A New Year

Shana Tova everyone! Imagine I bought and mailed you one of these: 

I think I'll start today's blog by pointing out how much I must love my blogging (or those who want to read it) because right now, while I sit here inside my room, typing away, it is sunny and 80 degrees outside. In London. IN OCTOBER. According to the paper the other day we are experiencing "a sumptuous five day interlude of cloudless skies and uninterrupted sunshine with near record temperatures for the season" during the warmest spell of autumn weather for 25 years, after the coldest summer since 1993. I'm assured, quite strongly, this will never happen again while I'm here. Apparently the joke goes "I love the English summer, it's my favorite day of the year!" 

Anywhoo, I think I want to take a minute to just muse about a few things here that I think are different or strange, because I want to be able to look back on this and remember a time when I did think these things stood out to me (assuming in the course of the year I go native). First of all, I know I'm an American prude and all, but people make out everywhere here. All ages. Snogging like fools. I guess it's very European. Second, all of the stores here come in clusters. Walking down Tottenham Court road and you pass by six or seven or eight cell phone stores. Then the same number of laptop stores. Then five banks. Then six homegoods stores. The other day I took a wrong turn and ended up where all the music shops hide. Spoiler alert: It's right next to all the bookstores. The only reason I find this so interesting is that I have no context to distinguish between the stores. So I can't believe it would be possible to survive as a business if say you were stuck in the middle. What could make a consumer walk past three stores that happen to sell exactly what he's looking for to choose your store? Well, maybe a display like this actually

- I bought 15 of these gel pens from Muji, a Japanese homegoods and organizational store, even though I think I plan to type my notes for class - they also sold clothing that had been compressed into cubes there (smaller than a rubix cube), open it up and BAM wrinkle dress. Third, if I ever mention my love of biking, just hit me over the head and drag me back to the States, because I've lost my mind. A lot of people do it here. So many people. It seems so simple, just hop on a bike and get to where you were planning to walk in less than half the time. Plus, you can hire a bike from multiple stations across the city for 1 pound for the day plus the first 30 minutes free of each ride. So I tried it out. It was terrifying. It turns out that knowing how to walk somewhere is not the same as knowing how to get somewhere by bike, bikes have to share the bus lane with double decker buses driven by raving lunatics, and once you get to your destination you realize there isn't any dock in that particular station to leave your rented bike. Or the next station. That, combined with the distinct discomforts caused by biking and the additional carbon you've just sucked into your lungs compared to walking (I just read that study) means no more biking for me in the foreseeable future. Finally, and this is awesome about London, these people really know how to recycle. There are bins everywhere! Compost, plastics, cans, papers, all over the city! They encourage reusable bag use, and don't use styrofoam in their cafeterias. This I can totally get behind. 

Bonus picture time - here's a couple of shots I took with my phone at Buckingham palace: 

Moving on, this past week! Sunday night, watched NFL football at Sports Café near Trafalgar – Saints won (didn’t see the game though, just highlights while they showed the Eagles/Giants). Went to move-in meet and greet night at pub The Ship up on Borough street, then Dover Castle pub with a bunch of Sidney Webb people.

Monday morning – couldn’t log-in to register for classes, woke up late, had to run to LSE with Valerie, got there 10 minutes late. 2 hour intro to department lecture in the Old Theatre. Very, very cold. Met some more LLMs. Had lunch with some old and some new LLM girls in the fourth floor restaurant/cafeteria. Missed the Houghton Street fair so just walked back to the dorm, but on the way stopped at the TATE modern and went through the Surrealism room 

– super cool Dalis but I call shenanigans on some of the works. Truly LOVED this pile of sunflower seeds from the Chinese artist Ai WeiWei.

 Each sunflower seed in the pile was handcrafted out of porcelain. 

