London - January 15th

Well, after staying up until around 6am yesterday morning (the 14th), i spent most of the day sleeping. I woke up around 4 and ended up meeting one of my neighbors shortly after getting up. He's from Pakistan, and I can't say that i remember his name, but he was very friendly and he studies at the University of Central London. I told him I was going to go to the store to get some toilet paper and food, and he told me he'd prefer if I didn't go because it was unsafe. He even offered me some of his toilet paper...I declined and walked to the store anyway, as I was more interested in the walk and experience than buying food and T.P. I walked to where google maps said the store was, but it ended up not being there. So I took a slightly different route back to my apartment and ran into the store I was looking for, which was closer than I thought it was, so that was good and will be nice to know for future trips. It also had a way better selection than the market I went to the other day, which was a Tesco express. Tesco apparently has different varieties of stores: Extra, Superstore, Metro, and Express. Those are ranked from largest to smallest, with Extra being the largest and express being the smallest. The first day, and the one that's closest to me is an Express, and the the one I went to yesterday was a Metro, which was still relatively close to me. Metros and Expresses are by far the most common and it seems like there are only a few Superstores and Extras in London and that they are kind of on the outskirts of the city.

After I got back to my place, I talked to Kate for a while and she's doing well. We used this app called Viber, which basically lets us make phone calls for free through VOIP (voice over internet protocol). It's through the app so you have to set up an account with it, but essentially it lets us connect through the internet, whether it's wifi or a data connection, and it's worked pretty well so far. So if we ever want/need to talk on the phone, that may be a good option in addition to google hangouts, skype, and a number of other apps.

I was pretty hungry at this point, and didn't want to cook, so I went to this place called Honest Burger that was about a two minutes walk from my place. I walked in and wasn't greeted, so I just sat myself and caught the attention of the server that was in my section. It was kind of hard to understand him, he had a really thick accent, and after my interactions with him, i'm pretty sure I was supposed to be seated by a host or something, but I got my food quickly and everything worked out. The burger and fries were great and i'm sure i'll be going back there. They played the temptations and other older american music, which I really liked. Total for the meal including a drink was about 11 pounds.

I found several bars that are showing the 49er Seahawk game this sunday, so i'm planning on going to that. Actually, I'll probably go for the Denver N.E. game as well. I'll have to figure out some of the bus schedules for that though, because the tube stops running before the game ends. Glad that it's being shown here though. Maybe i'll meet some other people from the states.

Here's a couple of pictures of the view from my room.

The really impressive looking building is actually the St. Pancras station, and the Kings Cross station is connected to the clock tower that you can see on the right hand side of the photo. If I understand it all correctly...St Pancras offers international railway services whereas kings cross does not, and I believe that the underground is connected between the two, and that it basically acts as one underground tube station.

Just got back from a 6 mile walk around the city. Here's a picture of the route I took, it's not exactly accurate, but it is for the most part.

I Started out from my place around 10 this morning and headed south until I hit the River Thames. I stood on black friars bridge and took a few pictures.

Then I walked towards St. Paul's Cathedral, which was really cool. I didn't want to pay to go inside and take the tour because I figured I'd save that for later in my trip so I can do it with someone. But I went down below it to the cafe and walked around the perimeter of the outside. Here's a few pics of that.

The building is awesome and the surrounding area had a lot of cool cafes and stores as well. I ate at a place on the northern side of the cathedral called PAUL Bakery. Had a coffee and a Ham and cheese croissant sandwich. It was delicious and cost about 5 pounds.

After that, I headed towards the Bank of England. I didn't take too many pictures or stop too much in that area, but I'll definitely be going back there. It was cool and I like how there are a bunch of roads that lead to it. Another interesting aspect of this area that seemed more noticeable to me than in the other areas i've been to so far is that there's a lot of modern architecture right next to older buildings.

Next, I went to one of London Metropolitan Universities buildings. It was pretty impressive, although I'm not sure if this is the building that I'll have my classes at, or if it'll be at a different building in the city. I'll find out more about that when I begin orientation on the 20th. Here's a couple of pictures of the building that I went to today.

After that I walked back to NIDO which took me about 40 minutes or so. I didn't take the fastest route though, so taking that into consideration, it wasn't that bad.

That's all for now, more to come later.