Day Two: Back to School-In Baker Street!

Bright and early this morning (well, Richard was bright, and it was early) we headed off to take the tube to London Business School. Pushing and shoving were required to get on the train, and I was relieved to see that the Brits handled it with the same equanimity as the Chinese in Hong Kong. (The tube even has the exact same recording of a women stating "please mind the gap between the train and the platform." lol.)

On the way to the tube station we strolled casually by Tower of London and Tower bridge-just a part of our daily commute. Wowser.
 After a very crowded and overheated ride of about 20 min, we got off at Baker Street Station.  After passing the Sherlock Holmes museum we made a right turn into the school campus, and got Richard's student ID and course packs before orientation started.  It should be a FUN program. There are some student organized tours of London which we plan to attend rather than doing everything on our own, so that should be a great way to meet people.

 We basically spent the day networking and meeting with other exchange students, getting to know people in the program. Our assigned student mentor is super-nice, and seems extremely well-connected, so we really were blessed with that selection as he is a networking godsend.  We took a couple hours in the afternoon to attempt to track down some hangers, vitamins, laundry detergent, a top sheet, and a neck pillow. We took the subway 5 stops just to try an Argos store, which someone said might have these things. Not so much. It was sure a crazy store though-totally blew our minds when we figured out how it worked...basically you just step up to this little terminal that has essentially a laminated mail order catalog in front of it.  Then you flip thru the catalog, find the item you want, and type in the sku number. We asked the lady in front of us about how long it took to get the items after you ordered them, and she said "oh, 15 min to 30 min, depends on how busy they are." We looked at each other, attempting to mentally process..."You mean-today? Now?" Then it was her turn to be confused as she gestured to the 'front desk' of this tiny store. "well, it does take some time to go and get the items out of the warehouse."  WHOA!! This beat wandering the aisles at wal-mart all to pieces, in my book.  Well, until I tried to find things in that stupid catalog. Nothing on our list was there! Nada! Arrrgh. But, on the bright side we now know where to get bathroom scales if our landlords don't have some stashed somewhere. And I managed to procure hangers from a drycleaner we passed on the way back for a little less than a quarter a piece..(yeah, wire hangers to!!).

We also both got pay-as-you-go cell phones so we can talk to each other and other students while we're here. They were super cheap-only about $60 US for us both to have new phones and all the minutes and texts we need for 2 months we will be here-yay for actual competition in cell-phone carriers driving the prices down and creating diversity in the packages! Well, it was nice to find a cheap SOMETHING. The crazy part about the pricing here is that it all mirrors American dollars. "Oh, look, 5 pd footlongs, just like home.  Until you do the math and the footlong is between 7.50 and 8 USD. Then it's not so great a deal. A 5 pd lunch special seems like a good deal, until I work the mental math and realize an 8 dollar lunch special is not really eating cheap...anyway, I'm sure we'll get the hang of it eventually, but probably not fast enough to avoid crazy buys like the 6 eggs we bought at the store for 2.29 GPB = 3.80 USD, making them about 60 cents apiece.  They better have solid gold centers!

Richard en route to his first day of school

Letty geeking out at the Baker Street underground station

Got off the train here at Chancer Street to do some shopping. Conversation as follows.

Richard: We really should get this umbrella, it looks like it might rain hard.

Letty: I'm not paying 15 bucks for some stupid umbrella. 

Richard: (20 minutes later). "So how much does hypothermia cost?"

Ho hum, day is over and tired feet are headed home. You're almost there when you hang a right at the Tower of London!