Fun around Every Corner

Well, in just the short span of 4 days, I've already explored or learned of the location of a good list of cultural events. Hmm, where shall we start...

Well, immediately in the vicinity of the classroom building (or even a short walk away), there are a number of museums and popular attractions, including the National Museum (most of the museums are free too, and have excellent galleries), Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben / Houses of Parliament, Covent Garden Markets, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church. So far, I've explored Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden Markets. Covent Garden Markets is a outdoor covered market with a variety of clothing and other trinket stalls. There are a few other covered markets located throughout London, as well as some open-air ones that I plan to check out over the course of the semester (preferably the ones relating to food, but there's one pertaining to antiques which I've heard is also interesting). Today, on one of our walking tours, we visited Camden Market, which tailors to more of the Indie / Punk culture. Nevertheless, it was a pretty cool area that I might have to return to later in the semester and haggle with the vendors. for a T-shirt or something Better yet, I'll be returning for the delicious smelling food vendors they had. Within this little square, there was everything from crepes to curry to Chinese to what looked like Creole food....mmm, delight!!

Another thing we've been encouraged to explore are the large parks distributed throughout London. Hyde Park is only about a 5 minute walk from our flats. A few students have already been running through the park, and I know a few, including myself, plan on having a picnic in one of the parks one day. Today, we walked through two more of the park areas, Regents Park and Primrose Hill, on a walking tour. Primrose Hill has an excellent view of the city, although it's quite an incline to climb. Definitely an excellent place to fly a kite though. Regents Park was hosting a practice session of the English rugby team which was open to the public, but unfortunately we arrived after they had finished.

I've already started to explore the theatre opportunities that I know I'll be very acquainted with during the semester. Friday night my friends Mary and Matt came with to see _Mary Poppins_, the musical. I thought it was a very good production. Granted, it's Mary Poppins, so because it's well known you can't do too much past the story, but they did everything related to the story very well. Excellent chorus, as well as a great dance number for Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious. The acting was also great, and it added a nice little touch that we were seeing "Mary Poppins" where the actors actually had a British accent :-).

Alright, last thing, I swear...the pubs. So far I've been to 2 pubs, and I'm already a fan of the British pub atmosphere. Someone likened pubs to the "living room of Britain", because a lot of people go there to socialize and catch up with friends. Much better than the "let's go to the bar / out partying to get schwasted" mentality that I've seen some people subscribe to back home. Rather, like at the traditional English lunch we had today after Mass at Westminster Cathedral (which is beautiful), it's an opportunity to relax, have some conversation, and enjoy a pint of ale (not beer...apparently ales are as complex and diverse as wines, so I've taken to exploring their many varieties. Guinness is also better over here ;-) ). It's a really laid back environment. Plus, we found a pub near our flats that does trivia night, among other things, and the owner is a big fan of ND kids (for good reason, since his pub is ~100m away from our building).

Well, it's time to get to bed for the first day of classes, but I hope you've enjoyed the updates so far. Let me know if they get too dry, or if there's anything in specific that I don't mention or glaze over that you'd like to hear about. Cheers!