Playing Catch Up

(This blog was written on January 4^th, 2011)

Here I am in a London Starbucks, with a terrible vanilla latte, a donut, and no access to WiFi. Why do I have no WiFi, you ask? Because they require a Starbucks Rewards Card thing, which I can’t sign up for because I’m unsure of what my address at York is. So there will be no WiFi for Anne until later today, but I figure that’s alright because all of my friends from home are likely sleeping right now anyway.

The hostel booted me from their establishment a little earlier than I had planned —apparently checkout there was at 10am, not 11am as I had thought. Just goes to show that I should probably ask people things rather than assuming a hostel operates like a normal motel. So I woke up at 9:30 and had to rush to gather all my things. I didn’t even get to enjoy the totally awesome breakfast deal they have. Instead, I get a crappy latte and a crappy donut. They don’t even have lemon pound cake! Or scones! What kind of coffee place is this?

I parted ways with Joanie and Agua — two of my hostel-mates, who I explored most of London with —this morning. All three of us are going on our separate ways: Agua is staying in London for a little longer, and Joanie is off to Dublin for a few days. I never did end up meeting the other two girls in the room, as one left after a day and the other always came in when I was asleep.

Since I have nothing of note to report, this blog post is going to cover all of the things I neglected to mention earlier.

They Let Me in the Country

As you undoubtedly already know, I’m in the UK. This means I was allowed into the country on a 6-month visa. Whether or not this will screw with my school schedule, I have no idea, but I’m sure I can take it up with my professors.

See, to get a student visitor visa to England, there are a few rules you have to follow. I can’t quite remember all of them, but I can relate the ones that pertain to me. The Immigration Officers are incredibly strict about the six month limit to that visa. You can’t stay even one day over, or you need a real visa. You know, the one that has your picture and your fingerprints and takes forever to get set up. The visitor visa can be obtained upon entering the country.

You’re also supposed to show proof that you can afford to be here. I thought you were supposed to have something like £600 for each month spent in the country, but I also saw it say you only needed £800 upon entry. Apparently it doesn’t matter — the boarder official asked who was funding my study abroad (my mother), what her job was, and that was that. I did have Mom’s financial information, but the official didn’t want to see it.

What she did want to see was my acceptance to the University of York. They wanted proof that I was indeed entering the country with a student visitor visa. And thankfully I had been obsessively checking the visa site the night before, or I wouldn’t have seen that they wanted that. Of course, I have no bloody idea what my address is at York, but at least I’m going there for sure. I sort of flubbed my address on the customs card. Hopefully they won’t have to contact me for any reason.

But you know what? I’m here, and I’m not leaving. At least until July.

I Saw All of London

This is technically a lie, since there is much more of London that I haven’t seen. I haven’t even covered all of the interesting bits, since I haven’t made it to Camden Town or Tower Bridge yet, and there’s tons more of the British Museum left to see.

But Joanie, Agua and I covered quite a lot of it. The three of us met in the hostel on Sunday (Jan. 2^nd), and Agua and I actually went out for a pint before I fell asleep obscenely early. The two of them were planning on going sightseeing, and I ended up tagging along for lack of a better thing to do.

The original plan was to go to the British Museum, which was rather close to the hostel. That plan was thwarted by the fact that we left the hostel at 8am, got there before 9, and realized that the museum opened at 10. So, upon consulting Agua’s map, we determined that all of the big London sights — Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, etc. — were within walking distance of the Museum. So off we went.

We hit all of those locations. We walked all through SoHo until we hit Trafalgar Square, and I was excited to see the huge Norwegian Christmas Tree because Mom and I had watched a “Christmases around the World” special in which it was featured.

It was beyond exciting to see the Parliament Building and Big Ben. I have wanted to see Big Ben since I was a little girl. Always. And I finally did! We even got to hear it ring! And it wasn’t covered in scaffolding!

