It has been a whole three months since I’ve been in London. Yet my warped sense of time due to a full-time job can't allow me to rationalize how that much time has passed already - it seems like just weeks ago, I was walking out of my dorm in Euston Square to meet up with friends at a market or to check out a museum or another attraction to get my cultural fill for the day.
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| The tube station near my dorm that I walked into or passed on a regular basis. It's strange that "Warren Street" or even "the Tube" are no longer part of my daily vocabulary. |
This is my final London-related blog post, since well, I’m not even in London anymore. I actually wrote this post a while ago but the entry has been lingering in my documents file, patiently awaiting its grand exposition on my blog. But I never got around to it - partially due to my internship that has been keeping me busy and partially due to the tremendous lethargy that overcomes me every summer, impeding the execution of any action that could be considered remotely productive. I didn’t want to neglect posting this entry because some majorly cool events occurred in the final month, including a surprise visit by Jerry Seinfeld (I am still shocked by this). So, since I am currently waiting for a PCR reaction to finish, I figured now would be a good time to finally post this.
Some time in the month of May:
May was the dreadful month of final exams. These exams were especially intimidating because they counted for 80-100% of the grade in my classes. The British educational system entails a lot more independence from its students than the American system, in many aspects. First, there is very little class time and more reading to make up for the time spent out of class. This is very conducive to developing lazy habits (I can attest to this statement). Second, instead of taking exams in 2-4 week intervals throughout the semester, and counting on quizzes and other assessments in between to cushion your grade, you must prepare for a giant cumulative exam at the very end. Moreover, the exams consist entirely of essays, so the strategic testing method of "eenie meenie miny moe" cannot be applied in any way. I was warned of this more independent system prior to beginning classes, and my motivated self maintained a regimented study schedule for as long as the first month. Unfortunately, the endless distractions that London has to offer got the best of me for the greater portion of the semester. So, I essentially saved all of my studying, or “revising” as the British would say, for the two weeks before my exams - not nearly enough time to make up for an entire semester’s worth of work. I introduced myself to my long lost friend the library, and became very familiar with its layout during the examination weeks.
UCL has a humungous student body, so all of the school’s libraries were packed with people during exam time. I accepted this the first few times when I strolled in around 1 PM, admitting to my own fault of not getting there sooner. So one day, I arrived at the library at 8 AM, patting myself on the back for being such a motivated student, only to find that I couldn’t find even a corner of a desk. There was no way that I was getting up at the crack of dawn to claim a seat, so I did my research on the local libraries and found a winner, the Senate library - a nice, spacious library that was just another couple of blocks away, where I could be guaranteed a seat as late as 10 AM. I found my niche at a particular desk there, and studied away. I basically established a second home there, where I would unlawfully (and therefore, cautiously) eat, and even nap on occasion. One complaint I have about the libraries is that food or drinks are not allowed inside - a luxury that I took for granted at Skidmore’s library. So, I was compelled to leave the library every time I had a coffee withdrawal, which was simply an inefficient use of my time.
I had my first exam, for the course Visual Neuroscience, on the 10th. The exam venues were often outside the campus perimeter and could be as far as a 30-minute tube ride away. I was surprised to see that my first exam was listed as being in the American Church of London. Taking an exam in a church would certainly be a new experience - I envisioned kneeling in the pews, scribbling out my essays on the benches, and asking God for assistance on how to describe the role of horizontal cells in the retinal circuitry (I’d assume he’d be an expert if he wired the eye way back when, even if he assembled it in a completely backwards manner).
The testing process was much stricter than any testing I had experienced at any other school. The rules require that every student bring in an ID card as well as a testing card, which has a unique candidate number that anonymously identifies the student on the exam for the graders. Everyone was assigned a seat, to which they could not bring anything but writing utensils and a clear water bottle. “Clear” was emphasized - during one of my exams, a girl walked in with a coffee cup and was immediately told by the supervisor to throw it away out of concern that there might be writing on the inner surface of the cup. I could not help but loathe that one crafty student in the past who ruined the privilege of enjoying caffeinated beverages during exams for the rest of us.
