Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. It's been a good three months here in London; I've learned, grown, ate, drank, and picked up some valuable memories and resume-building experience along the way. As things begin to wind down at work, and people start to get into the Christmas spirit, I think a lot about what it'll be like going home, and what I'm looking forward to (and not looking forward to).
What I'm Looking Forward to: Sleep Yeah, that'll be nice. Not burning through money like a broker with a flamethrower London is one of the most expensive cities on Earth, and presents a unique opportunity to travel to places I would never think to visit otherwise. This, while a once-in-a-lifetime experience, is a recipe for spending money at an unprecedented rate. Couple that with the lack of income from work, and you can see why my budgeting skills have been pushed to their limits over the past three months. Seeing my family I'm very close with my whole family. As such, missing Thanksgiving with them for the first time was hard for me, and I'm excited to get back for Christmas. Skype just doesn't really cut it, I've learned. What I'm Not Looking Forward to: Driving One of my favorite parts about London is how accessible everything is. If you can't walk somewhere, chances are it's just a short tube or bus ride away. And while, in reality, 'short' is subjective (my commute is 45 minutes every day), the fact is that London, like many big cities in general, is much more compact than Ohio, so going back to driving five miles to get anywhere will be an adjustment. Not Being in London There is something about London that is alluring to me; the energy, the organized chaos with which it operates, the unique mixture of modern megacity and old European cultural hub, it truly is a remarkable place. I desperately want to come back one day, maybe even live here for a time (preferably with more money). Even in three months, there's so much that I couldn't fit into my schedule. I don't even know if it's possible to experience everything London (and the greater UK) has to offer, but I'd love to come back and try. If I'm not mistaken, this should be my final blog entry for this trip. Please give me a good grade. Cheers, Connor
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The prevailing slogan among the group of us here in London was: "Well, it's either $100 now or $1300 some other time," referencing the relatively low cost to travel around Europe from the UK as opposed to flying over from the US. This mentality justified two more trips (in addition to those already discussed in the previous post): Copenhagen and Dublin. Copenhagen Copenhagen is the capital city of Denmark, and (shockingly), it is very cold when you visit in the middle of November. You may be wondering, 'Connor, how come you had time to visit Denmark, but not Paris?' Well, I like to go off the beaten path, because I'm a rebel. Anyway, Copenhagen, as cold and rainy as it was, is a very nice city. It has your standard European landmarks, canals, castles, old churches, great food, better English than some places in England. Here are some of the places we visited: Dublin
I don't really have many pictures from Dublin, mainly because the national pastime is not one that is appropriate for such an upstanding university as the one we are all blessed to be a part of, however I am going to sum up my experience by describing a single moment: At one point on a Saturday afternoon, I was sitting down, in a pub, with a plate of bangers and mash (that's sausage and mashed potatoes, for the uninformed), and a Guinness, listening to the live music absolutely crush it on the violin and guitar (playing some local music in addition to tourist requests), and in that moment, I just thought "Yes. I've done it. I've found peak Ireland." In the next entry, I will discuss (reluctantly) my return to the good old U.S. of A. Cheers, Connor When you spend an extended amount of time in London, it is somewhat expected that you will do all the touristy things. Museums (which are free and that's awesome), Buckingham Palace, the houses of Parliament, Big Ben, the Tower of London, the list goes on forever. It's pretty much impossible to see everything, especially when the rest of Europe is so tantalizingly close, but I've certainly tried. There's plenty of evidence of that in the Pictures tab. Here are some of my favorites so far: The Natural History Museum If there's two things I love in this world, it's amazing old buildings, and science. Both are on display in spades at the British Natural History Museum. I particularly enjoyed the nostalgia trip that was the dinosaur exhibit (I was quite the junior paleontologist growing up) Greenwich That's Greenwich as in Greenwich Mean Time. A personal favorite joke of mine is to say that Greenwich is where they invented time, but really it's just where they developed the units for tracking its passage. It's also where you can find the National Maritime Museum, the fun little town of Greenwich, and a great view of Canary Wharf (the building with the pyramid on top in the picture above is where I work). Amsterdam While not located in London, the city of Amsterdam is still a beautiful, interesting European city. A short hour flight from scenic London Luton airport, Amsterdam has the feeling of being older than London, with more Victorian-style architecture and not as much of a modern downtown with skyscrapers and serious men in suits, at least not that we saw on our weekend journey. It also has a much more relaxed atmosphere that I noticed (I can't imagine why that is).