 I didn’t go up in the London Eye — we didn’t have time — but that was very cool as well. It’s quite huge. I did have to wonder whether or not it really was an alien satellite dish that brought mannequins to life, though.

Afterwards we wandered through St. James Park on the way to Buckingham Palace. It was full of ducks and other large waterfowl. I have never seen so many ducks and geese in my life. Agua was super excited by it, too, since squirrels live there. There are no squirrels in Argentina, which was mind-blowing for me since I see them all the time. I did look around for Aziraphale and Crowley, but I didn’t see them. Ah well, they could have been anywhere else. Mainly a bookshop in SoHo (which I also looked for but did not find) or the Ritz (which I did find but didn’t enter).

Buckingham Palace was a little disappointing, I guess. There were a bajillion people there, probably for the changing of the guard, which meant that I didn’t really see much of the palace or any of the ridiculous Royal Guards. But I can’t imagine my orientation tour will miss Buckingham Palace, so I do have the opportunity to see it again.

After that, we ended up at the Wellington Arch, which was pretty reminiscent of something I’d seen in Paris near the Louvre. And no, I don’t mean the Arc de Triomphe. I can at least remember what that one’s called, even if I can’t spell it. There were a thousand war memorials around there, and around London in general. But then again, I suppose the UK has been involved in more wars than you can feasibly shake a stick at.

(Back in the real world, at the Starbucks, there is now a black guy who looks a little like Morgan Freeman wearing an awesome hat sitting next to me. The coffee is still terrible, though.)

Anyway, we ended up walking all the way up Piccadilly St., which Joanie said reminded her of New York’s Fifth Avenue, until we hit Piccadilly Circus and a Tube station. Piccadilly St. was a little uninteresting for me, since everything is so far outside my price range it might as well be on Jupiter. But hey, I’ve seen Piccadilly Circus. So hah.

We took the Tube back to the museum and wandered around that for a while, but we weren’t there long since everyone was tired and our feet hurt. We did see the mummies, though, and some interesting Japanese and Buddhist items. I do want to go back so I can see the European history wings, but I’m not sure if I’ll really get a chance. There are so many other places to go, after all, like Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

We returned to the hostel after that, and I finally got my internet to work while Joanie and Agua took a nap. Later, we went to Oxford St. to visit the shops and to grab a pint or two, which we did. London Pubs close very, very early, which is not something I’m particularly used to. I still haven’t found a beer I particularly care for, either.

The Quest for Fish and Chips

Still working on it, I’m afraid. I didn’t have any at the hostel, which I regret now, and everywhere else is too expensive for me. I’m sorry I can’t just blow £8.50 on one meal; I have to save up for my Edinburgh trip, not to mention six months worth of weekend food. And textbooks.

Nasty Starbucks Coffee

Back at the beginning, I suppose. I have finished my coffee, but I still have two hours to kill before I can check into the hotel. I left my luggage there (in the dining room, for some reason), and I think one other person has checked in but is also out on the town like I am. I could go back to the British Museum, but I have my laptop with me and my feet are covered in blisters from my major walk in new shoes yesterday. The Tube and the busses are a lot more expensive than I would have thought, which makes me shy away from using them until I get my Oyster Card later today.

I think I will get a Starbucks Reward Card when I get to York and learn my real address, though. the rewards look pretty sweet, including free syrup (maybe the added vanilla was why my coffee tasted so bad...), free WiFi, free coffee, free extra shots, free whipped cream, etc. I’m not sure how the card works, though, so I probably should figure that out soon. I don’t know how often I’ll actually go to Starbucks, after all, or if there is even one close to campus. There are a thousand Starbuckses in London, at any rate.

I’m sorry I didn’t try as hard to be amusing in this blog update, but I had to write down a lot of things so I don’t forget them. It looks like I’m going to update every day (or as closely as I can) until I actually start school, where posts will probably slow down. I want to have a set update schedule, but I’m not sure if that’ll really work out.

Also, I wonder how long I can lurk here and not buy anything (else) before they kick me out. Hopefully another two hours...