Olga in London: The past few days

I had a class on Wednesday morning (here, called a module). Again, it was not much different from classes at Wash U. What was different, however, was the textbook situation. This is what happens. The professor says, this is the book that you need. There are a good amount of textbooks in the library. Everyone rushes to the library to get one. Of course, by the time I got there, there were no books left, but a librarian told me that there were plenty of books left at the other campus (Waterloo). When I went there, there were already people from my class getting textbooks. The only ones left were available for a week. So, I now have a textbook. For a week. I'm not too worried though. I think there are textbooks always available at the library...

I walked back from that campus instead of taking the Tube (mostly because I pass that cute street with Borough Market and that cheese store on it and because I didn't want to feel like a lazy bum). When I got back home (it was only about 12:30 at this point) I decided to cook. I made rice with carrots and yellow, orange and red peppers. It was actually pretty successful!

A company here called Accent does orientation programs for people studying abroad. On Wednesday night, they took all the WU kids in London to see Wicked. It was phenomenal -- just as good as everyone says it is. The theatre was pretty small, and we had good seats!

I had another class on Thursday morning -- Genes, Development and Evolution of Vertebrate Organisms. It's a really small class (about ten people), which is new for me. The lecture was very similar to what a lecture would be like at WU, although I was lost when the professor started explaining the grading system -- he started talking about one-twos and two-twos and one pluses. I have no idea what that means. Before class I took some pictures of Guy's Campus. It's a really small campus. It's basically just one square surrounded by about five buildings.

I got out of class before noon and met Mark at the National Portrait Gallery, which is right by Leicester Square. Brittany also joined us there later on! We started with the Tudors. After that, we went to another floor to see some more contemporary work, which was really interesting and diverse. There was one portrait of the geneticist Sir John Sulston, which was just specks of his DNA. The artist argues that because it was his DNA, it was, in fact, a portrait -- a bit of a stretch, but an interesting idea nonetheless. This is another picture of Leicester Square.

Before taking the Tube to the National Portrait Gallery I finally decided to find out what was on the other side of a tunnel that's right by where I live. It turns out that there's a pretty busy street on the other side that I'll have to explore some more!

Andy Wilson is in London for a few days before going to Hungary! We met Andy and Josh for some pizza, and then Brittany, Josh, Sam, Mark, Andy and I went to a pub. Brittany and I shared a pitcher of a delicious drink with Vodka, pineapple and mango juice, I think.