London: day two

Today wasn’t quite as eventful as yesterday. Generally, the whole day was spent going through Orientation. While it wasn’t interesting, it was necessary. On the walk over to the Birkbeck College where Orientation would be held (though classes will not be), I met a girl named Tula and we became fast friends and stuck together throughout the day.

For three hours we went through all manner of orientating details, met our CORE group leaders and fellow members, as well as heard about various safety tips from a man who is on the police force. He was probably the most entertaining of the speakers, filling his little lecture in with various puns and jokes. While London is a very safe city in terms of violent crimes (very unlike Honduras), as the police officer said, “I’ve been on the police force for thirty one years now and have never once fired my gun. Probably a good thing too, I’d likely shoot my own foot off,” it is the second highest city in the world for quantity of theft crimes. In fact, the largest danger we are liable to face is simply crossing the street. One has to be extremely careful, and take care not to even lean out into traffic to look otherwise there is a strong possibility of getting your head taken off by a bus – they literally fly by no more than a foot from the curb as there is no shoulder on many of the busy British streets.

After a while we broke for lunch. Really nothing to report there. And then returned afterwards for another two hours or so of orientation. We received our class schedules and I am signed up to take Shakespeare, Modern British Novel, Literature in Place and British Youth Culture from 1950 to Present. Those will be my IES classes, and then I also plan to take a Sociology course at City University – will receive more information about that tomorrow.
So once all the formalities were covered, we took a scenic walking tour through the streets on our way back to NIDO. More coffee shops, pubs, and the British Library were pointed out to us as we walked back. Tula and I branched off from the group to visit Boots (the local pharmacy/drug stores) where we shopped for some hygiene necessities; hairspray, shampoo, etc. and then returned to NIDO briefly before heading to the pub for dinner. IES had reserved half of a pub so that they could serve us all dinner, so we all packed in and feasted on the various pub foods, which are what you would expect from a pub; sliders, “chips,” egg rolls, some crackers and cheese, pita bread and such other types of finger food. A couple of us ordered drinks, and I got to try a cider which turned out to be pretty good.

Afterward a group of about five of us decided to wander around some. We explored our own dorm building a little more extensively, finding the café, the gym, and the study rooms which we would likely be using at some point or other. We then took off and explored around NIDO some more, popping into a few various places to pick up essential items on occasion. We even found Sainsburys which is the main (and cheapest) grocery store chain. From there, instead of walking back with a bunch of grocery bags, we decided to take the tube back to King’s Cross. We exited there and checked out the place where they have a sign that says “Platform 9 ¾”, although apparently they take away and store the cart that is pushed halfway into the wall during the nighttime, so we decided to come back later for pictures during the day. Tired and a little footsore, we then turned in for the night.