rose to greet them, and subsequently fell into another coma.

The next morning (7/6/13) I had my first chance to meet Fari and Michael. Both are very pleasant folks and I was happy to have some company in the flat. We awoke at 8 30 for our 9am orientation session, which didn’t invoke much attention. A large group of 15 or so went out to lunch and I had my first British pub experience, where I ate a fish stick sandwich and “chips” (fries). I tried my first British beer, Doonans, as well, although I was not fond of the taste, or the “cellar” temperature.



The group then reconvened at the lecture hall to have an alcohol awareness briefing. This went much faster than expected as was relatively un-painful. Fari, Michael, and I then walked around our neighborhood and took in our surroundings. We visited Green Park, Hyde Park, and Buckingham Palace. On the way to these locations, we stopped at the Picadilly Market, which houses some very unique artistic jewelry and paintings, among others. I hope to return to the market and explore more. My first Tube excursion took place after walking to these places, and I was excited to be on it. After exploring, I must say I find London to be a beautiful city, and the study center is located in a very up-and-up part of town called Bloomsbury. This area houses million pound flats apparently. I will enjoy staying here.

That afternoon we had a walking tour of the area to familiarize ourselves with where we would be shopping, buying groceries, converting currency, etc. The trip led us to an area of London called Soho that is interesting. It reminds me of Gaines Street in Tallahassee, complete with hipsters on fixed gear bicycles. Relaxing in the park, most Britons had a beer or more with them and appeared to be enjoying the beautiful weather, which up to this point, has been 75-80 degrees F and sunny. They are calling it “historic” weather even. The weather forecast continues to look impressive, with the next 10 days showing 0%!c(MISSING)hance of rain. Needless to say, my rain jacket is not seeing as much action as anticipated.

At night my roommates and I went around looking for a pub to drink at. Soho was very busy and we didn’t really find anything that appealed to us. After stopping in a cocktail bar, and subsequently leaving due to the lack of beer, we stopped at the White Hart pub and had a couple beers. Here I tried Grolsch and Bitter and Twisted brews. Both were satisfying, but the latter was much lighter than the former and I enjoyed the former much more. Grolsch had a pretty similar taste to Budweiser. The two drinks cost me 9 pounds, and I still haven’t figured out whether tipping is customary or not here, so I have been obliging.

On Sunday (7/7/13) I awoke at 8 for a bus tour around London, sponsored by FSU. I was excited to start getting my site-seeing in. I enjoyed a lot of what the tour guide was discussing regarding the history of the area, and had a good time on the tour. I will return to these areas in a smaller group with which I can explore in depth and will have already taken the necessary pictures for my future musings. On the tour we drove most of the time, through the shopping corridor of Picadilly Avenue, to the Financial district, around to the government sector which houses Parliament, Big Ben, etc, and then to St. Paul’s Cathedral. This was my first sighting of the River Thames, the London Eye, the Towers of London, and the aforementioned areas above.

After the three hour bus tour ended, I rested, ate, and decided to go on a run. It was my first run in over a month, as I have been inundated with responsibilities prior to leaving Tallahassee, primarily being moving out of my apartment into Dave and Brendan’s. I have no excuse for not exercising in New York, as I was either working on the property, on the boats, or taking a part of leisure activities and drinking the entire time (not a hard life at all!). I started the run at a fast pace, and found a map which lead me to the River Thames. After getting slightly turned around (this will be a common occurrence) I made it to a pedestrian bridge and crossed the river. It was at this point I realized my GPS was not working and became thoroughly disappointed, as I wanted to post my “track” on Matt’s facebook wall so that he could live the experience as well. However, I pressed on, running down the riverside, which was far too crowded to be an acceptable running area. I crossed back over the pedestrian bridge and proceeded to get thoroughly lost in the heart of London, per my expectation of the event. I passed several note-worthy areas such as Big Ben, the Eye of London, the River Thames, Trafalgar Square, St. John’s Park, St. John’s Palace (?), and into Soho where I became even more thoroughly confused. At the end of my run, I determined with Google Earth I ran over 5 miles with a final time of over an hour. I am counting it as the second best run I have ever had, with Kenya’s Maasai Mara run coming in first.

