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Published: June 30th 2008
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NYU owns everything. Hello all!
After roughly 6 months of anticipation and planning, I've finally arrived in London! I got here a few days ago, on Saturday, and have been keeping myself pretty busy... what with getting settled and familiarizing myself with an extraordinary new city.
So. Saturday. I stumble off the plane at Heathrow Airport at 11:00am London time (3am California time), and after being on two different flights totaling 13 hours of travel time I had only one thing on my mind: STARBUCKS. Then a frightening thought crossed my mind that Starbucks might not even exist across the pond (but it does as I soon found out), so I settled for something called Costa coffee instead. Quite delicious. Anyways, I took the Heathrow Express train from the airport to Paddington station in central London. As we zipped through the English countryside, I stared out the window and up at the clear, blue sky. It was the first time I had seen the sky in about a week and a half, due to the wildfires roaring across northern California that filled the air with thick smoke. It was such a welcoming site, seeing bright green fields, wildflowers, cottages and... McDonalds? Hmm. I
School 2
6 Bedford Square, aka the NYU mansion where we have our classes. Located around the corner from the British Museum. guess I can't escape everything. Once at Paddington station, I grabbed a cab and soon found myself standing on the sidewalk with my bags in tow staring at a steel gate marked "Kamen House." My new home for the next six weeks.
My flat is on the second floor, which in the US would actually be the third floor (the bottom floor here is referred to as LG, or Level Ground). I'm in a two bed, two bath flat that I share with four other girls. My bedroom is a triple, and I share it with Jessica and Susan. My suitemates are named Hayley and Kelsey. All five of us are getting along really well so far, and I have a class with each of them so it will be nice to have lovely girls to collaborate with. Once I got unpacked, Hayley and I went around our neighborhood to check out the surroundings. We're right at the intersection of Clerkenwell Road and Farringdon Road, in the Clerkenwell area in central London. It's a great little neighborhood with lots of small restaurants, pubs, delis and cafes. We found this awesome shop that sells yummy smelling organic soaps and makeup... I
Flat 1
My cute little yellow bed! It's even smaller than a twin, if you can believe that. wanted to buy some lavender body wash, but then remembered the currency exchange and reluctantly put it down.
We had an orientation session that night where I got to meet the rest of the people on the program. I'd say there's roughly 40 students in both the Journalism program and the College of Arts and Science program... 5 guys, 35 girls. Very typical of the NYU population. About half of the students are from NYU, and the rest are from various universities and majors. It's been really nice to get to interact with students from all across the country and hear how things are run at other universities.
After orientation, my flatmates and I went to a nearby outside market and explored our area a little more. Jessica and I were hungry, so we had dinner at a lovely little Indian restaurant. SO GOOD. I'd heard only good things about Indian food in London, and that's definitely true. I had a really good curry with naan.
That night, a huge group of people from the program decided to hit up the local pubs. We started at a place right on our corner called The Eagle. The only good part about
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My little dresser, filled to the brim with clothing. that place was that the bar tender had a springer spaniel that was running around and licking everyone. I miss my Merlyn! Aw. We moved on to another place nearby called The Castle, which was awesome. It was very crowded, but with all people around our age. We socialized with the locals and sampled English brews (served at room temp on a warm night... pretty gross). There was a DJ spinning inside, but there was no room to dance so we ended up hanging out outside of the bar. It was very strange drinking a glass of beer outside on the streets, very publicly, with about 50 other people from the bar. Very different from how things are in New York, where if it gets too warm or too crowded you just have to suck it up or leave. No outside save haven to retreat to.
We called it a night pretty early... everyone was extremely jetlagged and ready to crash. Sleep never felt so good.
This was a mighty long entry for one day with no real sight seeing done yet. Once my classes begin and I have to get in the mindset of writing, I'll probably become
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My portion of the room has a nice little window nook, which i immediately turned into a sill for my shoes =) much more eloquent and concise. Or not. We'll see. You all know I tend to ramble quite a bit.
Cheers,
Leah
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Megan
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your flat looks really nice! i mean, besides sharing with a ton of people. the living room/kitchen looks legit though. yay for journaling again! 5 guys. what a shame.