Oi! I've been in London for about a week now but it feels like months. I now instinctively look to the right when I cross the street. I can correctly pronounce "Gloucester," "Leicester," and "Pret a Manger." I find myself exclaiming "oi" and "cheers" in unironic ways. Add that to my already pasty British complexion, and I could almost pass for a local.

I had originally anticipated updating this blog more frequently, so I find it difficult to sum up the past week in one post. Looking back on it, all of the great individual events coalesce into one giant blur in my memory, so I'll speak more in generalities about it. My flat is in the South Kensington neighborhood of London. Whereas before this I stayed just north of Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens, now we are right south of it. As in, right fucking across the street. I'm sure that this is not the most expensive area in the city, but it must be pretty damn close.  Everytime we walk down the street we see Lambroghinis, Ferraris, or Bentleys drive past.  It seems that half of the world's luxury or exotic cars are located in this single area of London - yesterday we saw a friggin' McLaren parked around the corner from the flat (hint: this car costs $1.5 million US).

Did I mention that the flat is right fucking across the street from Hyde Park?  We're in a building with five floors of other American students in the same program; the 24 of us from Arizona have the ground floor and the basement.  My bedroom is a double and its by far the worst room we have.  The room is smaller than some walk-in closets and halfway down the hall from the nearest bathroom.  I have never slept in a proper bunk bed before this week and I have now decided that they are severely overrated.  I'm also 85% sure that there is a dead mouse under by bed somewhere.  But I can't complain about it too much.  I've gotten pretty well acclimated with the neighborhood by now.  Right next door is the Netherlands Embassy, and around the corner is the house that Winston Churchill lived and died in.  Half a block to the east is Royal Albert Hall.  There are a couple of large shopping streets within walking distance, and I'm already experienced enough to have developed strong opinions about all of the grocery stores.  It's about a 15 minute walk to the nearest tube station, and on the way is a neighborhood street with dozens of great pubs and restaurants.

Oh yeah, pubs.  I've been drinking heavily every night, which is a large departure from my usual schedule of once a week or so.  I've been to four or five pubs in the immediate neighborhood, and tried fish and chips for the first time (I'm not in a hurry to have it again).  England's drinking culture is something I can get used to for sure - pubs on every corner, no open container laws, and nowhere to drive.  There is a student pub around the corner from our house - at the Imperial College student union.  Not only have I found that it's an awesome place to watch the Euro Cup games and meet other American women, it's also by far the cheapest pub around - Carlsberg on tap for 1 pound 50.  That's $3 American by the way, so I've quickly redefined my definition of cheap.

My job doesn't start until after next week, and in the interim we've been taking classes at the Foundation for International Education.  The class has two facets - Shakespeare and British culture.  Our Shakespeare teacher is a fun chap who encourages moderate to heavy drinking in class and has a very dry sense of humour - basically, exactly my kind of guy.  On Wednesday night we all went to see The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe Theatre.  It far exceeded my expectations.  There are two ways to watch a show at the Globe - in the seats that are arranged in tiers around the stage, or standing on the floor directly in front.  Our group had sets of tickets for each seconds so I tried each.  The show was enjoyable while sitting up high but a blast standing down below.  I believe we'll be seeing King Lear there next week so I'll probably stand for it the entire show this time.  Other British culture teacher is an older guy who is extremely knowledgeable.  The class itself is not too interesting but I have been picking up some interesting tidbits from it.  We went with the teacher to the British museum on Thursday.  It wasn't quite as cool as I had hoped, but I loved the Egyptian and Greek wings.

Hmm, have I covered everything from the past week?  Probably not.  It took my two or three sittings to get through writing, so sorry to my readers if you were hoping it would be more interesting.  I don't know if I'll be able to update this as frequently as I anticipated, but I'll do my best.  The whole reason I'm maintaining this blog is not necessarily to keep people updated but more to have a permanent record to everything that happens this summer.  To that end, I'll try and make it as interesting as possible.

Cheers.

Thing I've learned about London since I've been here: The London Underground.  The London Underground is possibly the most mis-named subway system in the world.  On my first "Underground" ride, from the airport to my hotel, 90% of the ride was what I would classify as "Aboveground."  Subsequent rides have been more inline with my expectations, but I feel a more universal, all-encompassing name is in order.  Also, whenever people say "mind the gap" in reference to the Underground, they're not joking around.  They really do say that a lot.

My family left for their cruise this morning, and I don't meet up with my group and move into my flat until tomorrow, so I had a day to myself today.  As such, I decided to be the biggest tourist possible.  My shoes are lessing than a week old now , but after today I can say with a degree of confidence that I have put more miles (kilometers?) on them than some people do over the entire life of their shoes.

