On our first day of class, a woman from the IES center walked us around Chelsea to the nearest tube station, which for us was South Ken. From there, we took the tube to Bloomsbury.
Walking around Bloomsbury, where our classroom was, made me tremendously jealous of local Londoners. Seeing them lunch on the grass in the middle of the park just seemed like the perfect thing to do. I wished I could live there all the time.
After class, we went on a bus tour of London to introduce us to the city. We were supposed to take mental notes of places we would like to return but my head basically exploded because I wanted to see it all.
The driver let us out to look around at Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Parliament & Big Ben, etc. The picture of all the tents outside Parliament are protesters and the building whose entrance is covered in shrubbery is Prince Charles' office. Apparently, in an attempt to promote "being more green," he literally partitioned this entrance. I viewed it up close and it is literally a bunch of little glasses of water with greenery coming out. It's ingenious, really.
Please appreciate the sign for Vietnamese noodles. This was right around the corner from our res hall.
That night we went to see the War Horse at the National Theatre on Drury Lane. Tara and I are thumbs-upsing in the audience before we realized photography wasn't permitted. Some of you might have seen recent previews for the War Horse movie coming out on Christmas. I've heard complaints about a film reproduction of the play since half the magic of the play is the fact that the horses are exquisitely well-executed life-size puppets. While I do agree that the lustre of this piece comes from the puppeteers and the beautiful work on the puppets themselves, the story itself is heartwarming. And if people aren't able to see the theatrical production, I'd definitely recommend seeing the film. Anyway, that's just my take...
After this day was over, I was exhausted. But ready for more.
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