Diving Right In.

So yeah, today. Way good. It started off with the first day of classes. I have Classical Civilization, Religion, International Politics, and British Literature. Yes, my friends, that was four and a half straight hours of class. Was it long? A little. Was it worth enduring? Absolutely.
Immediately after class, a group of us went out to Ben’s Cookies in High Kensington, and then wandered into H&M. Oh…and I got a dark chocolate ginger cookie. It was…interesting…maybe a little too adventurous, but delicious just the same.
Now, here comes one of those moments where it hits me that I’m actually in London. After H&M, a few girls suggested that we go to Big Ben, and after about 20 minutes on the tube, we emerged from the station immediately in front of Big Ben and the Thames. Uh, yeah - pretty awesome.
Quite possibly the highlight of today was going to see Wicked. I had never seen it before, so I was quite excited. We ended up going out with 20 people to get standby tickets (that’s more than half of the entire group). As we predicted, not too many people go to shows on Tuesday nights in the middle of January, so the seats were great, and better yet, cheap. Thank goodness for being a student. I now understand the love that so many people have for that musical. As I said to Michelle as we were leaving the theater, “that was the best 3 hours of my life!” Okay, perhaps that is an exaggeration, but still – those girls got mega pipes. I loved the accents, too.
Yes, well. That was today.
Among the past few days, I have had a couple of the “oh my goodness, I’m actually in London” moments. My favorite probably happened Monday morning, when Michelle and I went for a run in Hyde Park. I had a great song playing on my iPod, and it hit me…I was on a morning run in Hyde Park, THE Hyde Park. Perhaps that seems anticlimactic – oh well.
On Monday, we also had our first group outing to the Museum of London, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. St. Paul’s was simply wonderful. I’m surprised that I didn’t sprain my neck or something staring up at the ceilings for so long. I don’t think that I will ever be able to comprehend how architecture like that was constructed 300 years ago. Plenty of patience, I guess. And lots and lots of skills. Mega skills, like mega pipes.

Note: the wireless is completely bipolar here…mostly just polar, and on the pole that doesn’t function. I will post this when it decides to be on the functioning pole.

Aaaaaand PICTURES. I believe that they are in reverse chronological order.








Leicester Square on Saturday night. We finally broke down and took a picture with the phone booth.