Mind the Gap!

Ahhh, my first blog from across the pond! Well, actually my second because I tried to blog yesterday but my internet connection failed me. Yesterday our group bought our tube passes and familiarized ourselves with local grocery stores and such. Today we started an orientation for our classes and then went on a walking tour of the big sights of London. We started out in Green Park, which was absolutely gorgeous and full of people enjoying the afternoon sun which is something of a rarity in London town. From there, we saw St. James Palace, where William and Harry used to live, St. James park, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the Palace of Westminster (aka the Houses of Parliament), Big Ben, Number 10 Downing St., Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, and later on when we split into groups and went exploring we walked through Chinatown. The famous sights like Big Ben and Westminster Abbey are breathtaking, but just as beautiful are the streets in the heart of London, very expensive mind you. The architecture is so different from our own and there's lots of colour (check that UK spelling!) all over, from the doors on beautiful townhouses, to flowers everywhere ( the copious amounts of rain help with that) to the pubs and shops that line the streets. Today on our walking tour we saw Pall Mall which is filled with proper gentleman's shops and seemed to carry a lot of top hats and hunting gear.
While it may seem from my rosy description that I am sitting in an armchair with my laptop smoking a cup of tea I have encountered the usual travel experiences that make any trip laughable. It rained sideways yesterday for a good two hours while we were foraging for food, and today it would pour for a few minutes then stop and become sunny, then pour again. We also took the bus line in the opposite direction of our dorms while carrying groceries, this resultued in a small hour and a half detour, but in the end we arrived a little wet, but happy to see the dorms ( which are surprisingly nice!) Well folks, as they say in the tube, mind the gap!