JANUARY 8, 2011
It's my first Saturday in London. At this point, I've been here for a couple of days; I've begun to settle in and get a good feel for my surroundings. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday included a few orientation meetings and other necessary logistics.. I'll try and sum up the week so far:
Tuesday night, after I was moved in, our little group of new friends made our way to a fantastic restaurant called Giraffe along the riverside. First beer with dinner at a restaurant: Red Stripe. Following the registration business on Wednesday, a couple of us head up to Oxford Circus. First time riding the Underground ("tube", a subway).
Sorry about the blurriness. Moving train, awkward tourist.
I've never been to New York City, but walking down this HUGE stretch of crowded sidewalk, flanked by store upon retail store offering unimaginable sales, gave me a pretty good idea of what it's like. Even if only on a small scale.. Very cool place though. I swear I took pictures, but I was struggling with my camera taking blurry night-pictures, so I might have deleted them.. Anyway, we found a cool restaurant called 'The Tyburn' (I think) off of the main drag. Not bad, good prices. Got a Carlsberg and burger for 6.10 pounds (read: '6 pounds ten'. No clue how to do a 'pound' symbol..), which is pretty cheap. Thursday, went to the pub in the student union, 'The Waterfront' for a 'Pub Quiz' (you get in groups and answer trivia questions). It was fun - cheap beer (had a Fosters, a couple Krogenbergs, a Carlberg, and a Guiness!) and great views over the river are always a good time. And met more people, including some cool international students! Friday, after Tate Modern, met up with some of the people from the night before for some delicious Indian food, followed by drinks at 'The Slug and Lettuce', a pub chain that's pretty cool. It was 2-for-1 cocktail night, but my manhood refused to allow carrying two mixed drinks back from the bar, so I got a beer.
That brings us back to Saturday. IFSA-Butler decides to take us out to an awesome Turkish restaurant called 'Tas' for lunch. Afterwards, we do some touring on the way to a play we're seeing at Piccadilly circus. Here's what we see:
The British Museum! I'm going there tomorrow, so expect pictures later
A cool shopping tunnel-thing
Covent Garden! It's a very cool place:
One of those people who paint themselves to look like statues
A very good street performer escaping from chains. Has to dislocate his shoulder every time. Ouch
A cool shopping alleyway. The style is said to have influenced J.K. Rowling's idea of Diagon Alley!
Piccadilly Circus! Great area:
Two guys were juggling footballs (that's soccer balls to you americans), but I barely missed it.
The Criterion Theatre where we saw the show 'The 39 Steps', which was great!
Secret theatre ceiling-shot..
And the stage. I went deep undercover as an old british couple in order to get this picture.
Piccadilly at night!
First time (since I've last been here) riding a double-decker bus:
Heading home for the night!
Good music to walk around London with:
Frightened Rabbit - "Good Arms vs. Bad Arms", off their awesome album "The Midnight Organ Fight"
One of my favorite songs right now. I'm excited about their new album too. Hooray for great Scottish bands!
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And that was pretty much it! Whoo, that was a lot of pictures. About 100 down, probably about 300 to go.. I better get blogging..
Cheers!
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