Today was our first real day on our own. We had to get from our dorm to the campus without any help. We got to the tube station just fine, but ended up going one stop past the one we went to yesterday because a couple girls said they had found a way that way, come to find out they just knew the street names of where we needed to go, but getting there is a whole another story. The streets of London were originally made for walking, so there are a lot one way streets and narrow streets. And it is not set up on any kind of grid system so if you miss the street you were supposed to turn on you have a better chance of turning around and going back then chancing that the street will still be there at the end of the block. Streets can randomly turn into other streets and jet off in random directions. It makes navigating difficult. But back to the morning, we got off at the Regent Park stop and when we came out she just knew we need to get to Cleveland Street and we had about 15 minutes til we had to be in class. We ended up walking in the right direction luckily and once we found the main street we were on yesterday we were able to move in the general direction we needed to be and managed to find the campus about two minutes til ten. My class today wasn't too bad. I enjoy business classes, marketing in particular, so I think the three weeks won't be too bad. Basically on the last day of class we have to turn in a 3000 word paper comparing the marketing strategies of two companies in the same industry. And other than that we don't have any other grade. I will later post a blog explaining the British system for school, which is vastly different than ours.
After class I went to the cafe inside the campus and found a cool meal deal which was 3 pounds and you got a sandwich, chips and a drink. Granted this is actually about a $5 meal, but pretty good for the price of a meal in London. Then about 10 minutes before I was going to leave it started to rain, and it came down kind of hard for a bit. But leaving the campus I traveled to the other campus which was about a 15 minute walk because that is actually where the school of business is housed and I needed to find some books for my research. (I will also have a blog on the rain here). After getting to the library I managed to navigate my way around to find the section I needed. Over here students don't have to buy textbooks. The library has all of the text books and you can check them out and there are ones for reference only. These seemed like a pretty good idea to me, we would save so much money. I found the section with the marketing textbooks (an entire row) and went through and found 9 that were about intro to marketing, they told us what kind of books to look for, and then I went to the self check out like we have at KSU-Hale Library and checked them out. They were actually extremely heavy and I had to make it all the way back to the dorm.
After walking to the next tube station I realized I needed to add just a little bit more money to my oyster card in order to get on, but I manage to find the one station where you can't top off your card. So I had to go across the street to top off my card and then get on. (I will have another blog about the oyster card, Tube Station). Then at the Embankment stop I got off because I decided to buy a 7 day pass because I thought it would be cheaper. Then I got back on and went 2 stops to Lambeth North, my stop and trudged back to the dorm to drop off the book.
After resting for about 5 minutes I emptied out my book back and headed to the supermarket, Sainsbury's, to buy some food items. It was about a 10 minute walk. It was a smaller store so they had some options but not too many I was able to find a few things that would work for me then I headed home. (I will also have a blog on how debit and credit cards work here). Once I got back I rested and made some dinner and then got a few things done. One of them being that I calculated it up and next week when my 7 day pass runs out I will buy a month pass and then I will good to go for the rest of my time here. The biggest accomplishment though was purchasing my Harry Potter 7 Part 2 movie ticket. The midnight showing was sold out, but I will be attending the 3:30 am one, which is kinda cool. The reason I still wanted to stick with this theater was because it is the biggest screen in London and it will be an IMAX 3D movie. If you can't tell I am a little excited. We also found out that July 7th is the Red Carpet Premiere so after class next Thursday I am going to head down there to hopefully be able to see Daniel Radcliffe in person.
**For the CES crew, I managed to see a CV and Cover Letter type guide so I took one to bring back to show you :)
A picture of my room.
A picture of the theater, BFI IMAX
I'm super excited to see that guide :) Sounds like you are having a blast Heather!
ReplyDeleteDana