First Day of School...Graduate School

Okay-I know I'm so very far behind schedule but I'm going to do a bunch of posts over the next couple weeks to get caught up for you :)

If anyone has told you that the pubs are the best places to eat, they were right!! I was wandering around and smelled delicious Italian food. I couldn't say no to Italian food, it is one of my favourites. It wasn't a pub and the prices weren't too bad. Still a little steep...but I couldn't resist that smell...I was seated with a window table and I watched the Londoner's running about with their umbrellas. I ordered some cheese bread and a pasta that I had no idea what it was and waited. I people watched and listened, because the accents are wonderful!! The food came out and smelled delicious. The cheese bread was actually really good..my pasta sub-par. Not worth even half of what I paid for it. I learned my lesson within that first week...truly-just eat at the pubs or cook for yourself.

I had a week of orientation where I learned about my programme, my school, how to register, etc. I wandered and got used to campus and tried to meet some of my classmates as well.

First Day of Grad School at the London School
of Economics and Political Science!!

In America, we register for classes well in advance of school starting. Well, here, I didn't register until the Friday of Orientation week. It was a bit stressful for me! It seemed inefficient and just strange. But this school is very successful so I figure there has to be some method to their madness. I spent a lot of time on my computer researching classes and timetables that week. The other crazy thing is that you have to register for spring term right now as well!!! What?!? Too many decisions. But alas...I struggled through and made it.

I'm smiling...but I'm super tired and stressed about
 my schedule working out. 

What my desk looked like as I wrote out multiple
schedule options. Plus my "envelope"
travel pillow sits in the corner of my desk always!!
(Pillow-thanks to Franchesca/Logan, Kendall, Zach, and Nat)

I cook stir fry often...it is easy and makes enough for 2-3 meals!

 On one of my breaks from school and school scheduling, I was walking through Covent Garden to my grocery store, and there were all of these statues set up. If you have little children, you probably know of the show, "Shaun the Sheep". There were probably 20 different versions of him. Most of them seemed to represent a country but some were just different themes. This goes to show you'll never be bored in London-just go walk around and I'm sure you'll run into something!!

A little about Shopping in London:

As you saw from my first post, there isn't much to my flat! I needed to add some color. There is a store called Argos, that I did some shopping from. Now let me tell you a little bit about Argos, well London shopping in general...most places are speciality stores. They do have Wal-Mart but it is a ways away and there aren't even a handful around London; so we don't get to do much "one-stop-shopping".

I was told to go to Argos, it was going to have as much stuff as possible that I needed. I walked up to the store and looked in and there were a bunch of computers/ipads set up-it looked like a low-grade Apple store. I was super confused. So I looked up a different location and walked there instead...but I saw the same thing. I was getting a little frustrated because I didn't see my bath towels and kitchen appliances anywhere. I looked around for a moment and saw a catalogue with all the supplies. I decided to just go in. This is what happens: you find what you want on the computer and "order it". If they have it in stock: a worker collects your items, you pay for it and pick it up right then. If it isn't: they'll have ordered in for you within a day or two and then you come pick it up and pay for it then. You can also do this same process from home. It all made so much more sense. They also can deliver for you. So I ordered the teal bathmat and towels you see in the picture below from there along with some other household supplies. 

And finally, this is what my flat looks like when the dryer doesn't work!! First off, it is a ridiculous amount to wash and dry your clothing here anyway...and then the dryer didn't work-so my very small flat was covered in my clothing for two days while they dried!!

 I don't want every post to get super long, so I'm going to try to do one every couple of days for the next little while to get you all caught up!! Then my goal is one post every other week...we'll see how that goes :) I love you all!!