First, a little London geography.  The hotel that I'm staying at is in a neighborhood called Bayswater, which is north of Hyde Park (basically London's equivalent to Central Park).  It's a pretty quiet, pretty cosmopolitan neighborhood, the kind with tree lined streets full of white row houses, where you wouldn't do a double take seeing an old man in a suit and top hat stepping out at nine p.m. to walk his tiny Yorkshire Terrier.  My hotel is the kind that they don't have in the US - the kind where I have to walk up five flights of narrow, haphazard stairs to get to my single room.  It's not an exaggeration to say that a queen-sized bed wouldn't fit in my room, even if you got rid of every other piece of furniture.  Calling it standing-room only is even being a bit generous.  Anyways, from my hotel this morning I walked south through the park to Royal Albert Hall and the Imperial College (this is right near where I'll be staying for the rest of the trip).  From here I walked back up north across a different part of the park, next to Kensington Palace.  I'm told this is where Princess Diana lived.  This left me in Notting Hill, which is the next neighborhood west from Bayswater.  You know, like the movie.  I've seen the first half of that movie at least five times, but never the ending.  If I had seen the whole thing, I might have seen the scene in which they go to Portobello Road market.  On most days, I guess Portobello is just a regular neighborhood shopping street.  But on Saturdays, it transforms into a ridiculous open-air antique and food market.  And I mean ridiculous in the best possible way.  Ever wanted antique boxing gloves, tennis rackets, or bicycle horns?  This is the place to get them.  Fake war memorabilia?  Eighteenth century map engravings?  Collections of leather bound books from British poets I like to pretend I've read?  All here.  The people shopping seemed to be mainly tourists, and as such there were a lot of typical tourist stalls selling cheap London-themed junk, but the atmosphere was still wild.  Lots of live music and vendors hawking (hocking?) their junk to anyone within shouting distance.

And the record stores!  For those who don't know, I'm a big record store geek, and there were lots of great ones either on or around Portobello Road.  The kind we certainly don't have in Arizona, where there are entire shelves devoted to Warp Records vinyl, or where they have rare, out-or-print Vashti Bunyan LPs for 125 pounds.  You know, the awesome kind.  I rarely buy CDs anymore, and buying vinyl seems tricky when I consider how well it's going to travel home, so I showed some restraint today.  I came really close to buying a nine-volume Trojan Records Dub boxset (only 14 pounds!), but I guess there's still nine weeks for that.

After exhausting myself at Portobello I took the train to Piccadilly Circus, a few miles west of Notting Hill.  Piccadilly Circus is like London's equivalent of Times Square, in that it is a giant clusterfuck of tourists and advertising, with a bunch of theaters scattered around for good measure.  I walked down the block from the subway station to the Royal Academy, one of the many art museums in the area.  Unlike many, which are free, this one charged admission for most of the exhibitions, so I decided against it for now.  It seemed interesting, though, so I'm sure I'll be back at some point.  Seeing museums is actually one of the things I'm most excited about on this trip.  I had planned to walk up Regent Street and then across Oxford Street (two of the bigger shopping streets) back to my hotel, but my feet were already pretty tired and I decided there was no way that was going to happen.  I did make it all the way up Regent Street.  I have nothing against shopping per se, but Regent Street in generally is definitely not my scene, I decided.  I only found one store that I had any interest in going in - a toy store (I forget the name, but it was huge - 6 storeys).  I can always amuse myself by browsing at Legos, and they had hundreds a sets!  Awesome.  By the time I reached the end of the road I decided I deserved a break, and took the subway to the hotel to crash for a few hours.

After my break, it was evening already, and I was ready to do something again.  Considering my options, I realized that I was hopelessly ignorant about what I could do by myself on a Saturday night in London.  I considered going to a pub, but I decided it would just seem weird wandering in alone.  Instead, I decided a would take the subway back to Piccadilly Circus, and go off in a different direction this time.  After wandering aimlessly through the crowds for a little while, I somehow ended up in Trafalgar Square.  From across the street, I noticed that there was a large stage set up, and a truly awful Asian hip hop band was on stage.  I decided to stay and check it out only after learning two things - a) it was free, and b) (and this is the really important one), the event was sponsored by a bank from Thailand, and there were loads of vendors selling Thai food.  After learning this, there was no way I wasn't going to stay for a while.  After enjoying some delicious pad thai, I wandered off down a row of government buildings and ended up in front of Buckingham Palace.  If there's one aspect of British culture that I'll never understand, it's the obsession with the Royal family.  I mean, I can even appreciate cricket for the novelty value, but as for Queen Elizabeth and family (that is the current queen, right?), I will always remain blissfully disinterested.  Today was her birthday, by the way.  Luckily, I was too late for the madness.  From here I backtracked a little and went to see Big Ben, the Parliament Building, and Westminster Abbey.  Now here's something I could actually get interested it.  The architecture is simply stunning.  I also learned that I cannot look and Big Ben without physically picturing Peter Pan flying behind it.  Hopefully I can cure myself of this affliction by the time I leave.  Speaking of afflictions, I am quite confident that I am going to die crossing the street one day.  I mean, I am a fairly seasoned street-crosser, but crossing over here is somewhat akin to playing Russian Roulette.  Half of the intersections don't have any sort of signal of crosswalk, and no matter how many times I do it, I cannot drill into my head that you're supposed to look right for oncoming traffic.  Usually I end up stopping, physically picturing an American intersection, reversing it in my head, and then proceeding.  

