We finally made it!! London is amazing so far, I have never been in love with a city more than I am right now. Everybody in the program arrived on Thursday morning after ridiculously tiring flights and we took coaches to the study center on Great Russell street. When we got to the study center we got our keys, key cards and flat assignments and immediately took our baggage to our new rooms. The flats are great! We all have big living rooms and kitchens and most are two level. I have five roommates: Stephanie, Johnathan, J.P., Dylan and Emma who is one of the GC's. We all get along really well and have been spending most of our time out and about together. Thursday, night we all went to a restaurant called Wagamama which is a Japanese fusion place that is delicious. We also ventured over to Bloomsbury Pub which is awesome. Everywhere we go in the study center we meet new students and make friends. A few people we hang out with are theatre, broad curriculum or international affairs and we have been exploring the city together.
Friday, Stephanie and I went on a Bloomsbury walking tour which branched out into other sections of London that we had not seen before like Soho and China town. Friday night we went to a pub close to the study center called The Crown which was packed so we decided to go back to Soho and we found the most amazing pub called the Pillars of Hercules which has inexpensive drinks and plays a lot of American music. After Pillars, we walked to the end of the street in Soho and a club promoter came up to us and asked if we wanted to go to a club for a good deal. We said yes and Stephanie and I got in for free while J.P. and Johnathan got in for £5 each. After Soho we went back to the flat and met a lot more people who are now our good friends.
Saturday was filled with orientations with our faculty going over the rules and expectations of the program. We were supposed to participate in a scavenger hunt around London but our flat decided it was going to be too hard so we walked down to Covent Garden and then headed to Leichester Square to hang out and see the big theatres there. That night we went down to Piccadilly Circus which is gorgeous with all the lights and has the most extravagant shopping in London we've seen yet. When we were walking back to the flat we stumbled across a bar called B@1 that played the best music in town, before going back to Pillars of Hercules for a drink where we met some locals.
Sunday morning we went on a coach tour of the city which was the most amazing thing yet. We went everywhere, from Buckingham Palace to Parliament, Tower of London and Hyde Park. I took about 100 pictures and we had the best tour guide. Sunday evening we went over to Notting Hill for Carnival which was a crazy experience and then came back to the Crown where we talked to about 25 students from our program.
Today (Monday) is a bank holiday so we are taking it easy and preparing for classes to start tomorrow. We are going to head back over to Notting Hill Carnival later to see the parade and join in the festivities which will round out our inaugural weekend here in London!
