First Post, First Four Days

Hello all! I've already been in lovely Kensington for four days now, so perhaps I should provide a little recap of my days here so far.

Tuesday, August 28th

After a nine hour flight into Heathrow, we sat on the tarmac for one hour waiting for an available gate. Once we finally got off of the plane our baggage was delayed an hour and a half at baggage reclaim, so needless to say my trip had a frustrating start. We were taken by van to the Richmond "campus", which is essentially four or five buildings scattered throughout Kensington. I moved into my new dorm room in Ambassador House on Queensgate Terrace, a street with the most sought after real-estate in London (the houses across the street sell for 15 million pounds/30 million dollars). My room is on the "third floor", which is basically the fifth floor, and there is no elevator. So needless to say I will be getting a lot of exercise these coming months. Luckily my room is very large, it is a three-person room and I only have one roommate. As with everything else around here, the building is quite old and quite quirky. For instance, the showers are down the hall, but the closest toilets are on the other side of the building (I counted six doors that I have to go through in order to get there). The school's cafeteria is a quarter mile away and my classes are about a half mile away, so again, a lot of walking. I know what you're saying, "that's enough schematics and logistics, get to the good stuff!" Okay.

After unpacking my things I decided to explore my new trendy neighborhood, while jet-lagged and looking a bit disheveled. So while I walked around I tried as hard I could to convince people that no, I am not an American, and no, I did not just crawl out of a container that had been on a ship from China since May. But not verbally, no way, I’m trying to be a quiet American, instead I tried to get this message across with the way I walked – you know, the way people walk when they’re afraid of getting mugged so they try to look like they actually know where they’re going. But I didn’t know where I was going. I just wandered past the enormous statue of Prince Albert on his horse at Queen’s Gate in Hyde Park and pretended like I knew a shortcut back to Ambassador House. I take a left at this kind of dumpy looking street, and when I say dumpy I just mean that there were two sizable piles of rubbish on the sidewalk. Every house was amazing in its architectural eloquence and every other one of them was an embassy (e.g. Fiji, UAE, France) strewn with security cameras and security guards. They were all staring at me as I walked by, probably looking like a bit out of place. And then I really looked out of place when I came to the dead end after only two blocks. So I turned around, defeated, having wasted five minutes of precious borrowed jet-lag time. But then I looked to the left, on this unassuming street and see a plaque on the wall of a red brick building with mullioned windows: “Sir Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, Prime Minister, lived and died here”. Now that's we call a "Welcome to London Matthew Jorgensen".

After a whole host of orientation events, the RAs and RDs took the whole lot of us to the Imperial College Student pub. Yes, I had a pint of Guinness, and no, it wasn't warm. After about an hour of mingling with British students I headed back to my room for some much needed sleep.

Wednesday, August 29th

Today consisted of about eight more hours of orientation, which was a bit frustrating for me because I wanted to get out and see the city. We would get one hour breaks here and there, which meant that it was just enough time to grab some pub grub or a quick nap, but by no means enough time to make it to Trafalgar Square and back. So it was nice that they had a Jack the Ripper Tour planned for us that evening, it gave us a chance to see more of the city. My trip from Gloucester Road to Tower Hill was my first (of many) rides on the Tube. Walking out of the station at Tower Hill was quite an amazing experience for me. I walked up some steps and there, right across a four-lane road was the famed Tower of London, a structure with a history that dates back to William the Conqueror in 1078 - and once more I was reminded why I came here. Then we went on the Jack the Ripper walking tour, which was mediocre at best. Luckily the school paid for it, because ten pence would have been a waste of money. The guide simply took us to the parking lots where pubs or brothels once stood and said "This is exactly the spot where Annie Chapman was killed in 1888, and the killer was never caught". It was a bit too hokey for me, instead of what could have been a good contextual history lesson, it was just a two hour ghost story with a few cheap laughs thrown in. And that's not just because I love history, everyone else in my group said the same things. So if you come to London, avoid it. When we got back to Kensington I went down to the Gloucester Arms to have a pint and watch the Arsenal-Sparta Prague football match. Arsenal, 2-0.

Thursday, August 30th

Today we all went on a three-hour bus tour of London, which was amazing, and made me so glad that I get to spend so much more time in this wonderful city. We saw all of the sights in a short time, which was meant to get us oriented more than anything. Our half-hour stop at St. Paul's Cathedral was my highlight by far. The enormity, beauty and grandeur of that three-hundred and fifty year old building is truly awesome, in the proper sense of the word. The humble WWII memorial on the west side of the cathedral reminded me of that famous and beautiful picture taken during the London blitz, in which smoke from the fires of the bombings covered London, but St. Paul's seems to shine through, as if it is God's own symbol of hope to a people fighting for survival. This brought me to tears. I don't know how someone could look at a building like that and not feel inspired.

