| Journal 2 Sunday: Today we had a meeting at 10:30 with everyone from the Foothill De Anza program. I woke up around 8:30 leaving an hour to get ready and eat, and one hour to get to school. I woke up and ended up taking the first shower – between Justin and I; he had gone down stairs to eat breakfast. The shower was completely different then one back home. You can set the water temperature with a dial, like that of a car heater. Then you set, what seems to be the pressure with another dial. The shower itself is damn small without a enough room for me to wash my hair comfortably, without hitting my elbows on the wall. After I showered I went downstairs to eat breakfast. I sat and ate my Wheaties while Ian listened to the news on the radio. I ended up starting a conversation on Politics with him while I ate my toast – I had no idea that asking if he was for/against the war would start a whole conversation on the greater British opinions of the entire country. After finishing, sort of, on that conversation I went back upstairs to get my stuff for the meeting. We left the house to catch the Tube at Goodge Street , instead of trying to get back to Ealing/Broadway. It took about an hours to get all the way to our exit, having to connect part way through the line. We started walking toward the street we needed to take to school when we met up with Jay, Vivek, and Matt. They were trying to figure out exactly which way it was school. The meeting was in the ULU building instead of the Dilke house, third floor. We sat for quite a while listening to all the details of the program; most of which we had already read three different times in various packets they had sent home to us. At the end of the meeting, before we left, we were given maps of our area and all the others where the students live. We were then excused for lunch; we were left only about 20 minutes or so to buy and eat lunch before leaving on our tour. The tour lasted about three hours or so. We were stopped almost immediately when our bus tried to fit down a street that was crowded with cars. We saw all sorts of sites like Big Ben, St. Johns Cathedral, and a whole bunch more I can't remember. We walked across the Wobley Bridge , and also saw Shakespeares Globe Theatre. We finally finished the tour around 5:30 or so. After the tour Justin, Jay, Vivek, Matt, Ben, Shereen, Sara, Eryn, Sophia, and I all went upstairs to eat dinner and hang out. After an hour or so the girls all went their separate ways and we hit the Streets. The guys wanted to find a pub and have a drink. We wandered around pretty much everywhere before ending up in Leister Square . After walking off the train we were immediately handed flyers about the Magic Mushroom Sale going on right down street. So like any level headed student would, e walked down near Hard Rock and Planet Hollywood to see where this shop was. Some of the guys went in to check it out while the rest of us waited outside. After that we kept wandering around until they found a pub they liked for us to sit down in. Unfortunately it ended up being some tiny ass place on the second floor, where I had to watch my head as I went up the steps to the bar itself. After about half an hour in there Jay and I went outside, the smoke smell was making me sick. When they left we went down to…another square, who's name I can't remember, and took some pictures. We saw Big Ben in the distance and started to walk toward it to get a better photo. On the walk there we started passing a bunch of the stuff we saw on our bus tour earlier, though this time the guide wasn't there to tell us the names of everything. We made it to Big Ben and walked toward the bridge, after seeing that and the London Eye we got back on the Tube and went back to Leister Square . We wandered around there for about 20 minutes, got a piece of pizza and talked. A bum walked up to us and asked Vivek for a Pound. He gave him 5 pence, since it was the first coin he pulled out of his pocket. The bum then asked the rest of us for a Pound, none of us gave him anything. As he walked away he threw the 5 pence coin down the street, irritated that that was all he was given. We stayed a bit longer then all got on the tube to go home. |