That's all for now; stop back in a few weeks and I'll rant about my job at you. Cheers, Connor London is a massive, chaotic, cluttered mess of different cultures and nationalities. If you take a walk through the city, you'll see people from any number of different countries speaking any number of different languages (not on the tube, talking in a crowded train is a crime punishable by death), and eating food from all over the world. Within a five minute walk of King's Cross station (where I live), you can get Thai take-away, Indian food, kebabs, noodles, burgers, pastries, burritos, sushi, Italian, pizza, and McDonald's, all crammed between the pubs that exist every five feet throughout the entire city.
Pub Culture One of the defining traits of London, and the UK at large, is the pub culture. Drinking is something the British people have been doing for hundreds of years, and they've gotten very good at it. Pubs are the social hubs of the city, you go after work to have a casual drink with coworkers, you go on the weekends to catch a sporting event or simply celebrate being out of the office; if you live in London, chances are you've spent more than your fair share of hours in a pub. 5th of Novmber A major British holiday that I've had the pleasure of being a part of is the 5th of November. On that day in 1605, a man named Guy Fawkes tried to destroy the houses of Parliament. He failed, and now the British people celebrate every 5th of November with lighting off fireworks and burning him in effigy. It's a rather strange celebration, and there isn't really a holiday in the United States that compares. Sunday Roasts My personal favorite British tradition, and one that I'm surprised hasn't made the jump to the U.S., is the Sunday roast. Basically, every Sunday, local pubs and restaurants will serve a huge brunch-esque meal, complete with traditional British cuisine. Chicken, lamb, beef, roasted potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, veggies, all topped with gravy and served in very American-sized portions. Needless to say, it's a wonderful experience. Well, that's it for this entry. See you next time, where I'll be talking about my favorite places to visit, in both London and the rest of Europe. Cheers, Connor As required by the esteemed International Experience Program at the University of Cincinnati, this page will serve as an account of my three-month internship in the city of London, so as to not lose that sweet sweet scholarship money. I will be writing about my experiences here, the local culture (and how it compares to what I'm used to in the United States), the places I go, the work I do, and an assortment of other things. Today, we're going to start with my arrival to London, and my first few weeks.
The Flight Fortunately, the flight in from Columbus was relatively uneventful. I flew from Columbus to Atlanta, stayed in Atlanta for a few hours, then took the eight-hour voyage over the Atlantic to the UK. It was boring, for sure, but boring is good when you're 20,000 feet above an ocean in a flying tube. Also, an observation: I didn't sleep at all on the flight, and powered through fatigue on Sunday (I arrived at around 11:30 local time), not falling asleep until around 10:00 that night. There were parts of Sunday that were a bit rough, but by Monday morning I was completely adjusted to the time change, no jet lag in sight. London First Impressions London, as I've experienced it, is an incredible city. The diversity, the culture, the amount of people that can be crammed into a single train car, I've never been around anything like it. You could live here for years and not experience everything it has to offer, so me only being here for three months means my schedule is going to be full. The fun train will, as they say, have no brakes, between work and meetings and travel and everything to do in London. I'm sure I'll sleep and eat in there somewhere. Maybe. I'll be back in a few weeks with a focus on the unique culture of London, and the UK at large. Until then, there's a slideshow with some pictures from our first few weeks... Somewhere. Probably. Cheers, Connor |
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