I had my developmental neurobiology exam a few days later on the 13th. I got 3 hours of sleep the previous night and drank a couple cups of coffee immediately before the exam to make up for the sleep deprivation. And I paid the consequences. The exam was only two hours, but I felt like my bladder was going to burst a mere 45 minutes into it. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but taking a trip to the bathroom when taking an exam at UCL is a whole process. There were restrictions for when we could go to the bathroom during the exam, and we had to wait for one of the supervisors to escort us to the bathroom. I was already feeling pressed for time, and I couldn’t afford to wait for the complementary bathroom companion who was already busy attending to the urinary needs of three other students whose hands were raised. But as time went on, it became so unbearable that I couldn’t concentrate at all. Meanwhile, my dehydration (also due to that darned coffee) augmented and I desperately wanted to drink from the water that was stationed by my side. I didn’t know how to balance these two unfortunate circumstances, so I gave up trying to form a coherent essay and stared at the clock until the minute hand stuck 12. The overarching point of this anecdote is that I don’t think I did very well on that exam.
A week later I had my cognitive neuroscience exam, and a week after that, my neurobiology of neurodegenerative diseases exam. I learned my lesson from the previous exams, making sure to sleep for a sufficient number of hours the previous night and staying away from caffeine at least an hour before exam time. Finally, I was DONE and I could enjoy life in London again.
My friend Soon visited me early in the month on May 3rd. Unfortunately she visited in the midst of my exams so I saw more of the library than her that week. We were determined to attend a secret rave to celebrate her last night in London - however, these raves are kept so secret that we ultimately failed after many rounds of Google searches and asking various British people whom we hoped would be “in the know.” We went into Camden town instead, but it was pretty quiet since it was a Tuesday night. As we walked around, we heard music coming from one of the pubs, the Wheelbarrow. An indie band called “We were Evergreen” was playing inside. Their music was actually pretty good so we stuck around until after they were done. When they came around to the bar area, we handed them some compliments and talked for a while. They hailed from Paris and have played at many festivals and venues but weren’t signed. They’re a pretty new band though, so we think they may be somewhat big in the future.
On May 21, I went to Abbey road with Ali, Val, Alex, and Eric (making up a necessary 4 people needed for a proper picture + one picture taker). My imagined construct of the famed crosswalk was unmatched by reality, mostly because I didn’t consider that it was on a busy, functional road. I was also expecting a circa 1969 model of a white Volkswagen bug to be there, and perhaps even a Beatle or two, but to my disappointment these were unfulfilled expectations. Instead, several tourists were speed walking across the road as they smiled for a camera, traffic was built up on both sides of the cross walk, and the serene atmosphere depicted in the album picture was replaced by an aura of honking horns and vocal expressions of frustration. Finally, after about a half hour of waiting, we lined up and got our picture. I wanted to make our picture somewhat true to the Beatles’ picture, so I stood in Paul McCartney’s place in line and walked across with bare feet. I was surprised that nobody else there had thought to do the same - I mean, subjecting your feet to possible bacterial infection and/or penetration by sharp objects are only minor sacrifices to enhance the quality of such a picture.
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| Note the striking similarity with the picture below (yes, the angle wasn't perfect but we did the best we could while avoiding being hit by a car). |
Later in the week, I went to afternoon tea at the Ritz (I was really living the life of Riley that month). The inside of the hotel was absolutely regal, with walls adorned with gold wallpaper and rooms filled with fancy furniture and other expensive looking decor. I was extremely underdressed for the occasion, and felt uncomfortable as the expressions on other people's faces only seemed to confirm this. The man who sat us down was a little snooty, which may just be a qualifying feature for a job at the Ritz, and the server didn't take us seriously at all as he ignored our table noticeably more than the others. It was probably because we were several decades younger and appeared much less prosperous than the rest of the crowd. In my opinion, tea at the Ritz isn’t all it’s cracked up to be - I actually enjoyed my experience and the food at the other places much more. But I did enjoy taking on the role of a wealthy, "posh" individual during that hour, raising my nose a little more than usual and making sure that everyone took note of my raised pinky finger. I even said indubitably at one point.
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| The lavish hallway to the tea room. |
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| The deserts were actually awesome, I'll give them that. |
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| The tea room. |
My friend Caity came to visit on the 27th, the day after my last exam. That night, we went to the Kooks concert, which I managed to get tickets for even though it had been sold out for days. They put on a pretty good performance and delivered all of their most catchy tunes. Unfortunately, we were surrounded by a particularly rowdy group of 15-year-old British hipsters who I wanted to slap. But aside from this, I enjoyed myself.
