Haven't written one of these about London in a while.

I'm not a big fan of the 'study' in study abroad. This weekend I stayed in London because I knew I wouldn't read 100 pages and write the two essays I had to get done if I went off to explore the European continent. Even with the work, I took time to see more of London. I went to the National Gallery, where there's lots of pictures of people I've never heard of (And a few that I have-Charles Darwin, Paul McCartney, and Winston Churchill among them), as well as some nice Renaissance and Impressionist exhibits. One exhibit was photos taken just this spring of British immigrants to New York City. It was interesting to read about the things they missed about the UK and what brought them to New York. Many were quoted missing British humor but loving the concept of the "American Dream"-the ability to start with nothing but aspirations of fame and fortune and realistically hope to achieve these dreams. Some mentioned that Americans heard their accents and immediately made the British feel welcome. I would like to see an exhibit like this of Hispanic or black immigrants and read about their experiences in New York. I think it would be different.

Sunday morning I went to Spitalfields Market. It is very expensive for a market, but it did have some nice things. Friday I took a 20 mile bike ride out to the Northwest area of London, a place called Edgeware. Located at the end of the Northern Line on the Underground, Edgeware is a middle-class residential area. Think of it as London's equivalent of the outer areas of Queens in New York-a generic neighborhood on the outskirts of the city.

Last Wednesday I started volunteering at an Islington elementary school. I love it! The students are great. While some of the boys in the class are disruptive (The teacher has an aid or two in class at all times helping out), the students I was working with are really sweet, although I had forgotten how hard scissors are for seven-year-olds! They all have wonderful accents, although in their eyes I'm the one with the accent. One boy asked if I was from South Africa. I guess the ties from Britain's empire days still exist, since both the students and my own professors seem to mention the former colonies often and they seem to be the countries the British know most about. Today I went to the school again to volunteer.

Last night I went to see Blood Brothers, a musical running in London's West End, a slightly-less-glitzy version of New York's Broadway. The story of two twins separated at birth was, I thought, quite good with funny dialouge and top-quality singing. Everyone I went to the show with hated it, though. They said the humor was of poor taste and the plot was boring. Maybe I'm the one with weird taste.

It was sunny and warm today. It's been raining in the northeastern United States for days. London gets less than half the annual rainfall of New York. Your mind is blown.