A Historic Occasion

Today the front page of the Guardian read:

"Magical spell that will open new American era".

Of course, I grabbed a copy to commemorate this historic day. Usually when walking down the streets of London I attempt to look as much Londonesque as possible. When bumping into people, I attempt to make my sorry sound British (but not so much that should they know I'm American they would think I'm mocking them.) But today I strutted the streets of London proud to be an American :-) My professors all congratulated us on our new president, and I watched the inauguration surrounded by a bunch of students crammed into a small cafe in our building. Probably not as good a view as Grant had from his spot in DC (jealous!), but I enjoyed it all the same :-) I felt pity for our new president as he stumbled over the swearing in (President Bush must have been smirking after all the grief he got over his fumbled words...). All the same, I think America has a bright future ahead.

So a bit of an update on London...

This weekend held some of the best days I've had here. Saturday we just took off walking around- the pictures that are on Facebook- and we ended up near piccadilly square and browsed shops. I did a lot of people watching and picture taking We took afternoon tea- which is becoming one of my favorite things to do. After getting lost and then soon finding ourselves, we made it back to the pub to see the Arsenal game.

I called the score, 3-1 Arsenal. It was a good game. It was so fun to watch a game with other people CRAZY about the sport. It's my new local hang out. Later NYU had a mixer at yet another pub, (see my first lessons learned, Brits Love Beer) and we went by and said hello. Met a guy from Texas who went to Trinity Valley. Can you believe that? I came all the way to London to meet a guy who lives ten minutes down the road.

Sunday was a bus tour around London, and I got to see all the big sites that I'm going to make sure to see before I leave. I posted "101 things to do before you leave London!" on my bulletin board, so I'll be checking those off regularly.

This week I had my first classes (yeah, I forgot, thats why I'm here)-but, they're going to be great! Classes are small (my largest one so far is 35, smallest about 12) and the teachers are fantastic. They're all highly qualified, and British, so I'll pay attention. My favorite class thus far is Politics of the Near and Middle East. We're covering the political conflict there- the history behind it, several different countries, and the religious issues involved. My professor even took part in some of the Israeli peace talks. It's going to be really interesting! Now I think I want to visit Israel over spring break. We'll see more on that later.

I'm still not all the way through classes, we only have them once a week (but for three hours...), but I have architecture on Thursday which should be really fun too. Even my Organic Chemistry Lab is better here- smaller class size, better facilities. London is quite a hit.

Oh, and I just received an email saying I was accepted into all of the trips I applied for- so I'll be getting to see a bunch of places in England for relatively small cost. :-)

More Later,
Katie