My First Typical Tourist Day

I have never been so tired in my life. I went on a Tube run with my adviser Mat this morning around 11am to find my job. Turns out I have to walk 10 minutes to the Tube stop, ride the Tube for 10 minutes, then ride a bus for 10 minutes, then walk about 5 minutes to get to my office. At least I don't start work until 10am.

Afterwards, I met up with some other people in the program and we took the Tube to Charing Cross Road. We saw EVERYTHING: foreign embassies, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, The London Eye, Parliament, The Stable House (where Princes William and Harry live, in addition to some Duchess and some other royal people), Westminster Abbey, and the Thames River. I took lots of pictures on my new amazing camera; I'll try to post them later. We went to The Queen's Gallery (it was 8.50 pounds to get in), where we saw works by Rembrandt and Caravaggio, and they had a special exhibit of the early sketches of Leonardo Da Vinci. We also saw furniture and paintings dating as far back as the twelfth century, as well as the Royal Crown Jewels.

As this is one of our only free days (no work or scheduled activities), I'm really glad I spent the whole day out sightseeing. I also went by the cell phone store to add minutes to my phone, so it's finally activated so I can make calls. Tonight we have our first group dinner, and after that I'll probably go to sleep early since tomorrow is my first day of work.

#1 bad thing about London so far: the showers. There is only one temperature, scalding hot, and you have to press a button every sixty seconds to keep water flowing.
#2: Almost all drinks are served room temperature, without ice. Even water. I've only seen ice in a drink one single time since I've been here.
#3: The whole wrong-side-of-the-road problem. I always look the wrong way for cars before crossing the road. And people drive faster and crazier than anywhere I've ever seen.

I'll probably be adding to that list as the summer goes on; however, everything else is amazing and I couldn't be happier to be here.