day 3

So I woke up cold this morning. Cold cold cold. I brushed my teeth with cold water and cold toothpaste. I shaved with cold water. I put on my cold clothes. On top of being cold, I was hungry. I’m really starting to sound like a child from Oliver Twist or something. So I got out into the cold summer morning and chose a random direction and walked there. The first tiny shop I came to I bought some breakfast, which was a box of corn flakes. No milk. Just cornflakes. Then I walked back to the dorms because that was the only place I could think of to eat it.

I realized I haven’t talked much about where I’m staying. The International House is a 10 floor building with 9 individual rooms on each floor. I’m on the second floor, and my room has a large window with curtains, a desk, a chair, a dresser, a bed, and a wardrobe divided into a closet and a sink area by a partition. I have a lamp, but the light bulb blew out, so I can’t use that. I have two outlets, one by my desk that gets used for my laptop, and one by my bed which is for everything else. There is a toilet closet on each side of the hall, which divides four rooms on each side, and a shower closet. The kitchen, I learned later, is on the other half of the floor, and has everything you need but pots, which I’ve heard are on the other floors, so maybe I can borrow one. The building is also right next to a police station, so you feel safe, but you have to hear the sirens going off about every half hour.

After my very satisfying breakfast of a few handfuls of cornflakes, I met my group and we got on the tube to go to the Tower of London. That was very fun. We took a Yeoman tour of the tower areas, and our guide was funny and very loud, as he should be. After our short tour we had lots of time to do whatever we wanted. We went first to the Crown Jewels, which were of course fantastic. Then we went all along the walls and towers looking through all the rooms and displays the tower has put together. It was really fun.



On our way to the tube to go to the place we needed to be for the afternoon, our assistant director, who had taken us to the Tower and was taking us back to the tube, told us we should stop by this old church and check out the crypts. She’s filled with all shorts of information like this. So we went into the church and walked down some tiny little stairs and entered any ancient Roman crypt, which the church had turned into a kind of museum for what they had found in the crypt that had told them a lot about what life was like in Roman London.

We then had a bunch of free time, so, of course, we went to eat. We went to a place called Garfunkel’s and all ate burgers. I think British service must just be really slow everywhere, because it took us about an hour to eat there, or maybe British restaurants just don’t like Americans, but we tipped very well because we don’t really know what the norm is here. They say 10% but I think we do a lot more than that.

After a bit more free time we went to meet at the Embankment Tube Riverside exit to start our first Westminster University event, a treasure hunt. They don’t say “scavenger hunt” in Britain, but “treasure hunt”. So I went with three of my API people, the fourth joined another group, and we were off. The woman told us that third prize were A to Zs (pronounced A to Zeds, Brits use the French Z), which I already had. Second prize was tickets to the Tower, which I had already done. First prize was four tickets to see Wicked. Wait. WHAT?! WICKED?!!?!?! FOR FREE?!?!?!?! At this point I was determined to win those tickets. So we followed the guide of questions that we had to answer and ran all over the north side of the river. There were questions like “Go to Sherlock Holmes’s pub. What was Watson’s favorite dish?” I can’t remember the answer now, but we got it right. We went all over the place trying to find the answers. We had a great advantage over everyone else because of all the touring we’d done. We already knew the answers to many of the questions and for the others we knew where to find them. Some very helpful museum staff workers also were a great help.

By the end of the treasure hunt we wanted to swear off treasure hunts for the rest of our lives. The girl’s feet were blistered and aching, and I was wearing very comfortable shoes and even my feet hurt. But we got back to our meeting place, the Prince of Wales pub, turned in our questions 3 minutes late, and sat down. While the Westminster lady counted up our points, we used our free drink passes. I was worried about this event when I read about it in the itinerary. I don’t drink until I’m 21, but I was worried that I might miss out on this experience if I didn’t participate. But all my worries were for naught. I got my free coke and sat down. Then the Westminster lady stood up and presented the winners. But we didn’t win.



Just kidding!! We totally won!!! Even with the time penalty we answered more questions correctly than anyone else. We were all so happy, but I think I was the most excited. Free tickets or not, I was seeing Wicked while I was over here, but now I don’t have to worry about paying for it. All we have to do is let the lady know when we want to go and she sets it up. Hooray!!

After all this I was feeling really good so I ordered my first fish and chips. I even put the malted vinegar on the chips (fries), which was really good. I didn’t eat the pees, of course, but who would?

When we got back to our rooms I went down to the front office to ask for an extra blanket. They said they didn’t have any. I asked if they could tell me how to turn the heat up in my room, they said they person to do that was coming tomorrow. I was about to leave when the lady at the office said, “Do you want a heater?” I said “YES!!” So now I have a little space heater in my room that warms things up really nice. And then I took a shower, and there was warm water!! Don’t know how it happened, but there you go. The heater also sounds like the fan I have at home that helps me go to sleep and drowns out the city noise. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day.


British word of the day: rubbish bin = trash can