Today began early, again. We were up and out by 9am this morning to get to the teaching site in order to catch our tour bus. We were accompanied by an effervescent Cheapside native who acted as our guide, and it was truly an experience. As is to be expected, the tour packed a lot of information into not a lot of time, and I found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed. London is a BIG city with a LONG history, and it's hard to retain all the little details. One of my favorite pit stops of the day was St. Paul's Cathedral, and because it was Sunday morning, we got to hear the bells going. It was very calming. They certainly don't do churches in America like they do here. The tour basically went ALL around central London, and as I write this I'm finding it hard to summarize the whole tour. Lots of information and good tips on where to go and what to see, so I suppose I'll be re-visiting a lot of the sites again this semester.
Lunch. Lunch was divine today. The tour guide recommended a small chain of restaurants called Wagamama... basically an inexpensive, quick, cafeteria-seating style Asian noodle place. After the tour, myself and five other Grinnellians found one. I ordered the seafood ramen, and with a little soy sauce, I was in heaven. The ramen comes in these giant bowls with lots of perfectly cooked noodles, delicious broth and lots of yummy fish, prawns, and calamari. I have a feeling that I'll be there quite a bit this semester, especially on cold, rainy days. It's like the perfect comfort food!
After lunch, we headed back to our flat to recuperate for a couple of hours before leaving for our program advisor's house. She hosted a garden party at her house in Chiswick this afternoon. My flat-mates and I managed to get to the Gunnersbury tube stop in zone 3 easily enough, but we were working with pretty awful directions, and basically we wandered around suburban London for an hour and a half before we finally found the place. Suburban London reminds me a lot of someplace like Ridgefield, CT... nice shops, tree-lined street, relatively non-descript. We only stayed at the party for about half an hour, and though I previously complained about how much energy it takes to get around in London, I was glad to be weaving my way through tube stations and dodging people in central London once we got back. Tomorrow, I'm most likely going to the Notting Hill Carnival with some friends, and then classes start on Tuesday. Very excited for that. Mostly because I'm a nerd.
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