My roommates and I then rented bicycles from the station outside our flat. For 2 pounds you could rent a bike for a day, and then they charged you for every half hour. We rode to Hyde Park which we were not able to fully explore, and had several close calls with busses. Apparently all bicycle traffic must be in the road, and British drivers are crazy. Several times I or one of my colleagues got too close to a curb and had a bus side practically scraping our faces. It took some time to be more aggressive with the traffic so that we didn’t get run off the road.

For dinner we walked to a local hamburger joint that housed some very fine burgers. The burgers themselves were cheap, and delicious, even by American standards, but the add-ons like fries and drinks were expensive, and the soda was non-refillable. The conversion rate over here is hard on the wallet. At this time, the pound-to-dollar ratio is 0.63 to $1, while everything in the city costs equally as much denominationally as in America. But, in the words of Trevor Stohr, “spend as much as you can, because you will make it up later, but never have this experience again.” This is proving to be tough, yet much needed advice as I begin living in this city.





7/8/13



Today was the start of our classes here in London. I am taking International Entrepreneurship with Dr. Dever, who is also the lead professor for the Entrepreneurship major, and I’m taking Photography for Non-Majors. I had heard about how relaxed Dever’s course was from my cohorts, and was pretty confident that there wouldn’t be much work. I was unsure about the photography course, as these SLR’s can get really technical. However, most study-abroad classes are easier than on the main campus, so I wasn’t worried.

Dever’s class started at 9:30 am, and we met out front of the building. We then proceeded to a coffee shop called Costa where Dr. Dever treated us all with a drink of choice. I ordered an Americano, medium. When it came out, I was astonished by its size! It looked like a small cereal bowl full of coffee. Dever immediately looked at me staring at my enormous coffee and said, “why didn’t you order the small?” The class of 8 all sat around a table together as Dever discussed the semester, discussed how entrepreneurs think, among some other off topic things. All said, we spent over two hours of our 3.5 hour class at Costas. Needless to say, I finished my coffee, and was wired the rest of the morning…

I had an hour break in between classes, which I used to talk to Millie and eat the rest of the food in my pantry. After the break, I attended my photography class. The teacher is a first-timer in London which was slightly disappointing as she does not have any intimate knowledge of the local community, but she seems to be knowledgeable nonetheless. A short thirty minutes later and we were out of class, and I had my first project assigned, due Wednesday. I am certainly going to have to find time to fit this project in, as I will be visiting Dover tomorrow.

I spent my afternoon walking around London attempting to buy a prepaid sim card for my phone. Three stores, and over an hour later, I still had nothing to show for my attempt. Apparently ATT makes unlocking your iPhone about as difficult as possible (surprised?). Instead, I converted some dollars to pounds – a depressing event, as my $220 became 141.90 pounds – and went again to the grocery, this time picking up the orange juice that I have been so horridly missing.

After my excursion, the study abroad program went on a trip to see a play called Billy Elliot. I was worried about how interested I would be in the play, as it is a musical, which I usually loathe. We took the Tube to the theatre, and despite losing much of our group, arrived on time. The Victorian Theatre housed the play, and I was impressed by the building. It appeared to be older, definitely 19^th century, with a stone construction. I searched for my seat which I was told was in the Grand Circle, located at the upper deck of the theatre. The seats were pretty good, but there was a railing blocking part of my view of the stage.

The play itself was actually pretty interesting. The choreography of the dance combined with the musical number – written by Elton John – and the plot made an interesting, yet slightly sad show. The play is about a young boy who has lost his mother, working to become a ballet dancer. I was impressed by the music particularly, and the theatre had an extremely respectable sound system and fantastic tuning from the sound technicians. The singing was mostly clear, and the bass was pronounced and deep; adding to the vigor of the show. Despite the waterworks in the crowd, I left the theatre with a newfound perspective on Theatre, and may even decide to see another play.



7/9/13



Today was the Dover trip day. We met in front of the building at 8:30 and departed. We took 3 motor coaches for our approximately 70 member trip. I elected to read a newspaper for most of the hour and a half drive. We went through a lot of the English countryside, which was very beautiful. The terrain was similar to that of Chautauqua County but much hillier.

As we approached Dover, our Program Director gave us some of the history of The White Cliffs of Dover, and told us that it is what many Britons regard as their national symbol, much like our Statue of Liberty. Apparently during WWII, many British soldiers were forced to retreat out of France. This sparked an emergency situation as the government was not prepared to exfil all the soldiers. They called upon any volunteer citizens who had boats to rescue the soldiers and transport them back to Britain. This operation was called Operation Dynamo. Dover was the closest town to the French border, and therefore the White Cliffs of Dover was the first thing that the returning soldiers, who were sure they would be captured and likely killed by the German military, saw. The Cliffs became a source of national identity.

