FINALLY, a real taste of London!!!

I'm just about to go out with friends to a sports pub down the road from NIDO (my dorm). But, I thought it necessary to recap the many events that happened on my second day in this fine city.

Katie and I woke up around 10 to finally purchase a cheap phone and a pay-as-you-go plan, that was supposedly the best way to go according to everyone we've spoken to. However, the guy there was extremely confusing and told us we had to have our NIDO address in order for them to send us a monthy bill. "But," we kept saying, "we thought the pay-as-you-go plan didn't require a monthly bill!" He just kept talking about all these monthy 20 pound deals that we should get, and we were extremely confused and had no idea what he was talking about, so we bounced. We'll try another place tomorrow that's supposed to have the cheapest phones around (only 5 pounds!!) and some pretty good deals on international calling, texting and the like.

So after the phone debacle, we walked from NIDO to the academic center in Bloomsbury. It was about a 20 minute walk and it was pretty bloody cold, but the sight seeing was really pretty. It was the first time i actually got to explore the area at all, and it was really delightful. The streets are quaint and narrow and, thankfully, each street is equipped with a "LOOK LEFT!" or "LOOK RIGHT!" message painted in white on the concrete. This should hopefully avoid any head on collisions with double decker buses.

We ate lunch at the University of London Student Union... it was much better than last night's lasagna dinner which, I have to say, was PUTRID. This time around they gave us some sort of spicy noodle dish that was actually quite yummy. After food, we had to sit through a two and a half hour orientation (BLAH!) that went through all the customary safety warnings, academic rules, plaigarism, nightlife, dorm regulations, and anything else you could think of. After getting through that, we walked to the academic center and saw all the classrooms - it's a really pretty and historic looking building. Later on, we had a function called the Pub Quiz, where all the NYU students met at a pub and they quizzed us on London's history, European trivia and other things. Our team, the Illegal Crowdsurfers, came in fourth, but won a prize for having the most original team name. Dinner consisted of chicken sishkabob (spelling?), battered shrimp and chips, and other seafood and finger food favorites. After dinner, we took a double decker bus back to NIDO to rest our legs a little. I'm about to meet up again to see what the sports life is like at this soccer (football?) pub right down the block. All I can say is that I'm SO excited about London now that I finally got to experience more than my 20 foot dormroom. The people here are surprisingly warm (when you catch them at the right time) and very funny, and the city is so interesting. I finally took some pictures too, which I'll post on this blog soon for a visual aid.

That's it for now... until next time, g'day mates! (Or is that Australian???)



British word of the day:
Innit - to be added to the end of a sentence, often when it makes absolutely no sense. A version of the contraction "isn't it." Example: Your mum is pretty crazy, innit?