After seeing the rest of central London we returned back to Kensington, and I decided to skip the planned orientation activities and do a little exploration. I went on a five mile walk that included the Victoria and Albert Museum, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, and Kensington Palace. The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) was actually a little disappointing. I was looking forward to their Middle Eastern/Ottoman/Islamic exhibit, but while some of the artifacts dated back to 700 A.D., the exhibit was mainly made up of rugs and clothing. The museum was more comical than legitimately interesting. It was essentially a museum of assorted accessories. For instance, there were entire exhibits dedicated to jewelry boxes and tea spoons. They have an enormous plaster cast collection, which is basically all of the world's famous sculptures, but fake and made out of plaster. The copy of Trajan's column was interesting just because of its vertigo-inducing size, but oohing and ahhing at a counterfeit version of Michelangelo's David feels a bit like cheating. On a personal note, the museum also smelled exactly like my grandparents' house. Overall, it was quite...quaint. It's only three blocks away, so I'll be back soon.

I then trekked to and through Hyde Park on through Kensington Gardens to the gates of Kensington Palace. I forgot, but I visited on the day before the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana's death. There were probably eight or nine television crews interviewing people at the gate, and I was one of them. The reporter asked me, "What do you think of this outpouring of public sympathy ten years after the death of Diana". To which I replied, "Don't get me wrong, when someone dies it is sad. But I don't understand what all of this fuss is about." She looked kind of shocked, said "thank you" and moved on to the next person. I mean come on, I only went there to see the palace.

After returning back to my flat exhausted I went off to the cafeteria for the tasteless mush they call food, but also happens to be free, in a neighborhood where a simple sandwich costs you five pounds/ten dollars. Basically I will eat whatever they serve because I'd rather be malnourished and have plane tickets to Prague than healthy and broke. Went to the Gloucester Arms again, "watched" the England-India cricket tournament game. When I say "watched", I mean I just sat there for an hour and tried to figure out what the heck was going on. I'll add that to my to-do list: #36: Learn how to play cricket, bring it back to the States.

Friday, August 31st

Woke up around 7 and went to breakfast at the cafeteria. After eating I headed down to the Gloucester station and took the Tube to Westminster. Another day of heavy walking. I made my pilgrimage to the Churchill statue across the street from Parliament. Went to St. Margaret's Chapel at Westminster Abbey, took a few pictures, and then saw the "No Photography" sign on the way out. Walked around the outside of the Abbey, I'll pay to go inside later. I walked down Whitehall and then sneaked down a side road to go find the Churchill Cabinet War Rooms, which is supposed to be amazing, but costs ten pounds. I found the hidden-away entrance, but will come back on another day when I feel like paying admission for museums. I then walked to St. James' Park, which had a beautiful WWI/WWII memorial. I will admit I did get quite angry at the Japanese men sitting on the monument while smoking cigarettes and laughing (at least they weren't joined by some Germans). I know they probably didn't realize what they were doing, but come on.

I happened to be walking by the Horse Guards at 11, and got to see the changing of the guard (that only happens once a day), which was interesting because of its traditional emphasis. I actually found myself pitying the officers forced to pose with countless tourists, until to of them were obviously trying to contain their laughter at how ridiculous the whole thing is. I continued my walk on up to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. Highlight of Trafalgar Square: "Daddy, who is that man on top of that pole?" "I don't know, I think his name was Trafalgar". I hate to say it, but they were American. Speaking of the different tourists over here, the thing that I've found the most interesting at these tourist destinations is that it seems that three-quarters of the tourists are British. I don't know, I figured I'd hear more languages, or more American accents for that matter. After passing through Trafalgar Square (which is named after the naval battle at Trafalgar in 1805, in which Horatio Nelson, the "man at the top of the pole", defeated Napoleon's navy) I headed to the National Gallery. It was fantastic to see many of the paintings that I have seen in my art history classes. For example, Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne", Turner's "Calais Pier", a few da Vincis, and actually my favorite painting, van Eyck's "Arnolfini Wedding". The gallery is absolutely wonderful and I look forward to spending a lot more time there over the coming months. I got back to my flat at about 2, and I've been sitting in this chair since then - mainly updating this thing. In an hour and a half I'm going on a Thames Pub Walk, which I am looking forward to. Hopefully I'll update this again soon!