I’m So Tired of Days That Feel like the Night

I made it through my first real day in London! After twelve hours of sleep, it feels pretty nice to be back to my usual thinking capacity although I’m already wiped out from today. It’s taking me a while to wrap my brain around the fact that when I wake up here, it’s the middle of the night at home. It’ll come with time, I suppose.

So today we had orientation with CAPA (the organization we’re here with). Everything seems pretty straight forward and they were all really nice. The CAPA building has free wifi so I think Skyping from there might be easier than trying to do it here in the flat where there’s a clock at the top of my screen counting down the internet minutes I have left. We’ll see what happens.

After the orientation, we went on a “panoramic coach tour” (bus tour) of London which was actually really great. We saw all the major points of London and I learned a lot from the tour guide. We didn’t get to get off the bus and go in to most of the places but I’m definitely going back. How I’ll get there without getting lost I’m not sure, but I’ll find a way! We did get to get off at the London Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, and Buckingham palace though. And if there’s one thing I learned from all that, it’s that the weather in London CANNOT be predicted. It rained for maybe the first hour of the tour but by the end when we did Big Ben, Westminster Abby, and Buckingham palace, we were all sweating from the sun. But I did manage to get some o.k. photos while we were out.

After the tour, they dropped us back off at CAPA and left us on our own. And since CAPA is a few blocks up the street from one of the best shopping districts in the city, naturally we made our way down to Harrod’s. I must say, I’m more impressed with London’s shopping than with Paris’s. And I’m kind of REALLY excited for London Fashion week in September. But anyways, we walked through most of the seven story department store before we decided it was time to head back. Unfortunately for us, they’re doing construction on the weekend on some of the subways and streets before the 2012 Olympic Games, including the subway stop closest to our flat and the street outside our flat window. Long story short, we ended up getting lost and having to take a 30 minute detour back to the flats. Eventually we’ll get used to it but I think it’s throwing us all off that London streets are not on a grid system. (Interesting tidbit: the reason they’re not is because when people brought animals into London, they used their tracks to make streets. Animals don’t exactly walk in grids. Hence all the crazy curves, yields, and such that make London so difficult to navigate. Thank you, Mister Tour Guide!)

Dinner’s almost ready so I’ll leave it at that. I’m excited to have tomorrow and Monday off to do whatever. Maybe I’ll go to a service at Westminster…

Hope you’re having a happy weekend!