Once we arrived at Dover, we drove around the seaside town to take in some of the sights. There is a mid-size port there, which liners use to transport containers, other commodities, and cars across the English Channel. The area was older, and the buildings were not as up kept as those found in the wealthier London. The area almost reminded me of Buffalo, New York.

The coach dropped us off in front of Dover Castle, where the first part of our day was to be held. The castle was a beautiful sight to behold. The castle itself bordered two distinct regions; on one side, the English countryside, and the other, the English Channel and a bustling port. Inside the castle, there were renovations and additions to the structure that ranged from 1000 AD, all the way up to the Cold War. Some of these changes were apparent, as in the modern tunnels, and others that were less noticeable such as the wear on the stones that can only come with weathering.

First I toured the medieval part of the castle. This part was the oldest part, and was complete with King’s Chambers, a moat, drawbridge, and breaks in the castle walls for arrows to be shot through. I can’t confirm this is true or not, but I suspect that I even saw openings several stories up that may have been used to pour boiling oil on intruding soldiers. Apparently this castle has never been taken in its 900+ year existence, although the British apparently were forced to retreat from the castle during a battle against the French (of all nations!).

The next part was more interesting to me; I surveyed the WWI, WWII, and Cold War uses of the castle. In WWI, the grounds were used to construct a Fire Command post which the military would spot approaching ships, planes, and friendlies from. Apparently, German artillery was able to fire over 30 miles and hit the coast. Dog fights frequently happened over the channel as well, and it was vital to pull surviving pilots from the water and put them back in a plane, as pilots were extremely limited.

The shallowest tunnel was dug during WWII to act as an underground hospital. The tunnel itself was at most 8 feet tall, and apparently there is over 5 kilometers of tunnel there. The next deepest was also for WWII and this acted as the command center for Operation Dynamo. I was not able to see this tunnel, but expect it to be similar to the hospital, but with meeting rooms instead of wards. The deepest tunnel, and most recent, was constructed during the Cold War. Codenamed Dumpy, it acted as a Regional Seat of Government, in the case that a nuclear disaster destroyed the government body.

After around 3 and a half hours at the castle, we met back at the bus and drove to Margate. Margate is a seaside town with a small beach adjacent. After losing the group almost immediately, I went off to explore on my own. First I walked down the beach, picking up a few interesting stones along the way, and then back to the town to eat. After finding a pub in the heart of town, away from the tourists, I ordered a beer (Foster’s) and fish and chips. They actually had two kinds of fish, and I recall I ordered some sort of Cod. The meal was delicious, and another beer later, I was ready to leave. However, as soon as I paid my tab, a gentleman rolled in and started talking to me. There were a few other people at the bar, but none seemed interested in speaking to the quiet American, so this gentleman was a welcome addition to my afternoon. We spoke for around an hour and a half about politics, economics, and the 60’s. Apparently this fellow was a “peace-loving hippie” and dropped a lot of acid in the 60’s which explained a lot of his eccentricness, plus he had apparently already been drinking before coming to this pub. I enjoyed my conversation with him, and two beers (Stella and Courage) later, made my leave back to London.



7/10/13



Today is my birthday. I almost forgot about it, and probably would have, without Millie reminding me the night prior. The day was mostly uneventful. However, for Dever’s class, we went to Fortnum & Mason’s; essentially a department store for the wealthy. F&M had some of the most fantastic displays I have ever seen. All the items were in perfect order, and everything looked delicious. The store spanned five stories, with the bottom two selling groceries, and the top three selling home goods, goods for women, and goods for men. We were able to sample some of the ham there, which apparently came from a very rare white pig that was then air-dried cured for 12 months. It was by far the most delicious ham I have ever eaten. We also sampled some venison salami from Ireland that was equally delicious. I would have bought some if not for the price of 14 pounds per 100 grams! F&M also had departments that dealt exclusively in chocolate, tea, coffee, sweets, alcohol, wine, and more. After our tour, I ordered a King’s Blend coffee, which is definitely the best coffee I have ever had the pleasure to drink. I will be sure to bring back a bag if it is legal to do so.

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