New Friends and Important Lessons

I am pretty much entirely settled into my room now, minus the duvet, and I am happy to announce that the kitchens and bathrooms should be cleaned soon! I believe the past residents must have been terrible, terrible pigs, and their crap is all over the kitchen (unwashed, uneaten, etc). One of the kitchens was cleaned by the students who just moved in because they banded together and scrubbed as a team. The fourth floor kitchen was cleaned by the house staff and I am hoping that they are working their way down the building.

I cleaned up my shower yesterday because I couldn't deal with the copious amounts of hair. I filled a trash can with hair, I kid you not. I'm hoping the culprit has since moved out!

I have met a couple people in my building!

• Serene is an English Lit MA from Singapore and I met her and her boyfriend while I was checking in. We found the grocery store together and have eaten a few meals together. She is a really great person and she said that she is not really big on drinking alcohol or partying, so I am glad that I will have someone to spend my Friday nights with when I don't feel like going out!
• Maia (I've forgotten her major) is from the Czech Republic. She studied at UCL in the past for three years but has since lived in Sweden and Germany. She seems to have very strong opinions about the best places to go shopping in London, and I'm hoping she will let me tag along so that I can find some good clothes stores!
• Cherry is an Architecture postgrad from China. She moved in on my floor two months ago to take an English language crash course, and she doesn't know how to cook at all so she has been avoiding the kitchens too. Her actual name is Chun Li, which I thought was awesome (Street Fighter II: The Legend of Chun Li!), but I had to explain to her why she should have kept her Chinese name, haha. She is very, very friendly, and when Maia and I dropped by to ask her about the internet situation she made us sit down, eat ice cream bars, and promise to teach her how to cook!
• I have met one other person from my floor, a reclusive student from China (or so Cherry informed me) who knocked on my door to breathlessly ask if I had internet and then rushed away before I could introduce myself. I have also seen her dart back and forth to the bathroom a few times.

I am hoping that the internet void will soon be filled. Maia already found internet because she took the place of someone who moved out on the first floor (we call it the second floor in the states), so she is paying £10 a month to share with three other people. Cherry is using internet from the sole administrator in the building on the fourth floor (US = fifth floor) and while she is on the second floor with me she says the service is fine so I am hoping that he will let me use the internet too! Serene found a router in the hallway of her floor but neither of the rooms it might belong to have answered her knocks, so she isn't sure what she will be doing yet either! At the moment I have been using campus internet, and Cherry told me about a library a block and a half away from the house that will let me use their wireless if I show them a university ID!

I have also been working on taking every alternate type of transportation that I can back and forth to my house. Normally, I take the Swiss Cottage underground station which is about two blocks from my house to Baker Street and then transfer to the line that takes me directly to campus. Baker Street is a really neat station. I have a suspicion that it used to be above ground or something, because all of the walls have windows and there are intricate designs carved into the stone. It was opened in 1863 and is very cool looking. I will take a picture next time I am there! This route takes me maybe fifteen minutes, I should think, but costs a bit more at peak times a day!

Because it costs more before 9:30 and after 4:30, I have been experimenting with buses. I have figured out that I can take the 168 to Camden Town and then transfer to the 31 which takes me to a huge station about three blocks from campus. Taking the bus at rush hour may not be worth it though. I went to the grocery store in Camden Town at around 4:00 yesterday afternoon and by the time I got on the bus there was hardly any room for me let alone myself, a backpack, and two grocery sacks! The buses take about thirty minutes I should think.

If I am up for a walk, I have figured out a direct line from Belsize Park to a stop by campus, but this requires a ten minute walk to Belsize from my house, five minutes on the tube, and then another five minute walk once I arrive. Perhaps I will use this route in warmer weather.

Meanwhile, I learned an important lesson about drinking water. When I first got in I was very thirsty, and it is my habit to turn the hot water tap on for drinking water because in my old house it took long enough for the water to get hot that if I used it for drinking, brushing my teeth, etc, then it would be warm by the time I wanted to wash my face. Well, here only cold water taps are potable, and I believe I am beginning to feel the effects of drinking from the wrong faucet on Monday. It could be that I've just been eating unusual food, but things are not super happy in Jessica-land at the moment, and I am hoping that I will be able to stand in line to get my user ID today! I also meet with one of my professors to talk about classes before I enrol tomorrow. That's right, one "l" in "enrol." I am going to be a terrible UK speller!

I haven't looked into getting a phone yet, though I do have two sim cards and another one on the way via post! O2 and another company are trying desperately to get my business by sending me sim cards, but I will have to look into prices and things before I am willing to commit.

Well, I should get going! I'm hoping to be up earlier tomorrow, but right now my problem is that I cannot fall asleep at night until one or two and then I cannot wake up in the morning. Yesterday I slept four hours past my alarm! Whoops.