Welcome to the Neigborhood!

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Sparkling Dandelion and Burdock?

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I went to Morrison's last night after class. I got home around 8:15 pm and the store closes at 9:00 pm — this is pretty typical — so if I want anything I'm always in a rush. I wanted to buy some 2-litres of pop, so I checked out the store brand, three for £1.00. I have to say, they have some interesting flavors here. Nothing comes in grape. I'm not sure why. There are grapes for sale in the store, but there is no grape jam, no grape pop. Blackcurrant everything, though, which is reminiscent of grape. It's purple, at least. So I bought some Blackcurrantade, but I haven't tried it yet. And who's ever heard of this flavor: Sparkling Dandelion and Burdock? (check out my fantastic product shot) Well, I've never had dandelion flavor, so I couldn't resist. It tastes a little like licorice, but more like cough medicine. Maybe that's the burdock, which is apparently some kind of medicinal root. Not bad, though, I may buy it again.

I have been crazy busy... like 12-13 hour days with no end in sight. I haven't have a lot of time to check email, especially since my computer wasn't functioning last week. My hard drive died on my laptop and started eating folders that make the system run. I know it wasn't a software issue because the hard drive was making scary noises. And system diagnostics said "hard drive status: FAILING. Back up as much data as you can!" Which is exactly what I did.

I was still able to use my computer, but only if I connected it to my external hard drive — and you can imagine how impractical that was most of the time. So I've been reduced to handwritten note-taking, and you know how horrible my handwriting is. When I write fast I sometimes can't even read my own writing.

Anyway, I ordered a new internal hard drive from an online company here in the UK. I've already received it and I installed it last weekend, which involved opening the case. Kind of a pain, but since I'd done it before I knew what I was in for. And I brought the correct tools along just in case. Glad I fixed it and didn't kill it. I went from a 30 GB to 80 GB, so I suppose it's for the best anyway. Still, wasted a lot of time diagnosing, shopping, and fixing.

So my days are spent either in classroom lectures or in various museums around London. I've already been to the National Gallery, the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Courtauld Gallery, Tate Britain, and the Wallace Collection (which is a really cool collection of seventeenth-century paintings, ceramics, and furniture). Next week we go the the Museum of London and eventually get to Tate Modern. As far as if it's everything I hoped it would be, well, sure. The lectures are incredibly interesting and the instructors are amazingly knowledgeable and interesting people. But it's tons of work and tons of information thrown at you in almost machine-gun fashion. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed I see smoke coming out of people's heads. My own head is smoking!

The students are very interesting, very diverse. Most of them are younger, traditional-type students, but a fairly large percentage are older career-changer types. But whether the younger ones are "mature" or not is hard to say. I think there's a big difference between being mature from an academic standpoint and having been through some shit. I think most of the young ones are typical for their age, don't really have a concept of money or how much they're spending, and how hard it is to make in the first place, because most likely it's OPM (Other People's Money, either the bank's or the parents'). It's not necessarily something you can fault them for though, I suppose it's just the way it is. You could look at it as: they'll have a lot more carefree fun than I will! But this is all speculation on my part. I can't honestly say I know anyone well enough to judge.

I had steak and kidney pie, which really wasn't all that bad, but the idea of what I was eating was getting to me. I ate the whole thing except for just a little bit at the end. The kidneys inside were tiny, I don't know what they come from, maybe a chicken? But I swear I saw tiny tubes coming out of them, the ones that lead to the urethra. Was grossing me out! I have not had blood pudding yet, and don't plan on it, either. I've already seen it in the store, so I'll be able to identify it if anyone tries to slip it into something.

The National Gallery and Trafalgar Square

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Rainy Greenwich Excursion

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Summary: September 2006

There is a big supermarket within walking distance of where I'm staying called Morrison's, so I'm buying food and bringing lunches to school. And making food at home and eating lots of cereal like I always do. It's not just food that's expensive though... it's everything. Part of it is being in a big city, but part of it is something called a VAT tax... don't know what VAT stands for (just found out: Value Added Tax), but it's like a built in sales tax at 17.5%! So it's pretty ridiculous. Anyway, there's nothing to be done about it.

The place I'm staying: I have my own room and it's a nice size, so that's important. But it's an attached house, kind of like a townhouse, and it's newer construction, so it's not anything historic. The rent is relatively cheap though, and it's quiet at night, not like in the center of the city.

