27/1/13

My apologizes to all for my absence. I have been quite busy since my last entry. So let's start with Wednesday and I will catch you all up to date with what I have been doing since then.

Wednesday 23/1
I woke up, ready for my second day of work. I took a nice shower, then looked at my mobile. I had received a text telling me not to come in to work. So I did what any responsible student would when they get a free day off- I went back to sleep. I did wake up for the day at 11:00, and being I all ready showered, I decided that I had to go on some sort of an adventure to validate the day. So I left. I headed towards Oxford Street and just started wandering west. Anyways, I stumbled across Hyde Park, which obviously I needed to spend about an hour just walking around taking in the quietness of a park. One of the entrances of the park looked like this

Surprise! I figured a way to upload my photos!

After meandering through Hyde Park, I took a stroll in Kensington Gardens, which conveniently, is right next to Hyde Park. I got a chance to see Kensington Palace, but I decided against going in. Afterwards, I went to the Albert and Victoria Museum. It was huge. I only explored a little bit, but it was amazing. I particularly liked the examples of iron work and the sculptures.

I am not sure why this was in there, but those are all flattened brass instruments. Art.

After, I realized that I should go home because there was a football match on and I wasn't exactly sure the way home. After a little over an hour, I made it back, coming through the West End. I saw the theatre for Les Mis. It is actually no more than a 15 minute walk from my house. As is pretty much everything in London. I truly am living in the heart of London.
When I made it back, I met up with some friends and we went to ULU for the football match. Joey and I made good friends with the bouncer. His name is Brian and he is a Chelsea fan like Joey. So we have a good deal at ULU now. The match was good and I think after, a group of us went to get McDonald's. I didn't but it was fun just walking with them. I went home and made Spaghetti. I believe that is my Wednesday.

Thursday 24/1
Thursdays will be rough from here on out. Especially since ULU shows all the Wednesday night football matches. We have to be in class at 9:15, so that is terrible to begin with. We start out with BES, which tell us cultural things about Britain. For example, we learned about newspapers, how they lean and how important they are to British society. Then we broke up into groups for seminar, where I go with 8 other people to a tutor from Glasgow, Scotland and we get a more comprehensive look into the United Kingdom. So I have class from 9:15 until 12:00, then I go home for a quick lunch and more importantly, a quick nap. At 14:00, I have to go to religion class, which last three hours. However, the tutor is your stereotypical English tutor; tweed jacket, skinny tie, blue pants. He seems like a nice guy. He is also very learned, so it was a little intimidating at some points. But the class seems fun, and we get to go and visit a lot of the religious places in London. I believe Thursday night was a relaxed night. a bunch of us hung out in the lounge, taking, playing cards and eating/drinking. However, it did end up going until the wee hours of the night, maybe 3:00, so that is why I didn't get a chance to blog then.

Friday 25/1
Friday was an interesting day.
I woke up around 11 to a text from Megan, asking what I was doing. With the cheer of 1000 men (sic) I told her that I was going to explore the east end, maybe got to tower bridge, but just walk around. She asked if she could come and I said sure. So after a shower, we headed towards the Thames. On Thursday, she said that she hasn't had a chance to see Parliament or Big Ben or the Eye, so when we got almost to the river, I purposely asked her which way, left or right. Now I figured, she was trying to be polite because I wanted to see the east side of the city, so I did what any good friend would do, and once we actually got to the river, I ushered her right. Right was towards the Eye and Big Ben. I figured she should see that and I didn't really care either way- It's still beautiful. We crossed the Millennium Bridge and stood directly under the Eye. It was colossal. After that, we got to see Parliament and Big Ben from across the river. It was a beautiful London day, so the picture was quite fitting:

Now, the funny thing about this building is how incredibly close one can get to it. I mean, you cannot physically touch it I don't think (except maybe because there was a park to the far left) but you can easily get ten yards from it. It's also incredible how ornate it is too, for such an old building. Once we recrossed the river, we wandered around some streets and found a contemporary art museum. It was featuring an artist who dealt with photography. I know this may come to a shock, but I still dislike contemporary art. For example, in one room, there was a photo of a baby's crib, but there was no baby in it: only an octopus. Another was a picture of a woman playing the piano with a wine glass on the top of the piano. But the twist was, there was a nude man sprawled out on the piano too. I don't know.
We found Buckingham Palace after getting warmed up. It was funny my reaction to it. I go to Megan, "You know, this is extremely impressive, but I feel like I've seen better." Her response was "Dan, you sound like you are talking about women here, not palaces." At this point, we decided to start heading back because we were meeting everyone to go to ULU for Burn's Night, which is some Scottish holiday. So we start walking back, and we end up in Leicester Square. So to get away from the people, we take alley's home. We passed this pub that had a great special for 15 Pounds, but we decided not to stop for dinner yet. So we walked down a few more alleys and stopped at a Pub for a drink. It is amazing the conversations you have with people in pubs. We discussed a lot, including art, theatre, and science, along with society and comparing and contrasting pub culture in the UK and the USA. Then, we couldn't find that pub again for dinner, so we decided just to grab something at ULU because it is cheap there. We stopped on the way home at M&M world. Which is amazing no matter what country you are in.

The M&M's seem to like the whole Abby Road thing too. I will have to go find that by the way. But as you can see, I am safe and whole.

Once we got back to school, we started playing cards before going out to ULU. It was enjoyable and I think by the time we left, we were a group of 10 or so. Once we got to the door, everyone got ID'd except Joey and I and the girls who were directly with us. Thank you Brian. In ULU, they opened up a whole side that is normally closed and they were playing good music. A lot of it was from the early 2000's, sprinkled with some British songs that none of us knew. We left around 1:00, and again, stopped at McDonalds. This time I got a Chicken Mayo, which is the exact same thing as a McChicken... but if you order a McChicken, it will cost you 2.50 and a Chicken Mayo is 99p.

Saturday 26/1
I slept in on Saturday because I don't think I got to bed before 4. Once I did wake up, Joey, Matt, Griffin, Megan and I went to a pub to watch Manchester play. It was not too exciting of a game, but Manchester did end up winning 4-0 so go Red. Then, we went back and played Pitch in the Lounge while some of the Fashion girls were throwing a party for one of their 21st birthday's. Luckily they left around 10. We took a break to make dinner then played a few more games. I won 1 out of the 5 games we played. So not to shabby for my second time playing. This was a pretty uneventful day so my apologies for not being to exciting today.

Sunday 27/1
Guess what?! I woke up today to meet Joey to watch Chelsea play, and decided that I physically couldn't because I am getting sick! So I laid in bed until 14:00, then got up to go grocery shopping. I went to by my work because there was a Poundland and an Iceland there, which sells discount food. I got a few things enough for the week and possibly more. I just need to get bread tomorrow for sandwiches before my ham turns. I got on the wrong bus on the way home, so it took longer then I wanted. However, I did get a chance to ride through downtown London. I saw the old London Stock Exchange and Liverpool station. But I was tired and sick so I wasn't too excited. Once I got back home I made a sandwich of ham, cheese and Coleman's Mustard. I would recommend this mustard to people who can handle spicy foods and it has a slight horseradish taste. But it was quite tasty. The rest of the night I will be spending doing paperwork, getting reorganized for the week and finally, answering all my emails from the past week that I was too busy for. Cheers!