I've made it a week!

It has been a loooong weekend. I went from spending Saturday doing absolutely nothing to not stopping all day today.

I just sat around Saturday. I was feeling a bit homesick and culture-shocked, so I sat around, watched Bridget Jones DVDs, cross-stitched, and got out of my pajamas only for food runs. Go me! Anyway, I couldn't do a whole lot since my feet were so messed up from the days before.

I decided that today would not be the same.

I had breakfast and then headed out by 11:30. I started out by walking along one of the main drags near my hall. I found several supermarkets and general stores, which is so helpful since I keep thinking of things I need. I also found a Baskin Robbins right around the corner, but I doubt they'll give me the family discount like the one back home lol. And it's also right next to a Middle Eastern convenience store instead of Harry's Bar, but still.

I saw a lot of the sights today: the Marble Arch, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye. All within walking distance of my hall. To make it even more interesting there was a HUGE bike thing going on today. Traffic was completely closed off in Royal London and a good bit of Westminster but there were thousands upon thousands of people out riding bikes. Kids, adults, the elderly, whole extended families, you name it. There was even this guy who was riding one of those bikes where you lay down and was hauling these huge speakers playing some interesting Euro music everywhere he went. You always hear about people wanting to share the road with bikes, but this was just insane, so much of London was shut down for it.

London is incredibly green as it is. Every block or so there are rows of recycling dumpsters labeled for glass, plastic, magazines, really anything you can recycle. And ads for walking, taking public transport, conserving water, electricity, you name it. I bought a bottle of water the other day and the bottle advertised the fact that it was compostable and then had a blurb on the back about global warming and Al Gore. I almost want to buy you a case Jeremy lol.

Anyway, where was I? I didn't get home till nearly four. I can't believe how many hours I spent wandering around without realizing where the time went. And when I look at a map, it looks like I barely touched Central London! At least I have a lot to keep me occupied for the year to come. I took tons of pictures, yet only a few don't suck and I've posted those already (I put this one up of some cool birds Jenny, you have to let me know what they are!).

I had my hall meeting tonight to learn about where I'm living. They really just went over the guidebook, but to start things off they brought down several bottles of wine and some cups to 'make us comfortable'. It blew my mind, and was totally awesome. I also met a couple people, some Canadians and Americans! That was very exciting. I'm also about to go to the bar downstairs to hang out with one of the girls I met who is here for visual/ material anthropology and to meet a guy who's here for archaeology. Maybe I'll have some walking buddies for class.

Well, I guess that's it for me. There you go Lisa, an entry for this weekend! Mwah :) Talk to you guys later!

P.S. My email has been REALLY messed up. I haven't been able to get into it for days, so I apologize for not being able to respond to a lot of people's emails. I think I have figured out the problem (my Firefox doesn't like my Gmail account or something), so I should be able to respond soon!