6 Jan

This morning we had our second day of orientation. Katie, Lainey, and I all had a War Studies departmental meeting at 12 and our orientation session was at 11:30 at a different campus so in order to get to our meeting on time, the King’s people recommended we get to Guy’s around 11. We ate breakfast around 10 and then caught our bus. The ride took about 20 minutes and we just chatted about various topics from the price of haircuts to the hotness of our new British neighbors. I was surprised to hear that they are used to $30-$50 haircuts which to me is just ludicrous. I asked them how much they expected to pay for a simple trim and they said about $20. They both attend private school so it could just be that they’re from more expensive areas or what but I was still shocked. As to the hotness of our British neighbors, I won’t really comment. They’re nice guys. Our orientation session consisted of registering for classes and officially with the university and getting our IDs and passwords to e-mail and such. Michelle Mann, the Student Exchange Officer, had unfortunately entered my name into the computer as “Vora Vora” instead of “Sapana Vora” which was a bit of problem. My e-mail address at the time of writing is vora.vora@kcl.ac.uk though I sent in a request to get that changed to sapana.vora@kcl.ac.uk and that address should become active within a couple of days. I had also a name problem for my ID card which I informed the picture takers of before getting it made. I first heard “I can’t change that” and thought ‘oh great’ before the guy added “but I know someone who can” and made the appropriate phone call. Moments later the woman took my picture and so if it looks awful, you’ll understand why. Registration for classes involved us being directed to a computer room with our new forms in front of us, a guy reading off our student numbers to someone on the phone, and…that’s it. We were in the queue for IDs before someone told us to go to the computer room. By the time we returned to the ID room another queue had formed and we were definitely going to be late for our meeting. As soon as all of us had our IDs we booked it for the nearest underground station which fortunately was London Bridge and just a minute’s walk from campus. I was the only one in our group with any real Tube experience and so I led them to the right transfers and such. They seemed impressed by my ease with the Tube until I explained I’ve ridden it and several metros before and that I’ve been in London days longer than many of them have. We finally made it to the Strand campus and the orientation room 10 minutes late while the guy in charge of exchange students was making a speech. The room was old and unimpressive and as he continued to talk, I started to get a bad feeling about the department. He seemed incredibly disorganized and was doing a terrible job explaining the system to new students. He would throw out room numbers and names as though we were all familiar with them before someone had to remind him that we didn’t know where all the rooms were. I felt glad that I only had one class in this department, and I hope my English department will be a bit more organized. When that agonizing meeting was finally over and I had met a couple of more war studies kids we headed to the Student Union in search of lunch. We found a refectory that we passed in hopes of something better, but after minutes of walking up and down stairs we finally made it back to the refectory and had lunch there. The vegetable dish they were serving didn’t look very appetizing so I went with yet another boxed sandwich and a Snapple. I’m dying for some vegetables here. I was pleased to see that they were serving chicken korma and that it looks as though Indian food might also be served in our residence hall. I met some more students at lunch including a neighbor at KCH and towards the end we did a nice little number exchange where everyone pulled out their new cell phones and started calling out their number. It was funny. Since the bookstore was closed and Lainey still needed some school supplies, we walked along the Strand looking for such a place. We found a couple of card (think Hallmark) stores but no such luck. Before we knew it we were in Trafalgar Square and Micah (my neighbor) and I convinced Lainey to try to climb onto the back of one of the lions like we saw people doing. She dragged another student named Steve along with her and though they made it as far as standing next to the lion, they didn’t quite make it on. Pity. The hour was drawing near for some of the students to attend another departmental meeting so we headed back to the Strand. The rest of us caught a bus home where we rested for a while before agreeing on dinner at The Fox at 6:30. Two other girls, Kate, Margaret, Tom, and John joined Lainey, Micah, Gregg (another neighbor) and I in the reception foyer and from there we made the grueling 3 minute walk to The Fox. The Fox is short for “The Fox on the Hill” and it’s the local pub that is going to become almost too familiar to all of us at KCH (King’s College Hall). But hey, the food is cheap, close by, and pretty good. Lainey and Margaret split a pitcher of vodka-cranberry which I tried and found to be quite tasty. Gregg also let me try some of his pear cider which was also pretty nice. Dinner and drinks took about 30 or so minutes and we hung out on the corner waiting for the British kids to show up. They wanted drinks and so we all went back in. The Americans drank some more along with the British and Micah and I were the only two not drinking. Yvonne started into a Scotch and whiskey and Lainey swears that girl can drink anyone under the table (she’s Irish after all). We didn’t leave the pub until about 9. From there we caught a bus up to Leicester Square to find a club for more drinks and dancing. The first place we stopped at seemed really neat and Ed, one of the Brits, said it was a pretty nice club. The man at the door said he’d charge £5 per person. Yvonne said we should check out more places and so we found another place that looked smaller and less busy but had no cover. After flashing our driver’s licenses and passports to the doorman, we entered a loud and smoky cave. The music was nearly deafening but rhythmic and of course everyone (except Micah and I) made a beeline for the bar for the first of many drinks to follow. Kate let me try her vodka-Red Bull which was also quite interesting. It seemed like the drink of the evening and after looking at the menu I saw why; it was simply the cheapest thing to order. As everyone except Greg got steadily drunk, Micah and I started to feel more and more out of place. He left around 10:30 to meet some friends of his nearby and I remained the only non-drinker. I didn’t mind as conversation was impossible and it was kind of fun to watch the spectacle. Someone found the dance floor below around 11 so we all headed down there. The music ranged from early nineties (think Montel Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It”) to today’s Usher’s “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” with some Michael Jackson “Thriller” in between. They even played some bhangra which made me happy but I can’t dance bhangra very well to begin with and wearing 2.5 pound boots doesn’t help either. Oh well. More dancing and drinking ensued and we didn’t leave until just after 1. Ed was completely smashed and Yvonne was looking a little unsteady herself though she remained completely lucent (I guess it must take a lot to really get her hammered). They managed to get us on the right bus and if they had failed to pick the right one I knew that I always could. No one seemed really drunk except for Ed on the ride home, just tired. We missed our stop which annoyed Yvonne a bit but we were heading the right way to KCH in no time at all. Yvonne had to use the restroom rather badly and so she advocated long strides. I kept pace with her and listened to her tell about a horrible car accident she had gotten into a while back where the car flipped and everything and she was lucky to get out alive. She wasn’t drunk or anything, just going a bit fast on a narrow rainy road that had grass shoulders. Her phone rang and as she fumbled around for it she momentarily ran onto the slick shoulder which spun the car out a bit and the last thing she remembered was hanging upside down. Fortunately, she was close enough to other people that someone called the paramedics. She heard them saying through a haze that had it been anyone bigger (Yvonne’s a pretty short and rather slight girl) they probably would not have made it. Yvonne was lucky to come away with a few broken ribs and some minor scratches and contusions. See, she wasn’t drunk really at all. She was also pissed off that one of the guys, Tom, had left the club fairly drunk without telling her. Tom lives right across from her and is thus sort of her responsibility. If anything, it was just dumb to leave like that when you don’t know the area too well at night and you’re not exactly sober. He made it back okay as we found out the next day. Everyone went straight to bed once we got back.