My first week in London has been awesome! Great flatmates, interesting classes, and an amazing city that I have yet to fully explore. I’ve finalized my classes and decided not to take Society and Culture in 20th Century Africa (too many conflicts). The four classes I’m officially taking are: Globalisation and Global Governance, Politics of Development, The Making of the Modern Middle East, and States, People, and Power in Asia and Africa. Lots of reading for those classes (yay humanities majors!) and lots of papers but I’m hoping it won’t be too overwhelming since I definitely want to travel and explore London and as many parts of Europe as I can.

This past Friday, Ava (cool American Wash U student who I met during orientation) went to go sightsee along the Thames. We specifically wanted to get on the London Eye, Europe’s biggest ferris wheel, but unfortunately it was closed for maintenance. We ended up walking along the Thames, taking lots of touristy pictures of Big Ben. We then walked cross Westminster Bridge Road which gave us an amazing panoramic view of the River Thames. After crossing the bridge, we got an upclose view of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. The funniest thing was that we asked some of the police officers standing by parliament for a cheap place to eat and as soon as they heard the American accent they assumed we were looking for a McDonalds (which was kind of true). Yay for (accurate) stereotyping! After eating some dinner in McDonalds, we went over to Trafalgar Square which we soon found out was home to the National Gallery. It was gorgeous and we took lots of touristy pictures there…I definitely want to come back during the day and check out their extensive collection of Western European art (including originals by Van Gogh and Da Vinci!) for FREE!