The first full week.

It's been a while since I have posted because I've had a very busy week with classes and such.  Over all, the week went very well.  On Tuesday, however, I had a class called the Psychology of Prejudice and really didn't like the teacher or how the class was structured, so I dropped that class.  It's a shame because the topic is so interesting, but it just wasn't the class for me.  So the trouble became what would I take in its stead?  Just as I was pondering this, I received an email asking kids to join one of the classes I had originally been interested in but ended up not taking called Global Perspectives on Child and Adolescent Mental Health... a mouthful.  We call it CAMS.  So I signed up for that one.  Then Wednesday I had one class called Cultures and Contexts: Multinational British Identity.  It was a pretty good class, nothing special but a requirement that will surely be interesting.  Then Thursday came and I got to try the new CAMS class and see if it was worth switching in to.  It's great!  The teacher is really nice, we watch a lot of movies, and there are no pricy textbooks to buy!  We watched a documentary called 7up, which is the first installment of a longitudinal study on a bunch of English kids from varying social classes.  The kids were so cute!  The rich ones were very posh and snooty, and the poor ones were so sweet and accepting.  It was the 60s, so they all wanted to be astronauts.  Looking forward to the next episode, called "14up" later on in the class.  Then after that class I had my last class of the week: social psych.  It was great.  The teacher is an old British lady who is very funny and spaces out a lot.  Should be a good class!

Once classes were done for the day I headed home to rest and get ready for the night's big "start of term party" thrown by NYU at a club called Madame Jojo's which is apparently a drag and burlesque club on most nights... no shows for us unfortunately.  So I got home, was excited to relax for a little, when my roommate invites me out to a pub to meet her British friend.  Well, since I haven't actually met any British people yet really, I said sure.  So that was fun, and then I went home to get ready for the party.  It started at 10, so of course we had to be fashionably late.  We got there around 11.  Now, clubs aren't usually my thing.  I get tired and hot and what not, but since it cost 5 pounds my goal was to stay at least an hour.  BUT it was so fun!  I saw lots of friends I had made in my classes and met tons of new people.  I managed to stay until 1.  Not the craziest night seeing as though the party went until 3, but good for me.  Then we walked the long way home with sore feet, and fell right to sleep!

On Friday I was so tired I slept until 12:30 in the afternoon.  And then I pretty much stayed in bed all day.  One very exciting highlight of the day, however, is that I booked a trip to Wales for next weekend with some friends, and got tickets to go to Paris to visit another friend in March!  Yay travel.

So finally I come to today, Saturday.  Today was the opposite of yesterday in which I did almost nothing because today I feel like we talked all over... or at least that's what my feet are telling me.  So this morning I went to a place called Borough Market on the south side of the river.  It's a huge food market with tons of vendors selling produce, meats, and spices for groceries, as well as tons of fresh food for lunch.  There were samples galore and it was all delish!  I think my favorite thing I tried was truffle honey.  I'd tried it before but not like this!  It was so fresh and strong but just when it tasted a bit overwhelming, it was smoothed and sweetened by the taste of honey.  I would have bought like 10 jars right then and there... but they were 9 pounds each, so I'll wait til the rentals come to visit ;).  For lunch I had freshly made pumpkin tortellini.  The noodles were hugh and stuffed so much it was coming out at the seams.  Probably one of the best pastas I've ever had.  After lunch we headed back to the dorm.  Then, because today was one of like 2 sunny days we've had since we got here, my friends and I decided to go back out on a walk.  To where?  We weren't quite sure.  We decided to walk back towards the river.  It was a long walk, about 30 minutes or so (longer because we kept stopping to take pictures and passing adorable shops).  We passed the Twinnings Tea Shoppe with portraits of all the old Twinnings family members on the walls (as well as more free samples!).  Then we found the water and the beautiful skylines that make the older and newer parts of london.  To the right was Parliament, Big Ben, and the Eye (which is obviously new, but part of the more traditional half of London (or at least, the more traditionally photographed).  To the left was the more financial and modern side of London, with tall glass buildings including The Shard, the tallest building in Europe.  We decided to walk over a bridge to south side of London again, taking tons of pictures of the skyline on the Thames. When we got cold we decided to walk back.  We stumbled upon Trafalgar's Square and decided to sit there in front of the National Gallery for a bit before heading back to the dorm.  When we finally got back our feet were sore and cameras full of pictures - the true signs of a good day.

Tonight after dinner I'm off to a place called the Cider Tap, which is a pub full of ciders instead of beers.  Much tastier in my opinion.  So that's all to report for now.

Picture of the day:

London Eye, the River Thames, and Big Ben 

in the far distance on the right

Words of the day:

"Aubergines" = eggplants

"Zebra Crossing" = crosswalk