Made my way back to my room and signed up successfully (thanks to the orientation meeting) for classes, so I will be taking International Business Law I: Litigation, International Business Law II: Substantive Law, Law of Mergers in EU and US, and one as-yet undecided elective course. Originally I thought it would Human Rights in Developing Countries, because that class has a mandatory essay I thought would fulfill my writing requirement. However, since I intend to specialize in international business law, I apparently have to fulfill my writing requirement in one of those classes (drat!). I intend only to have class Monday through Wednesday so that narrows down my possible electives, but works really well with the Chaggim because the holidays are mostly thursday/friday this year. Monday night I caught up on Boardwalk Empire, went to the Sidney Webb Warden’s welcome party, drank wine, could not hear any of the informational/welcome speeches, met some more students. Walked over to Roebucks across the street for more drinks, made the right decision because the other pub up the street was apparently super crowded and I am not a fan of sweaty crowds in small bars. Came home and yelled at Lloyds AND Bank of America. It made no difference, still can't get any of my money from Bank of America to Lloyds. But I'm planning to drop both of them as soon as possible. 

Tuesday: Woke up super late because of staying up late to argue, walked to Lloyds, started a huge queue but wasn’t super helpful, couldn’t do much because I didn’t bring my passport, apparently although I have an account they admit was set up already, the useful pieces of information, like my identifying signature, are somehow still missing. Have to either find a way to effect a wire transfer or to write myself a check and wait 6 weeks while they collect on the money from Bank of America. Bank of America won’t transfer the money unless I pay them a $20 security fee (because they work for the mob) and a $10 transfer fee because it’s over $1000, and a $35 fee because it's in another currency. Also they just won’t make the transfer and insist that it is Lloyd’s fault. The one interesting piece of information I did get from Lloyd's in person was the correct transfer information, something they failed to provide me with over the phone, though I was on the phone with them for over an hour and spoke to three different people including a manager. The receptionist at Lloyd's managed to give me the correct information. Sigh. Having resolved to find a new bank I walked across the street to HSBC – they want to charge 8 pounds per month for an account. Walked across the street again to NatWest, they had an appointment available on Oct. 20th. Recommended I check out the NatWest on Tottenham Court Road. Walked to school in defeat but beautiful weather. Walked into the Administrative “Old” building, found Valerie already in line with probably close to 100 other students. But the wait was fast and we made friends with a Jewish girl from NYU undergrad and chatted. The line was actually quite quick, they even had someone walking up and down stamping the registration statements so you could just get out of line if that’s what you needed. I stayed in the line, got stamped (just in case it turns out I need it I will already have it done), and then got an official letter from LSE to Natwest that would allow me to open a bank account with them. Walked up to Tottenham court road and found the NatWest, spilled coffee ALL OVER the desk of the girl helping us and she was still nice enough to give me an appointment to come by on Monday to set up an account and verified that the pieces of paper we already have and our passports is all we need! And our accounts will be open that day! Leisurely walked back – did our regular buying of many heavy things and walking the length of the city daily exercise. Sprayed myself directly in the face with some fig linen spray. Didn’t like any of the scents though I want one soooo very badly. Meandered back and picked up very heavy 12 piece plate/bowl set that I then had to carry for another two miles. Stopped by the extremely large mob outside Barclays to ask what they were doing (job fair – scary!) and then Rymans for more stationary goodies and Sainsbury for food supplies. Weighed down we trudged the last few blocks home where I unpacked, enjoyed sitting, and yelled at the internet for just NOT WORKING over an Ethernet connection.Went back to school, via bus this time, to check out the Postgraduate welcome party. The queue stretched an unreasonable distance so we ended up at a different pub on campus instead, with everyone else who had made that same choice. But the weather was so nice everyone could just order drinks and stand outside so it turned out to be a fun time. 

