The Strange and Unusual...

Here are a few things we have discovered about London:

• Pedestrians very seldom have the right of way!


• Snow for one day is unexpected. Snow for more than one day is a national emergency and the city shuts down. (Right after our flight landed, over a hundred arrivals and departures were cancelled or redirected and they never got more than an inch)


• McDonald's is delicious and has onion rings, Burger King is no longer appealing because of the origin of the word "whopper"--look it up!, and Pizza Hut is far superior to ours (plated dishes, tons of toppings, etc.)


• The British love WWII! They have taken a fondness because it was fought on their soil and they won. Monuments/murals are everywhere.

• Living in a city preparing for the Olympics is good and bad...they are fixing things up all over the place which means excitement but tube delays and scaffolding...


• Everything is very connected to water/the sea. At any place in England, you are never more than around 80 miles from the ocean.


• The Thames is like a living creature. It has a tide of nearly 30 feet. It has frozen over. It once clogged up (when it was used for waste disposal). And at one high point in pollution...a single swallow of the water could kill you!


• The city is very low lying--only a handful of skyscrapers and mostly away from the center of the city (near Parliament, Big Ben, etc.) There is however, The London Eye--a sightseeing attraction that used to be the largest ferris wheel in the world. Londoners hated the idea of putting up a modern circle next to the all the square historical goodies, and when it did go up they agreed to take it down in 2005. When it came time to knock it over, there was a huge uproar...they have become very fond of it for some odd reason and there it sits.

• Ice cream is sold at almost all theatrical intervals here. (What we call intermission)


• A naked woman can be seen on page 3 of almost all popular newspapers. (This was discussed in one of our classes complete with demonstration)


• It takes approximately 3 hours to wash and dry two shirts, a towel, and a few pairs of socks and underwear in the standard machines provided in our flats....we rewear at all costs (as you can see in some of the pictures)


• London is one of the only places you can stop in to visit dinosaurs between shopping at an anime store and seeing Wicked!!!

Cheers!