My first day(s)

Such beautiful weather! Over 24 hours here and it’s been clear blue skies and warm enough to be Autumn in San Francisco. Not exactly the London you picture in guide books.

I arrived in London early Thursday morning. I have come to the ultimate conclusion that Heathrow is not such a miserable airport, provided it is your final destination and you don’t need to transfer. I couldn’t find my airport greeting person from SOAS, so I hopped into one of the famous London black taxi. Now, now you budgeteers may think me mad for spending nearly £60 to get all the way across London when the tube and train are way cheaper, but picture this: me struggling trying to roll 2 large suitcases at once with two smaller bags on top of them, and my backpack on my back to boot! No way I was going to walk around carrying more than my own body weight through the London Underground.

I arrived at my residence, Dinwiddy Hall, by late morning. It is a huge building filled with what the Brits call cluster flats – meaning all the rooms are in pod groups of 5-7 centered around a shared kitchen. I have my own tiny room and bathroom, or as I lovingly call it, a water closet with a cement floor! The room is pretty poorly lit but I have a big window that overlooks the courtyard so there is not so much street noise. Despite my need for sleep, I dropped my things on the floor and headed out on the town for some much needed essentials (i.e: bedsheets and pillow). I milled around Islington and discovered Chapel Market, indeed a dying tradition. There were lovely fresh vegetable stalls, clothing vendors, and “fishmongers”. Historically Chapel used to be vibrant, bustling with all sorts of people all day every day and it used to take up many blocks. Today it has significantly shrunk but the vendors are still quite desperate for a sale just as buyers are hungry for a bargain. I bought my bed sheets, pillows, and comforter from a young Moroccan gent. Mine are plain but his stall had many duvets styled from all the top selling movies.

I also went grocery shopping at the local mega-grocery store, Sainsbury. It was not a cheap day, let me tell you. So I bought enough supplies to make a chicken stir-fry which will probably last me 2 days. Now most of the day and evening had gone by and I had yet to meet any of my flat mates. Yesterday was a constant stream of closing and opening doors and no one seemed too interested in meeting me. But then I got back from shopping around 19:00 and found Iko in the kitchen, a lovely SOAS grad student from Japan. She is studying Arabic and Iraqi history. I was so fascinated. Apparently there are two other people in the flat, two “unfriendly” Korean guys. But they are moving out saturday to make way for the “freshers”. We shared some dinner and I unpacked everything. Figured the “new place” jitters would go away once I made this place my own.

I went to bed early but got woken up at midnight – by the fire alarm! Now, the unfortunate thing about this building is that it is kind of like the pentagon but in order to get out from our flats you need to walk out to the courthouse and back into the building to get out to the street. Design flaw, no? I rushed outside while other students, more clothed than me, took their time and didn’t even want to get out onto the street. I was floored. Where were the RAs? Oh wait, there are no RAs! This building is owned by a private company. We only have a security guard at night. Groggily, I drudged back up the stairs and fell asleep again. Woke up at 6 am, went back to bed until 11 am. 

So today I just got back from trying to settle my payment balance. Thanks to British style bureaucracy I was shuttled from room to room, from registry to accounting to cashiering to registry to the door. Hopefully all is taken care of. At least I managed to pry a receipt out of them.

And now I am off to the local mall to buy a mobile phone. I may even attempt the bus! Though I have pretty much resolved that one of the best ways to save change is that if I’m going anywhere under a mile, I’m walking. At least until I get my oyster card.