pictures from the past couple days

typical school day in london

Hampstead, borough Market, SCIENCE (museum), tower bridge

oxford (not in ohio!)

Katie and I went on our first daytrip this past Saturday to Oxford, where Tolkien, William Golding, and a host of other literary greats studied - in fact, Alice of "Alice in Wonderland" fame was based on the daughter of the vice-chancellor of the University when Lewis Carroll was there. Unfortunately, thanks to Katie's undying love of Harry Potter, we spent at least half our time finding filming locations from the movies =P I can't complain too much though, since she took all of the pictures (seeing as to how I didn't bring my camera).

Despite not planning much of anything we managed to do a good bit of the touristy things, finding a tour that started about a half hour after we got there that took us around to a number of the colleges within Oxford University. The Oxford educational system is strange in a few ways, but seeing as to how they came first and seem to do just fine maybe everyone else just has it wrong. Some highlights:

1. Oxford has 38 semi-autonomous constituent colleges. Each has their own tutors and does their own teaching in a number of departments (no college is devoted to just one department; although some of them have only graduate students).'
2. Teaching is primarily done in individual tutorials (one-on-one sessions with the tutor) instead of in lectures
3. There's more holiday every year than term (six weeks winter, six weeks easter, sixteen weeks summer). The idea is to do research/other experiential learning during these extended times off, which makes a lot of sense.

Each of the colleges (Jesus, New, and Christ Church) we visited had their own dining hall and chapel, and each was from a different time (13th, 14th and 18th? century). The most recent college was founded in the 20th century, so it's interesting to see how new some things are despite the University as a whole being the oldest in the English-speaking world.

We also managed to check out their covered market and some of the many shops along their high street and in the nearby shopping centers before finding a Tapas bar for dinner. All in all, a fantastic first day-trip: we are hopefully also making day/weekend-trips to Edinburgh, bath, and Dublin in the coming weeks.

Link to pictures if you missed it

things i like

Things I really like about UCL/London/britain in general so far

1. No textbook buying (especially paying $$$ for "new" editions that are only changed very slightly). Instead, the library has only one/a few copies of the text in the library and you can only have it for a few days at a time. This works really well for the british system of reading throughout the semester (and not much actual "homework"), with most of the grade coming from a single final exam, but might be hard to adapt to the American system.
2. Reduced rates for students at a lot of shops/restaurants/for public transportation (where they actually check for school ID). Helps students, encourages education (somewhat).
3. Speaking of which, public transportation to get everywhere is fantastic. The 29 bus stops right outside my dorm and stops right in front of the gates of UCL, saving me a 20 minute walk. For longer distances, the underground can get you within a 10 minute walk of anywhere in London pretty quick/cheap. With the Oyster Card (which they heavily discount fares for: 1.8 instead of 4.0 for the tube) you just have to tap in and tap out on a sensor (no swiping, feeding the wrong way, etc. like for Cleveland's RTA)
4. Cell phone plans that make sense. It doesn't cost money to receive calls and all the major providers have pay-as-you-go and affordable month-to-month contracts that you can cancel without penalty (with 30 days notice).
5. Conservation efforts: default printing is 2-sided (duplex printing). This would save so much paper (and since they charge the same per sheet printing double sided, also saves printing money). The showers are also like sinks in public bathrooms - you push to turn them on for like 30 seconds. Feelings are mixed on this one - I like it; it very effectively encourages you to take shorter showers; Other people hate it for making them do work to shower. The lack of recycling compared to Case is sad though.

Orientation and move-in

Was at the St. Giles hotel for orientation from IFSA-butler.



It seems like everyone in this program is a humanities/social science major from a liberal arts college. Finally moved into my room at school today...it's small (bigger than the rooms in Phi Psi, still) but cozy. There's about 30 others studying through butler at UCL and we're spread across 4-5 dorms. Mine of course, is the farthest from campus at a 1/2 hour walk...might have to get used to taking public transportation (although it's 70 pounds for a unlimited monthly pass, which is a little excessive).

There's been a inch or two of snow in London (a little more across the UK) but the whole country seems to have been paralyzed...more evidence that London is an upgrade weather wise over Cleveland =). I remain jealous of those in Cabo and Katie Caponero's friend who's studying in South Africa, where it's significantly warmer...

Bad Start

Flight out of Cincy was cancelled despite beautiful weather across Southwest OH (winds in Newark?) - rescheduled flight too late for connecting flight. Ended up at Columbus (CMH) and waiting to board now.

Mad props to Google for providing free wireless at CMH (and presumably other airports) over the holidays.



Edit: narrowly missed further disaster...somebody managed to go across security through the exit in terminal C of the Newark airport (I was in terminal b)...everyone had to leave the secure zone and go back through security.