It’s the end of the first full day in London, and I absolutely love the city. We were able to get into parts of London, but it was only around the CAPA Center because it was orientations all day. After a late night last night, it was hard to get up this morning, but somehow managed and my flat was able to get to the center successfully.
The orientation was long, and most of the information was pretty much common sense, but it was definitely good to have, just in case we forgot how to survive. Random survival fact though: Brits are 7% more likely to die in an emergency than Americans. Why? Because Brits’ queue etiquette. Example: The Titanic. More British people died because they waited in line to get on lifeboats while Americans pushed to the front. This is all according to our program advisors. Sadly, I think that it made everyone feel a little bit better.
But besides having to survive in the real world, I was trying to survive during orientation. I was ridiculously tired, but thankfully I found out later that everyone I was with was in the same boat. What helped was the awesome officer that came to “scare” us. Sergeant Paul was great. He was quick and to the point and made us laugh. Near the end, he said something so fast that we all stared blankly at him. Apparently it was something along the lines of “have you called your banks” but because of our reaction, he repeated it nice and slowly for us.
When we took a break for lunch, our group decided to make our way to Kensington High Street. It borders part of Hyde Park and has some awesome shopping too. But since food was on our minds, we meandered through the residential area looking for Kensington High Street trying to find a good food place. After our group split up, one half going to what looked like a French bakery/café, my group tried to find Kingston High Street on our own. We failed and ended up pouncing on a couple walking by. They pointed us into the right direction and we headed that way. Once we got there, there were plenty of choices, but we decided on the Goat Tavern.
After a delicious chicken and bacon sandwich on a baguette and with only five minutes to spare, we headed back to the CAPA Center. Along the way, we decided that the chances of at least one member of our group was going to be hit by a car were very high. Surprisingly not because of the driving on different directions, but because of the lack of walk/don’t walk signs off of busy roads.
We were about fifteen minutes late from going the wrong direction on Cromwell Road, but we were back to orientation, this time about our internships. Once again, it was kind of important, but fairly obvious information. I did figure out where the closest tube station is to AP, and I’ll have to go through King’s Cross (Platform 9 ¾ anyone??) if I take the tube. Tomorrow, I plan to time how long it takes to get to the internship on the tube and the bus, because just looking at the map, a bus or even walking looks faster.
Before dinner, we had about a two-hour break. Becky (my roommate) and I headed to the flat because there is a Carphone Warehouse near there and we were starting to get desperate for a phone. I wanted to go to the Apple Store that was on Regent’s, but there wasn’t a lot of time to go and clean up before dinner. My Internet didn’t work for the first few days so this is a late post because it took me until Tuesday to get it fixed.
But anyway, my flat and I headed (late) to the dinner, which was at Co Co Mo Mo Café near CAPA. We met the students who were here from Columbus State University (in Georgia) who are here for 3 ½ weeks. They’re theatre majors and are really nice and apparently have better accommodations than we do. I didn’t see them today, but other people on the trip did and convinced me to become part of their riot (just kidding).
After a long two days, everyone in the flat decided to stay in tonight even though some people were going to go out on the town. They’ll just have to show us around later this week and the weekend. I really want to be awake for the Panoramic tour of the city tomorrow. I can’t wait to see all of the sites that make London, London.
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