Monday Night Football!

Yesterday was everyone elses first day, so it was full of orientation meetings and such. Before this though, we were able to go to the market to pick up a few things that were needed for our apartment. Then, Caitlin, Sam, Erica, and I went to Chop'd for lunch. It's a delicious, create-your-own salad place that is also pretty popular in the U.S. but I had never been to it. And on our walk home, we got to take the classic touristy phone booth photos (see below). After lunch, we had a group walking tour of the area, it was mainly to places that Erica and I had already come across the previous day. Next were back to back meetings for safety and then for housing. The rest of the day was to ourselves. Most people weren't up for doing anything since they were so jet-lagged. But Erica and I were ready to go, along with Caitlin and Sam who were major troopers and decided to come out with this despite being exhausted from flying. 

We took the tube a few stops to meet up with Erica's friend from home, Matt, who now goes to University College of London and had lived in London for most of his life. He showed us his campus and dorm and such, and then us and one of his friends from school went to a pub to hang out. It was really nice hanging out with true Londoners, because we were able to get the inside scoop on everything we should do. It was also pretty interesting to hear a Londoners take on the Olympics coming to his city. I would think most people would be so excited and looking forward to it, but this was not really the case. Turns out, he will not even be in London during this time, partly because his landlord hiked up his rent (almost triple, I believe) during the Olympics due to "special incident" and that it will be absolutely crazy busy. He was also annoyed with the Olympics because the train/tube station was closed down for renovation due to the Olympics and his favorite bar that has been around for ages was shut down to build a new train station. So even though the city of London spends a ridiculous amount to host these games, not all Londoners seem to benefit. 

We also learned that Monday night is huge for football. All the Londoners can be seen crowded into bars to watch the football match of the night. While Monday Night Football is also very big in the U.S., the difference is that Monday night football in the UK is football/soccer, while Monday Night Football in the US is (American) football.