››› February 5, 2012 | Posted By Logan Buckley '14
It's finally happening! After all the preparation, planning and anticipation, I arrived in London early Wednesday morning--having taken an overnight flight--and moved into the flat in which I will be living for the next few months. I'm still not sure I've quite realized that I live in London for the semester, but it's gradually sinking in.
The past few days have been a whirlwind of orientation, settling in, exploring the city, and getting to know some of the other students on the program. Classes don't start until tomorrow, and so far a lot of our activities have been scheduled in advance--a tour of the houses of Parliament yesterday, followed by a trip on the London Eye, for example--but my flatmates and I have managed to fit in some exploring, too, wandering the streets of central London.
One of the things that I've noticed here (though I am certainly not the only one) is the degree to which the city is permeated with history. You can't walk the streets without stumbling upon buildings that are easily hundreds of years old. Walking through Soho on Thursday, a few friends and I stepped into a courtyard to discover a church whose tower dates back to the beginning of the 17th century (the rest was bombed out in World War II). In the US, a building like that would be the centerpiece of a historic tour--it's about as old as the colony at Jamestown, perhaps older than any of the buildings that still stand there--but here it is almost unremarkable. Westminster Hall, part of the complex that houses Parliament, is 900 years old.
That sort of date is almost incomprehensible, but to live in London is to be absolutely surrounded by history. I look forward not only to being able to visit historic places all over the city, but to be able to stumble upon them accidentally in my day-to-day life.
Pictures, hopefully, soon to follow.