Our Flat.

In the interest of this being rather self-explanatory and your probable lack of desire to read anything...here are pictures of our flat and the surrounding area! Sorry it took so long to post, we were busy exploring. Also, I couldnt take a picture of the bathroom because it is too small to get a picture of (but it has the essentials)!

 **you can click on the pictures to make them bigger (recommended)**

The entrance to our building

The street our building is on, pretty snazzy I do say.

The bed area

sitting/studying/anything area

View from the kitchen

View from the window, sunshine included!

dining table (where we entertain our future guests ;) )

Kitchen/Dining Table

At the park outside our flat

Regent's Park Lake

Natural History Museum

We decided to make our way over to the Natural History Museum as it was only a quick walk from our last place....and FREE. So as poor college kids we couldn't resist. The building itself established way back in the day in 1881 and has 4+ millon visitors a year, yes I googled it. It stands out as it is massive in size and an architects dream.

View from across the street

Entrance

Main Hall and largo Dino

Our Fist Stop was of course the monkeys...aka Primate Exhibit. Nothing special as there were no live monkeys present except for the one I deal with on the a daily basis. We did however learn some interesting facts about them.
        - A group of monkeys is called a "Troop"
        - Orangutan are the largest fruit eating animals....Might be my new favorite animal due to this fact

Flying skeleton monkeys

Second, we stopped at the Cretaceous era which unfortunately was nothing like Jurassic Park but we did make it back alive so thats always a plus. There were mostly just casts of different types of dinosaurs and a few fossils. However, they did have a animatronic T-rex made out to be the fiercest dinasour among them. How is it this is the most feared dinosaurs and its arms weren't even long enough to reach its mouth? I mean it cant even brush its own teeth! Also, I was reminded that a great deal of them were herbivores and felt like I could have some new friends....if only they were still alive. Damn you Asteroids or Ice Age or was it Volcanoes? All I know is that I lost some friends.

 "I like plants! I'm an herbivore"

"Im small but I've got spunk"

"Drink your milk or you will go extinct like me!"

"RAAAR, Im scary and have bad breath"

Our Third stop and last, as Suzanna was getting tired and hungry, was the marine area. Suzanna raced off to go see the dolphins even though I explained to her that they were "pretend dolphins". When I finally caught up with her she had quickly moved on to observing the narwhal as well as the other mammals hanging from the ceiling.

"I wish I was a dolphin, so majestic"

"Cuties in front!"

Imagine if whales could walk....

Overall, it was a great time and we left more to explore for another time. We did thing about buying some souvenirs but they were crazy expensive so opted to save our money for dinner and alcohol. By the way, there is no 2 buck chuck over here which is very unfortunate when the cheapest bottle is £6 (~$9.50).

***Suz is responsible for the captions***

The Token Americans

Suz and I have both started our programs and have quickly found out that we are the only Americans in our particular program, or is it programme. Regardless, the students seemed to ask a variety of interesting questions... the most interesting questions I got were, "Is it sunny every day in so cal?" (Yea pretty much), "The beer sucks there doesn't it?" (compared to here, kinda....but I still miss blue moon), "Have you been to mexico?"(random but yes and made it back across). Suz has been told "we dont really like your president, sorry" and asked "how come people from America dont wear enough clothes? (aka why do we dress so scantly)"

My program is pretty sweet, only have to meet once a week and the other days I will be working at home on my research/reading/collecting and analyzing data. I guess I still will be very busy but just in a different way from undergrad. I then get to start an internship in the winter which I am excited and cant wait. They seem to have a great number of contacts so getting a job shouldn't be a problem, even one near home at UC Berkeley!

A key difference over here are the professors. They are brutally honest and within the first day we had already been to the bar and they were more then willingly share their life stories; never had such a great experience and look forward to the lectures. 

Suzanna decided to switch her whole program to focus in History of the Middle East. She is now taking Arabic, Modernity and Transformation and Research Methods. After many days of deliberation and stress she finally seems to be happy. Plus she has a great opportunity to possibly continue into a phD program over here. She is such a smarty pants!

We move into our new place tomorrow, pictures will follow shortly after! Also, soon to come: pictures from our adventure at the Natural History Museum. 

London-Town!

Sorry it has taken us so long to post something; I know that you are all waiting for our first update!

Things started out a little rough with Calvin's plane being delayed forever and the whole time change thing I completely underestimated. We may have slept for the majority of the first days...only to wake up to eat.
We finally came out of our cave, quite literally we are living in a basement at the moment, to explore all of the classic London sights and eat some fish n chips.

Some building  and calvin ;)

             

 Big Ben and London Eye                                               Fish n Chips


A couple of things we discovered was the the underground or "tube", for those of you not as cool as us, is incredibly hot and sticky. Crossing the street is also not to be underestimated....probably my biggest problem at the moment, I keep looking the wrong way thinking no cars are coming...wait until I get on a bike. Tofu, refried beans, and tortilla chips are a valuable commodity unless you are willing to make the trip to the one Whole Foods and pay an arm and leg for it. Lastly, the diversity is astounding I absolutely love it. People from all over the world with all different types of foods, languages, and styles of dress.

Calvin and I went to orientation this past week, I somehow missed my registration ( :)). Calvin's school is in Hendon, about a 30 min tube ride north of central London and my school is a 15 min walk from our apartment in regent's park. His school actually has a nice campus, mine is a collection of buildings surrounded by bars (the apparent after class study/hangout place).

Lastly, our apartment/ flat is in the works, we had a viewing and will move in later this week. There is a huge park with the London Zoo outside our window and a cheap student bar down the street.

                                                   The tube stop by our Flat in Russell Square


We love you all and will update you with another riveting adventure when we can.