Round 2

Well today was a landmark day for me for one (or 4,000) reasons: I spent more money today than any other day (or two days, or week, or probably even month) of my life. Jillian and I finished booking all of our spring break plans, and between lodging, travel, and a hefty $3,000 rent payment for UCL, my bank account has shrunk quite dramatically. I'm excited for our travel, though, as throughout the semester we will be visiting: Paris, Dublin, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Venice, Florence, Rome, Athens, and hopefully Edinburgh. We (I) have slim aspirations of having enough money left over for a weekend in Copenhagen as well. It should be a fun (but exhausting) semester of traveling.

I'm getting used to daily life here in London. I no longer walk around or wake up and say to myself: "Wow, I'm in London." Or, "Wow, I'm in a different country." Or, "Wow, I live in a country without Chipotle." But hopefully not for long on the last item: there are rumors of the first international Chipotle opening up here in April. I might have to start a blog just about that. I have after all, written a (published) love poem about it (and for those of you who don't know, no, I'm not joking).

It's warmed up to more normal temperatures in the 40s (I've tried to learn the conversions to Celsius but have failed to this point). We're definitely starting to learn our way around more, and have branched out in terms of our exploration. Over the weekend we walked down to Trafalgar Square to check out the National Gallery; we didn't actually go in, but we are meeting there tomorrow for our Art History class and we wanted to know how to get there. It was about a 35 minute walk, but very doable. The Square itself is pretty impressive. There's an enormous tower of some general I neither know nor care about, but the monument is very cool to look at. Surrounding him are some stone lions and other various statues. The National Gallery is also an impressive building that overlooks the whole square. As we were walking past the Gallery I looked up and unexpectedly saw, in a straight shot down one of the roads leading away from the Square, a perfect view of Big Ben. So that was cool, and I'm sure we'll head back there when it isn't depressingly grey outside. It was a nice little area with a lot of shops and cafes that would be pleasant in the springtime.

Classes were relatively uneventful this past week. My psychology and education lecture was canceled because of an inch of snow, but has been rescheduled as a double lecture this week (phew! I was so nervous we wouldn't be able to make it up there for a moment...) International Relations seems interesting, and the discussions start this week in addition to the lectures that began last week. I'll be interested to see the American (there seem to be quite a few of us) vs. the non-American perspectives. Art History is kind of a wild card, depending on how much of the two hours our Hippy-ish and American-ish (British and American aspects of her accent) professor insists on lecturing us in the museums. And how much we have to stand. I'm sure Dad is thrilled those are my concerns for that class. But I don't really want to listen to her views for the whole two hours; I'd rather hear a few minutes of background, and be set free to look at stuff and decide everything for myself. So we'll see. I'm not optimistic. Developmental psych seems "eh." It's the first Friday class I've had since first semester freshman year, but I guess having Mondays off is the same thing. It's two hours, but they consider it 2 one hour lectures rather than 1 two hour lecture. It's better than having to take it at Penn, though, since I'm in class for less time and since Jillian said the past exams posted online look like a joke (she's just jealous she can't take it).

Campus is pretty easy to get around. All of my classes are pretty centralized, which is nice. We're really lucky in that: 1. we are so close to campus; and 2. that there are so many grocery stores, restaurants, etc. around us. We've been cooking up a storm, with dishes like chicken stir fry, pasta, and frozen chicken kiev (surprisingly good). We've decided to try and go out only once a week to save some money, so last weekend we went to a restaurant called Pizza Express that we found half-off coupons for. It's an upscale pizza place, but with the coupon we were each able to get our own pizzas (really good) and share gelato for about 5 pounds. We're bargain hunters. Next up is probably an Indian restaurant.

Other than that, we had a pretty quiet weekend. Our British flatmate's boyfriend came to visit, so the four of us went out to a pub for a little one night. Pubs seem to be the main social scene, for everything from dinner to watching sports events. The two of them are both very nice and funny, and aptly named for a British couple: Rosie and George. He was quite tall.

The other nights of the weekend were spent (for me) watching football. You all knew some Colts talk was coming at some point in this blog, but you have to give me credit for holding off for so long. Trust me, I could've spent the entire blog to this point dissecting how well the Colts defense played, or how inspirational Pierre Garcon is by making that unbelievable play and the solid game he had in general despite the stress of his family's situation in Haiti. But I'll hold off. I watched almost of the games except the Cowboys game, of which I saw probably about 1/3. It's been interesting that so many games this year have not been close at all. But anyway, I'm excited for the Conference Championships this Sunday, and also not to have to stay up until 4:30 AM to watch the Colts. I think they have a pretty good shot against the Jets. Chargers, Patriots, and Eagles all are out: HA!

Other than that, the only other noteworthy development is that Jillian and I are two episodes into The Wire, which to this point has lived up to all of the hype: pretty, pretty, pretty good, as LD would say. Now that we are done booking our travel (mostly), I'm sure it will provide us with something to do during our down time (seriously, getting everything organized for these trips took hours). Between that and the crime documentaries/series, the bros/sisters-in-law have stocked us up well. So thanks again, S, M, B, & M.

Well, they tell me that another thing I can do with my time here is schoolwork, so I guess I should get to that. I have yet to touch any of my reading. I have made some progress with my Sports Illustrated, though.

Until next time, here's this entry's cultural difference:

Over a dozen times already, when walking directly at another oncoming pedestrian, I, by instinct, go to my right, while they, by instinct, go to their left (my right). A lot of "Oh, sorry" and the awkward dance of stutter steps back and forth. And an occasional bump.