I arrived in London on Sunday morning, bright and early. I was able to take the express train from the airport to Paddington Station, where I did not see any bears (though apparently there's a statue of Paddington Bear somewhere in the station - I'll have to go back and look for it!) I took a taxi cab (they're so much cooler here than American taxi cabs!) from Paddington to the Stamford Street apartments, where I'm staying during my courses at King's. Since I arrived about 9:30am and couldn't check in til after 2, I wandered towards the only thing I could identify from the street - the London Eye. I quickly found myself on the South Bank riverfront, with a gorgeous view of Big Ben. I spent the morning crisscrossing the Thames on several bridges and finding Trafalgar Square, St. Martin in the Fields (one of the few places I remember from visiting London when I was 8) and Villiers Street, where I got a taco for lunch (apparently tacos aren't the most popular food in London - the placemats had directions for how to correctly order and eat Mexican food!).
I was finally able to check in to my room after lunch, so I unpacked and got myself settled. Each set of 5 rooms shares a kitchen area with a microwave, stove and tea kettle (of course!), but unfortunately there are no pots or pans or cooking supplies! Our rooms have mini-fridges though, and there are a ton of places to get good little take-away meals plus quite a few supermarkets and pharmacies within walking distance.
Yesterday, I started my first course, Multicultural London Literature, after an introductory session and a tour of the King's Strand campus. I've been amazed by how great the location is - you can walk from campus to Fleet Street, Trafalgar Square, or Covent Garden within just a few minutes. And the view from our classroom, on the 8th floor of King's, is by far the best view I've ever had from a classroom - we look down directly on Somerset House (the building in the foreground of the photo) with the London Eye and Big Ben in the background! So far, the class has been really interesting. This week, we're looking at London as "the Imperial Metropolis," reading excerpts by Joseph Conrad, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Olaudah Equiano, Rudyard Kipling and Charles Dickens and examining their depictions of London from as early as 1787. Class consists of a lecture by our tutor, Dr. Dorian Hayes, every morning from 10-11, followed by class discussion of the lecture material until 12:30 or 1, lunch, then either a seminar from 2-4 (which involves close reading and discussion of the excerpts in our course reader) or a field trip. Tomorrow we go to the Museum in Docklands, Thursday to the Museum of London in Barbican, then next week the Black British and Caribbean collections at the British Library, the National Maritime museum in Greenwich, and finally the last week to the Black Cultural Archive in Kennington and Brixton.
It's been a whirlwind few days but I'm finally starting to settle in, despite the jetlag that keeps waking me up at 2am each morning, and I'm getting used to the idea that I'm living in London! I still get excited every time I see a double decker bus (I'm sure that will wear off soon - they are everywhere) or a telephone booth. There are all these little things to notice that just make me smile, like the fact that the break rooms (at least the ones on the 8th floor of King's) are called "tea points" or that my professor uses words like "chuffed". Though the first two days I was here were sunny and beautiful, it's supposed to rain for the rest of the week - but I guess that's all a part of the London experience. Until next time, cheers!
