Alas, Fun!

Finally I've started to get over my jet lag (it took about a week) and have actually been out and about and having loads of fun! I arrived at Goldsmiths Wednesday evening after a long coach ride from our hotel. It had started snowing quite hard when we were loading our stuff up, so everything looked absolutely beautiful as we were driving across town. Of course, the snow made it impossible to take pictures while on the coach, but I'm sure you'll all survive. I've got plenty of others. But on this drive for the first time I felt really and truly excited to be here. We got such an amazing look at the city and I couldn't help but be ecstatic. There was so much to take in--very overwhelming. But unbelievably awesome, of course.
When we got to campus I basically stayed in my room for a day and a half. I was tired still and didn't have the Goldsmiths orientation until friday, so I spent the majority of my time trying to catch up on sleep. On friday all of the visiting international students met up in a lecture hall where we were talked at for a few hours and then given a tour of the campus. Mostly everyone was freezing and didn't want to be outside, but I guess it was pretty beneficial. After that I was basically exhausted and went to bed at about 7:30. I awoke a few hours later to pounding at my door. After trying to ignore it for a few minutes, I got irritated and got up only to be tormented by a girl I hadn't met. I said a few unsavory words to her and shoved her out. I later learned this was a failed attempt at "Lads On Tour," a game invented by one of my flatmates. Ideally, it's where a big group of people bangs on an innocent victim's door and yell at them until they answer. When they do, the group rushes into the room, jumps on the bed, causes destruction and won't leave for quite some time. On this night, no one else wanted to do this to me because I'd just gotten in and was still suffering from jet lag and they all felt bad for me. Except for Bianca, who apparently tends to get out of control when she has too much to drink. This was all explained to me the next day when my flatmates came by to apologize for her. She did the same when I met her the following night. So it was obnoxious, but not too bad. The only reason I minded was because I had to get up early to take a foot tour of central London the next day.
So I did that. I left with the other American girl who lives in my flat, Sara, to the Main Building where a group of about 30 of us met for the tour, led by a pregnant giant with too much saliva. At least she was easy to spot in a crowd. We walked to New Cross Station, where we took a train to Waterloo Station to begin our tour. Before it even began, I saw Jonathan Waud from the show Make Me a Supermodel, which I think will only be appreciated by my mom. It was exciting though, he's very attractive! So with that good start, we set off, walking around Westminster seeing all the big sites. We saw the London Eye, the outside of the London Aquarium (I hope I can afford to go in at some point!), the Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament (last picture), Westminster Abbey (second from last picture), St. James' Park, Buckingham Palace (third from last picture)...lots of cool stuff. As most of you probably know, I'm not that interested in site-seeing, and this was only made worse by the intensely cold weather. Then after the tour we were to do a "Treasure Hunt," which is just a Scavenger Hunt with a more appealing name. So Sara and I teamed up and were immediately discouraged when we got our seven page (front and back!!) booklet of clues (our Treasure Map, if you will) filled with things like "Why is there a Korean Flag on Northcumberland Avenue?" and "Admiral Horatio Nelson lost his life at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 fighting against Napoleon and his navy. Look up at his statue--and examine it closely--what else is missing from his statue?" WTF, right? We were also reluctant to fight the cold again. But we figured, what the hell? and it ended up being much easier and more fun than we'd anticipated. It was actually great fun and ended up being my favorite part of the tour. I felt like I learned much more about my orientation within the city and found a bunch of neat little shops. Very cool. So we met at a pub where we were too tired to drink and not hungry enough for food and just sat around and talked with some other Americans while the tour guide added up our scores. To our great surprise, Sara and I won! We eat got a ticket to the London Eye, which is an enormous ferris wheel that gives a spectacular view of the city (fifteen miles in each direction!), so that was pretty cool. When we got back home, we went out with some of our flatmates to the Hobgoblin (Hobgob, The Hob, Hobby-gobby), which is the pub that's just around the corner from Loring Hall. It was great fun! We went out the next night as well with an enormous group of bubbly American girls (you can imagine how I felt about most of them...) and our flatmates as well. Apparently we're lucky to have such a great mix of people in our flat. Aside from Sara and I, we've got a music-making Welch guy called James, two very outgoing English guys called Liam and DJ, a tall and super sweet Swedish girl called Ellen, and two loud and fun English girls called Chloe (who is obsessed with Joy Division) and Faith (who is a cheerleader). Everyone is a lot of fun and super nice. We go out as a group very often and spend quality time together in the communal kitchen. It's fantastic!
So, I think this post is probably long enough, as it should be since I've been working on it for days. Enjoy!