My roommate/landlord's name is Kemi. That's shortened version of her full name, which is Nigerian. Her parents came from Nigeria. She's nice and pretty laid back personality. She works in construction/ architecture business, I don't remember exactly what she does.

When I first moved in I had no idea of what was around me... it was like being dropped in the middle of Mars, kind of disconcerting because I had no sense of place. But in the last week or so I've had a chance to explore the area and become somewhat familiar with things, and I'm happier with it than I thought I might be. So my instincts were pretty good (not great), the commute is long, but I will probably think about moving at some point, 3-6 months. We'll see what happens.

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SCHOOL
I didn't know what to expect on the first day. I had visited the school last week, but I wasn't able to really look around and I had no idea what the classes would be like. One thing I have found out is it's going to be a LOT of work. One of the instructors, in describing the semester to come, said we would be reduced to "schizophrenic jelly!" Yikes.

The school is nothing like a campus. It's located in a place called Bedford Square. The square consists of a park-like area in the middle, and a road surrounding the park. Surrounding the road on all four sides are rows of attached Georgian houses (Georgian is an 18th-century architectural style, named after King George III. In other parts of Europe, architecture from this same period is called "Neoclassical.")

The Institute resides in two adjacent Georgian houses on the square. Now I can't think off-hand if there are two or three floors. I think there are only two plus a basement. The ceilings are very high, and decorated in low-relief, some of it gilded. The windows are very tall, and have shutters that fold up and fit into niches in the window frames. These are original from the 18th century.

The classroom lectures so far have all been of an introductory nature, and have all been held in a single room (really two adjoining rooms that are open to one another), although lectures are held in another classroom, too.

The class has only 48 students, only 6 men! A large percentage of the students are American, but I'm the only American man. They handed out a kind of class stat sheet, and I'd have to take another look, but it could be as much as about 50% American. Otherwise, the students are from many different countries. The oldest student is a man, a retired surgeon who's 66. There are a few forty-something women. I'm glad I'm not the oldest!

On the first day the school held a "welcome lunch" where the students could mingle and meet each other and also the instructors. The guys all clustered together in a corner of the room, someone said it was kind of like circling the wagons. I introduced myself to several fellow students, male and female, and all were very nice. Obviously I haven't been able to meet everyone personally.

So far I really like the instructors. They're very engaging, very friendly. Each student was assigned an advisor. Mine happens to be the expert who interviewed me by phone as part of the application process.

This afternoon a couple of the instructors met two separate groups of students at the Victoria & Albert Museum. We were shown examples of Chinese porcelain and 18th-century furniture. The idea is to start learning how to observe objects and describe them using technical language, as would be written in a catalog.

We've already been assigned a short paper, due the first Monday in October. The grading system is very strange, it's different in Britain than in the U.S. I won't go into that now.

BANK ACCOUNT
I opened a bank account, and my mom was able to transfer the money last week. However, it takes 2-3 days to clear, so I don't expect funds to in the account until this week. Hopefully it won't take longer.

PHONE
No phone yet. I need a bank statement showing an address on it as proof of address. It will be a couple of weeks. It's a pain not having a phone, but a temporary situation.

ACCOMODATIONS
I found a place to stay! Only thing is its an hour commute, but something like that isn't uncommon. A lot of people commute 45-60 minutes. I'll just have to work it into my schedule. Classes don't start until 10:30am, so I won't have to get up at an ungodly hour. I'll use the time to read, or when I get an iPod, listen to music or podcasts.

I should be moving in on Monday evening if everything goes well. I still have to work some things out with the owner.

I'll be renting a room from a 5' tall woman of Nigerian descent. In fact she'll be visiting her sister, who's in Kenya, for ten days in October. We've met already and seemed to get along very well, she's very easy-going and nice. She owns a small attached house in an area called Thamesmead, not far from Greenwich (southeastern London). She's in the process of doing improvements since she only bought the house in April.

I'm getting a good rate, £300 (about $600) per month for the first six months, £350 (about $700) thereafter. Meanwhile the place will be torn up a bit, but my room will be fine. She's also having high-speed Internet installed, so for a few weeks I'm going to have to live with dial-up.

