Exploring

The last few days I have had a chance to explore this huge city. On Tuesday our whole group went on a walking tour. We saw more fabulous sites! It was nice to have a tour guide to give us information as we walked through history. We started at the Tower of London, then saw the Tower bridge, London bridge, where the great fire started 1966, and so much more. I also had my orientation at the London Metropolitan University, as I will be taking classes there. This University is huge. There are 2 campuses with multiple, large buildings at each location. Going to an University is definitley different here than in the States. There are only a few assignments through out the semester, instead of multiple like I am used to. We hand our work in to an office, not the professor. The class hours are different as well. I will only have class one day a week. I will be in a large group lecture for an hour, listening to the professor. Then I will have an hour or two of discussion with smaller groups of students. I dont start my classes here until February 8th. I haven't decided if I will like this learning style yet, but it will be a good experience. I also may be able to join a Volleyball club through the University. They do not take sports as seriously as we do, therefore, they do not have a Volleyball team. However, my program director said they would probably be delighted to have me, as students form clubs where they get together and play. This should be interesting, but I am excited to find out more about it. I have had a great deal of time to explore. I decided to go wondering around and found the most amazing open air market. The markets here are incredible. They beat any Iowa farmer's market that I have ever been to! The markets are all outside and have a variety of fresh foods, similar to a farmers market. There is a market really close to my house that has the best fruit salads for only one pound and fifty pence. The fruit is great. I usually have this fruit salad every day for lunch. Although this market is close to my house, it only has fruits and vegetables. The other market I ran into is huge and has so much stuff. It is called the Borough Street Market and I have read about it in many books. At this market there are fresh bread stands, fish and meat stands, huge fruit and vegetable stands, and baked goods stands. The bread smells, looks and tastes like Panera Bread. I can't stand fish and am not a huge fan of meat, but even these stands were impressive. The fruit and veggie stands had so much stuff. Every fruit and vegetable I could think of, from mangos to artichokes and squash. I got some green beans, apples (they had my favorite pink lady apples), kiwis, clementines, a head of lettuce, and some bread for 4 pounds! Tonight I tried the green beans and they tasted fresh out of the garden. This food really spices up my noodle suppers. I have posted a picture of the veggies above. Below is a picture of a fruit stand (left) and fresh flower stand (right).

On Tuesday it was Austrilia Day here; there are quite a few Aussies in the city. It is basically just a day to celebrate Australians and I mainly saw the celebrating taking place in clubs/bars. Someone from last semester had told us that it was really fun to go out and celebrate. So most of the group decided to go to a club called Walk About. This was an experience to say the least. It was very easy to get to the club by Tube. However, there was a line to get in due to the popularity. There was also a high cover charge and coat check charge. This palce was nuts and crawling with people every where. The people here may be reserved and unfriendly on the streets, but they are definitely the opposite in the clubs and bars. I was surprised to find at least 5 police officers in this fairly small club. There was a band playing and people dancing and chatting it up (a term I learned here) every where. The band was very good and played some great songs. The music that I listen to at home is pretty much exactly what they listen to here. It is interesting to me that Londoners know so much about us Americans, but we know hardly anything about them. They listen to our same music, watch our same movies with our actors and actresses (for the most part), and they know all about our politics. The people here are huge fans of Obama. I had no idea what kind of music was listened to here and I really didn't know much of anything about their politics besides that they have a representitive queen and a parliment. Anyway back to the club experience. I would say drinking and partying is a big deal here and along with drinking comes a lot of touchy-feely behavior. We left early enough to catch the tube back to our house, as it shuts down around midnight. Another bit of information about the tube that I have learned is that it is a very popular way to commit suicide. I suppose people just jump right in front of the train as it buzzes past. Our director warned us about this as he said it happens all the time and causes delays. He hopes that we don't personally see any of these acts but almost gurantees that during our stay here we will hear the message over the intercom, "There is a body under the train, expect delays on the Northern line." I personally couldn't believe this, but yesterday some girls in the program told me they heard the intercom message on their ride. wow. The tube is a great place to observe others (in other words, people watch, on of my favorite things to do). The other day while on the Tube, I overheard an interesting fact. I was riding on the tube when we stopped at a station. A few people got off and a few got on, it was not very busy during this time. After the people got off I overheard a lady, clearly from London, say to her friend, "Did you see that ring on the woman sitting next to me? It was so large; it was definitley an American ring." So ever since then I have been checking out all the British women's rings on their left hands. There is such a difference in rings. Almost all of the women's rings here are just a band. Some of the bands have diamonds inside of them, but hardly any of the rings have diamonds that are set upon the band. Definitely different from the American dream of a big rock for a wedding ring! The only bad thing about people watching on the tube is that you have to be sure not to make eye contact; people catch me all the time!