[insert tourist moment here]

I had lunch in a cemetery today.

Not a literal cemetery, to be fair...after our extensive morning session of orientation, rules-and-regulations review (now that we're all awake), and preparation for the semester from heaven, a group of us went to lunch at "The Crypt at St. Martin of the Field."  At the recommendation of the lovely program librarian, Miss Alice, we decided to check it out in lieu of a more conservative option like Pret à Manger (which is like a D'amico and Sons).  Turns out it is literally a CRYPT...a subterranean chamber where they buried people a few centuries ago.  You pass this beautiful old church, St. Martin's, and then go into a very modern glass-and steel sphere that spirals down underground.  We stepped out expecting more modernity and it was like we had entered a different world...vaulted stone-and brick ceilings that looked like something you would see in "Shakespeare in Love," a ten-degree temperature drop, and...when you looked down...laid-in gravestones dating back at least 150-200 years.  I was a little bit weirded out by the thought of eating my innocent, modern lunch above a bunch of dead people, but I guess it was just the epitome of everything I'm so fascinated with about London...the juxtaposition of the old and new.

I'm nerding out hardcore over all the amazing old architecture and the landmarks that I've read about in books and seen briefly from the tour bus senior year...but then there's all this stunning, avant-garde new construction, not to mention post-WWII concrete-block towers crammed in right next to the charming tippy-looking old buildings...it's just a dream for anybody as attracted to the aesthetically unique as I am. 

I also had my first true tourist moment spaz this morning: four of us, Joanie, Chelsea, Kelly and myself, were SO desperate for caffeine as true jet lag started to set in, so we decided to get coffee at Caffé Nero (the Italian version of Starbucks!) somewhere near the London Centre.  First off, we took a wrong turn on the way to the Centre, so we ended up coming out totally unexpectedly RIGHT into Trafalgar Square just as the sun oh-so-poetically popped out of a few clouds and came shining down...we absolutely froze and all of a sudden I saw Big Ben and the Parliament building, sparkling in the distance on the horizon between a few buildings.  I immediately did the most American, touristy thing possible: literally started jumping up and down like a child and pointed and blurted out at the top of my lungs: "OHMYGODYOUGUYSLOOKIT'SBIGBEN!" in a totally unintelligible jibberish top-speed gush.  We all proceeded to start like...jumping up and down together and hugging and twirling and being all like "Omg.  We're actually here.  LONDON AAAAAAAH!"  :)

It was one of those moments that you could have taken as a snapshot in your mind...and kept forever...my first real quintessential moment of bone-deep, heart-pounding utter contentment and excitement about what the next four months holds.  I guess it was just then at that very moment that I realized that this is my HOME now and that I am going to do and see so much here.  I know I sound like such a broken record, but this place and this experience and everything I'm doing is just such an enormous adventure that I still have barely wrapped my head around it.

Pictures will come in a post soon...I can't find my camera cord in the mélange of stuff I have still got to find a place for...Now it's time to go grocery-shop with the flatmates.  I'm sure that me, cooking, will prompt a hilarious/embarrassing plethora of stories for me to publish!!  Til then, lots of love from your very own international adventurer!  ;)