Hi everyone! So since the past few days have really been divided between day time orientation and night time raging and fun, I am going to write a "day" blog to get you updated on the more school related info, and then a "night" blog about the social scene!
Day One of Orientation:
Everyone on the IES program arrived on Wednesday morning. My roommate Keetin got in around 10 am and I was relieved to learn that we are basically soul mates and get along so well! She goes to Indiana University but is from North Carolina and has actually lived with her family in Surrey for awhile, right outside of London, so she has the lowdown on all sorts of things in England! I hung out in the room with her and Alexa before we had a short orientation meeting with our floor and two other floors. It was pretty basic info for the most part and was done in less than an hour. We were given the rest of Wednesday off, and hardcore orientation started bright and early on Thursday.
For Thursday's orientation, we were all split up into different groups. My group was pretty fun, and we started off with a short walking tour of our neighborhood in Chelsea, which I was already quite familiar with because of Alexa and I's wandering around the past few days. After that, we walked with our group to the South Kensington tube stop, where we will be catching the tube to the IES Center everyday for classes. It's only about a 10-15 minute walk to the tube, and if it isn't too crowded, its about a 15-20 minute tube ride. We can get off the tube at two different stations that are right by our IES class building, both within 5 minutes of it. The area we are taking classes in is called Bloomsbury- it has a ton of cute shops and restaurants and is full of young and working people. We are also literally 2 minutes from the British Museum- it is on the same street as our building, only a block down! It will be so fun to go there in between classes, for lunch, to study, and look around whenever we want!
We had a health and safety orientation, an academic orientation, as well as a tour around the Bloomsbury area. There are a bunch of beautiful buildings in the area that I am sure I will get to learn more about in my architecture of London class! At the end of the day, we had a quick reception to meet our teachers! We were able to pick up all our syllabi for class and quickly chat with some of our professors to get info on what books to buy etc.
Day Two of Orientation:
Today was a lot quicker, more enjoyable, and exciting! To start off the day, we headed to Brisbane, one of the many London universities, since it had a large enough lecture hall to accommodate all of us. Here, they held a two hour orientation. Included were two faculty speakers, a speech by the head of the IES program, and also a visit from two British "bobbies" or police officers.
Keetin answered the first question correctly, and had to go up on stage where they proceeded to put the police hat and handcuffs on her as an example- quite entertaining. After the orientation, we headed to the IES center for a travel fair and to sign up for field trips. There were several different companies offering trips to places like Scotland, Wales, Italy, Ireland, Amsterdam, Spain---pretty much everywhere in Europe you can imagine and you've ever wanted to go. I decided to wait until later to sign up for these big trips so that I could check my schedule and plan what weekends to go where.
After orientation, Keetin, Alexa, and I went over to the British Museum for about an hour before their next meeting started. We didn't even cover 1/10000th of the museum- it is enormous! Everything we looked at was absolutely incredible though...we even made it a point to go see the Rosetta Stone since we were all dying to see it. It truly was an amazing thing to witness firsthand. We also looked around the Egyptian tombs exhibit a little bit which was equally as interesting to see. I'm sure I will be making MANY trips to this museum between classes, when I have breaks, to study, eat lunch, or anything. I cannot wait!
I will be blogging soon to update everyone on the nightlife scene so far in London! It's the best :)
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