3,454 miles away

It’s like coming to a new college all over again. I don’t know anyone, it’s normal to attend orientation sessions just to meet new people even though I already know what’s going on, and, somehow, even though I’ve spent years in classrooms, I still don’t know exactly what these British professors expect of me. But that’s all part of the experience. These New York University students are different from their Manhattan College counterparts. To me, they’re all hipsters who care about music, maybe a little too much, and most of them like experimenting with all sorts of drugs. Still, I love their passion for culture that Manhattan College students are usually lacking, and I am making friends and enjoying their music.
 

There was a Tube strike today. I'm glad I have that bike. There was a massive traffic jam winding its way through the city. The cab drivers must love it when the Tube shuts down. At this point, I've ridden my bike past most of the touristy stuff-Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, Parliament, St. Paul's, and over the tower bridge. A bunch of us went to the Tate Modern and saw the Lichtensteins and the Warhols on Sunday before classes started on Monday. Last night offered the opportunity for a relaxing night at a pub right around the corner from the dorm with some of the new people I’ve met here. So far, experiencing the quintessential London stuff. There are no local students around yet, since the University of London does not start until the week of September 27th. When it does, the neighborhood will be buzzing, since University of London has an enrollment of five times the size of Uconn.
 

Classes seem really interesting, for the most part. I have only had two classes so far. One of them appears to be a somewhat technical architecture course, but it seems like it will incorporate some captivating stories of what makes London unique as well. The other seems very good, a class about what has made London a global city in the past 30 years or so, which is more or less some of the stuff I look up on Wikipedia in my free time anyway. These classes, though, are three hours long. This won’t be too bad when the class takes a walking tour of a neighborhood or a trip to a museum, but in a classroom it’s a long time. The material’s interesting, though, and NYU students have told me that they have not had a bad professor. Ever.
 

I was talking to someone here who's been to Dubai. She said it's all so new and shiny, it feels fake in a Disney World kind of way. Everyone here agrees, London's not New York. I think that might be a good thing. I don't need a map any more.