My first real week in London is coming to a close and it was a great one.
I went to another practice with the competitive volleyball team and am definitely going to stick with them. Our first big tournament is the beginning of February so that should be exciting. They're also playing in a three day tournament in Austria so I might be going to that as well. I also went to play with the more recreational team at my college. The girls were really friendly and nice and invited me to practice with them even if I dont necessarily play on the team so I think Ill do that. They also have combined social sessions with the men's team, which has some good players, every Friday so I'll probably end up going to some of those as well.
Lauren (my roomate from school)'s dad is going to be in Paris this weekend for a conference so we're taking the Chunnel to visit him for three days since we don't have class on Mondays. I'm not sure how I feel about trains that go underwater yet but we'll see how that goes. There's a group of four of us who take turns cooking dinner and one of the boys is from Quebec. I've been working on my French with him but that usually involves me trying to saying four words and him laughing at my unwillingness to change verb tenses.
Speaking of language difficulties, I've run into one problem that is pretty individual to my situation. In the US, when you chase after a volleyball and bring it back to a coach or to the basket it goes in its called "shagging." In practice you usually say "Oh thats ok, I'll shag" or "Go shag that ball." It means something a whole lot more promiscuous here and can get pretty awkward especially when Im practicing with the men's team. I guess Ill have to work on trying to say "fetch" the ball.
Social life here has been great. We hang out with a lot of Americans and other international students because meeting British people is actually pretty difficult. They've known eachother for a really long time and weaseling our way into their friend groups is tough. The neuroscience majors at UCL took us to a couple of pubs the other night (the department gave them money) so that was a lot of fun. Last night a group of us went to a Karaoke night which was wonderful. One of our friends did an award winning rendition of Neil Diamond's Forever in Blue Jeans which was really well received. I did a duet to Tiffany's "I think were alone now" complete with rockin' dance moves. Our audience was a birthday party of fairly intoxicated British students, but they clapped a lot so I think we did alright. Today I went exploring on busses to Hyde Park which is a huge gorgeous park near Buckhingham palace. Its really great for running and frisbee and picnics so hopefully we'll be heading there a lot.
Ok well Im off to bed but I hope all is well wherever you might be!
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