TOPSHOP
So I really like London. It reminded me a lot of home but with funny accents. It was a whirlwind two weeks but I got to see and do a lot of amazing things PLUS see Kerry and Alex which was just spectacular.
Just some highlights from the two weeks /
Pub Crawl / Alex had a brilliant idea we go on a nice lil pubcrawl around London who knew it would turn into a hot, but fun mess. I brought some of the Swiss along and they loved it! Binge-drinking ftw. I even had my first and probably last taste of absinthe in our epic drink called a flaming lamborghini. Our tour guide was named Liam and was a hot aussie and it was his first night on the job. He was a little nervous at first, but he had some awesome dance moves. We went to a total of 5 [I think] bars, Belushi’s a Chicago style bar, so fitting, Roadhouse which was way cool and nothing like Luzern’s Roadhouse, Club Ruby or Ruby something like this where we met some lads from Wales, the flaming lamborghini bar whose name escapes me, and Zoo Bar where the night ended. Just some other fun words to describe the night / Tom, Girlfriend, Tequila shots, Canada, and I cannot forget Receding Hairline.
Free Health Care / so Lisa and I learned that 36 + hours in rainboots = stress fracture => broken foot, but the plus is that London has free health care for all, even tourists. Which is just such a radical concept for America to grasp. So that was an adventure.
School / this was a study trip so we did have to attend class in the oldest pub/inn in London. It was called the George Inn. So we would gather in the morning and our teachers or guest lectures would speak about our project or about the City of London and its history. We had 4 main teachers, Marcus / the nervous, skinny GDer who designs title sequences for Sufjan Stevens Movies, Patrina / the model daughter of Urs, Hanz-Peter / the German Londoner who somehow manages to be bald and have a pony tail at the same time, and Jørdis / the Norwegian witch who has two husbands; Plus Carolyn the English teacher who tried to pretend to be a graphic design teacher. As you can imagine they were quite a team. Our guest lecturers included Patrick Sandri a student at the Royal College of art who’s life work included a three month period where he was homeless in London drawing memories… and Debbie Angel who is the layout editor for Elle Interior which was very interesting. This trip was actually really amazing, minus the massive disorganization, the school managed to organize very interesting experiences for us. We went to many, many museums, including the infamous Clink Prison, we saw a play in a little independent pub/theater and we went to visit the design studio of Laurent Benner who is well known in the bubble that is Swiss design & his studio was amazing. Our project is sort of interesting too, we were each assigned 3 articles from the newspaper, Evening Standard and we were to investigate the article and go to the place it refers to, then write a text about the theme and create a visual representation. Once we return to Luzern, all of the work would be placed on the server and each student is to design a book with everyone’s work in it and the best layout will be printed professionally. Buuuuut since we are the American Exchange students, what we do doesn’t really matter too much, so I have decided to create my own book just about my London experience and include whatever work I did for the article assignment because I am still working on THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE poster back with the second years. It was really great having our inputs in English, and it was weird to have the students asking us to help explain or to ask for directions, ect.
The kids / oh the 3rd year swiss are all so nice and so hilarious. Of course we had the lovely girls who invited us out the first night we got here plus we meet lots of new kids too. Marcel the shell went to Idaho to learn English so he was very fun to talk to. Not sure why these kids are going to such weird places in the states to learn English, North Dakota, Idaho, what’s next Birmingham? Sven is just a whole other story. He canot speak English very well so he just mostly stared at us or said something in Swiss German expecting us to be able to reply. He is also in love with graphic design, just like every other awkward swiss male gder. People love their work work.
Museums / my favorite part about London were the museums, and they were all free! I loved the natural history museum because it had dinosaurs and beetles. We also visited the Tate modern, V&A museum, Science Museum, Royal College of Art.
Pubs / We lived above an old English pub which was fun to be able to hang out there at night and then just go upstairs to bed. But the pub life is super cool and a very unique part of the London culture. My favorite pub ever was called the New Rosemary, it was so cute and old timey. They played the whole Oh, Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack and I had my second fav beer there. It was all Litovel Honeydew, delicious. My favorite beer every was the Belgium Cheery beer they severed at the bar below our hostel, at 6 pounds a pint it was uber expensive, but worth it.
A few memorable quotes »
“smile and look the gangs in the eyes and whatever you do, don’t look like an American tourist”
“My braaaaain is in myyy pockeeeet”
“tOP sHOp”
“Bier trinken”
“one time, I dreamt of a black man in a white suit and one day in the tube station I saw him, the black man in a white suit”
“my british husband wasn’t too happy about that”
*18 year old sluts get on the tube* “sven, what are you doing” “typography!”
*points to head* “ I can’t… I just…. No”
All in all I really liked London and I plan to return some day. Now we have only 8 weeks left and I am ready to make them count and the return home for an epic summer and then SENIOR YEAR say what? I am not ready to grow up /
