There is something for everyone in London

After a long day of traveling and orientation and meeting new people and settling in, I. Am. POOPED. On May 10th, all 9 of us on the dialogue boarded a Virgin Atlantic flight at 9:55PM Boston time, and arrived in London at 9:15AM the next day. We were then shuttled off via the tube to Camden in a very tired and delirious state, where we dropped our bags off at our accommodation and then had an orientation luncheon at a classic English Pub around the corner. Our orientation luncheon was hosted by AIFS, which is a study abroad program provider that helped to coordinate this dialogue. The two representatives from AIFS that lead the orientation (and who also picked us up at the airport!) were nice and helpful about all things London, and provided us a student guidebook to help us navigate and get settled in London. After that, we had about 20 minutes to unpack a few things, but then we were on to the next activity – a walking tour around London! Our tour guide was incredibly knowledgeable and really cared about us seeing and doing what we wanted to do. We saw so much of London – the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, a part of the old Roman London wall, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Parliament Building, the London Eye, St. James’s Park. The tour took about 3 hours, but it felt like no time at all, because every turn lead to a new thing to be explored and there was so much to see and take in. Overall, our orientation was all about us getting settled in London and figuring out our surroundings, which I really appreciated.

After a day of orienting ourselves around London, we headed back to our home base. We are staying in a borough of London called Camden. It is in the Northern side of the city, and it is so interesting to me how different each of the boroughs can be. When I last visited London, I stayed in Victoria – a very posh and well-groomed area filled with boutique hotels and residences. Camden has a much different vibe – it is filled with huge markets, shops selling souvenirs, restaurants and cafes, art on the front and the sides of buildings, and lots and lots of people who are either exploring or going to music shows or pubs. It seems there is a lot happening in Camden at all hours, and it is almost never a dull place. I love that there is such a difference between different boroughs, because there is something for everyone in London and there is so much to discover.