day 2

Woke up this morning (alas, not feeling like P Diddy) and it was down to the basement floor for breakfast. I was a little nervous about eating alone down there with all the other guests, but when I got down there it was sort of fun to eat alone. I went through the buffet and it was all familiar food: sausages, scrambled and sunny side up eggs, toast, and then some other odd breakfast foods, like baked beans and mushrooms, which Brits always have on their breakfast…weirdoes.

Anyway, I ate my food in the proper British style with my knife in the right hand and the fork over turned in the left. I had British mustard with my sausage, which is a lot like Dijon mustard, spicy and sweet. The sunny side up egg I didn’t really eat, but the scrambled eggs were very good and the toast was, of course, marvelous.

After breakfast my group all came to the lobby and we left to go to Westminster Abby. Something interesting about London is that the city most people think of as London is actually divided into two cities, Westminster and London. It’s all called London, but Westminster in the official name of about half the central part.

Though I’ve been to the Abby before, I think this time it was much better. I wasn’t in a group of about a million Voices in the Laural people and I could go at my own pace. I had my own audio tour, which was very nice, and I was able to see all the bazillions of statues and plaques that fill the Abby. Pretty much all the important British dead people are there, and it’s really strange to think that their decomposed bodies are right there beside you, so close to them you can touch their coffins.



It also amazes me what talented people can do with stone. They can make granite and marble look like wisps of cloth and tiny floating clouds. Angels can float down from heaven and it’s hard to believe they’re made of anything but air. I just know stone work is never something I would want to peruse.

I saw all there was to see in the Abby, then we took our walking tour of central London. We went to Tafalgar Square, this huge place with giant statues and giant columns with more giant statues on them. We saw the huge National Gallery, the British Louvre, which is nice and free. Hope to make a visit there later. Admiralty Arch was lovely because it had a nose in it (pictures will help to clear this up if I ever get around to it). The Mall and Horse Guard’s Parade (which is not a parade, they just stand there!) and through there we saw Buckingham Palace (been there!)

I took so many pictures of places I didn’t even know because all the buildings are so amazing here. There is a mix of the old and the new because of all the buildings destroyed in WWII (simply called The War here) had to be replaced with modern concrete and steel buildings. And there are so many teeny little details all over the place that it’s hard to imagine people sitting in workshops chiseling these facades out.

After that we had A LOT of free time. The five of us walked all over London looking for shopping mostly. I, alas, didn’t find anything, but many of the girls did. I did do a lot of people watching, and what I saw was that I need to buy some more clothes. The best-dressed guys here all follow the same formula: button-up shirt, sweater/cardigan, dark blazer, dark jeans, long toed, leather shoes (laced and unlaced). This tells me that I need to find some good guys stores, and fast! I have yet to venture to Primark, which I hear is a bastion of wonderful and affordable fashions, but I do know there is one on Oxford Street, so I hope to make a trip there soon.

After the free time we had another little meeting in the hotel. I learned about classes and learned something very disappointing: there aren’t going to be any British students in any of my classes. Apparently Brits don’t go to school in the summer because their regular schooling is so tough. That was very disappointing to me because I had hoped that I would be able to talk with other Brits in my classes, but it is not to be.

After the meeting we went to a restaurant for dinner on API’s dime/p (p=pence). It was a very neat little place where you ordered a three course meal. My first course was a carrot and orange soup. I sounds gross, but I was actually a very interesting and yummy orange soup. I then had a delicious leg of duck with mashed potatoes and red wine gravy, eaten the proper British way. For dessert I had banana pancakes, crepes filled with cooked bananas and covered in a caramel sauce. It was amazing!!

Then the time came to finally move into our Residence hall, the International House. Contrary to what my parents thought, the International house is not part of the Westminster campus. Campuses in America and Britain are very different. There is no “central campus” where everything is all there together, but spread out because space is so precious here. The International house is far enough away from where my classes are that I’ll have to take the tube to get there, but fortunately there’s only one line I have to follow to get there.

I moved into my room on the second floor and my first thought was that it was cold. Very cold. I closed the huge windows right away and connected to the Internet right away. After letting people back home know I was ok, I unpacked my things. It was cold. I did some stuff on the Internet. It was cold.

Then I took a shower. It was really cold. I could not figure out how to do the hot water. There are two knobs, one to the left that turns the water pressure up and down. Then there’s a second knob that turns the temperature up and down. This knob has a little red button on it that you have to press to turn it further. Another useless invention from the Brits. So I took a really cold shower. Then I went to sleep, but it really was a great day.

British word of the day: lorry = truck