A lot of good those high school French classes did...

Here at the good ole IES dorm, kitchens are shared between 4-5 people. The kitchen that my roommate, Jeni, and I use is right across the hall from our room. We are sharing with two other girls and a staff member. One of our fellow kitchen-users is a girl named Diana. She is from Canada, attends Princeton University and is here in London studying cello at the Royal Academy of Music. She also speaks fluent French. Well hello there, unaccomplished Laura! Didn't see you there! But seriously. Every time I go into the kitchen, there she is with her two friends and they are just jabbering away in French. The first time I met them, they asked me if I spoke French at all. I think I just laughed. Oh yeah, I took three whole years of high school French classes. The only thing I really remember is how to call someone a "stupid pineapple." However, they are just the nicest people. They always ask if I'd like to eat with them, which I did once. That was awkward. We didn't do a lot of talking. Since then, I have declined to eat with them out of fear of further embarrassment.

On to other things! On Sunday we ventured out to Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. Speaker's Corner is a section of the park in which any person from any part of the world can come and talk about whatever they please, be that subject religion, politics or football. Our group stood around for a bit, listening to various conversations until we were approached by a man. He asked us if we were American. Now if we were smart, we wouldn't have said anything and would have turned around and fled the entire park, knocking down as many people as we needed to. Instead, we just had to be honest. We answered yes and the man was off! He began a tirade about the Tea Party AND about Democrats. We couldn't tell what his opinion was at all! Matt and Devon, a fellow TCU student, argued with him for a while, but there was no getting this man to listen to anything we had to say. Our conversation eventually drew a large crowd, including tons of people who began laughing and telling us not to even listen to this man, that he had been coming to the park for years and was probably crazy. All in all, it was rather amusing, but after about ten minutes, we'd had enough and slipped away while we could.

Earlier that morning, Matt and I set off to find a good grocery store near our dorm. We ended up at a store called Waitrose which, compared to other English grocery stores, was rather large and had everything that we needed! Many of the brands over here are vastly different from American products, but no matter. All of our needs were met. This neighborhood is quite nice. Very residential, with a lot of families. I was told before coming here that Chelsea is the "posh area of town" and that person was completely correct. It's a little like the Southlake of London.

Yesterday we had our orientation at school, which was exactly what every college orientation is supposed to be. Long, boring and completely pointless. Luckily we had something to look forward to. Our Study Abroad coordinator had bought us tickets for a play for that night! We met in Piccadilly Circus and went to the Criterion Theatre to see The 39 Steps, a farcical comedy, which was very entertaining and quite funny.

Today we went to Greenwich, where yet another one of the Queen's homes is located as well as (are you ready?) the Prime Meridian! We were able to climb a hill up to an observatory with an area marked at the exact location of the Prime Meridian! It actually wasn't as cool as I'm making it sound. It was just a line on the ground with some sort of sculpture behind it. That's about it. But I have cool pictures of it on my Facebook anyway.

However, I think the most exciting part of my day was tonight. Matt and I sat down and booked both our train tickets and our hostel reservations to.....PARIS. Yes, that's right! Paris! We are going in two weeks and we are meeting Annie and Andrew there as well!

Oohh, I can work on my French there. Or not. ;)