The REAL Day 1

DAY 1
I woke up this morning when the BEAUTIFUL sun beamed through my windows… at 4:30 AM. Yikes -- totally wasn’t ready for that. I tried going back to sleep, but it was very difficult. My room is really hot (even with the window open). Thankfully, I bought a cool littl
e fan to solve the heat issue. I figured since the sun is up so early here, and since class is so late (10:45), I’m going to start getting into a morning shopping/breakfast routine with some friends. There are lots of cute little breakfast shops that are very close to our dorm – I’ll be sure to snap photos of the ones I eat at.


In other news, I went to my first class this morning! It was… well, because I love Professor Clum, I love anything he has to say. I won’t elaborate on what I do in class on this blog, because I actually am running the group blog for the summer. THAT blog will have in-depth info on classes and such. Link: http://duke09london.blogspot.com/

Our fearless leader:



After class, most of us went out to run some errands and get some lunch. We found this neat little pizzeria that served LEGIT Italian ‘za. We ordered 4 pizzas for the table (11”), and a few orders of garlic bread. Yummmmmm. See for yourselves:


After lunch, the day REALLY kicked off. We met up with Professor Clum at 3, who proceeded to show us some neat parts of London. Also awesome news: I got to ride the classic, red double-decker bus.

Me and Clum on the bus:




View of a London street from the top of the bus:



This here is the ROYAL Opera House of London. AKA, way too rich for our blood. The best opera (and ballet) in the world is performed inside this building.


And here we have an old vegetable market. Still pretty cool, though.
Here we have the National Art Gallery. We went inside (briefly) and saw some reallllly neat art.

Saint Martin's Church:

London skyline and the Thames River:

OY! Big Ben!

The London EYE -- I really hope I can go on this at some point. It's fairly expensive, but it is a 45 minute ride and you get 10 miles of visibility at the top. This thing is TALL!
Group shot!


After our tours, we went to a really neat (and fancy) restaurant called "The Forge". This place was SERIOUS. The waiters all hovered over our tables, making sure we had everything we needed at all times. We ate an incredible dinner, which would have totaled about $800 back home. Thanks, Duke. ;)

I had the RAREST steak I have ever had in my life. It was DELICIOUS. Also included: a side of salmon cakes, chips, salad, and the most heavenly lemon tart I have ever had. Oh, and also 5 glasses of wine. Need I remind readers that the drinking age here is 16? Awesome. But seriously, Clum bought us 2 bottles, and they kept refilling my glass!

After the delicious dinner, we went to see our first show: A Little Night Music. The show was in the Garrick theater down on the West End. If the show was so spectacular, I would have been pissed -- no A.C in the theater, and London is going through a heat wave right now.

But the show... WOW. Now I know why this place is the cultural center of the world, and even more so the theater center of the world. The show was a whopping 2 hours and 50 minutes long, but it flew by. A Little Night Music is a Sondheim musical. Sondheim, to the Brits, is basically considered God. The music was unbelievable, and the actors all did a tremendous job. More details will go up with the group post.

The program cost 3 pounds, but here is a free flyer:








I'm SO TIRED. Bed time. Hopefully more to come tomorrow!