After Big Ben, I crossed the river and walked past the Aquarium (by now it's about 8:30, so everything's closed) and London Eye ferris wheel.  By now, the feet-tiredness was becoming an issue, and although I hated the idea of retiring to the hotel, I resigned myself to the fact that I actually had had a full day and I could end it early without regret.  Besides which, I learned of loads of pubs and bars that looked like they would be considerably more fun if I returned with others rather than drinking alone.

I am exhausted.  Good night.

This is a small section of Portobello Road (part of the antiques section).  The whole street is 1 1/2 miles.

My favorite stall, devoted completely to bicycle horns.

Speaking a bicycles, bicycles are awesome.  If I wasn't so sure I would die, I would be thrilled to ride through the city.  This was on Portobello Road, and it wasn't nearly as cool as I hoped it would be, though.  Truth be told, I see more awesome, homemade retro bikes per capita in Tucson than I've seen among London bikes so far.

I just liked this storefront.

Street performers on Portobello Road.  They had awesome Cockney accents and the guitarist sounded just like Mick Jones.

First star to the right, and straight on til morning!

This was outside the Parliament building. I'm almost positive that I saw this same display outside of the White House three or four years ago.

This is Bruce from Melbourne. I don't think this needs anymore explanation.

PROLOGUE [we meet our protagonist, a 21-year-old single caucasian male, cruising at 29,000 feet above the Atlantic, seat 52C]

The British Airways stewardess serving our aisle, Alex, is incredibly attractive but has a mouth full of teeth like Shane McGowan.  Seriously, I have heard the jokes about the British and bad teeth, but I'd always brushed it off the way I disregard most any ethnic stereotype.  But now here I am, not even seven hours removed from my home state, and these teeth have been staring me down the entire journey.  I am beginning to think that culture shock may be more jarring than I anticipated.

The trip has been relatively uneventful.  After four or five hours of attempting to sleep, I had finally decided I was fighting a losing battle.  I found myself perpetually in that state of sleep purgatory - some gray area between asleepness and awakeness in which you're not really able to enjoy the benefits of either.  Each time I thought I was about to break through the barrier I would be jarred awake by a moment of extreme turbulence, the kind that immediately brings to mind images from the first episode of Lost.  The elderly gentleman next to me (52B) has managed to be out the entire flight.  He was traveling back to the town in which he grew up to visit his sister.  An industrial town in "Middle England" which he described as being "like Pittsburgh."  Although he says he's lived in the US for more than half of his life now, he still looks like he could adorn the cover of The Great Big Book of Stereotypical Englishmen.  Across the aisle, 52D, is a younger man from Chandler going to his hometown in Norway to visit his parents.  Directly behind me, 53B and 53C, are two women, better known to me as my mother and sister.  They are not visiting family at all but rather flying to London to head on a Baltic cruise.  All are generally pleasant seatmates, although 53C keeps nudging my back while fumbling clumsily through her seat pocket.  

Did I tell you that I'm heading over to spend all summer here?  That I'll be living in some posh neighborhood and working for some important company?  It's strange, because as much as I've been anticipating this trip for the last several months, I don't find myself thinking about what lays ahead at all.  My mind is elsewhere - on the new David Sedaris book I'm reading, on the unparalleled genius of Animal Collective's Feels album (which I've listened to three times since takeoff), or on my stewardess' teeth, which I just can't seem to get past.  Of the variety of strangers or acquaintances to whom I've mentioned my summer plans, I've received several responses.  Some seem genuinetly excited for me, some react appropriately politely, and several have seemed indifferent or even perplexed.  I suppose I can understand some of that; the novelty of the big city that exists for me simply isn't there for everyone.  Many simply don't understand the appeal of spending thousands of dollars for the privledge of working for no money, a sentiment that I certainly see the logic in.  And if I ever came across someone from Britain who was coming to Arizona to work for free, I might react with similar bemusement.  Pretty much my entire motivation for coming here in the first place was my desire to not spend the summer in Arizona; the fact that it brought me to London was only a neat little bonus.  And I'm still not entirely convinced that this whole internship experience will be the bee's nees.  I guess I'll be able to tell you in a few weeks.  In the meantime, I'll be content to listen to Feels a few more times.

That's all I have now.  Hopefully in the future I'll have something more interesting to talk about.