I made it! From the airport to the Umi Hotel for my flat keys and to Flat 2 in Hatton Gardens! I found out I had two roommates besides Chelsea (who I'd been talking to through email for the past two months) when I walked into the flat. They're on a study abroad program from Mason University in Virginia. When I got into the flat I picked the middle bedroom which had two beds (its a tiny room too!). I waited until later to unpack my things into my "closet" and dresser with drawers that do not function! I didn't do much Friday because I was pretty tired from the trip over.
Saturday Chelsea and I decided we wanted to find our internship placements. We went to mine first. We hopped on the tube (subway) went two stops to the Islington section of London. My internship is about a fifteen minute walk from the tube station and at most a forty minute commute from our flat. The neighborhood is really nice, a lot of shops and places to eat including Starbucks and a little place with a cat inside!
Chelsea's internship is at the Westminster Hospital. We got off at the South Kensington tube station and wandered around until we found the right streets. That area is very nice, much like the Upper East Side in NYC; big brownstone homes, fancy cars. The area right around the hospital is full of shops and places to eat too.
We went to our first pub Saturday night, The Sir John Oldcastle. I had excellent fish and chips and my first English beer, a John Smith's. We'll definitely be visiting there again, good food and good prices!
Sunday Chelsea and I wanted to visit some of the parks before the weather turns too cold. We took the Circle line to the Westminster tube station which is right outside Parliament and Big Ben! We saw the London Eye too, which is gigantic! My friend Harry who's studying abroad in London from Temple University in Philadelphia met us in front of Big Ben. From there we walked to and through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace. Then we walked through Green Park to Piccadilly where The Ritz and the Hard Rock London Cafe are. We walked past the Duke of Wellington's house to Hyde Park which is huge! We walked all through that, saw people feeding squirrels and geese who were eating right from people's hands! We walked past the statue of Peter Pan and eventually came out across from the Lancaster Gate tube station on the Central line. There are street vendors all over the place selling oil paintings, magnets, t-shirts. I saw a couple oil painting I LOVED, just 400 pounds, roughly $650, not too bad right? I'll be getting a t-shirt and some magnets eventually at least.
Chelsea, Harry, and I parted ways there (Harry is staying right near Hyde Park). Chelsea and I took the tube to Oxford Circus which is a big shopping area. TopShop, H&M, Gap, and lots of other stores all over the place. It was about 6:30 when we got there so everything was closed already. We've noticed a lot of things close early around London, especially around our flat. Our neighborhood is all jewelry stores. Its like the diamond district in NYC. There's no one on our block after 6:00 PM (or 18:00 I should say). Its kind of nice because its quite but when we need to go to a drug store on the weekends its a pain because they're not open on Saturdays or Sundays around us. Tube ride it is then!
Today Chelsea and I decided to see how the commute to our placements would be during regular work hours. We got up at 7:30 and were out the door by 8:00. The tube is pretty crowded and the stations are too, which is not unexpected. I need to give myself max forty minutes to get to work in the morning depending on tube times.
Back at the flat now and will soon be off to orientation at the Anglo-American School.
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