I'm on a roll
Yet another entry, go me!
So, what's going on in the London scene? Well, on Saturday night I went to the Royal Albert Hall to see one of the BBC Prom concerts with the whole Grinnell group. It was nice, they played William Tell Overture, and a new work that was a world premiere. The problem is that I have a hard time sitting still and listening to classical music, so as a result my mind wandered a lot. It was good musing time. Don't asked what I mused about, though, nothing special or life-altering.
Yesterday started pretty damn early when once again the whole Grinnell group got together, this time to take a two and a half hour bus tour of London. Now, I was hoping that we'd have one of those nice open-top double decker buses that you see driving around, but instead we were in a boring old one level, fully enclosed bus. Seemed odd to me, made taking pictures hard (I've been trying not to be too touristy, but what else are you going to do on a bus tour). We did stop at a few places to walk around, though, like the Millenium Bridge, St. James (or John's?) Cathedral, and the Royal Albert Hall (the tour guide didn't know we'd just been there the night before). The tour guide, by the way, was amazing, a middle aged British woman with a great sense of humor and several strong opinions about various goings on in the area.
I feel I should interject briefly because I haven't really told you guys about my flat-mates. The two other people I'm living with are Alvin Irby, a very animated long-distance runner from Arkansas, and Merrick Meyers, who's kinda quiet, but really nice. The other four who were involved in the whole flat search were Tamar, who most of you know from Oberlin, Michael Billups, the most organized of the lot, Tyler Stokes who just an all around friendly person, and the only other girl, Robyn Repko, who's in a long term, long distance relationship right now (kudos to her!).
Anyway, so after the tour, the seven of us hit up the Foyles bookstore for some books, and then Robyn, Tamar and I wandered down towards Oxford Circus, kinda similar to the Times Square area in NYC. I found a very pretty Apple Store, two stories with lots of sexy new things that I'd never seen before, but sadly nothing I needed. Then on the way back we stopped at a soccer store (Yes, I know it's called football here, but the name of the store was Soccer Scene, I was kinda disappointed. I think it's an American chain). There I found cleats and shin guards on an amazing sale, and decided that buying them would give me all the more incentive to play football (european style) while I'm here. So I have some pretty new Puma shoes and Puma shin guards, and yes I'm a brand name whore.
That night there was a birthday party for one of the Grinnellians, so we went to their flat (which is WAY nicer than ours!), had a few drinks, then went down the street to a pub and had a few more drinks, and then went in search of a club. Sadly, by the time we got to the one we were looking for, it was essentially closed. So back to the flat for more drinking and fun. And once again, the drink of the night was Strongbow!
Today has been pretty relaxed, doing some required reading (classes start tomorrow!) and a little more shopping for school supplies. Went to try and get tickets for a Bad Religion concert tonight, but they were sold out, not surprisingly. S'ok, so long as I get tickets to Garbage, I'll be fine. There's been a carnival going on in Notting Hill since last night, through tonight, and it even spilled over into Bayswater enough so that they've closed a lot of the main streets. Might check that out, we'll see.
Oh yeah, and our flat has been turning up more and more disappointments. There were some sheets over the two couches in the living room, and when we finally took them off today, it turns out that there are gaping tears and holes in the cushions and arms. That on top of all the junk left in the closets and drawers makes us not too happy with our landlords. We're gonna complain tomorrow and see what can be done.
Ok, I've rambled on enough for one entry. I'll write more later.
So, what's going on in the London scene? Well, on Saturday night I went to the Royal Albert Hall to see one of the BBC Prom concerts with the whole Grinnell group. It was nice, they played William Tell Overture, and a new work that was a world premiere. The problem is that I have a hard time sitting still and listening to classical music, so as a result my mind wandered a lot. It was good musing time. Don't asked what I mused about, though, nothing special or life-altering.
Yesterday started pretty damn early when once again the whole Grinnell group got together, this time to take a two and a half hour bus tour of London. Now, I was hoping that we'd have one of those nice open-top double decker buses that you see driving around, but instead we were in a boring old one level, fully enclosed bus. Seemed odd to me, made taking pictures hard (I've been trying not to be too touristy, but what else are you going to do on a bus tour). We did stop at a few places to walk around, though, like the Millenium Bridge, St. James (or John's?) Cathedral, and the Royal Albert Hall (the tour guide didn't know we'd just been there the night before). The tour guide, by the way, was amazing, a middle aged British woman with a great sense of humor and several strong opinions about various goings on in the area.
I feel I should interject briefly because I haven't really told you guys about my flat-mates. The two other people I'm living with are Alvin Irby, a very animated long-distance runner from Arkansas, and Merrick Meyers, who's kinda quiet, but really nice. The other four who were involved in the whole flat search were Tamar, who most of you know from Oberlin, Michael Billups, the most organized of the lot, Tyler Stokes who just an all around friendly person, and the only other girl, Robyn Repko, who's in a long term, long distance relationship right now (kudos to her!).
Anyway, so after the tour, the seven of us hit up the Foyles bookstore for some books, and then Robyn, Tamar and I wandered down towards Oxford Circus, kinda similar to the Times Square area in NYC. I found a very pretty Apple Store, two stories with lots of sexy new things that I'd never seen before, but sadly nothing I needed. Then on the way back we stopped at a soccer store (Yes, I know it's called football here, but the name of the store was Soccer Scene, I was kinda disappointed. I think it's an American chain). There I found cleats and shin guards on an amazing sale, and decided that buying them would give me all the more incentive to play football (european style) while I'm here. So I have some pretty new Puma shoes and Puma shin guards, and yes I'm a brand name whore.
That night there was a birthday party for one of the Grinnellians, so we went to their flat (which is WAY nicer than ours!), had a few drinks, then went down the street to a pub and had a few more drinks, and then went in search of a club. Sadly, by the time we got to the one we were looking for, it was essentially closed. So back to the flat for more drinking and fun. And once again, the drink of the night was Strongbow!
Today has been pretty relaxed, doing some required reading (classes start tomorrow!) and a little more shopping for school supplies. Went to try and get tickets for a Bad Religion concert tonight, but they were sold out, not surprisingly. S'ok, so long as I get tickets to Garbage, I'll be fine. There's been a carnival going on in Notting Hill since last night, through tonight, and it even spilled over into Bayswater enough so that they've closed a lot of the main streets. Might check that out, we'll see.
Oh yeah, and our flat has been turning up more and more disappointments. There were some sheets over the two couches in the living room, and when we finally took them off today, it turns out that there are gaping tears and holes in the cushions and arms. That on top of all the junk left in the closets and drawers makes us not too happy with our landlords. We're gonna complain tomorrow and see what can be done.
Ok, I've rambled on enough for one entry. I'll write more later.