[Day 3] Orientation

I changed the time format to be in the time zone that I'm in. I'm not even sure what this time zone is called. Anyway, London is five hours ahead of est and seeing est on all of my electronics is confusing me. I need to figure out how to change the clock on my laptop.

Last night I mostly just relaxed in my room and skyped with a few people. My British flatmates went to Drapers and when they came back around 11:30 they invited me to go to the canal with them. (There is a canal right next to my building.) So Kate and I put our jeans back on and went to hang out with the canal with them. There were huge geese there, like gigantic ones.

Some kids came up to us and invited us to come to a house party, so we decided to go. Let me tell you, if that was a house party, these Brits have a few things to learn. It was a bunch of kids standing around in a dorm kitchen listening to music, talking to each other, and drinking. Definitely not like the house parties we have in the States. Kate and I told our flatmates that we wanted to teach them American drinking games, like pong and flip cup. Alcohol is a really big part of this culture, but they don't know drinking games like we do since they can all just go to the bar when they're like babies. It's weird how normal it is for them to just drink, while it's such a big deal to me and Kate. We were talking about how Pub Safe would totally be busting up their kitchen part. Also kids were like carrying around bottles of wine and cans of beer outside, wouldn't happen at Nova.

This morning we had Orientation. I used my new European hair dryer to dry my hair when I got a shower, it worked pretty well. It wasn't really orientation, more of just an info session. The famous Harry gave most of the speech. Harry is the study abroad office for the States. I probably emailed him more than I emailed anyone else this summer. They gave us a speech about academics, alcohol, getting around Europe, safety, counseling, health, and tips about being a real life Londoner. (so cool!)

I'm really excited about being here because East London is a really vibrant part of London and because the Olympic site of 2012 is a little east of here, they're doing a lot of renovations and updates. I learned how to take the Tube and figured out the map. They also warned us that Barcelona is a big spot for pick-pocketing. It sounded like the rivalry that Philly and NYC have....

Tomorrow we have to enroll and make sure our classes are all set. Once I have my classes figured out for sure I'll put them on here. I kind of want to change my Politics (Poli Sci) class. 

Something interesting that I found out today is that the students here only go to undergrad for three years and they only take classes in their major. For example, if I went to school here for real I would get my undergrad degree in three years and only take English classes. Additionally they only take four classes per semester. I can't imagine taking four English classes every single semester. That's so much reading and writing. The classes here are more focused on individual work rather than class participation. Today Harry said, "In the US part of your grade is class participation. Here we don't think like that. You showed up for class? What, do you want a medal or something? I don't think so."

I bought some posters at the poster sale today. I was being touristy and bought two London ones. One is of the skyline and the other has three pictures: the London Eye, a red tour bus, and a telephone booth. It's cool because it's in black, white, and red. I also bought a James Dean one that says, "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."

After class Kate and I walked around doing some things that we needed to do. We went to the Queen's Building to pick up our tickets for the Panoramic Bus tour on Friday. The Queen's Building looks amazing; it's an academic building but looks pretty similar to a palace. We also walked all around Mile End trying to find an atm that would work with her card, but then we realized that the card company shut it off because it was being used in the UK.

At 5:30 we went to happy hour at Mucci's (an on campus restaurant) with our flatmate Ana and used our free food and drink vouchers for dinner. The pizza was soooo good!  The three of us decided with all of the walking we're doing and not very much eating that we're probably going to lose weight. Seriously, the food is pretty gross (besides that pizza) and there is so much walking to do. QM's campus is pretty flat, nothing like Nova's, so at least that's nice. After dinner Kate and I stopped in The Village, which is the campus convenience store, and we were both excited that they sell Bulmers, so of course we each bought a pint.

It's really easy to tell Americans from British people because of the shoes that they wear. The British people wear the weirdest shoes ever. They're like a cross between dance flats, riding boots, and saddle shoes. I think they're pretty hideous, but they all wear them, or some version of them. Americans wear well, normal shoes. I guess to the Brits they're not normal, but yeah. The girls also wear a lot of intense, obvious makeup. I feel like a lot of Americans go with the more natural look, while the British girls wear bright colored lipstick and eyeliner with fancy designs. Also they all rock the pale look, besides the Indian people, which is pretty cool. It's nice that not everyone is unnaturally orange.

That's about all I can think of for today. Tomorrow I get my picture taken for my student ID. I'm also going to try to look for a job at the job fair during the Freshers Fair this week. Since I got a Visa I might as well try to make some money.

M