Thames barrier (1 of 9) at sunset
Originally uploaded by MindTheCat.
Click here for more photos from departure/boat trip!
Today was the first day of classes, and I really think I'm going to enjoy my journalism class. It's four hours long twice a week (as is my other class), but we do have a 30 min break in the middle, and it's going to be a pretty involved class. Today we discussed the 5 "quality" and the 5 "tabloid" or "redtop" newspapers, as well as the 5 terrestrial TV stations. We watchd Prime Minister's Questions (which I highly recommend if you ever have the chance to watch it) and an episode of the investigative current affairs show Panorama. After class I wandered around South Kensington a bit, and I had a baguette and a coffee at this really cute tiny cafe on Bute Street. After I got back I wanted to write this post but there were repair men here fixing our flooding shower, and the fumes were (and still are) too strong to stay in for an extended period of time. So instead I went to Notting Hill and bought school supplies and walked back. The wind was awful today, and it actually resulted in eight deaths across the UK, including a 2-year-old boy who was caught under a collapsing wall. It's really very sad.
Royal Geographical Snoozes
During the past two days we have had several hours of orientation and academic lectures, which really weren't as bad as my subtitle makes them sound. But that didn't stop a lot of people from sleeping through them, and what did they expect, putting us in a comfortable lecture hall and turning out the lights before talking about economics? The lectures were all designed to give us some context of London, and they really were quite interesting. They were held at the Royal Geographical Society, which is right next to Royal Albert Hall and about 3 minutes down the street from my house. We had orientation presentations from much of the staff as well, including our student life director who is hilarious.
Swan pants
On Tuesday night I went to see Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at the Sadler's Wells theatre in Angel. It was great (it won a few Tony Awards in 1999), and it was a bit odd at the same time. The show was still in classical ballet style, but the setting and storyline have been updated. Oh, and all of the swans, normally played by a company of women, has been replaced by 15 half-naked men wearing swan pants. Yes, I said swan pants. You should check out the link if you don't believe me. But the show was very good, and the venue was great. We were in the top-most, cheapest balcony, but it was full of teens and twenty-somethings on a Tuesday night, which really impressed me.
Boat tour
As you can see by the photo at the top of the post, we took a boat tour on Monday. It was mandatory for everyone on the program, and all 300 of us spent 3.5 hours on a huge glassed-in boat on the Thames. We started at Cadogan Pier in Kensington & Chelsea, and we went all the way past the Thames Barriers and back to the Wesminster area. Here's a map of the route. And even though it was pretty cloudy that afternoon, it was a beautiful tour. London is a really pretty city, and maybe not in the traditional sense, but we got to see far more of London that I might have on my own. Our guide was great and gave us all sorts of background on the things we were passing. He told us there was a saying: "Only fools go under London Bridge; wise men go over it." This dates back to a time when there were so many piers on London Bridge (which is actually a quite unimpressive structure) that the constrained water turned into rapids underneath. Foolish but daring young men would try to cross under the bridge to prove their prowess, but many lost their lives.
Well I think that about brings us up to date. I'm hoping that now that I'm in a routine I will have a time of the day to post. And I will send more pictures soon. Cheers.
No comments:
Post a Comment