Update October 15th!!
Getting Out Of London
My First Trip Outside Of London took me and some friends to Bath, Bibury, Stongehenge and Oxford. This was all Saturday, but let me start with other things that happened since the last material update. On Wednesday, my friend Yoni from UCLA came to visit me from Tel Aviv, Israel. He is studying there for the semester, but had some time off to travel. Since then, I have been sightseeing with him quite a bit, and it has been a great time.
When he arrived in London, the events in the Middle East had just begun to really heat up, so it was advantageous that he was able to get out of there for the time-being. He arrived early in the morning and we had a quick bite at a local restaurant, and like me, he didn't understand the English infatuation with beans for breakfast, so he disposed of the beans onto his shirt. See this picture closely for detail.
After he joined me for some classes on Thursday, Yoni and I went to a party in Marble Arch that a couple of the guys on the basketball team were throwing. Their flat was unbelievable, huge rooms with chandeliers and full wall mirrors. These guys had tried to get lodging with LSE, but when their applications were denied, it seems that their ostensible misfortune had a silver lining. On Friday, we decided to go to see Les Miserables near Covent Garden. We purchased Obstructed View Seats for 11 pounds and ate dinner at a nice Italian Resaturant. The setting would have been perfect for a date, but Yoni made decent company.:) Les Mis was amazing, and for one of the first times I felt that I was taking advantage of what London really has to offer.
Before I go on, let me answer some of the requests of my readers to write a bit about my classes and the basketball team. So far I still do not have a set schedule of classes for school, but that is supposedly normal at the LSE. I am pretty sure that I will be enrolled in a Philosophy Class, called Morality and Values, a Government Class called British Political Ideas, and a International Relations Class called The Ethics Of War. For my fourth class I had been scheduled to take a class called Aspects of British Society, but I changed that to a class called Contemporary Europe, and now I have changed that again to an International History class on the Vietnam War. Though I haven't yet been to a lecture for this last class, I hope that I won't have to change it like the other classes. It may sound abnormal, but the LSE teaches full year classes instead quarterly classes like UCLA. This can be wonderful if I enjoy the classes I am taking, but if I don't then it could be a miserable year. Needless to say, figuring out which classes to take for the entire year is much more difficult than just for a quarter.
One more thing on my classes: The Reading Lists. In the States, at least at UCLA, these can be lengthy, but you are expected to read everything. Here, the reading lists can be as long as some of the readings themselves: The British Political Ideas' is over 10 pages long. The question inevitably becomes: Do I have to read all of this? I am still not quite sure what the answer to this question is, but hopefully I will have a better idea when I either finish all the books or get kicked out of school for not keeping up.
As far as the basketball team, some of you have asked for more information, i.e. pics, news, etc. Well, our first game is on Wednesday, and because I missed practice on Saturday for this trip around England, I have no idea how much I will play. My coach has said that if you miss practice you probably won't play, or play much, but the Saturday practice was scheduled at the last minute, so I doubt that he will be so harsh this time. On Wednesday we play Luton, and this is part of our BUSA league schedule, which the more competetive and more important league that we play in (we play in two leagues). Right now I am playinbg everything from guard to forward in practices, so I have no idea where I will suit up if I do get in the game. I wrote an preview article about the team for our school's newspaper, and if it gets printed, I will put a link to it or copy it to the site. And at our game, I will be sure to get a picture of the team for you guys.
Well You Have Made It This Far!!
Read About Saturday's Trip Too!!!
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Saturday's Bus Trip
OK! Saturday, what a day! We awoke at 5:30 and for anyone who knows me they know that I hate
to wake up early. We got our coffee and OJ, and we took a taxi to Earl Courts Station, where we
picked up the bus which would take us to Stonehenge, Bath, Bibury, and Oxford.
Stonehenge was all it had been cracked up to be: a bunch a stones in the middle of nowhere. Stonehenge is perhaps one of the world's most amazing
natural wonders of the world, but one must ask why anyway would want to build it. Some say that it was built for religous purposes and this seems like
the most plausible explanation. It would have taken over 100 years to move just one of the blocks, they say, and yet they did it, whoever they are.
The Heel Stone, which allegedly frames the rest of the stones on the Summer Solstice with the sun. This would seem to imply some type of spiritual caus or purpose, and
The Avenue is off to the East, and it would seem that people walking up the Avenue would see the HeelStone and the Rest of the Stone Formation in line with the sun on
the longest day of the year. Whatever the reason, Stonehenge is the most amazing pile of rocks I have ever seen.
Next we went to Bath, England, which was a Roman settlement about 2000 years ago. It is famous for its hot spring which the Romans used to bath in for health purposes. The water, which naturally boils at over 150 degrees
Farhenheit, is supposed to have healing purposes, but I didnt drink any because it is supposed to taste like......bad.
Aside from the hotspring, Bath is a major tourist attraction for shopping outside of London. It also sits on the Avon River, the same river that flows through Shakespeare's Stratford.
After Bath we made a quick stop in Bibury, England, where a stream runs through the village that has been ranked as England's most beautiful. Bibury sits in the heart of the Cotswolds,
which is a major vacation spot for Londoners. We were only in Bibury for a few minutes, but I was able to take some pictures of the trout which run in what seemed to be the worlds' cleanest and clearest water.
Bibury was followed by our final destination: Oxford, and by this time, we were extremely tired, so when a guard at one of the colleges told us that we had mistook this entrance for the "guest entrance" yoni asked what kind of entrance
we were standing at. The reply, in all conceit, was "Member's entrance." Perhaps that is why I didn't like Oxford very much. In analogous terms, LSE is to Oxford as UCLA is to Stanford. If you go to either of the formers, it is required to
dislike the latters.
I must end this entry now, because I am extremely fatigued, but I hope you have enjoyed it, and don't forget to check out the fifth page of pictures.
more to come......
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