Wed., January 13
So we arrived into London around 12 p.m. via Heathrow Airport, got the entire groups luggage, packed it into a charter bus and arrived at our flat. My flat is on the 10th floor, which offers a great view of London complete with the top of the London Eye. The group also had an orientation from our flat managing group, Anglo American (Anglo American is a London-based company that provides housing for international students studying in London) and finally that day we went down to the tube (aka subway) station to get our Oyster cards, a London transportation pass that allows us to travel by tube or bus to almost every part of London. Needless to say after this day the whole group was exhausted and quite jet lagged.
Thurs., January 14
So on this day we went to our school, City of Westminster College (CWC), to get our student ID cards and register for our classes. CWC is a junior college, comparitively it would be an Ivy Tech back home; a community college with people age 14-84. Besides our school IDs some girls and I went shopping for groceries, which was quite exhausting itself because we had NO IDEA what to buy. I've seemed to manage with the basics: cereal, bread, ham, cheese, coffee and CRUMPETS! I've had crumpets for breakfast the past 2 days, they are pretty similar to an english muffin just not as crunchy. They are becoming a breakfast regular. Also something else neat the whole group did on Thursday was fill our a British quiz. Our professor gave us a quiz with 10 questions about London. Random questions such as: What is a pub quiz? What is a Chelsea Tractor and who drives them? Who doesn't go south of the river after midnight? The funny thing is our group had to answer them individually without looking online. So we had to actually go and talk to British people. Ahhh!!! Talk about intimidating, asking British people about their own culture. The funny thing is once we started talking to them about these questions they were more than helpful and didn't mind telling us all the answers. Here was our complete quiz along with answers:
1. What is a pub quiz? - Literally, this is a quiz at a pub made up by the bartender. Appranently it is a big phenomenon here. Barman (not bartenders, barman) will schedule one on a certain day and teams will come to compete against each other. It is supposedly great fun.
2. What is 'the knowledge' and who has it? 'The knowledge' is knowing the streets of London and how to get to certain places and cab drivers have 'the knowledge' because they know how to get where.
3. What is a 'Cockney'? - A cockney is a person from East London, you can tell because they have a certain accent.
4. What do Cockney's call a 'currant bun' and why? - They call the sun, as in the London Sun Newspaper, a currant bun because they rhyme everything. Sun...currant BUN. That sort of thing.
5. Who will not go South of the river after midnight? - This is somewhat of an urban myth but taxi cab drivers won't go because they are scared.
6. How do you get an ASBO? You get an Anti-Social Behavior Order (ASBO) by breaking the law.
7. What is a Chelsea Tractor and who drives them? - It is a 4 wheel drive car that rich people drive, basically to show off how rich they are. Also, Chelsea is a rather wealthy part of London...that's why it is a CHELSEA tractor.
8. If you were in 'the Clink' where would you be? - You would be in jail!
9. Why is there a number 30 bus called 'The Spirit of London'? - So, I don't know in what year this happened, there were terrorists who tried to bomb a certain number of buses in London. Bus 30 was hit by one of the bombs and in memory the government of London bought a new, sort of souped-up bus which is now called the Spirit of London in honor of the old bus 30.
10. What would you get from a 'hole in the wall'? - Money, because a whole in the wall is an ATM.
Interesting huh? It makes me wonder, if you had to make a quiz about American culture? What would you put on it?!?
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