London: day eight

Up again early for class, this time taking the Tube so as to avoid the bus delays that I encountered yesterday. Today’s class was “British Youth Culture from the 1950s to Present.”  So far, the course seems as though it will be fascinating, however, the professor comes across as a little intimidating – at least at first. I have a feeling that he will warm up to the class a bit once those who show little interest have been weeded out. After that, I think we’ll get into some really interesting social studies. Today was fairly introductory, “What is youth culture?” “What promotes youth culture?” and so on and so forth. At the end of the class though we did listen to the song “A Day in the Life” by the Beatles and discuss why the Beatles were so revolutionary in their music, and why they are considered to be a part of the first great youth culture movement, spear-heading it in a way.

After class, Hannah and I walked back to NIDO from IES, enjoying the sunshine. At 2:00 I met up with Tula and we decided to make our way over to Baker Street and see what kind of things we could find there. Naturally, we found 221B and decided to check it out. We glossed through the souvenir shop next door and then decided to check out the actual apartment of 221B which has been turned into a Sherlock Holmes Museum. Tula and I went in, expecting to find original manuscripts by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, relics that inspired him, original newspaper publications, and so on; but unfortunately they did not have any of these things. Rather, they instead had the apartment set up in precise accordance with the 221B that is described in the stories; furniture and possessions laid out as Doyle described it to be. On the upper floors there were also a few wax figures of quintessential characters in the novels, including Sherlock and Watson. Generally, the museum itself was underwhelming, but regardless, it was fun to check out and to get a picture in front of the door wearing Sherlock and Watson’s characteristic hats. We went in and out of a few other shops in the area also, a store with all kinds of Beetles merchandise, and one across the street with all kinds of other merchandise from music groups such as Nirvana, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, and so on – needless to say, I very much enjoyed that later shop.

Tula and I headed back toward NIDO, her getting off at King’s Cross and me continuing on to the Angel station so I could quickly grab some groceries. I then met her back at NIDO and we decided to continue our Sherlock Holmes themed day and we watched the first episode of the third season for Sherlock. It is this show as well as Supernatural that I have to say are by far my two absolute favorite TV shows. Can’t get enough of either, seriously. Another addiction on my list, I suppose…  :P haha.

I think my methods have been pretty good so far, I am trying to explore something every day, even if it is nothing more than going for a walk to explore a new set of streets nearby. Though this hasn’t been difficult yet, I do feel that with school starting it is going to get busier and thus perhaps a little harder to explore as extensively. Thankfully though, I do not have classes on Fridays, thus a three day weekend enables me to make up for lost time during the week. Even though it is exciting that I am here, I really am also excited for school and I believe this will be a great semester for me academically as well. It’s a little difficult though as I am trying to through my heart and all my energy into both all the time, as well as keep up on my blog and poetry volume. I am going to be tired, maybe even exhausted, by the end of this semester. But, you know, I have a hard time thinking of better reason to be; there’s very little I would rather be doing – exhausting or not. I want to see and do as much as I possibly can before I must leave; I don’t want to regret or waste a moment of my time here.