- The accents are amazing, and I'm working on learning to differentiate between accents from various parts of Britian... Southern Brits sound different than Northern, and they get offended if you mix them up.
- The grocery stores, which have a plethora of high quality and healthy prepared foods for very little money, as well as pre-washed vegetables and all kinds of fun foods like rhubarb or fig yogurt, custards, and exoctic drinks.
- Hard cider, beer, Pimm's cocktails, and gin and tonics are consistently delicious at every pub... no plastic bottle hard alcohol handles or Keystone Light for this country.
- The sense of accomplishment that comes from successfully crossing a street in a country in which cars go the wrong way.
- The tube (the London version of the subway) is cheap, fast, and efficient.
- There are people from all over the world... in any given class or on any given street corner, I can see and hear people from India, all over Europe, Brazil, Canada, and the list goes on. One of my professors is Indian and the other is Dutch. Being abroad and taking an Economics class in London offers much more than a slice of Britian... it offers an amazing view of the whole world.
- Interesting shops, restaurants, and pubs at every turn.
- LSE subsidized dining services, which makes a well-made sandwich or salad from an LSE restaurant less expensive than one I could make from grocery shopping (around £2.50).
- LSE facilities are also pretty incredible. My class is in the New Academic Building, which looks like this inside...
- All major muesums are subsidized by the government so that admission is free. Patrons can literally walk right into the building and begin looking around. Yesterday I walked two blocks from my dorm into the British Muesum. I saw the Rosetta stone and various sculptures and artifacts from Egypt and Greece. I'll go back this weekend to see the rest.
- H&M, Topshop, and a million other funky stores are within blocks of my dorm.
- People dress well in the city... men wear fine suits and women wear dresses and heels. There are lots of really beautiful people here too... far fewer fat people than in America.
There's a lot of good about this country, but there are a few things that make me miss home and appreciate America, the Northwest, and Whitman more than ever...
- Waitstaff and bartenders are incredibly rude. Because they don't work for tips, they have little to no incentive to be nice to customers, field unusual questions, or split checks among groups of young people who don't understand the currency in the first place. I asked for sugar-free vanilla flavoring in my milk steamer this morning. The barista laughed at me. I'm sorry, bitchy French lady... this is a quite normal question in some parts of the world. (On that note, the French I've met seem to live up to the lovely stereotypes about them... they consistenly think they're better than everyone else. Maybe they're just pissed off that they somehow ended up in London.)
- Pubs generally close at 11 PM.
- Jetlag
- A three week summer course at LSE means four hours of class everyday plus a couple of hours of reading. I'm in London for the first, and maybe only, time in my life. Though LSE is a big deal, and the course is interesting and I'm working hard at it, I'd rather be off at one of those free muesums.
- Toilets and showers are weird here. Finding a trash can (called a rubbish or litter container) or a drinking fountain in any building or on the streets is like looking for a unicorn at the bottom of the ocean.
- The drinking water is not tasty. This calls for lots of Crystal Light.
- Surprising amounts of administrative failure at LSE. Registration consisted of waiting in line for two and a half hours in order to perform the five second task of showing them my passport and getting an ID card. I expected a bit more of the famous LSE, especially since it is supposed to understand how to manage things efficiently, being the premiere social science institute IN THE WORLD.
- I haven't eaten fish 'n' chips yet. This must change this weekend.
All in all, being here is incredible. Though there're some strange aspects of the country to adjust to, the downsides to being here are more amusing than annoying, and my main worry is that I won't have time to see and do everything that I want to. And with that, I'm off to class, and then to see and to do... Cheers until next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment