Thoughts and First Impressions of London...

Well, its 2 am and I'm supposed to go on a tour of the Parliament (Or the Palace of Westminister as they call it here) tommorow at 8 am, but after a night of socializing and drinking (Goodenough College had free welcome drinks tonight), and due to my jetlag I'm still awake. So, I figure that sharing my first impressions with all of you is a productive way to spend my way to alert mind right now.

1) First off, I'm extremely happy with my residence. The people here are really nice and welcoming, theres loads of social activities planned for everyone to get to know each other and my room is decently sized and clean and completely satisfactory for me. Today I went to Soho to the Chinatown here (which is unbelievably SMALL?! I was expecting the Chinatown here in LONDON to be decently sized, I would say it's comparable to the one in Montreal), and learned just how centrally located my residence is. It's a 15 minute walk to the LSE, a 5 minute walk to SOAS, a 10 minute walk to Picadilly Circus, and also a 5 minute walk to Oxford Street.
(For Montrealers, it's pretty much like living on Sherbrooke and St.Urbain or something.)

2) Yesterday when I was walking around in a dazed state, I was almost hit by a car because I was instictively looking the wrong way (here you have to look right immediately when crossing the street, and then left). But outside of that, I realized when jaywalking the small, tiny, tiny streets, and looking at the endless lines of cafe's and pubs, that I'm really pretty comfortable here in Europe. There was a familiarity which returned that I haven't felt in a while. And I was surprised by it because I think I had forgotten just how comfortable I was and used to feel in Europe.
I guess that 6 years in Canada doesn't take that away from you.

The other thing I noticed however was that what was so surprising to me, and it shouldn't be, but is just how COSMOPOLITAN London is. The reason this conflicted in my head was because the Europe that I have experienced in my memories was one of a very homogenous, all-white population in Budapest or Moscow. So the presence of such diversity in a European environment threw my familiarity off. In a way however, this is like a perfect merging of my old and the new. North American diversity, in a European setting. :)

3) I still haven't met too many people from the LSE. Just one girl from Sydney studying Development, and then a couple of LSE alumni's. But thats what is so interesting about my residence, I will get to meet people from outside my classes. Tommorow after the tour of the Parliament, (of which I will attempt to post photos), I will try to post my photos on here.

4) I am now the co-President of the Tennis Club for my residence! We will be organizing tournaments, and possibly do some coaching (his idea, not mine). My partner is Micheal, my neighbor, a Phd student from Normandy, France. And I've seen his 5 Babolat rackets, which attest that his tennis skills are far superior to mine, which is good, because as Tennis Club Presidents, one of us has to be half-decent. :)

More updates to come...