Saturday, January 30, 2010

Scavenger Hunt & Meeting Locals


Yesterday was such a great day.  Probably my favorite since I came here about a week ago.  I didn’t get much sleep the night before so when I woke up I was really tired.  We had our first class that morning followed by a travel seminar.

Our first class was the British Experience Seminar, which is held at Birkbeck College.  It’s about a half hour tube ride from where we live.  It wasn’t anything special.  We were introduced to the course and give our first two assignments.  We have to visit two markets and interview someone who lives here.  Shouldn’t be too tough.  Not that worried about it.

The travel seminar is what really got our attention.  A rep from STA came and gave us some free stuff and talked to us a little bit about travel.  Everyone was whispering to one another about where they wanted to go first.  I can’t wait.  I believe Ireland and Dublin is going to be my first stop.  Should be a blasty blast.

On our way back from our first class Bailey, Alex, Joe and myself all stopped for some lunch at a place called HaHa Bar and Grill.  Awesome name!  Anyway, I got the Cottage Pie from the authentic British food menu.  Basically a Cottage Pie is cooked beef with vegetables topped off by mashed potatoes.  It was really good.  It reminded me a lot of a meat sundae that I had at the fair this summer, just reversed.


At 1400 we all gathered in the lounge and were assigned a group for a London scavenger hunt.  We had to go around London and gather pamphlets, a toy, a menu and various pictures.  Through the scavenger hunt I learned how the bus system works.  That’s good knowledge to have in this town because the tube stops running at midnight.  The hunt was so exhilarating.  We were flying past people in the tube, going up and down escalators in the fast lane made me feel important, and being propelled off the end was good fun too.  I did stumble once and that was slightly embarrassing.  In the end my group grabbed 13 points, and Bailey’s group (who will probably win) grabbed 17.  Props to them for moving so fast.  It took us 3 hours to get everything.

Last night is where the real story begins.  We wanted to go out, but not to a quite suit pub, but to a place that was at least mildly hoppin so we could meet people.  We probably googled places for an hour or so before we settled on one over in the Oxford Circus area.  We didn’t plan very well though because none of us thought to look up specific directions so we wandered around Oxford Street and Regent Street and settled on a pub hidden in an off street.  The place was packed but it was the best decision we made all night.

At the pub we met four young English gentlemen.  They were really nice.  Conversation was easy and we talked about London and where we were from.  The main guy that I talked to, Bing they called him, said he didn’t think London was that impressive.  We argued a bit over that one.  He also said something very interesting.  He said that America was a lot more Christian than England.  He said that church isn’t something that a lot of people do here, it’s something that you stumble into if you’re bored.  I never really thought of America as that way before.  His friend, Coops, asked Bailey and I if it’s true that American women love a guy with a British accent and we affirmed his suspicions.

From there they suggested that we go to a pub on the Hipster side of town, so we hopped in two cabs and went to Dolsom.  There we introduced a new sort of dance to the British people.  Of course we fist pumped it up.  I will take credit for starting the dance floor.  I hadn’t danced in so long, it was a great release.  They also showed us the lunge.  I’m not sure if that’s actually a popular dance move or not, but they seemed to enjoy it.  At the end of the night we hopped on a bus that took us to Waterloo and then we walked the 1.5 miles back to Vandon House.  I’ve walked more here than I ever have in my life.

Last night was so great.  I hope that we can stay in touch with those guys.  It’s my first real weekend in London so I hope the fun continues.  I’ll update again soon.

Pip Pip Cheerio!

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