I have successfully completed my first week of school in London! And by week, I mean three days of school, seeing that I only have classes Monday through Wednesday. I think that I am really going to enjoy my classes here. On Monday I had Passions and Repressions: British Cinema, as well as International Marketing. The film class seems really cool- each week we watch a British film from a different decade and study British culture through the movies. We have film screenings every Tuesday night, and then discuss what we've seen in class. My teacher seems really fun, so I think it should be a pretty entertaining semester. My marketing class is a bit more intense, but interesting all the same. We are going to be doing case studies on different brands and marketing strategies used throughout the world. I really like marketing and may want to do something with it in my future, so I'm sure this class will be really beneficial and helpful.
On Monday night, our British student ambassadors took us out for a night on the town to celebrate our first day of class! They surprised us by taking us to the Absolut Vodka Ice Bar. I had heard about the Ice Bar from a TON of people- but it was even cooler (and colder) than expected. When you walk in, they hand you a warm parka jacket and a pair of thick gloves to shield you from the freezing cold temperatures within the bar. Everything is made of ice- even the chairs you sit on and the cups that you drink from. They only allow you to stay in the bar for 45 mins to an hour because of the icy temperature. We took a ton of pictures because there is probably a pretty good chance I will never go to a bar completely made of ice again in my lifetime. It was definitely a great way to welcome in the new school year in London!
My classes on Tuesday didn't start until 1:30, which was nice compared to my 10 a.m. classes the rest of the week. It is about a 40 minute commute by walking and taking the tube to the IES building for class. My first class on Tuesday was The History of London. I'm still not quite used to sitting through a 2 1/2 hour long lecture on history, but I think the class will get more exciting and interesting as it goes on and I adjust to that period of time. We basically just talked about the very early history of London- the Saxons vs. the Normans. I also had a film screening on Tuesday night, where we watched "A Brief Encounter." The film, set in 1945, is about a man and a woman, who are both married, but fall in love for each other. Alexa and I both agreed that it was slightly depressing and left us feeling quite sad afterward.
Wednesday I started my day with British Youth Culture, which I can already tell will be an extremely amazing and different class. In this class, we will be examining the role of youth culture on society, and how youth culture has changed over time, in both Britain and America. In this first class, we watched clips from the movie Bruno, listened to some Beatles music, and watched a talk show clip of The Who- awesome, right? All of these things were used as sources to further explore youth culture...which means this class will be a blast.
My other Wednesday class was the Architecture of London. For this class, we only have two class periods that will be taking place in an actual classroom. During the rest of the time, we will be traveling to different sites all across London to examine the architecture, while keeping a diary of our findings and observations throughout the semester. On this first day, we walked around the Bloomsbury area, looking at the houses and squares. We also went to the British Museum to observe the Great Court, which is a relatively new area of the museum with a more modern designed ceiling. Later that day, I had a movie screening for my British Youth Culture class. But, since we are able to watch the movies later on our own, Keetin, Alexa, Madison, Christine, and I got last minute tickets to go see Sister Act the musical!! We got a special student, day-of-show discount, so the tickets were only about 18 pounds each! The show ended up being fabulous!! Based on the movie starring Whoopi Goldberg, the musical was filled with so much life and color- all of us loved it!
My favorite character was definitely the old woman nun- the acting was brilliant! It was such a great experience going with my friends to the theater- we all got dressed up and had such a fun time together. There are SO many musicals that I hope to see while in London. I'm so happy to be living a real city experience :)
My weekend starts here...I'll update you as soon as I can!
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