I think the diversity of London really hit me when I was taking pictures at Westminster Abbey. Everyone around me was speaking a different language, it was so unlike anything I'd ever experienced.
The transportation is similar enough to Pittsburgh that I understand it well and don't mind waiting for a bus, but there's definitely more ways to get to where you're going. Combining both the transportation and diversity, there is also an incredible amount of people who use the public transportation here. I believe during one of my orientation lectures about the transportation I was told nearly three million people use the underground daily.
The orientation events have been great. Both the dinner at The Old Bank of England with CISabroad and the talks at Roehampton have been really informative. Not only was the pie, beer, and being on Fleet Street fantastic at The Old Bank of England, but the presentation was really thorough. I've been really impressed by how much information has been given to us. I really love random facts, and luckily it seems there are plenty about London. It was really dark so I wasn't able to get a decent photo of The Old Bank of England, but it was literally grand. It was the first bank in England, and since people weren't used to the whole idea of making deposits, they designed it to be very ornate to help comfort everyone.
As I mentioned before, Roehampton gave a really good lecture about the public transportation. They combined the information with the lure of a photo frenzy, where we were challenged to a scavenger hunt around the city to take pictures at landmarks. It was really fun, we were split up into groups and given cameras and all day travel passes. My group eventually decided we were going to just wander the city and have fun, so we only ended up checking off about seven of our twelve hints. We saw a lot of landmarks and got used to the underground, and even got momentarily lost in Russel Square. Here's some pictures from that:
Waiting for the tube
Piccadilly Circus
Big Ben and Parliament
The London Eye
Buckingham Palace
Besides the more informational parts of the orientations, though they were also loads of fun, I think Roehampton has done a terrific job of helping all the new students meet each other. The international students arrived on September 11th, and all the first year students arrived on September 15th. The few days we had on campus alone were nice and I met tons of students from all over the world, but the first years arrival began Fresher's Week, which has been so much fun. There have been events every night that are either on campus or around London at cool places. Getting to hang out with all the new students has made it really easy to make new friends, which was something I really wanted to do here.
I also want to include more photos I've taken, so here's some from when I went on a day trip with some new friends to Primrose Hill and Camden.
Primrose Hill
Walking to Camden
Resting and taking photos on the way to Camden
Camden
Camden Market
Camden
Roehampton has also given me the taste of university life that I hadn't experienced at Carlow because I lived off campus. I remember hearing about how everyone always saw each other at Carlow, and how people felt like they had known each other for ages after just a few weeks because of the close proximity. I can really understand that now, because even after just about ten days I feel like I've made some friends I'll keep in touch with long past leaving in December.
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