Before I decided on this, I looked at another house not far from there in an area called Charlton. It's owned by a family -- father, mother, and two teen sons. It's a very nice Victorian attached house built in the 1860s. It would have been a shorter commute, and the neighborhood is incredibly picturesque, I'd call it Dickensian, their rate and terms were within reason, but closer to £400 per month. I really liked them, but I think I would have a hard time living with a family. I think I would feel like I didn't belong there, or like I was a kid again.

Anyway, it was a tough decision, but I had to make one. I may decide to move again after a few months, but we'll see.

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Haven't found a place yet, but am meeting a potential roommate for coffee this evening at 6pm, and then she might show me her place. Tomorrow I'm seeing another room for rent in a Victorian house near Greenwich (as in Greenwich Mean Time that we all set our clocks by). I've decided to stay at the hostel again this week to buy some time to find a place. The first few places I looked at I decided not to take.

Last night I moved to a room with fewer people, so it's a little better. But living out of a bag won't work for much longer, I can't function efficiently that way.

I haven't done much of what you might call fun stuff... not yet anyway. I've gotten around quite a bit though, by tube, by bus, and on foot, getting familiar with things as much as possible. For me that's a kind of fun.

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Just thought I'd let you know that I got a few bites on the FlatemateClick.co.uk Web site. I sent some emails last night and had two replies today, and one message from a person who thinks I might be a "great flatmate." His rate is a little on the high side though, so we'll see.

So anyway, I have a seven-day membership, I'll keep fishing and see. Meanwhile I booked another week at the hostel, but in a room with fewer people.

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I don't know where the nectarines come from -- I didn't look on the label -- but they are good. They could probably sit a day or two after I buy them but I've been eating them right away and they are still sweet. I also bought a few oranges, a couple of them were really sweet and seedless, maybe some of the best I've had, and then I bought others that had super-thick skins, very hard to peel, and weren't as sweet. All the oranges I bought came from Africa.

You keep the same bedding until you check out, it's not like a hotel where they give you fresh sheets every day. But now I just moved to a new room so I have clean sheets. That's standard for hostels though, that's how it works. I suppose I could have asked for a new sheet or something, but I don't think it's necessary. It was good if I changed the sheets on my bed at home every two or three weeks (not saying that's really good).

But they have housekeepers here that do all the cleaning. I've seen them clean the bathrooms, the kitchen, the floors, and change the sheets on the beds, and they do a thorough job. They clean every day. It's cleaner than a couple of the hostels I've stayed in.

The location is good, too, it's only about a ten-minute walk to London Bridge (at my pace) and a block from a tube station (Borough, if you want to try to find it on a map). It's in Southwark which is just south of the Thames.

Last night I went for a walk along the river, crossed over Tower Bridge, and wandered around the Tower of London. Saturday I found Dr. Samuel Johnson's house (where he used to live in the 1700s) and that was really exciting. Until I got here and saw it on the map, I didn't realize it was still standing. But I didn't go in, I get a student discount but I don't have an ID card yet. It was more of a scouting mission, so I'll go back another time.

Yesterday I went to the noon mass at Westminster Cathedral, not far from Buckingham Palace. They do things a little differently than what I'm used to, but overall I thought it was a good experience. Believe it or not, the interior is "unfinished" even though the building was completed in 1903. So they're still asking for donations to finish the interior.

Funny, too, when I was here in 2001 I wasn't very aware of who Samuel Johnson was, so I didn't bother looking for his house.

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So I'm almost done with my first full day, and its been hard to accomplish anything. I realized that I have to open a bank account, I need a phone number - which means I need a phone - and only then will I be able to hunt for a place to live with any efficiency. So I was thinking about things in reverse .. permanent place comes after these other two things. Bank account comes first.

I went to a couple of banks, got some leads as to what to do. Need to meet with banking people tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I have to tough it out in this hostel. No privacy, no room to put my stuff. All my clothes are crumpled; the kitchen's always choked with people; no outlets in the bathrooms for my electric shaver. Ugghh.. right now my happiness hinges on finding somewhere else to live. If this is some sort of new life it's not easy. Kind of like a Caesarean section for having a baby.

Then I think I have to keep looking ahead. I haven't even been here two days, it will take at least a week, maybe more before my situation is ironed out.

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Made it here ok. Not much trouble finding the hostel, but no fun lugging 50 lbs. of luggage around. Luckily the Underground station is only about a block from the hostel. Checked in at 10:30 but the room won't be ready until about 2:00. They have free WiFi, so I'm testing it out - obviously it's working, which is a good thing. It's about 12:25pm.