Wednesday was my busy busy day of the week. We had a session from 10-12:30 with an introduction to all things LSE, support services, MOODLE (hahahahahahaha imagine that in a British accent) which is their version of Blackboard, and FAQs about the program. Probably I would have learned more if I hadn't had wifi and my old smartphone. During lunch I confidently strode off to find a Barclays. Instead I found Leciester Square and Covent garden. And while I was never truly lost, I had some general sense of where I would need to go to get back to LSE, I never found what I was looking for either. Humbled, I returned to the campus for a lecture on English Common Law - which didn't do a fantastic job of explaining what common law is to those who didn't know but contained some fascinating tidbits on the rise of police powers in London, where you can be criminally guilty once you reach the age of 10 and the police can fine you for many many things without you ever going to court. The second half of the lecture was about EU law, which was just a civics lesson to the Europeans in the crowd and a whole new world to me. Once the lecture was over I checked out the library on campus, where the staircase looks like this 

Then ran back to the Old building for the law department reception, which was a very sweaty crowded room full of people making exhausting small talk, but a good opportunity to briefly meet a few professors before classes start on Monday. The professors also spoke Thursday and Friday at the "options fair" but Rosh Hashana kept me from attending. 

Which brings me to Rosh Hashana. After the Department reception I walked to the Chabad Center, davened Ma'ariv in an art gallery lent to Chabad and then ate dinner with over 100 other people in a room built to hold 50. But that's what I love about Chabad, they certainly won't say "no" if you need a place to celebrate a chag. I sat next to an American who moved here to do her PhD and an American lawyer from Chicago on holiday, and across from a french couple who study violin at the Royal Academy of Music. Dinner was delicious, and lengthy. I forgot how Chabad works and since we didn't start eating until super late I filled up on Challah and salads, and was completely full by the time the meat course made its way around (after a 20 minutes speech between the two courses of course). I staggered home around 11:30, before they even benched, though I waited and waited for them to finish. The Chabad is located in a very nice shopping neighborhood, Oxford Circus, where the streets are lined with these tall while buildings, all lit up at night and amazingly beautiful. The rest of the way home is a blue, too much food, not enough sleep. 

Thursday Valerie and I made our way over the the Marble Arch Synagogue, where Chabad was holding its services in the Beit Medresh. We got there at 9:45 or 10:00, were interrogated by the Israeli security in true El-Al style "what is your name? Who invited you? The Rabbi? So you must know his name as well?" I definitely felt safer than I ever have at a Rosh Hashana service. It being close to 10 am it was right in time for Shacharit to start. The service lasted until after 1pm. Though it was very pleasant because the Chazan had a truly beautiful voice. The benches however, I take some issue with. They are wooden benches with individual seat cushions for each place. The seat cushions are pumped full of air and there is about a hand's width between each cushion. So if you sit down too quickly, the cushion doesn't have time to deflate and you just end up sliding off the cushion entirely. Once the services had ended and we had survived despite all attempts by the seat cushions to defeat us we walked the slightly more than a mile to the Rabbi's apartment for lunch. Which lasted until at least 5:30pm. At which point I walked home and did not make it back to Chabad for dinner, since I would have had to turn around and leave as soon as I got home. Instead I made the b'rachot for myself, ate some round bread in honey, ate a new fruit, the "Galia" melon, like a honeydew, and passed out. 

Friday, you can pretty much just read Thursday's description and you'll have a good sense for it. Except this time I got to shul at 11:30 hoping to make the shofar blowing and made it for the Torah reading instead (apparently they started quite late). Friday night Sidney Webb did a walking tour down to the river where we sat outside on the deck until they closed it around 10pm. On Shabbat the weather was so beautiful that we went to Hyde Park and picnicked on a blanket by the pond there. It was lovely, the weather was perfect. Stayed until the sun set and then rode the bus back to the residence hall. Checked the mail juts in case and opened it to find a beautiful Rosh Hashana card from Kent, which made my whole day! I called to thank him and we chatted for a bit, I've got some money on my skype account so I can yell at Bank of America when I need to so I have some ability to make calls to the US now. The rest of my Saturday night was quite quiet, since I wanted to feel my best during the fast day today, I lazed around and watched the rest of Game of Thrones (everyone - you were right, it didn't suck as much as I thought it did originally). Now I've spent Sunday sleeping, blogging, and will probably play some football (till I get lightheaded) and watch some NFL football until the fast ends. 

Classes start tomorrow, for the first time in five months I'll be back in school mode. Wish me luck!!