I don't think I'll be getting away with calling this blog entry Day 15 as I have skipped about three weeks in between. I was doing so well, posted every day for two weeks and then all of a sudden my mojo was gone. Thrown out the window. Now, I know why at first I didn't post. I simply forgot. Bf was supposed to leave for three weeks on Monday so that weekend we spend as much time together as possible and being on the computer was not part of it. After he left I just simply didn't feel like posting anything.
I guess that means I have some catching up to do. Luckily, not that much was going on. The first couple of weeks I mainly studied and hung out. Got some reading in and finished watching Gilmore Girls. Though I'm missing season 7 but it's £30 at the moment. Gonna wait till that goes to half price.
The exciting stuff started to happen last week. I met up with some people from my class for a quick drink on Saturday. Everyone seemed really nice and I was glad that I got to know some of them before the big day. And I learnt about ten names. It felt really good to come into our first induction session on Monday and be able to call people by their name. Monday was pretty exhausting. We started at ten and didn't finish till 4pm. Did all sorts of introduction games, talked about the coming weeks, timetables yadda, yadda, yadda. But by the end of the day I did remember over 20 names out of the 28 people in my class. Headed out for quick drinks and made it home at a reasonable hour.
Tuesday we met up in front of the uni to go on a literary walk through the City of London. Unfortunately on the way there our lecturer tripped and injured her ankle. Not very bad, but she couldn't walk comfortably any more. She did manage to walk us over to our first sight and left instructions on how to proceed, but it really was a shame since I think we missed out on a lot of good descriptions and explanations. We managed to see a lot anyway. The first stop was Temple Hall where on that day the new barristers had their welcoming feast. It's quite impressive. The main hall is narrow and long with a tall ceiling almost like a church. Everything is wood and the walls are plastered with the knights' badges.
Next stop was the Temple Church (yes, that's the one where part of the Da Vinci Code was filmed). We had a short talk on its history before being let loose. They have some pretty impressive windows. Unfortunately none of my pictures turned out good. On the main site they are all colorful and old and on one of the other sides the daughter of the original window-maker designed some commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Knights of the Templar being at that location. Pretty cool stuff.
We managed to drag ourselves away and head over to Fleet Street. The main attraction here was a Starbucks. There used to be a publishing house in one of the buildings. Since our lecturer wasn't there we weren't quite sure which one exactly but we took it in as a historical site (not that everything around us was historical) and got us some nice coffee. Since we were so many we kinda went in in shifts and while waiting outside with some girls we were standing next to a jewellery store. Did some ring spotting and holy moly we saw some engagement rings for £16,000 and more. Christ. The girls around me told me it's normal to spend 1-3 months of salary on a ring. But honestly, who is so dump to spend that much money on a ring?! You could buy a car for that, you could have the most amazing honeymoon ever, you could save towards a house. But I guess, then again, if you earn that much in a month (how, oh how, I think I'm looking to go into the wrong profession) it really doesn't matter.
Ok, gone a bit off topic there. Coffee made us all feel stronger so we continued walking around different sites and headed up to Bloomsbury Square. Grabbed some lunch on the way, walked some more and eventually ended up at the British Library. Again, a massive building. We were exhausted by this time and just managed to walk around a bit before we headed to a little café just around King's Cross Station. And by café I mean bar. Had a couple of drinks before heading home.
Wednesday was started near St. Paul's Cathedral at Stationer's Hall. Apparently this is where the print and publishing industry meets for their get-togethers. The whole building smelled like smoked bacon. And some of their rooms where painted in a really faint pink. So, so strange. I think this is also where you need to register if you wanna be a publisher in Britain. But I might be wrong. At this point all the information got a bit mingled. We spent some more time on Fleet Street. This time with our lecturer and got some more information about various buildings. Then we headed up towards Chancery Lane, through various sidestreets near Farringdon back towards our uni. Stopped at a street market to pick up some food and ate at a park. The weather had been beautiful for those couple of days. Spend about an hour in the park. Got just the slightest bit of sunburn and then headed back to uni for our afternoon induction. Which ended up being very technical. I have no idea why people already need to know how exactly to write their dissertation, but meh. I will find out next year me thinks. Drinks couldn't come fast enough!
Thursday started out all nice and sunny. However, when I stepped out of Green Park station the rain started pouring down. Yuck. We hurried over to John Murray Publisher (which turned out were the ones in the Starbucks building on Fleet Street). Had a lovely introduction by the wife of John Murray the 6th (might have been the 7th). Creepy building with all kinds of stuff from Lord Byron in it. The pillow he died on, his hair collection. Weird dude!
Met up with a former student working for an agency now. Most people left to head back to uni to sign up for free language classes. About six of us stayed and had a really good talk. Then we wandered over to Hatchard's. A really old bookstore that specialises in hardbacks and signed copies. Managed not to buy anything before heading back to uni for our library induction. Might as well have skipped that. Don't remember any of it and libraries pretty much work the same everywhere. But we all ended all together in one place and headed out for another drink. Only had one. I think most of us were exhausted. Must be the walking and fresh air all day. I headed home and was so grateful to sleep in on Friday.
Met up with a friend and had a lovely time around Camden Town that day. The weather was a bit shit otherwise I think we could have gone on a lovely walk through Regent Park. Maybe next time?
And on Saturday finally bf came home in the afternoon. I had cleaned the house prior to his arrival. Was so nice to have him back. He's still jetlagged though and doesn't let me sleep. We got up at seven on Sunday headed over to his work so he could hand in his receipt from the trip. Then had a lovely breakfast and did a little bit of shopping. The rest of the day was spend being lazy. I went to bed at 10.30pm, but he was not sleepy and stayed up a bit longer. But then he got up at five, went for a walk, came back, got ready for work and left at like 7. Crazy. I have to meet my lecturer this morning for a general talk. We see how that goes. Didn't mean to write that much. Really need to go now. Don't wanna make her wait. Not a very good impression.
