Living La Vida London: Day 3

I woke up today around 7 a.m. because I was itching to try out my new supposed knowledge of the city. I got dressed and headed toward the Tube station to get an Oyster card like a real Londoner. As I stepped up to the self-serve machine to do so, I quickly found that my card was not being accepted. Instead of running the risk of my card being taken from me or something like that, I simply bought a day pass and texted my parents about the mishap. Don't worry, I got everything sorted out (thanks to my parents) and I'm getting an Oyster card tomorrow from one of the attendants instead of at one of the kiosks.

After this little ordeal, I went over to Starbucks and got a muffin and a Vanilla Cream frappucino. Wouldn't you know it? The frappucino was exactly what I needed at that moment. So this morning I was extremely grateful for Starbucks. I took my breakfast back to my room and ate it there. While I was eating, I saw the fattest pigeon I have ever seen in my entire life sitting on a chimney flue across from my building.

The picture does not do it justice. This thing was enormous!

I basically spent the rest of my morning lounging around until I finally decided to go to the building my class would be in to read. Fortunately, there is this small area outside for eating and chatting between classes or just because. I sat out there and read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies until the time for class had finally arrived.

My class is small- only about eleven people- and my professor is a huge nerd... I love it. The class will be challenging, but I think I will be able to pull through and get a decent score. I just have to figure out how I'm going to do touristy things as well as school things.

Speaking of which, after class a large group of us went down to try and find some book shops in London but ended up not finding any and getting very lost. So we decided to go to the welcome party our program was having at the Royal College of London. Well, things got pretty crazy about an hour into the celebration, so a bunch of us decided that we wanted to go and see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey at night. 

 We got in not too long ago and are making plans to go back and go across the Tower Bridge.