It’s been a busy week since I last posted – classes have started, I’ve been to my first proper gay club (as in not the shitty Little Rock one), seen one of the seven wonders of the world, and walked down the roads my ancestors once walked on (not China).

So first on the list – classes. I’ve got about 6-7 hours of class a week, depending on how my teachers are feeling. I think there are occasional tutorials that might add time to a few weeks, but it’s a total joke compared to NU. It’s not like I came here to actually do work (sorry mom and dad, but I promise I’m learning and experiencing things that I couldn’t get in any classroom).

My American Theatre History class was literally just listening to Brits stereotype America for an hour based on “American” images (dolla bill sign, the flag, Mall of America?). It was extremely uncomfortable as the American in the room, but nonetheless very interesting. Learning about how the rest of the world sees the States is really eye-opening.

My London Theatre class has us going to theatre in London, mostly avant-garde stuff. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first play, Love and Information by Caryl Churchill, but I’m really excited to see what’s next.

My two Psychology classes, Developmental Psychology and Music Psychology, have some potential, but so far we were just kind of introduced to the subjects.

Second on the list, the G-A-Y Heaven club, is going to go mostly untalked about… jkjk. It was definitely a great experience – there was a volunteer strip show that was really surprising. The people actually got buck naked! Some brave souls – you couldn’t pay me to do that. Mika played there last night, but alas I had to get up at 6:30 in the morning today, so I was not venturing out.

Today I took a trip to Stonehenge and Bath. Although I knew a few people on the tour, I stayed mostly to myself, which was really nice. I felt like they were sights best taken introspectively. Stonehenge was different than I thought it would be, less giant and put together, but it’s definitely something I feel like I needed to see once in my life. It was pretty spectacular to feel like I was in a place I’d seen so many times in history books.

Bath was very beautiful. I didn’t really like the tour of the Roman baths there, but the city itself was wonderful. Although I didn’t feel any magic familiarity with it, there’s something weird knowing that my great-great-great (and so on) grandfather is buried there, and that it’s where my mom’s side of the family is from. Somewhere under the ground are specks of genes that you can find in my own body. Something about that makes me feel somewhat immortal (as long as I don’t lose the evolutionary battle, which may turn out to be a struggle… any volunteers ladies?).

Sorry the post was a bit long, but I’ve been really busy!