London, still

This is my second post from jolly old England, and I wish I could write more, but I just don't feel it sometimes. I'd rather not force it and write some crap, but I have a sneaking suspicion that's what you'll be getting right now.

I am sitting in my flat before I leave for class in a little under 2 hours. Monday's are my worst class day because I have Management and Organizational Analysis, which is more boring than it sounds, amazingly enough. My prof is dry and takes about two minutes to speak 10 words. Imagine Ben Stein, with an German-English accent. I use that class for daydreaming and doing work for other classes in order to keep it from being a total bust.

After MOA, I usually head over to the University of London Union, which basically a student center. A few kids from my MOA class head over with me, we eat tasty and inexpensive nachos and shoot pool in one of the bars. It's not a bad way to kill a few hours, and it makes Monday's tolerable.

Monday night includes a class that all NYU students in London have to take called 'Issues in Contemporary British Society and Politics.' I think it's pretty interesting, and we have a new guest speaker every week. So far, we've had a columnist for the Independent newspaper and the head of Prime Minister Thatcher's policy unit--people in the know I'd say. Most people probably don't like the class because it is on Monday night and is required, but it could have been a lot worse.

This weekend was the most work I've done in London, and will be the most work I do until finals. I have to finish a paper for my class on the EU due Wednesday and finish a presentation for my class on Consumption tomorrow. I realized this weekend that I haven't written an academic paper in almost 10 months, since finals of freshman year. Last semester I was taking Economics and Math classes with sporadic problem sets, and even my Politics class had only short answer questions on the final.

This was the first weekend I didn't do one of my now famous jaunts around London. I usually pick a neighborhood to stroll about aimlessly and snap pictures of. I poke my head in various shops and cafes and talk to the locals, where whenever I open my mouth they ask me "Are you American?" There are a lot of Americans in London, which I expected and can't honestly complain about since I am one, but you'd be amazed how few English accents you hear. Most people in London it seems are from somewhere else, either in Europe, Asia or US/Canada. That part is mildly disappointing, but there are still loads of proper Englishmen around.

Lately, for some inexplicable reason, I've been feeling some degree of anxiety. I don't think it's because of school or being away from home or missing people, but it's a very vague feeling. Sometimes it's a headache or a tightness in my stomach. It comes and goes, and I don't really know why it comes or how it goes. It makes me feel very weird.

I was talking to my Dad this weekend and telling him that I don't like sitting inside to do work while I'm here because I feel like I'm missing something 'out there' and should be seeing London. He told me that I should enjoy London and get to see it, but to remember that I'm here for school and that 'Europe isn't going anywhere.' More than most people here in the study abroad program, I really like London. Other kids come back from trips into Europe and talk about hating London and wondering why they picked it. I couldn't disagree more--I like European cities like Paris and Rome, but I've also seen them before, and many of these kids haven't which contributes to their love of it. Those cities are great, but London has something different. It's got cheery locals who you can talk to because you know the language. It's got building that are a thousand years old. It's got fantastic television shows, and theater, and museums. The tiny little streets with pubs and customized umbrella shops. The black cabs with the best cabbies in the world. It's got parks that are a good 15 times better than any park in New York. Go to St. James's Park on a weekend afternoon and see how amazing it is. I really like London.

But I miss New York. Not so much that I'm sitting in my room crying about it, but I definitely miss it sometimes.

London: Delayed

Well, I've been in London for almost a month now, and I haven't written any blogs. I really meant to, but I never knew what to write, so I'll just let it fly with scattered observations on British life as I know it.

Walking around London requires a lot more vigilance than in New York, because streets here aren't straight and often change names at unspecific intervals. You need your "London A to Z" on you at all time to make sure you are passing Cavendish Square and not Russell Square. That being said, it is ultimately more rewarding because I feel so comfortable in almost every neighborhood in New York, and here I am constantly assaulted with new images and sounds. There is a charm in how old and elegant virtually everything is here. Imagine if 75% of New York had the design of the West Village, and that's something of what it's like. This is right up my aesthetic alley, and I have to stop myself from takin pictures of every building that looks like that, reminding myself that I already have some shots of it. I love it.

British accents are not all what you imagine. As an American, it would be easy to assume that everyone in London speaks like Richard Burton, but the variety of London accents is astounding. Across the pond, we assume that everyone in England went to Cambridge and expect them to sound as such, but I find the phoenetic assortment exciting. I have picked up small British speech patterns simply by immersion. I say "you lot" for "you guys", "about" for "around", and "colonies" for "America". Also, the more British people I interact with, the more conscious I become of my own accent. British English, to me, sounds very clipped and precise, whereas American English, particularly that spoken where I am from, tends to be nasal and lets all the sounds in a word whine together until they are indistinguishable. It is very slack-jawed, floppy tongued way to speak. I don't want to be one of those guys who spends 4 months in England and comes back sounding like Jeremy Irons, but some change in my speech will be natural, and I hope it is permenant--it will add some verve to my speaking.

British women are, contrary to popular belief, rather pretty. Italian and French women get a lot of attention, and rightfully so, but just walking around London and sitting in cafes and bars, you see a lot of beautiful English roses about. Plus, they tend to be quick with a joke, which is a sure way to my heart.

British people, refined and classy as we imagine them to be, are obsessed with celebrity news, gossip, and trash reality shows. There are more celebrity gossip magazines here than there are mirrors at a Kate Moss party (oh, British humor is often very centered around schadenfreude.) I can't believe that a country that produces such quality journalism as BBC News, The FT, and The Economist also cranks out Heat, Hello, and OK! It's a duality, people I've met and spoken to around London seem just as happy to discuss Jordan and Kerry Katona as they are to ruminate on the Danish cartoon scandal. Generalists: my kind of people.

American goings on are not very big news here, which I kind of like. I find it somewhat satisfying that I can walk around all day, look at headlines on the front page of The Guardian or The Times (the London Times, the first one) and see news that has absolutely nothing to do with me or America. Here, people were pretty wrapped up with pedophiles in teaching positions and similar such scandals, surely no time to worry about Scooter Libby or Jack Abramoff. If I want American news, I have to look for it. But I'm ok being somewhat removed from the US and it's news cycle, it will make for a fun integration period when I return.

Finally, I don't miss any thing about the States, but I do miss my friends. London would be a totally different, and I think pretty cool, experience were my crew here. But as someone said "absinthe makes the heart grow fonder." Or something like that, I was pretty hammered when that homeless guy said that.

Cheers.