Experiences thus far...

Yesterday was my first day of class. The commute to class is about 40 minutes on the tube. The tube is almost as hot and sticky as the Subway, and it's also hard to get a seat, so it makes that ride rather unpleasant. My first class was Intro to Creative Writing in the Oscar Wilde Room (all of the rooms at FIE are named after famous people that have lived in the Kensington/Chelsea area...there is even a Freddie Mercury Room!) I was surprised to see that there were only 8 students in the class, but it made it feel more homey. All of the students are American and from schools all over the country. The tutor (what the British call professors) is Indian-Britain. She was very nice and seemed to be very passionate about writing. We'll mainly be focusing on fiction writing, short stories and screenplays. I'm excited to see what this will be like because I've never taken a class like this before.
My second class was British Life and Cultures, and the tutor is American! I found this very strange, but he obviously knows a lot about Great Britian. In this class we'll be studying many aspects of the UK compared to the US, such as transportation, educaton systems, news, and the overall lifestyles. It should be very interesting I think. We are also taking a bunch of field trips to places around London like Parliment, the Tate Modern, and the one I'm most excited for, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. I'm really looking forward to this class. Later today I have my Contemporary British Theatre class, and I will update more in a few days about how that is.
Anyway, yesterday my roommate, Celina, and I took a walk around the Bloomsbury area to check it out and to take pictures. There are 2 parks that are very close to us, and they are both beautiful. We took a lot of pictures of the park, and the buildings nearby, and mostly of the black cabs and red telephone booths (which are actually really gross and smelly inside and I would never want to make a phone call from one.) Once it started getting dark we went to eat dinner at a place called Pizza Express, and while it sounds like a casual pizza joint, it was actually a very nice restaurant. I had a personal sized pizza with the middle cut out and salad inside, very interesting. We also shared some gelato. Great!
Today I had my interview for my internship at the Unicorn Theatre. I wasn't nervous about the interview, but I was SO nervous about finding my way there. I had to get there on my own, and what with walking to the tube station, getting on the tube, transfering lines, getting out of the next tube station, then walking to the theatre I was afraid I would get lost. I left about an hour before I had to be there, and I got there in only 30 minutes, so I walked around the area, got some Starbucks, and read some pamphlets. Southwark, the area the Unicorn is in, is very touristy. There is the London Dungeon, the London Bridge, and a bunch of theatres, but it was really nice and I was so lucky that I found the theatre so easily and quickly. The interview went really well and I'll be working 20 hours a week on a bunch of different aspects of the productions. I really can't wait, I start on Monday.
As far as the past few days have been, the one thing that I am having the hardest time adjusting to (other than being 5 hours ahead) is walking on the left side of the sidewalk. I always feel like I'm obviously American because I walk on the right side. I've been trying to get used to it and who ever I'm walking with will always remind me. However, when on an escelator you have to remember to stay to the right side because there are always people rushing and they want to walk up instead, and they will just push you if you are in the way. There are also little things that I've been discovering, like it's not really common to ask for a doggy bag in a restaurant because it's rude not finish the food they gave you. There are all of these little cultural things that are different that I need to keep discovering and then getting used to for the next few months. Expecially the words they use like toilet for bathroom, cutlery for utensils, skinny milk for skim milk and queue for a line of people. You would think that it would be easy because everyone speaks English here, but it is still very different. It really is interesting. Well I'm about to go out with some of my flatmates to get more things for the flat, like soap, trashbags, hooks. I will update more soon (tomorrow we're going on the London Eye!) I can't wait.