A Not So Touristy Weekend

This weekend, we decided to do some more creative things with our time. We've lived in London for a month now, so the tourist traps start to look like traps. And we start to get annoyed when "new" people crowd the Tube and don't know where they're going.

So we started Saturday afternoon off by exploring a Vintage store. Apparently this is a traveling Vintage event too, which we thought was worth checking out.

Surprisingly, some of the stuff was fairly expensive. Half of the clothes were real vintage - 60s, 70s, or 80s style - which I would need to be more creative to find a way to wear it. Or it was really cute clothes that were the same price as the nearest Primark or Topshop, two of the cheaper and decent stores in London.

The area also came complete with a bowling alley, a pub, and a small cafe, with racks of clothes stacked on the floor above and around these extra downstairs pit stops.

A signature purchase: I invested in a nice change purse. The frequent use of British coins, rather than 'notes', was literally making my clutch burst at the seams. The change purse is way more functional for Europe.

On Sunday, we celebrated the Chinese New Year in Trafalgar Square and Chinatown, where streets were closed off and decorated.

It was pretty cool. Trafalgar Square was packed. So then the lesson of the day became that the distance from one historic place to another is not as far as it seems on the Tube. I walked from Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly Circus to Chinatown in about 15 minutes.

When you're on the Tube, the distance you travel between those points feels a lot longer.

Anyway, Chinese New Year turned out to be pretty cool, despite the lack of free food that some people thought would be there. Really, there were a ton of booths set up selling Chinese New Year trinkets and noisemakers, the streets were decorated, and there were some stages set up with entertainment. The only entertainment I actually saw was Kung Fu Panda.

That was exciting.

Then... we once again digressed in to more tourist stuff.

Introducing: The Natural History Museum.

This museum is part of a series of museums in South Kensington, about a 20 minute journey from my flat in Earl's Court. The building is absolutely breathtaking.

The best part of the actual museum was probably the dinosaur fossils on the first floor. The one on the left was pretty cool. There's also some galleries on the floor above, so you could look down over this dinosaur almost anywhere you go in the museum. After about an hour though, we felt like we had seen the best parts of the museum and decided to head out.

Except we ended up going the wrong way on a bus and ended up in Harrod's.

I've never walked through Harrod's before.

Looking at the building in and of itself is kind of stunning.

Going inside and glancing at some of the price tags is literally jaw-dropping.

Totally worth a step inside though, even if you're only walking through it to take advantage of the heat before reaching the Tube station, like we did.



In other news this past Sunday, my neighborhood was fairly excited about the Chelsea v. Liverpool match. [That's an understatement, folks.] It was a big deal because Chelsea had just signed a previous Liverpool player, Fernando Tores, in a record-breaking 50 million pound deal.

And Chelsea still lost 0-1 against Liverpool.

There were some pretty depressed people in blue and white walking around Earl's Court that night. So that topped any thoughts I had about the Super Bowl for awhile.

Phew. It was a busy, but incredible weekend. Note to self: busy weekends are better on so many levels.

A Lesson in Navigation

On Thursday, I was given the task of navigating the tube and the streets of North London up by King's Cross to drop off some forms for my MP. As the girl who gets lost in every town I've ever lived in, even the hometown I've called my permanent address for 20 years, this was a daunting assignment. So I folded the Google map in my pocket, held on tightly to my Oyster Card and my phone and prepared to embarrass myself.

Instead, besides turning the wrong way out of the tube at first, I made my way to an Office in North London, calmly dropped off the forms and made my way back without even losing anything.

I was quite proud of myself if I can say so.

Along the way, I found some cool little "landmarks."


Like the Guardian offices. Clearly the newspaper I would love to work at if I was ever lucky enough to land a job in London. Also, it was the first real newspaper office I've seen in London, so I couldn't resist snapping a picture.

Also, King's Cross Station is just kind of awesome. If you've watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, (I think) this is the clock that Harry and Ron almost crash into in the Ford Anglia.

Honestly, this is one of the best parts about living in London. I'll be walking around, then just randomly run into something that I've always wanted to see. We got off a Tube stop last week, and realized we were in Trafalgar Square. (I should have realized the stop was for Trafalgar Square anyway, but that's ok.) Some people were walking around the neighborhood yesterday, walked through a cemetery, then realized it was the same cemetery where they shot some scenes for the new "Sherlock Holmes."

So hopefully I won't keep being scared about looking like a tourist, and I'll keep taking pictures of these landmarks for you amazing people.

An American Girl in London

I'm in jolly old England! London to be exact, and the city has been pretty nice to me so far. So, I'm trying to be nice back to the people who have so kindly let me live in their country.

Making life a little easier is the lack of culture shock. Instead, one of our coordinators at the university said we experience, "cultural weirdness." So for a while everything's good. We're traveling, having a good time and enjoying the culture. Then we start to recognize all of things the British do differently, and wonder why they can't do things the good ol' American way.

Such as...
1) The traffic. Cars and buses drive on the other side of the road and with the steering wheel on the other side, meaning we have to look the other way before crossing the street. On my very few first steps off the bus heading to our flat, I looked right (like you normally do in the US) and started crossing the street. Instead, a car was coming from the left and I had to jump backwards quickly to avoid being in some serious accident. The traffic also will not stop for you, so pedestrians have to be extra careful to watch for speeding cars.
Luckily, there are "Look Left" and "Look Right" signs painted on the street to remind you to check for cars. Otherwise, we Americans wouldn't stand a chance in London.

2) The work ethic. Students have to be more self-sufficient in the UK. The coordinators showed an example where a stateside exam question would outline the parts of the theory in question; but a UK question would simply ask you to describe the theory. Professors apparently want students to be able to think critically and independently. Hopefully, Wisconsin has prepared me for this.
On the other hand, businesses and any professionals seem to have a more laid-back approach. The atmosphere is casual at our university, and it's almost as if professors and administrators have a, "It'll get done, when it gets done" feel. I'm sure it's lovely for the true adults, but or students hoping to impress them, we have to think about what we can work on by ourselves.

3) Transportation. In the US, most people feel pretty comfortable to move about at their own pace on public transportation. You can also talk on the train. On the tube, no one talks. Everyone has their own mindset, and simply wants to get from place to place. If we don't know where we're going or we want to meet up with people, we're simply in the way.


Besides these first few differences, life in the UK so far has been a lot like life at college in the US. I have to commute from home to classes. I have to adjust to new people. And I have to recognize new challenges of living on my own in a new place.

Except there's also cool buildings and people with pretty accents.

I'll add more details later. I need to take more pictures (aka, look like a tourist) to do this, but I swear I'll get it done.

I couldn't take my usual photo out the airplane window (sad times I know), so this is the one I took flying over London back in 2008.
It's pretty much the same.