SUPERBLOG

I'm just going to combine the previous two days' blogs into one giant one... so brace yourself.
YESTERDAY
Wednesdays we don't have actual classes; they're reserved for day trips around London. So yesterday we took a river tour with our British Life and Culture prof Lyndon. It was lucky - yesterday was the only day it didn't rain at all. So we started at Big Ben and the houses of Parliament, and walked east down the Thames River to Tower Bridge, which is that giant bridge some people might call London Bridge. It was a good two hour walk, but we saw a lot and it went quickly. I was actually surprised when he told us the tour was over. Lyndon was an excellent guide; he knew all kinds of interesting things about the city, and was able to point out all the major tourist attractions around the Thames. We walked across Millennium Bridge towards St. Paul's cathedral, which was gorgeous. Millennium Bridge, Lyndon told us, didn't originally have as many supports, but when it was first built it swayed a lot, and no one wanted to walk on it, so they added extra support. Interesting! We also went to Tate Modern, an art museum on the south bank of the Thames. It is a converted power station, and is really industrial inside. In the giant gallery from the main entrance, there is a giant crack in the floor that they say is a piece of art, but really it's just a huge rift in the concrete. Interesting, but also a hazard for the large numbers of school and tourist groups that tour the museum each year. I think that was about the highlight of our tour, though; it was definitely a place to go back to, since we only got about half an hour there.
That's about all we did yesterday. A group of my friends has been on a huge euchre kick this week, so we've been playing that pretty much every night. Last night was no different.

TODAY
Today I had a class at 11, art history. Our professor is an Italian guy called Giovanni. How perfect to have an Italian art history prof. Plus, he's adorable, and interesting, so I think class will be a lot of fun. He told us we're going to be going to a lot of museums over the course of the semester, so I'm really looking forward to going to class on Thursdays. We're actually going to a museum next week... a small one I can't quite remember the name of it. I'll let you know when we go there.
Class got out at 1 p.m. and we had the rest of the day to ourselves. I love this schedule. So Kyle, Janet (my roommate) and I found a little restaurant and got something to eat before Kyle had to go to another class at 2. The college is in a kind of middle eastern neighborhood; Lyndon told us there are a lot of refugees from Iraq and other warring countries near the college, so a lot of the restaurants are middle eastern cuisine, or have signs in Arabic. It's a completely different culture from the neighborhood we live in (quite posh and has a lot of really wealthy residents, if the BMWs and Jaguars parked on the road are any indication). I'm glad we're exposed to different ways of life, but at the same time I'm glad we live where we do. Apparently the London Centre a few years ago made kids stay in a hostel in the same neighborhood of the school, but a parent complained and they changed to Paddington. Thank goodness.
So anyway, Giovanni had told us about an art store we should visit to get some art supplies, so after lunch Janet and I went to find it. We wandered around the Trafalgar Square area for about half an hour before we stumbled upon a tube station and gave up. All was not lost, though; we found an ice skating rink and saw the Strand Theatre.
That's about it for today... overall, a very good day. Really, an overall good two days.
Cheers!