So Lazy,

After an interesting evening I awoke this morning to find a can of beer frozen in the freezer. This was both pleasing and disheartening, on the one hand I now know that my freezer will freeze things but on the other hand I now had to melt a can of beer. I think the beer is salvageable, the can seems to be in good form and the seal is still holding, I imagine it'll get tested for freshness this evening. Other than my musing over frozen beer and the philosophical connotation which arise with such an incident, I've spent most of the day thus far tidying my room (unsuccessfully), doing a little admin work, selecting elective courses, and listening to the same Vaughn Williams tune several times (Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Talis, SO GOOD! I wish I had some decent speakers round here, but until then headphones will suffice. If you know the tune you know what I'm talking about, if you don't you need to find it turn on the stereo turn it up, sit back in good chair and close your eyes... Magnificent.)

I had my last Banana today, not that I'm giving them up or anything, I'm just out of them. I think I need to go shopping, although it pains me to shop so much round here it's so expensive, and I have yet to find some good peanut butter. I had some rice for lunch which was rather nice, I flavoured it with Montreal steak spice and salt, but it wasn't nearly as good as you might think. I eventually added butter and oddly enough that seemed to fix everything wrong with it. I think the beer has thawed now... Interesting. No, I think I'll put it off for a while. Having the bars close at 11 is really probably the adjustment giving me the greatest amount of grief. It's just bizarre, you just start having a good time and then there's crazy English man ringing a bell, flashing the lights, and telling you to drink-up. Though at home I guess that's not too strange, other than the English man part, the real rub comes when you look at your watch just to find that it's only 10:40. I have a feeling you'll all hear a lot about this from me, I think it's my only real bone of contention with this place.

I've been checking out seats at the Royal Opera House, it's looking pretty good. Seems like there are ample cheap-seats for me to take advantage of, the only real question comes with knowing that there are a couple shows going on this season that I refuse to stand through ie anything Wagner, and my beloved Turandot. Now how much am I willing to pay to see a spectacular show? It's an interesting thought, well I shouldn't be too worried I have plenty of time to think about that. Turandot is running in July and the Wagner isn't for a while either.

I'm trying to figure out how to get a picture on this crazy animal of a Blog, but I seem to be meeting with limited success. By limited I mean, naturally, no success. Or maybe more success that I had thought. It's amazing what a little scroll bar can do. This is a picture of The Somerset House, opened in 1760s or 70s and for a long while was residence of the queen, I'm a little shaky on the facts but it's part of my campus and I guess the most magnificent part as well. Look! There's a little union jack flying up there, very nice. Perhaps I'll put more pictures up next time.

So...

Today was quite a day I think. It started off as a day like any other, me lounging in my own filth trying to get up the energy/motivation to put pants and leave the comparative peace and quiet of my little room. Eventually I decided to make myself some breakfast, it being noon I decided that it should be a substantial breakfast. A four egg cheese and mushroom omelet was the product. I then crammed the omelet into me slathered in ketchup to the sound of a British version of The View. Shortly there after I was on my way to class. This afternoon there was a "Taster" session for a course on British intelligence and the JIC(intelligence meaning international intelligence and the whatnot). The session went on like any other and like all the rest were quite intriguing and promised to be very interesting. It wasn't until after the session that the day became interesting.

Right before I left the apartment as I was reviewing my email accounts I found a request from my mother first apologizing for her call at 3am(she had forgotten about the time difference), but then asking for pictures. So on my way out of the apt I grabbed my camera and decided to take some photographs of the city after the lecture session. So, armed with a camera, my razor wit, and astounding artistic flare I ventured out to take some pictures of the city near where I'm studying. These pictures by the way will hopefully get onto the blog whenever I figure out how to do it. So I hit trafalgar square and national gallery, a couple churches along the way. I got a shot of the Maple Leaf, the big Canadian pub in London, as well as a couple streets and whatnot near by. I then decided to head home, and perhaps get some food. I made it back to my campus and the air just hit me like a tonne of bricks. The wind came down the Thames and straight into my lungs. I felt the water running through time like I'd felt the feet of the ages by the library. I looked down to the murky water of the Thames and saw the soul of the English people. I looked up from the water and saw an older London, the London of Dickens, of mud and fog. The mud has now hardened into pavement and the fog has become smog, but city is the same.

This place has within it the true meaning of progressive conservatism, and it's not bad. The PC aspect of London isn't necessarily in it's politics, I must say I'm quite ignorant of the city politics, but is more of an overriding theme across the city and perhaps even country. Where the English could say "progress is to be expected and accepted but not sought after and coveted," we North Americans may say "Seeing change is the only thing truly consistent, then we must progress or risk regressing. We cannot let ourselves regress." Though mind you that said, I would mind if British plumbing would progress to the level where I could get the shower to stay at one temperature for even just 2 minutes.

