The First 48 Hours

Alrighty then...I've begun a blog. I know, I'm disappointed in myself, too. But, I felt that this would be the best way to record the happenings around me while I spend a semester in foggy London town, studying acting.

Before I actually moved into my dorm/apartment, I spent two days at the Mariott Marble Arch, located in the scenic and hookah-smoke-filled Middle Eastern section of London. I couldn't complain, however, because I got bumped to first class on my flight over to the UK and had the single greatest travel experience of a lifetime. Champagne, broiled cod, full 180-degree horizontally reclining seats, and Pineapple Express. I don't think I can fly again without first class again; I was among the beautiful people and I'm not going back.

Now, to the actual first two days of my NYUL experience. Move-in was somewhat hectic, seeing as how my building is meant to house students from 8 different universities, but everything turned out fine in the end. A few last-minute purchases at Oxford Circus and I was ready to survive in London.

I met up with some of the other people in the Shakespeare in Performance at RADA program and we discovered a pub called The Rocket. Upon research, we found out that this was the "NYU Pub". The drinking age here in the UK is either 16 or 18, but we're not sure...but we don't care because we have surpassed it.

To be fair, not everyone is as drunk as they look in these pictures. In truth, no one really got that drunk.

Again, just to clarify, no one was as drunk as they look in these pictures.

This may look like very incriminating evidence against my statements above, but Joel was quite adament about having a beer-moustache.

In reality, the evening looked more like this. Half of us had cameras, half of us had our fingers pointed toward the heavens.

We all pretty much called it a night around 11pm, though. We're all pretty responsible like that.

We all gathered outside of our building (Nido) the next day around noon and up with friends in the RADA program who were too tired to make it to The Rocket the previous night. We stood outside for God knows how long in the cold wind, then, walked 45 minutes over to the University of London campus to be orientated. We got free food out of the deal, so the excrutiating length of the orientation was forgiven. The best part of the day, however, was not the free food, nor was it coming in 2nd place at the NYUL Pub Quiz gathering. It was walking to the ULU, looking up at the County Hotel, and seeing their unfortunately-damaged marquis.


Possibly the greatest hotel ever built.

EVER.

And, on that note, I think I'll call it a day.