First Impressions

I guess I’ll start this first blog post with some housecleaning, namely a shout-out to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for providing the name from the title of one of his songs. I haven’t really decided on how I plan to format these posts and reserve the right to change it up whenever, the one thing I have decided though, is that I will try my best to post every Sunday afternoon. 

My trip to London was uneventful in the extreme. I flew a short hop from BWI to Boston, made the mistake of following the signs to Terminal E and emerged half an hour later from the bowels of Logan airport in the international terminal (apparently there’s a bus that makes this changing terminals much easier). My friend Anna from the summer was a rockstar and came out to meet me during my layover while I frantically tried to call all of my credit cards and alert them that I was leaving the country for the year. This was also the moment that I realized I had overlooked my credit card payment due Sept. 7th and was treated with the utmost suspicion by the woman on the phone when I took it upon myself to call and make the payment “but how are you planning to pay the NEXT ($40.) payment due October 7th” “none of your damn business actually” “it is my business because I’m in collections” “No, I’m afraid collections doesn’t mean concerning yourself with payments before they come due” “well what was your hardship this time?” “Forgetfulness? Brought on by a little life-change called moving to another country!” Luckily my experience with the Verizon customer service made it all better, as I waited to board the plane I called to suspend my service, something you can apparently only do for 6 months, but the saint on the Verizon side of the call placed me on active military status abroad for the next year and all was well.  

Once on the plane to Reykjavik at 9:30pm, it dawned on me that the flight was only 4 and a half hours, which meant we would land at 6am Iceland time, 2am my time. This, combined with the half-an-hour nap I caught on the plane and a drizzly cold day in Iceland, plus the horrific cold I’ve had for a week convinced me to stay in the airport for the 10 hour layover. What was truly awesome about Iceland though, is that you have to get your passport stamped even if you just stay in your airport, then stamped back out once you go to your gate, which you can only do an hour before your flight. The airport was truly gorgeous, with lots of glass walls and Jerusalem like stone on some. When I arrived at 6am it was bustling, shops were open, cafes were open, I lay down on a couch in the café area and while I was aware it was quieting down, and then there were sounds of cleaning it was still creepy when I woke up at 10am and realized every. Single. Person. Had left. The café was closed, the shops were closed, and I was the only living being left in this wing of the airport. I slept until around 2pm when I was joined by an Israeli and eventually his wife, who offered me dates (the fruit) and told me stories and spoke to me in Hebrew until we boarded the flight. Dad, he says that because America is a failing empire you should move your family to Israel, when I told him what you do for a living he pointed out there are TONS of synagogues in Israel. Just saying.

 The flight to Heathrow was another of about 4 hours, I watched Crazy Heart and think maybe Maggie Gyllenhall (sp?) deserved more acclaim than Jeff Bridges but it’s been out for so long I’m not comfortable engaging anyone in dialogue about this movie. When I arrived I was disappointed to discover my luggage had arrived with me, but the best thing about Heathrow is that the luggage trolleys are FREE. So I took two. My duffle bag chose that moment to explode, giving up on life completely. I changed money and checked my email at a small station near the exit, and was delighted to see that the LSE accommodation staff had deigned to answer my increasingly frantic and finally downright nasty e-mails asking if I would be able to move in late Thursday night when I arrived. I had already booked my ride through hotel-by-bus for the next morning but they switched it to that night for me. The “bus” was a minivan, the driver was a wizard who managed to fit my luggage in the back with two other bags (I had five). The drive itself was nauseating, I was sitting in the front, frantically pressing down on the non-existent brake pedal in front of me every time we got too close to the car in front of us, unable to convince myself that the well-being of everyone in the car was NOT my responsibility. After arriving at the residence hall I asked the security guard if I should tip the driver and got a “hahahah oh you Americans, always trying to tip everyone” response, so I just thanked the driver and hauled my bags inside. I made the mistake of buying the “bedding package” which was as far as I can tell, designed by someone with a deliberate eye to clash horribly with the room curtains. 

Friday I spent wandering around the neighborhood, changing money, running errands, unpacking, etc. Spending money is difficult because I have to adjust to recognizing the new coins, but I’m learning. I explored the Borough market – like a nearby farmer’s market – walked across the London bridge to the Monument (very impressive, I think it commemorates some big fire), and found the nearest big grocery store. Late that night I walked across the Tower Bridge (way more impressive than the London bridge actually, although the London bridge has pretty lights on the side at night). At the end of the Tower bridge is the Tower of London. I thought it would be bigger. It’s hard to even tell which tower is THE tower. There are four of them. And THE tower keeps being identified on the information plaque as the one that was painted white. But it hasn’t been since the 1700s so that’s not very helpful now is it? There is a nice walking path around the Tower that I took and I checked out the ticket prices, about 20 pounds/adult, so I think I might save this until my parents come because I don’t really want to pay for entrance more than once. 