Today

Today was lovely. Today, I fell in love with the city. I climbed the tower of school library and peered out upon endless history. I felt the pound of feet from millions of people over thousands of years, marching through time. The library is the old national public records office, renovated into the library in 2002. The postgrad study carols are in the tower and look out upon the city. Being relogated to the tower for study has interesting conotations, I'm thinking next time I should bring a heavy rope and a pillow so that I can swing around with the pillow up the back of my shirt claiming sanctuary, I think it might take the edge off some. Or atleast keep the pillow and go dance in the park for spare change. Or more likely nap in the top of the tower, actually if I'm really sleepy I probably won't make it up the stairs. Nappin under the Short term loans desk sounds more my style. It's too bad it's not an old cathedral, then I'd just sleep in the vestbule getting loaded on Holy water and comunion wafers. I've always wanted to nap in a vestibule.

It has just come to my attention that it is an Olympic year. Seeing the last Olympics were summer it means that we're due for the winter Olympics. And you know what that means, it's Canada's time to shine! It is time for the nation to unite, East-coast, West-coast, Ontario, and Quebec. It is time to put an end to all the Canadian on Canadian violence and show the rest of the world what it means to play Hockey. It is time to take the world by the short-hairs and beat it senceless against the cool hard ice. It is time to taste the sweet taste of victory. But then again it's all about having fun, going out and playing a good clean game, nevermind who gets trounced. GO TEAM! YEAH!

A room with a view.

So I've finally cracked and surrendered to the practicality of posting a live journal in place of mass emails. Can it be deemed the lesser of two evils? Well nevermind that, I've been in London(England) now for just over a week and I think it's about time to set the stage. I will come up with some photos eventually, but right now I'm still trying to figure out how the hell to run this Blog.

It's taken some time to get settled in here, mostly adapting to the funny money and accents. There's seven folks on my floor, we're all international unfortunately no locals that I could follow around at find the ropes but I'm still managing. On the floor we have:

Erin - Another Canadian national though she's from Vancouver she's still quite nice. She's doing Shakespearian Studies
Monika - From Hannover, Germany is doing a LLM degree
Karen - From the Barbados, Studying health promotion
Maria - Greek, from Athens is doing CompLit
Evelyn - From the Philippines is studying Child psychiatry. And finally
Dadi - From Iceland, the only other male on floor, is doing a LLM

It's a good spread, quite varying, ages run between 21 and 35.

So I arrived Saturday the 17th early in the morning or very early in the morning depending which time zone you care to look at. The flight was fairly uneventful, a couple of bad movies and mediocre food. The flight redeemed itself with free beer, but I behaved and decided it best not to be loaded when going through customs. After finding my way through the airport and baggage claim again with out adventure, I came to the reception area. In my usual dazed and confused state I came upon a girl standing there with a sign in her hands:

Student?

Need Help?

I know what you're gonna say "By George, it's a scam!" but being the trusting person I am. I decided I'd give it a shot, so I says "I'm a student, and I need help," she then asked me how she could help I told her where I needed to go. She got the assistance of an older woman doing the same service who told me how to get to my station via the tubes. The younger girl then guided me down to the tube station taught me how to get a ticket and sent me on my way. Perhaps I'm naive or just an idealist but I rather enjoy relying on the kindness of strangers.

Anywho, after a transfer of tube lines and several inquiries to locals/fellow travelers, I eventually made it to my stop. Next was the hard part. It seems the little maps they sent me showing how close and cozy downtown London is are grossly misleading, and nothing close to scale. It might have been the 50kg + trumpet and backpack, or the strange new city, but it took an eternity to find my flat.

The rest of the week took it's cue from my trek from the station to my flat and has crept along despite my running around. I have yet to get a mobile aka cellphone, but I have opened a bank account with NatWest. Finding out that it would take 48hrs to activate the account was frustrating enough, but being told that my bank draft would take a week to clear was too much. The money just flies around here, there's nothing that's inexpensive although I have found some beer to be not that expensive though I wouldn't call it cheap. I've developed a bad habit of mentally converting pounds into Canadian dollars, thereby making things that are reasonable locally seem quite expensive compared to what I'd spend in Ontario. The money aside this is quite the City! The streets run rank with culture and you can't take two steps without falling into a theater of some sort.

I've taken care to find The Maple Leaf pub, quite the hangout for Canadian expats. I met a nice girl there from Vancouver who went to McGill and is now heading to Oxford. It's quite odd how being in a strange country can form bonds between perfect strangers just holding nationality in common. Oddly enough she knows Amanda Rekker who is supposedly engaged, it's a small world(all these people my age getting married is crazy).