Snow!

The latest adventure from London is the "snow storm" that "hit" yesterday. The snow started Sunday when I was on my was back from Camden Market (which was really cool by the way). It continued through the night and by Monday morning the whole city was at a standstill. Most of the tubes were shut down and the ones that weren't were running on severe delays. All classes were canceled at the Uni and half the shops in London were closed! I don't have class on Monday and had attempted to make it to this hair salon to make an appointment to get a cut but it I ended up walking most of the way because of the tube congestion and when I got there it was closed!

Really, it was only about 8inches of snow over the twenty four hour period. The kind of snow that Ann Arbor, and especially Traverse City gets hit with many times a year. Not in the four and a half years I went to the University of Michigan did I have a snow day and I've had class canceled maybe once or twice, usually because a professor went to a conference. Businesses back home RARELY close due to weather!

However, I completely understand. Having to slog through the unplowed sidewalks and streets to get to Baker Street because the Jubilee Line was completely shut down made me realize that everyone here relies so heavily on public transportation that a serious interruption, like we had yesterday from the snow storm, makes it nearly impossible for people to make it into town. With the congestion taxes on driving in the city people just don't own cars and if you're coming in from Zone 3 or farther, it's just about impossible to make it into the city at all, let alone on time.

In other news, I'm a few pages away from finishing Moll Flanders, though I haven't decided what I'm going to write my essay on yet. Tomorrow my Theater class is discussing "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and going to see it performed. Next week is a tour of the Rose and the Globe theaters. Right now I'm about to sit down and start outlining the characters and setting (somewhere in London) for the prose piece that I am due to have a draft of at the end of the month for Creative Writing. If there were some great job that required an English degree, or creative writing, or theaters studies or whatever I would so be there. This is really fun. My homework is reading and writing. To think! I will say I can feel my mind becoming less organized everyday. Engineering forced rational thinking and organization. Without the pressure my mind is slipping back into its natural scattered state - like a garden grown wild without the tenders to weed it. Weekends have been particularly disorganized. I have been doing a lot of wandering around the city, which I love doing, and I am starting to gain a familiarity of places which will help when friends and family come to visit. I think the thing there is to do most in London is shopping. Sure there are a lot of museums and galleries but there are even more shops and markets and places to buy stuff. I'm trying to save though for trips.

Today was another of those wandering days, though it started with a definite goal. I finally found that hair salon, or rather the Clynol Academy, which is a training salon for some of the best stylists in the UK. I can get cut, color, style, everything for 5 pounds! There's quite a wait list to get in and because it's trainees who will be working with my hair it could take up to 3 hours! If I'm in a hurry I found another salon called City Cut and Color that has some of the cheapest prices in London without being one of those SuperCuts type salons. There's also this little student Salon for manicures, messages and waxing right around the corner from the Regent Street camups that I'm going to go to for a pedi (only 8 pounds!). Usually I handle things like foot care myself but with all the walking around that is required in a place like London, after a month my feet need professional help! I was thinking of inviting the girls and making it a Valentines day spa day.

Dan didn't manage to get football tickets (there's a Chelsea game this weekend we were hoping to go to) but I'm looking forward to planning some trips with Dan and Melissa - they have the same travel interests as I do. A lot of the students I've met are really into just partying and drinking and the British students don't really care about Europe (been there done that I guess). Dan and Melissa want to see the sights, museums, gallerys, are and architecture of the places. They'll be the best to travel with I think. We'll be planning stuff later this week I hope.