Monday 17 October 2011

My first post

I am awful at blogging so I have been avoiding it since I got to London a month ago (already!), but I decided to finally give it a go and start off with my pros and cons list of English life in general:

PrOz

  • Everyone dresses really cute, all the time. This can be considered a con if you like dressing like a slob (which I usually do), but it is a pro if you want to wear cute dresses and tights under shorts.
  • English kids do not like to have roommates - therefore, having a roommate is not even an option. You can eat and sleep at weird hours of the day without being judged!
  • The drinking age is 18, so it is very uncommon to get carded while buying alcohol.
  • There is a drink called PIMMS, which is delicious and I don't think we have it in America.
  • Students only go to "Uni" for 3 years, and there are no gen-ed requirements
  • When you buy a value meal at McDonalds and show your student card you get a free cheeseburger or mini-McFlurry (the McFlurrys have Cadbury chocolate in them)
  • Lots of stores, like Topshop and Gap give 10% student discounts
  • Everyone likes Football/Soccer, so while not having college football and tailgating kinda sucks, you can go to the pub and drink on saturday mornings while watching a football match instead!
CoNs
  • The gym membership is not included in Uni costs, and the gym is about 1/4 the size of the Arc (it is even smaller than Glass Courts)
  • Beer only comes in tall cans, and there is no such thing as light beer - so whenever I drink beer it is always warm by the end of the can because it's hard to drink Fosters or Carlsberg as fast as Coors Light
  • Language barrier - it is really hard to understand people although they claim to speak the same language as us
  • No Hulu, Netflix, Redbox...
  • probably the hugest con ever: Coffee. You can't just order "coffee". Coffee shops only sell things like cappuccino, latte, espresso... They don't like regular black coffee here so they don't sell it most places. Also, none of my flatmates have a coffee maker because they think instant Nescafe is ok (it is not ok).
I will probably have additions to this list, and more posts to come! I promise to post pictures soon, but I have not taken enough pictures to justify an upload... Soon!