LSE – Local Living
Something that really surprised me when I began my first class at LSE was how few people in my lecture were from the U.K. It was about 150 students in the class and the number of British students could be counted on one hand. Even our two professors were French and German. This however meant an extremely diverse class as it was filled with people from all over the world, from every continent. Meeting the locals was however not a problem as there were hundreds of events held each night in the city where it was very easy to get to know people who have either studied or lived in London for a while. The city is also scattered with a few small charming bustling markets with local restaurants, street food, trinkets, and souvenirs where you can go to eat, shop, or just walk around. All of the vendors have been extremely friendly and love to strike up conversations.
By my second week I had fully adjusted to the pound sterling. It’s crucial to find a bank ATM branch that doesn’t charge a foreign withdraw fee (e.g. Barclays and Bank of America are partner banks) because I found myself needing cash a lot more than I did back home. A lot of places won’t accept cards and most that do, do so unhappily and charge a substantial fee to do so. Also I found myself using coins a lot more than I did back home, since there is no one pound note but one and two pounds and smaller denominations come in coins. Plus since the sales tax is included in the purchase, most prices are rounded to ten pence making using coins easier.