The next day I finished unpacking and did more walking around, this time along the Borough high street away from London (so I guess South?). My room finally came together, everything was unpacked, the only thing I don’t have (still) are skirt hangers, so for now my skirts are just draped over my chair. The weather on Friday was gorgeous but Saturday saw the first random rainstorm, which disappeared within an hour but left quite a chill behind it. Saturday night I met up with a partner from the law firm I worked at over the summer in Trafalgar square. I took the Tube there without any incident, but once I arrived at the stop it took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to get to the Sports Café we were meeting at. Also I have trouble pronouncing TraFALgar Square correctly, the temptation to place the emphasis on the first syllable trips me up every time. Anyway this place played a lot of the NCAA football games on a lot of TVs, unfortunately not the MD game but you can’t have it all. I thought the Tube closed at 12:30 or so, based on the last train information out of Borough station, but when I got back to the station it was closed to I got to ride in one of the famous black cabs instead. 

Today, Sunday, I had seen a sign in the residence that said “Wanna play football? All levels of experience and gender welcome, meet Sunday at noon at the reception desk.” I took the sign up on its offer and met a couple of boys who took me across the street, literally right across the street, to a small public pitch and playground and basketball court and ping pong tables. I know the sign said “all levels of experience” but it’s been over 7 years since I’ve played soccer and none of the people playing looked “inexperienced.” I was of course the only girl, and super nervous to not completely embarrass myself. I managed in fact to embarrass myself almost immediately by ducking instead of heading a ball coming right towards me, but I made up for it the rest of the games by being right where the ball was at times when almost everyone else was not. We played one game to a draw and won two more, lost the last one (my fault but I TOLD them I was not qualified to be goalie). It was a really fun time, when I left I was complimented on playing well by a one of the non-LSE people on our team, I assume he said the words “for a girl” in his head J. Hopefully I’ll have time to go back next weekend.

 Random notes: 

The living situation is very much a dorm. You enter the flat into a communal hallway, there is a very large communal kitchen behind one of the doors. The rest of the doors are just into the rooms. It’s small, but everything seems to fit and there is as promised an en-suite bathroom. A third-world bathroom where the bathroom and shower stall are the exact same thing, with a hung curtain to separate the two but at least I’m the only one using it. I’ve met a couple of my roommates, an American girl whose mother is staying with her here until sometime middle of this week, a boy from Kazakstan by way of Moscow and a boy from India. There is at least one other person who lives in the flat I haven’t met, although today after I came in from the football games I saw two people sitting in the kitchen. I opened the door and we all just stared at each other and the older man was finally like “I’m taking a police report...” and I was like “um, why? Did something happen here” and then there was an extremely awkward silence and he goes “I need privacy to take the report.” I left as gracefully as possible, but I think perhaps if you need privacy, the police station would be better? Than the COMMUNAL kitchen? So that’s this week’s mystery. Who is this boy? And why was he in the kitchen making a police report?

Pros:

I seem to be able to understand people when they talk

Pharmacists can prescribe medicine

There is a bar, within walking distance, that is showing the Saints game tonight

They write, on the street, which direction you need to look before you cross. I think though, that if you were going to spend THAT much money to ensure people don’t get killed because you don’t have enough faith that your citizens can figure it out themselves because it’s backwards from everyone else in the world, that maybe you should just give up on the whole thing. 

Cons:

I don’t have internet in my dorm yet, because apparently you need to register at LSE first, and I don’t register until Friday. I also can’t use the computer room in the residence either for the same reason. This is a problem because I have a skype interview on Wednesday and I had planned to just hole up in my room to answer and that is no longer a viable option.

I also don’t have a bank account. This matters because you can’t get a phone contract without a bank account, so I am phoneless until then. I do have a phone in my room, but I don’t actually know how to use it.

End Note: 

I’m having a good time, things are going well. I bought a really really cool printer for way too much money. I’m in the market for a surfboard and a horse share. I’ve been emailing BJJ schools to see if I can find somewhere to train in the vicinity.

 If you’d like to send me something (or visit!) I’m at 

Shoshana Zimmerman
Room F401.6
Sidney Webb House
159 Great Dover Street
London, UK SE1 4WW

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