and there it was

Yesterday was pretty incredible. We started out the day going to where we're going to be having classes. It's in an area called Bloomsbury, which is very old, and very nice. Our school building is an old converted house dating back to the 1700s. It sits on Great Russel Street facing Bloomsbury Square. It has a bright blue door with the nob in the center.

It's quant and feels very English with its winding staircase and a garden square just across the street. There's a cute walk-through market area where we had lunch - I had an incredible kafta lamb pita sandwich. It was mind-blowingly tastey - anyone who visits will be taken there. The end.

I'm starting to get a hold on working my way around the city. I feel pretty comfortable on the Tube now, and am the proud owner of a pocket "A to Z" (pronounced "zed") atlas that has come in so handy I've started referring to it as the bible. I actually let a lady use it today, she stopped me and asked me if I knew where something was - I of course, didn't, and instead offered her my A to Z. She was so excited and actually was able to figure out where she needed to go.

But anyway, we ended up making dinner as a flat last night. One of the girls in my flat's boyfriend is also on the trip. He made chicken parmesan. I made the salad and bought the wine, and we had garlic bread to go with it. It was so fun to have everyone pitch in, and the food was awesome. We were all so hungry after such a long day of running around the city, going grocery shopping, getting a new phone for Olivia, etc. It was just what we all needed - a good family dinner.

After dinner we decided spontaneously to hop the tube down to the Westminster stop to see Parliament and Big Ben, the Millenium bridge, the Eye and St. Paul's all lit up at night. It was the best decision we could have made.

We got off at the Westminster stop and walked out of the station, and literally, BAM there was Big Ben. Right in front of us. Words cannot really explain how breathtaking it was. I felt so dwarfed by its magnitude. The tower was so much bigger than I could have ever imagined. Here's a picture that I took:


We walked around a little bit for photo-ops in front of the London Eye, which is currently sporting red lights for the Comic Relief festival. Here's the girls from the flat, sans Susan
(L to R: Amy, Pam, Lily, Keiko, Mandy and Olivia)

We then crossed the bridge to take more pictures of Parliament:

And then hopped the tube down to St. Paul's and the Millenium Bridge. We crossed the bridge half-way. From there you could see the entire city. It was so peaceful, so quiet. We blew kisses at the Thames and threw our pennies in with our wishes. We then got really cold and decided to come home.
I keep finding it difficult to believe that I'm going to be living in such an interesting, beautiful and seemingly magically different place for the next 3 months. I feel like a visitor, a vacationer who after a week will pack my bags and go back to my own city. It seems so unreal that I will be staying past that week for 14 more and will be able to go back to this bridge as many times as I see fit.

Today so far has been consumed with an internship orientation at school (boring...) and then a trip to Chinatown so Keiko, who is Japanese, could get some necessities (rice, miso... hopefully she'll cook for us!?). The rest of the day will be devoted to catching up with people, perhaps dinner out and then, who knows!

more soon,
b