First Post From London!

I haven't had a chance to update this yet, so be prepared for a rather lengthy entry. :)

Day 1 (Saturday):
When we got off the plane they had buses to take us to our flats. The flats are in an extremely wealthy neighbourhood, apparently to rent one of them would cost about 1500 pounds per week ($3000). My flat is very small, just one room plus a closet for the bathroom. There are two sets of bunk beds and a kitchenette. There's a decent amount of living room space, but considering that's all there is to the entire flat, it's not much. There are only three of us living here instead of the usual four, so that's pretty nice. Both of my roommates are great.
Anyway, we had just enough time to put our stuff down and then the two RAs walked us over to the Imperial College campus, where we had lunch and they told us some stuff that I don't remember because I was so tired. Then I went with a couple of people to get phones. Turns out since we ordered my phone from eBay and it came from Italy, it was unlocked, unlike most U.S. phones. This meant that I was able to just get a SIM card (which didn't cost anything) and just pay for however many minutes I wanted to put on my phone. Awesome!
That night they took us on an "unofficial" pub crawl. I only went to two of them because I was so exhausted. I could barely even keep my eyes open. But it was fun. I came back to the flat and went to sleep. The beds are horribly uncomfortable, but I'm getting used to it now.

Day 2 (Sunday):
We met outside the flat at 8:45AM to go on a bus tour of London. Our tour guide's name was Trudy, and she was great! She was so funny. I think she was purposely trying to use a lot of British slang. :) The unfortunate thing about bus tours is that they go so fast and you can't see everything from the windows, but I did learn about a lot of places I would love to go visit during the summer. We stopped to see the changing of the guard, which was really cool. First we saw the Malaysian guards (that are being lent to Britain while some of the British soldiers are in Iraq), then we followed them around the corner to Buckingham Palace where we saw from a distance the British guards coming in. Trudy pointed out where Princes Charles, William, and Harry live, and one of the windows was open on the top floor, which is apparently where William and Harry live. Trudy was certain that William was out of the country, so Harry must have been home! :)
The bus tour left us at Piccadilly Circus. A group of us ate lunch together and then did some grocery shopping, then went to the Natural History Museum. They have a fantastic dinosaur exhibit. After that I didn't do much for the rest of the evening.

Day 3 (Monday):
This was kind of an orientation day. They gave us a bunch of talks, we found out about some great travel options, and we had our first class session. This Intro to Theatre class should be interesting... I'm taking it because my first two class choices got canceled. At least it will be easy. I'm the only person in the class with much theatre experience, and the professor knows it. I'm not sure what to expect from this class. We'll see.

Day 4 (Tuesday):
In the morning we had class, then in the afternoon we went to the Museum of London. There were a bunch of galleries about London's history, and it was very interesting. I honestly didn't know much about the fire in 1666. They had a lot of really cool stuff there, including a model of the Rose Theatre.
I've befriended a great group of girls. Most of them (6) are here for session one and an internship, and the other one is just here for session one. After the Museum, we went over to Victoria Station to pick up train tickets to go visit Hever Castle on Sunday, which is where Anne Boleyn grew up. So I'm WAY excited about that. :D I think we decided that Saturday we're going to try to see a show (hopefully Spamalot, although I would be quite happy with We Will Rock You.) Then we had dinner at this great Thai restaurant, which was also very reasonably priced.

Day 5 (Today):
This morning we had class, and our Professor informed us that our homework assignment for tonight was to go see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe, 5 pounds for standing in the pit. Now don't get me wrong, I was VERY excited about this. But tonight was the Manchester vs. Chelsea game for the cup, and we all really wanted to go to a pub to watch it. So since I'm "the stage manager" I talked to our Professor, with most of the class there backing me up, and he's letting us see the show tomorrow. (Which is going to be awesome!!)
I just got back a bit ago from the pub, where we lost. Of course we're Chelsea fans, we're staying in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea! But it was a very intense and amazing game. Apparently the pub we went to was fairly tame compared to the one my roommate went to. She just informed me that at the pub she went to, there were Chelsea fans throwing glasses and breaking them when they lost. Ah, the joys of football. :)

And now for a few pictures.

This one's for you, mom:














This one's for Mandy, of course:


















Buckingham Palace:














Prince Harry's open window:














Well, that's all I've got for now. I'll update again soon. Cheers!