The End of Orientation/The Beginning of Class

With five days of orientation behind me, I am looking forward to starting classes bright and early at 9am tomorrow! The past few days were filled with getting to know you events and learning about London tours. Our main orientation was three hours long!!!! Luckily our Tisch orientation the next day wasn’t that bad. NYU in London is housed at The University of London, which is located in Bloomsbury. It is about a 15 minute walk from the dorm. All of my classes, with the exception of the BBC training program, are in the Senate House. This is the center of campus, and is the building the Vice-Chancellor (in our terms the President of the University) has his office and where the library is located. Our dean at Tisch said that had Hitler captured London during WW2, he would have taken up his headquarters in the Senate House!

Pubs here are quite the center of society! Many NYU students have been going out and having beers, however the big thing to get used to is that most pubs close at mid-night! For New Yorkers this is a real surprise (as is the fact the “The Tube” closes from midnight until 6am)! I went with a few others from my floor to the “Euston Flyer” on Friday night…just happened that a “football” match was taking place so the pub was packed. I met a lawyer from the area who told me all about how much the British hate Tony Blair. From the way they talk about Blair here, Bush should be thankful that we Americans aren’t so blatant about our dislike for him. It is also interesting how hung up the British still are about WWII. However, I do forget that London was bombed heavily during the war and that it marked the beginning of the end for their empire. Fun Fact: This week marks the 70^th anniversary of the Blitz, which was 57 consecutive nights of bombing by the Nazis.

On Saturday NYU sponsored a Panoramic Bus Tour of London—which they called a coach tour.  It was a wonderful overview of the city. I have officially seen Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament (including Big Ben), The Tower of London, London Bridge, Hyde Park, the Globe Theatre and St. Pauls Cathedral…but from a distance. Our tour guide was a cute old man that studied with The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (equivalent to Julliard in the US). The Tisch students that are studying there this semester were thrown for a loop to think that fifty years from now they may be doing bus tours in NYC! However, I am looking forward to exploring the city on my own very soon! There is so much to see!

Today was a great day of relaxation. And it seems it is such for many Londoners as well, for most shops and stores were closed! I used the time to surf the web, and I discovered that Netflix and Hulu does not work outside of the US! I guess this means no Mad Men or Greys Anatomy til I get back! On the upside, I did discover the TV lounge in the basement of the building! It was very empty, so I am looking forward to escaping to watch British TV soon. With classes beginning tomorrow, I know my hours of freedom will dwindle. But I am very excited regardless.