May 28th was the day of the Barcelona vs. Manchester United Championships League final football match. Since the match would be held a short tube ride away at Wembley stadium, we foolishly looked up prices for seats the previous morning, both willing to spend up to 100 pounds. That amount would have paid for a four minute viewing of the game. The tickets were selling for four figures, with 2000 pounds getting you nosebleed seats. Since that was not happening, we decided we would settle for watching the game in a pub that evening. During the day, we walked along the South Bank and near the Houses of Parliament. Hundreds of Spaniards, clad in Barcelona attire and many wearing flags, could be spotted in every direction. This isn't an exaggeration, they were literally everywhere - waving their flags in front of Big Ben, climbing onto the London eye in their Barcelona jerseys, and yelling chants in various places along the Thames.
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| Spaniards relaxing near the Houses of Parliament. |
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| A Spaniard pushing a car. |
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| My championship scarf. |
Caity and I decided to join in on the hype by buying a championship scarf. There weren’t many British people making an equally obvious effort to support Manchester, so although we had scarves that had both team names on it, we evidently appeared to be Barcelona fans. For instance, as we were walking around a farmers market stealing small cheese samples, a man at one of the stalls told us that Barcelona fans got a special deal that day - 1 pound for a cup of coffee. I didn’t know why he assumed we were Barcelona fans and I jokingly pointed at Caity to indicate that she was a fan. As we started walking away, he turned to his co-worker and laughed saying “they probably don’t speak a word of English…” I retrospectively realized that we hadn’t vocalized a word of English while he was pitching his product to us, but instead raised our brows out of confusion and walked away. I was amused that he thought we were Spanish, and enjoyed the idea of looking like a Spaniard for the day. In another, less amusing instance, we were walking down a street when a guy in passing astutely informed us of his opinion of the match, which if I can remember correctly, was “F**k Barcelona,” accompanied by a rude hand gesture. The game started at 6:45 pm, so we planned to get to the pub pretty much at that time if not a couple minutes earlier. When we got to the first pub we intended to go to in Covent Garden, it was so packed that the guard wasn’t letting any more people in. The next pub we went to had a line, which at least presented the illusion of eventually entering. Yet, there was a “one in, one out” policy, and since the game had just begun, the line was not budging. After several minutes, the guard decided to disregard the safety restrictions and let people in if they paid him 10 pounds. So we left. After passing several other pubs with lines out the door, we finally found a pub that we could enter and watch the game amidst a crowd of other people who squeezed into the place like beer-scented sardines. If you aren’t aware, Barcelona won. I didn’t mind since their fans’ pride and support clearly overshadowed Manchester’s - even in Manchester’s own country. After the game, we went to my favorite pub, O’Neill’s and hung out there for a while, meeting several Manchester United fans and Barcelona fans (both still sporting their jerseys). We easily befriended people by revealing the half of our championship scarf that we predicted would appeal to a particular person depending on their jersey, and pretending that we were diehard fans of that team.
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| Manchester friends. |
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| Our Barcelona friend. |
That Sunday, we visited Spitalfields market and Brick Lane. I regret not visiting that area of London more often, as it was bursting at the seams with arts and culture, and seemed to be a cool, vibrant place to hang out. Also, Brick Lane is known for the Indian restaurants that are all concentrated on the street, which is glorious for people like me who love Indian food. As we strolled up Brick Lane, we were pestered by restaurant workers who were positioned in their doorways to persuade all passersby that their curry was the best around. We intended to get Indian food for lunch, but were not prepared to select from the hundreds of restaurants all claiming to have won some award for best curry. In fact, almost every restaurant had a large banner outside their windows that exclaimed “Winner of Curry Chef of the year [insert year from past decade here]” or if not that, my personal favorite, “Runner up of Curry Chef of the year.” All the restaurants were decently priced, so we ended up choosing the most recent recipient of Curry Chef of the year.
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| Another Spaniard. |
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| The Spaniards were still abundant, even the next day. |
I fit so many things into my last month/week in London. I was determined to accomplish everything on my London-adapted bucket list, and spend some more of my cultural reimbursement given to me by my school. So....
1. I saw lots of shows. Earlier in the month, I saw 39 steps, which is a fun, slapstick comedy based on an Alfred Hitchcock novel. I also saw Mousetrap, the longest running show on the West End. It was one of my favorite shows that I saw in London. (I will mention others in the next few paragraphs as well).
2. I fit in as many museums and other attractions that I hadn’t yet been to, including the National Gallery, the National History Museum, the Science museum, the Imperial War Museum, and Westminister Abbey. Westminster Abbey was essentially a giant grave. Hundreds of people were buried there, leaving very little space to walk around. I got to see the burial monuments of Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, William Blake, T.S. Eliot, Henry James, and Shakespeare (who isn't actually buried there), amongst many other famous names.
