How come every time you come around my London, London Bridge...

First: SORRY I'M SO LAZY AND IT'S TAKEN ME SO LONG TO POST ANYTHING

And now on with the first "Oh wheeee I'm in London!" post.
Getting here was somewhat of a blur - I remember not sleeping on the plane, arriving at 7:30 am, taking some kind of train, and meeting with two other Pomonans with our UCL (University College London) contact at Paddington station. Then, a tube ride (still with my stupidly large amount of luggage), and a 5 minute walk, and hooray home! There are five of us total on the UCL molecular biology program, and they housed us suite style in one of the UCL dorms. Fortunate for now to be living with other people, since classes don't actually start until late September and students aren't here yet, but I think later it'll make it harder to meet people. Oh well.
Three days of mind-numbing jet lag later, I finally get a good night's sleep.

In the meantime, we toured around London some, and of course, I took pictures. Surprise.

 

Quintessential sightseeing - Big Ben

 

The London Eye, across the Thames (why do they pronounce that word like "Tems"? srsly)

And we crossed the London Bridge. It's not quite what it used to be - the original London Bridge is actually somewhere off of I-40 in Arizona. Go figure. Now this is pretty much just a bridge.

Throughout the city there are an amazing number of small parks and green spaces, and one of my favorite things so far has been the use of churches and sites bombed in WWII. In particular, this church garden was so beautiful and peaceful. The other day fellow Pomonans Miriam and Joseph and I went to Borough market and bought some tasty cheeses, bread, and interesting beers (including Oktoberfest weisbier, an espresso stout, a dark chocolate stout, and a black IPA) to bring to this great little place and have a picnic.

Our UCL contact was particularly excited about this building - it's called the "Glass Shard" and will soon be the tallest building in Europe. Wheeeeee!

The Tate Modern in all its glory. I haven't made it inside yet, but Miriam and Joseph say it's very cool inside. The building is an old power house converted museum, fitting with a modern art museum, I'd imagine. One great thing about London is so many of the museums are free - meaning that since there's too much in any one museum to see at one time, you can always go back without having to pay for it again. #notmadeofmoney

A random beautiful church in downtown London - these things are scattered everywhere. Our UCL contact treated us to a nice afternoon English tea in the courtyard. Brilliant! Righto! #British

Coupling the old with the new, this building is innovative in its design to be sort of "inside out" in its aesthetics. I don't remember what the building is called, but apparently opinions of its beauty are quite polarized - you either love it or you hate it. I think it's pretty cool, but I don't know if I'd want to see it every day...

And today's final picture: the Gherkin, as it is colloquially called. I think a gherkin is a pickle, and that makes sense. There's a small rail around the top of it going all the way around for the window-washers to hang from... #wut
I guess you'd get a good view of London, as you hang from ropes in a cart off of a small rail on a super tall building in a windy, rainy city.

In other news, classes haven't even started yet, and they won't for another week or two yet. w/e