London Week One

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London is pretty much huge and rainy and there is so much to do. To sum it up, briefly, this week we had our first class for Sociology which included a trip to the Science Museum to learn about industrialization and the impact on workers.

Theatre-wise, the guys and I went spur-of-the-moment to Picadilly Circus to see a show and got £15 tix to Les Mis with great seats last minute. That was a fantastic show. Tonight we are going to see a crazy play called Lorca's Dreams. Then we have 2 shows at Shakespeare's Globe, in addition to our hopes of seeing Phantom, and Ivanov (Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Derek Jacoby, Jude Law). This city loves theatre, and if we can keep getting these prices and seats...so do we!

We are staying in Kensington, which has Aston Martins, Bentleys and Maseratis parked everywhere, not to mention Mercedes is like the Toyota Camry of the borough. The average flat goes from £5 to 12 million pounds (thats $10million+) which is insane because that amount of money in the states could buy a lot more space than here. The fact that I am not in a suit at all times makes me stand out right away. We are buying groceries so we are saving money for the sights, even though most of the museums are free.

Speaking of museums, the Tate Modern is unreal. The BEST Jackson Pollock, 12 Picassos, Braques and Lichtensteins not to mention everything else. Rothko and Francis are a new exhibit. We hit the Natural History Museum which has a lifesize blue whale and robotic T-Rex. We haven't gone to the British Museum (my future home for the next 4 weeks) or the various others, but am looking forward to those.

We walked by Big Ben, Parliament, Temple Church, St. Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham to get out of the area when the weather was nice the other day. We're going to go to those and other sights throughout the weeks, we didn't want to do everything the first week!

We also saw Keira Knightley at the premiere of The Duchess, so we're hoping to run into her on more than one occasion!

All in all, this week was mostly settling into the flat (Adam, Sean and I), visiting the beautiful parks and testing the expensive waters around us.

Also, we were able to try this thing called 'beer'. It is actual beer, not like water and hops.

On that note, I'm off to write a paper and then hit the Tube!

Ta for now.

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Comments

[Roaming Bulldog]

Snobs
Wow, taking in theater and hob-nobbing with Keira Knightley on week one. You guys are are sliding right in to European high society, eh?