More from the world of London
Last I left you all was after I woke up on Monday morning, so here's a rundown since then:
I had a meeting with the advisor at 3:00, so I couldn't really do anything in London very far away, so I familiarized myself with the area a bit more by going to the stores and such around here. I found a much bigger supermarket than the day before, as well as their equivalent of a department store. It was pretty nice. I stayed pretty entertained until the meeting.
At the meeting, we reported back on the book we were reading, and discussed how we were going to run things in London. Each week Delorey give Jamie and I a list of things to find some place in London. This week was things at the British Museum. I also was assigned a topic for my sufficiency, which happens to be The Elgin Marbles and dealing with the concept of culture theft, and how it all relates to the book Guns, Germs, and Steel. Mike and I were sent off to this lecture about should we junk collections at museums or not. It was a very one-sided lecture from a panel of four experts, and a bit boring, but perhaps that was me.
After this lecture of sorts, we were told there was some sort of large gathering in Leicester Square though we weren't sure what, so we headed down there. Turns out we caught the tail end of the big celebration for the London premiere of the new Star Wars movie. We kinda wandered away from the group and started exploring this particular part of London. We found Chinatown which had very cheap buffets, but some shops and restaurants had unidentified animals hanging in the windows. Mike and I thought they might be squirrel. We wandered a bit, then met up with Jamie who was coming back from Delorey's apartment since he needed to pick up a printer for the dorms. The three of us headed over to Piccadilly Circus which is a bit like the British equivalent of Times Square. We saw some stuff that we intend to do there later this trip, then headed back to the dorm.
Mike, Jamie and I headed down the street to the pub. The drinks weren't bad, and we all ordered a pint of the same thing, except for Mike who only got a half-pint. We had made it about halfway through out beers, when the bell rang for last call. Apparently last call is at 11:00pm. We drank up and just sort of went back to the dorm.
There wasn't much else to do at this point, so we made leftover split pea soup for dinner. We hooked one of the laptops up to a TV in one of the lounges and watched A Clockwork Orange which is probably the most screwed up movie ever.
Jamie woke up at like 8:00 this morning, so I also ended up waking up at 8:00 since he's a bit noisy in the morning. Getting up was good though, as it turns out Katie was headed into various random parts of London and was interesting in company, so I accompanied her. We went to the most random parts of the city to go see these places called Commonwealth Trusts, as it had something to do with her MQP. We ventured into nice parts and not-so-nice parts of London, but we found them all and she took pictures and picked up brochures.
At about this point, Jamie alerted me that he had just been emailed our treasure hunt assignment for this week, so he'd meet me at the British Museum so we could go hunting for it. Katie came with, and we saw some interesting stuff, though some was boring. We wasted a few hours there. We came back, and I cooked up a burger for dinner, then just sort of passed out for a little nap. And that is about the extent of the day. Tune in tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, for another great report.
I had a meeting with the advisor at 3:00, so I couldn't really do anything in London very far away, so I familiarized myself with the area a bit more by going to the stores and such around here. I found a much bigger supermarket than the day before, as well as their equivalent of a department store. It was pretty nice. I stayed pretty entertained until the meeting.
At the meeting, we reported back on the book we were reading, and discussed how we were going to run things in London. Each week Delorey give Jamie and I a list of things to find some place in London. This week was things at the British Museum. I also was assigned a topic for my sufficiency, which happens to be The Elgin Marbles and dealing with the concept of culture theft, and how it all relates to the book Guns, Germs, and Steel. Mike and I were sent off to this lecture about should we junk collections at museums or not. It was a very one-sided lecture from a panel of four experts, and a bit boring, but perhaps that was me.
After this lecture of sorts, we were told there was some sort of large gathering in Leicester Square though we weren't sure what, so we headed down there. Turns out we caught the tail end of the big celebration for the London premiere of the new Star Wars movie. We kinda wandered away from the group and started exploring this particular part of London. We found Chinatown which had very cheap buffets, but some shops and restaurants had unidentified animals hanging in the windows. Mike and I thought they might be squirrel. We wandered a bit, then met up with Jamie who was coming back from Delorey's apartment since he needed to pick up a printer for the dorms. The three of us headed over to Piccadilly Circus which is a bit like the British equivalent of Times Square. We saw some stuff that we intend to do there later this trip, then headed back to the dorm.
Mike, Jamie and I headed down the street to the pub. The drinks weren't bad, and we all ordered a pint of the same thing, except for Mike who only got a half-pint. We had made it about halfway through out beers, when the bell rang for last call. Apparently last call is at 11:00pm. We drank up and just sort of went back to the dorm.
There wasn't much else to do at this point, so we made leftover split pea soup for dinner. We hooked one of the laptops up to a TV in one of the lounges and watched A Clockwork Orange which is probably the most screwed up movie ever.
Jamie woke up at like 8:00 this morning, so I also ended up waking up at 8:00 since he's a bit noisy in the morning. Getting up was good though, as it turns out Katie was headed into various random parts of London and was interesting in company, so I accompanied her. We went to the most random parts of the city to go see these places called Commonwealth Trusts, as it had something to do with her MQP. We ventured into nice parts and not-so-nice parts of London, but we found them all and she took pictures and picked up brochures.
At about this point, Jamie alerted me that he had just been emailed our treasure hunt assignment for this week, so he'd meet me at the British Museum so we could go hunting for it. Katie came with, and we saw some interesting stuff, though some was boring. We wasted a few hours there. We came back, and I cooked up a burger for dinner, then just sort of passed out for a little nap. And that is about the extent of the day. Tune in tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, for another great report.