FINAL WEEK IN LONDON
June 2 I went to St. Paul’s Cathedral. I was surprised to receive my audio guide on a nifty iPod Touch, and found amusement in observing the more elderly visitors navigate this unfamiliar, hi-tech contraption. After walking around, I made my way up the dome where I could look over all of London. I could see the BT tower (a tall tower which had been my north star for the past 6 months since my dorm was right near it), the tower of London, Tower Bridge, and several other landmarks in the distance. It was a nice way to wrap up my time in London.
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| The dizzying stairway to the top. |
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| The BT tower (to the right) that allowed me to navigate my way home whenever I was lost. |
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| Tower of London (middle left) and Tower Bridge. |
Later in the day, I went with a friend to the Soho Theatre and saw an artsy/fringe-y show called Operation Greenfield. It had four cast members and was about their journey in forming a Christian rock band. The show was entertaining and vastly deviated from the grandeur of a West End Show, but in a good way. Since the show was pretty short, we went over to Leicester square to see if there were any comedy shows going on. We checked out the Comedy Store (widely reputed to be the best comedy club in London). The worker at the door said that the show was half way through, and that we would still have to pay full price. Normally, I would have walked away but our school was reimbursing us. We walked in during intermission and spent several minutes trying to find a seat, with no luck. We remained standing in the corner when the show started but this became uncomfortable pretty quickly. We bugged one of the workers to try to find us a seat, and he managed to find us two prime seats just a few rows from the stage. The first act was a Canadian comedian named Pete Anderson and he was pretty enjoyable. After he was done, the presenter came on stage and said he was certain we would all like the next act. I remember thinking to myself that it was a pretty bold thing to say. Instead, this introduction turned into an understatement when he continued to say “I’d like to welcome…Jerry Seinfeld.” I was confused. Were we about to see a Seinfeld impersonator? Then, a very convincing Jerry Seinfeld walked onto the stage, a mere 10 feet in front of me. It took me a couple of minutes to believe that he wasn’t just a freakishly talented impersonator. I never saw the line-up for the evening, but I was pretty certain that Seinfeld wouldn’t waste his time at such a small comedy club. Everybody around me was just as shocked as I was. Apparently, he decided to make a surprise appearance since he was doing a large stadium show later that week. He began his act jokingly commenting on how he didn’t need to be there since he was a famous television star. It was undoubtedly a highlight of my stay in London.
June 3 I went to Hampstead Heath with Danny and we had a picnic of scones and clotted cream (my unhealthy obsession). Hampstead Heath a huge, naturesque park in London. It also contains Parliament Hill, which has an awesome view of the city.
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| We found an abandoned kite, so we took it. The day was actually perfectly windy too. |
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| Parliament hill |
We also checked out John Keats’ house nearby.
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| The Keats dining experience. |
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| Keats' bed |
In the afternoon, we attended a talent show that his roommate was performing in. The acts were pretty impressive - I couldn’t decide if I was more astounded by the 8-year-old boy who recited a poem that he didn’t write or the British Elvis impersonator. It is also important to note that the Elvis impersonator was approximately 70 years old (I feared that he would break a hip while as he was gyrating on stage) and was known to wander the neighborhood in his tight white unisuit and black wig on a regular basis. Danny's roommate, who played a slap style guitar piece, was actually the most skillful act, but some 16 year old girl who sang Beyonce or something of the like won the vote.
June 4 I went to Shadi’s house one last time, where I once again savored the amazing food that they prepared. I hung around for a while, and we said our goodbyes. That night, I went to see a “scary” show called Ghost Stories. It wasn't very scary.
June 5 I went to the Spanish festival with my friend Ilona. But to our dismay, there wasn't any Spanish food - the only reason we were there in the first place. We headed over to the Green Festival in Regent's Park afterwards, where Danny was working at one of the bookstands. We perused the tents for a while, mostly because it started pouring and that was the only way to stay dry. The raining didn't seize after standing under the tent for about an hour and reading the covers of just about every book. We finally worked up the courage to sprint all the way home. I was absolutely drenched.
June 6 was the day that I had to return home, against my will. Clearly, London was balling its eyes out due to my impending departure, because it had been raining for two days. I packed everything I had in my room into my two large suitcases and headed for Heathrow.
