My study abroad adventure begins already!

I arrived at Ecole Polytechnique yesterday after a whirlwind tour of London.  I am super lucky to have a friend that lives there and took some time off to show me around for a few days, so on the bright side I didn’t get lost (unless you count that time we went a stop too far on the tube because we got distracted).

I saw all of the classics – Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, the Thames, Big Ben, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Natural History Museum, and many a pretty green park.  These are the names I can drop to look cool in a crowd of Americans.  Although for Europeans, I’m just another one of those tourists.  To be fair, I thought it was totally worth it.  I got to scheme how I could climb Tower Bridge without getting arrested as well as see a guard wearing a bowler hat at Buckingham Palace (I know the picture is fuzzy, but again I wanted to avoid the whole getting-arrested-in-a-foreign-country thing).

Bowler Hat outside Buckingham Palace
Bowler Hat outside Buckingham Palace

In addition, I got to experience some more unique things such as climbing in a gym, eating (more like destroying) gelato at the best Italian gelateria in London as well as authentic Belgian chocolate, drinking cocktails in a sky-high bar in London (52nd floor of an all-glass building–the panoramic view of London at night was incredible) and watching an eight-year-old blonde kid speed by me in a park riding a three-wheeled recumbent bike and then promptly running into a fence.

I also fondly remember the London natives that caught my attention.  There was a little girl sitting in the park eating lunch with her mom squeezing peanut butter out of a tube, and suddenly she exclaims, “I do love peanut butter! Especially with lettuce.  Peanut butter and lettuce – it’s so delicious!”  But it was more like: “Oi doo love pay-nut butt-ah!  Especially with lett-us.  …so-oh delicious!”  In the same park, ironically, there were two guys talking and as they parted, one of them said, “‘Twould be a treat to see you again”.  Can’t say I’ve ever heard that as a closing before.  Especially one grown man to another.

On the bright side (well sort of – the sun isn’t really a thing in London), I only got rained on once.  Wearing heels.  But hey, it’s Britain, what did I expect?