Kickin it in London

I'm still just hanging out in London. A couple of days ago Melissa and I took a little day trip to Brighton which was simply lovely. The weather was perfect - sunshine and big puffy clouds. The train ride was cheap and short and we ate deliciously sinful fried food - including those doughnuts that they make in an automatic machine as you wait...so fresh...so greasy...so good. The ocean was perfectly blue and smelled salty and sharp.

My trip to Crete with my mom is planned and set. We'll be staying with George, a family friend and local professor in mechanical engineering. It will be a wonderful way to spend the rest of my time between programs.

I am starting to look forward to Cambridge. I found out one of my sorority sisters from Phi Sigma Rho will be studying through the same program, though I haven't found out if she is taking the same classes as I am.

Organizing the trips that I have taken, getting my self from place to place and figuring out where to stay, how to use public transport in a dozen countries in languages I generally don't understand has given me an immense sense of both confidence and humility. I have faith that I can get around on my own. I don't need a trip planner, and organizer or a tour guide. (Just need the internet! Thank God for Google!) I am also humbled. The generosity of the people I have met and the complexity of the world have left me in awe. The world is a very complicated place, yet we all somehow get by. People design public transport to be intuitive - just the fact that it was just as easy to take the Metro in Paris as it was in Barcelona as it was in London - despite the language barrier - speaks to the robust, thoughtful, design of the the system.

The same is true of the rail networks between the countries. I am even more awed that my Eurail guide - presumably printed at the start of 2009 - contains 99% accurate information for hundreds of train routes down to the very minute for trains that run 7 days a week all year round for 21 countries speaking a dozen languages. Hail Technology!