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| My empty room. |
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| A rather disgusting looking foot brace that I discovered on top of my dresser. How it got there is a mystery to me. |
I got to Heathrow a safe three hours before my flight departure time. First, I dreadfully weighed my suitcases, hoping they would be under the limit of 23 kg. But no such luck - they were each reaching 30 kg. I spent a long while debating what to throw away, starting off with laundry detergent, and then a large container of instant coffee - both easy decisions since I was being cheap for even packing them in the first place. Then, some hangers…and eventually all of the hangers. I was down to 27 kg. When I couldn't handle another disposal, I started redistributing things with ungrounded optimism, as if their new position in my bag would somehow alter their composition and magically reduce their mass. Since this didn’t work, I went to the desk to try to get away with the weight. I picked the line with the worker who looked like she would be the nicest and waited in the line for a half hour. When it was my turn, I hesitantly inched up to the desk and plopped my suitcase on the scale. “Hi there. How many bags do you have today?”
“Two.” I anxiously stared at the scale, hoping that she wouldn't notice the weight.
“Can you show me your carry on?” she asked, as her eyes drifted towards the scale reading.
I was already regretting my decision of picking her. I showed her my backpack, my small purse, and computer as per her request.
“You are only allowed two carry-on items. Is your backpack heavy?”
I am awful at lying, so I dumbly replied “Uh…it might be…I have books in it…”
She proceeded to demand that I put my backpack on the scale. It was 11 kg. “Oh, that’s way too heavy. It can only be up to 6kg. Try to sort through your stuff and take things out.”
I muttered under my breath and returned to my corner of the airport to contemplate what else to throw out. First, I threw away all of my notes and powerpoints from that semester. I’ll admit that I’m a mild hoarder, but I like to keep these things in case I want to reference them in the future. Looking through everything I had left, just clothes, shoes, my bed linens, and other such belongings, I had to make a final decision about what had to go. I didn’t want it to come to this, but I had no choice but to nominate the pillow I bought in London. The reason I clung to it, and even packed it in the first place, was because it was the most comfortable pillow I had ever slept on. EVER. I swear it was sent from the gods. As I resentfully inserted the pillow in the trash bin, I looked down at the rest of the junk in there…a nearly full container of instant coffee, a bottle of laundry detergent, 500+ pages of neuroscience notes, and a bunch of hangers...and now a large pillow to top all of it off. It looked absolutely ridiculous and I was honestly embarrassed to walk away from it. I went back to the desk, and selected a different friendly looking lady this time. I put one suitcase on the scale, then the next, and then…my carry-on, which remained at the same weight. The lady put a tag on my carry-on and told me I was all set. Since she didn’t question me at all, I regretted not going to her in the first place - I might still have that pillow to this day.
I was so disoriented by that nearly two-hour debacle, that I entered the men’s room when I was searching for the bathroom. I didn't process that I was the men’s bathroom even when I spotted the urinals. Instead, I clung to my belief that I was in the women’s bathroom and thought to myself “That’s silly. Why are there urinals in the women’s bathroom?” I was about to enter a stall until I saw a man emerge from the adjacent stall. Finally, I realized where I was and hurriedly ran out. At that point, I was worried that my oblivious state of mind would do wrong in another, more serious situation…like getting on the wrong plane. I had 10 minutes until the boarding time, so I bought the only sandwich I could afford at E.A.T with the British currency I had left (2 pounds), and rushed over to my gate.
7 hours later, I was in Boston.
I met my parents at the airport and they took me out to eat at a Thai restaurant in Watertown, close to where I work. It felt very weird to be back. I noticed I was experiencing reverse culture shock when the dollar bill looked strangely monochrome and the American, or specifically Boston, accent sounded more unsophisticated than usual. When I voiced my concern that I would experience withdrawal from the city-life to my parents, my dad kindly informed me that my hometown (a rural place with more horses than people per square mile) had a new gas station with an attached Dunkin’ Donuts. This exciting addition to the town would surely ease my transition.
...it didn't. I still miss living in London, but after a couple weeks of looking through travel pictures and watching British television to maintain exposure to the accent, I have grown to like my comparatively dull town again. So now I am at work in the lab (my PCR reaction is almost done) and tomorrow is my last day here. I will be returning to Skidmore in a little over three weeks, and while the woodland area that surrounds my campus is no match for the vibrant, multi-cultural setting I had been living in for 5 months, I am excited for my senior year of college and eager to see where life will take me next. Who knows, I might decide to go to grad school or do service in England or another country. The options are endless.
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