Long Weekend in London

The Serpentine in Hyde Park

 With the bank holiday today, we were fortunate enough to have a long weekend.  Although we originally planned on Amsterdam, the volcano in Iceland delayed our planning process until it was too late so we're doing that next weekend.  That said, this was a great weekend.
 On Saturday we went to the Portabello Markets for the afternoon which was great.  It was about a half mile of cart-lined streets with all sorts of art, clothes, food, and trinkets, which made for quite an afternoon.

Wandering through London

Sunday we spent "following" a self-guided walking tour around the Hyde Park area.  After getting lost immediately it quickly degraded into wandering in the general direction stopping at every pub we could find for a pint (including the beautiful Serpentine Cafe).  We ended up at the Grenadier where we ran into a family travelling from Kansas City who we talked to for about an hour.  All in all a successful day.

Our Final Stop

Monday has been a very lazy day as it is unfortunately quite dreary for us.  We wandered around for lunch but I've since been uploading pictures, reading emails, and finished The Fountainhead (not sure if I liked it or Atlas Shrugged more).  Tonight will be an early night as we head into another work week, but I'm keeping my eye on Friday...off to Amsterdam!

This weekend

My Room

Nido Spitalfieds

Room 10-18

9 Frying Pan Alley

London, England

If you want to send mail.  For reference it is very close to Liverpool Street Station and maybe a 5 minute walk from my job, very convenient.

Natural History Museum

E1 7HSHad a great touristy weekend seeing the historical side to London.  I spent Saturday at the Natural History museum and got my nerd on.  They had some incredible stuff in there including some of the biggest diamonds in the world, all sorts of dinosaur fossils, meteorites, and even space diamonds created in a supernova (shouts out to Prof. Eddie Murphy) billions of years ago.

After about 3 hours of that I went home and watched the most recent Harry Potter in anticipation of the craze that will surely hit the city soon.  Later that night we went down to Oxford Circus to try out a new part of town and had a lot of fun there.

Sunday was another quiet day with a late lunch and a power tour of the Tower of London.  We looked at almost everything in 1.5 hours and it was awesome. I remember having been before but it was really nice to comprehend everything more fully.  I wish we had time to visit Tower Bridge but I'll just make that another trip.

The White Tower, Tower of London

The reason we had to leave so early was meet up with Tory and Caitlyn for dinner in Soho.  It was really nice to see some UVA friends abroad and it sounds like I'll be spending some more time with them.  Turns out they both plan on travelling Italy the same time as John and I so we may just travel together to Katie and Molly in Rome and see the rest of the country.

I was planning on going to Amsterdam this weekend as we have a long weekend, but it looks like the ash may have us holed up this weekend.  Bit of a downer.

Also, I started my job Monday.  They have me doing data entry, which was to be expected, but include me in most of the conversation about the deals they are working on.  It's impressive to say the least, but I hope I'll make it to that level by their age.

Finally Settled In

These last few days have been madness getting all situated for the summer but I've finally got it all figured out.  Also got a confirmation on my internship placement so I will be working for Chrystal Capital for the summer, which is very exciting for me.  It'll be a great experience in a field I'm interested in.

Now for the fun stuff.  In the past few days we've visiting the Tate Britain, did a scavenger hunt around London (Harrods, Kensington Park, Hyde Park Corner etc.) and took a walking tour of London.  This weekend we're going to stay in the City be tourists (The Eye, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey etc.) which will be a lot of fun to see again.  Pubs also have been quite a bit of fun.  So far we've managed to go out every night and will probably do so until Sunday (first day of work in the morning).  Fought a great pub down a random alley called the Arbitrager where we had a "few pints" one afternoon and befriended a great "pub"tender.  He told us to come back tonight when other people would be there so that's really all of our plans for the night, we'll see where the wind takes us.  I'll post some pictures after this weekend.

A More Detailed Explanation of What I'll be Doing

For those of you that don't know already, I'll be in London from now until July 2nd and travelling around Europe on the weekends and July 2-9.  I will be interning at Chrystal Capital pending a successful interview and taking class 1 day a week to learn about the economic and socio-political development of London.  I'm living in a flat with my childhood best friend, John Mitchell, listed as "apartment" on this map along with some other places of interest around me.  I actually have a fantastic view of the Gherkin from my bed too, which is quite nice at sunset.  If any of you have visited the area and have suggestions, do let me know.

This afternoon was quite an ordeal trying to get everything that I need for the months to come, in fact I'm still waiting on my towel to get delivered so I can shower.  I do have most of the essentials at this point though.  I just woke up from a 2 hour nap (about an hour longer than intended) completely disoriented and looking for the thermostat (which is currently m.i.a.).

Tomorrow is the official orientation for EUSA and the start of quite an experience.  We have met 4 people already and I look forward to meeting the rest of the group (which is enormous, with kids from over 20 colleges) as the program progresses.

Moved In

Well I've finally moved into my flat with John Mitchell and I'm mostly organized at this point.  It is only 7:45 and I am about to fall asleep writing this.  On a positive note though, the flat is great and The King's Speech was also great, one of the best movies I have seen in a while.

The official orientation begins tomorrow so I will be quite busy.  Looking forward to my first few days with everyone though.