Move-In Day

Yesterday was move-in day. A very sassy British man named Neil helped me with my luggage when I arrived at Byron Court. My home for the next four months. It's a nice residential area, across the street from a nice big park, where locals are often seen playing futbol. My flat is on the first floor, which apparently has the biggest rooms. It is nice and spacious. We have a nice kitchen with a round table and four chairs (the dining room), a bathroom, and two bedrooms. The bedrooms are roomy, with big windows! that open! We don't really have a view of anything, since we are on the first floor. But we get a lot of sunlight through the window, which is good. I've come to appreciate natural sunlight and windows ever since Freshman year when I lived in a bathroom. But actually...

One of my three roommates was already there when I arrived. Her name is Sarah and she actually knows two of my Clemson friends from her hometown! Very small world. She goes to Colgate, too, (Prep friends, remember when I was obsessed with Colgate? And Kel and Mikes, remember when you told me I couldn't go to a toothpaste school!? Always supportive.) We unpacked a little and then made our way to the Brunswick center, about five blocks away, just on the other side of the park. It's a great outdoor mall center, with a nice big market, hardware store, restaurants, clothing stores, and phone store. After we stocked up on necessary groceries, like Mr. Chicken (Mom and Mr. Brown), eggs (Ten, I know you're proud), bread (obvi), and "loo rolls" (I think you can figure out what those are), I went to Vodafone and got a cell phone. It's very weird not having my Blackberry. I guess you don't realize how often you are on your phone, until it's gone! But I guess it's a good thing, because none of us have them and we're forced to meet new people and make friends!

After our errands, we met our two other roommates. NYU supplied hangers for us, but since we all had more than 6 items of clothing to hang, we set our on another field trip to find more hangers. We went to this store called Argos, which was supposed to have "anything you could ever need." We walked into the store and all kind of stopped and looked at each other. It was really small. Like really small. There must be an upstairs, we thought. So we walked around, about 7 steps ahead. Nope, no stairs. Okay... Well there is another Argos about 10 blocks away. Maybe THAT'S the one that has anything we could ever need. So I ask the salesperson. "No," he says, "the other store has just as much as we  have here." Hmm. Okay. We start to walk out, when we realize that every other customer is lining the walls , all looking at these big books on counters. Wow. Culture shock. Well, kind of. This is how Argos works. You look through the catalogue, an 900+ page book of every piece of merchandise, fill out a card with the call number, and give it to the salesperson. Then you wait while they go behind this mysterious back door, which I can only assumed goes downstairs to what must be the biggest basement warehouse ever, and then return with your item. Very weird.  No hangers in this catalogue. Also, apparently the only type of blankets in London are electric blankets, which cost 90 quid. So that was a failed attempt, too. Not very impressed with the store that was supposed to have everything.

One of my roommates has a few friends that live in London. Her friend, Ben helped her move in, showed us all around Bloomsbury a bit, and then accompanied us for dinner at this great, cheap Indian place. Ben would say, "We went for an Indian," instead of "we went to an Indian restaurant." Thought that was funny. I'm pretty sure that statement would get a very different reaction if said in the U.S. It was my first experience with Indian food, and with Ben's help to avoid the really spicy food, I quite enjoyed my salmon and spinach. Toasted to our first night together in London with a bottle of Cabernet.