As it results from the post bellow, on 14 September 2013, your hero arrived at London and, with the help of Queen Mary Airport collection service, to his new place. That was the first day of the moving-in weekend, two days in which most of the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) freshers (first-year students) moved to their new residence.
Queen Mary is inner London's only campus based university. The main campus is located in Mile End, East London, next to the Regent's Canal, and comprises several schools, stores, shops, markets, cafes, a club, a library and, finally, students' accommodations, in which only freshers and postgraduates are entitled to live. The nearest subway station is Mile End on the District, Hammersmith and City and Central Lines. As a result, getting from Mile End to Central London during the day takes less than 20 minutes. A bus stop next to the main campus entrance (thank God for Bus 25!) allows to arrive and leave Mile End easily at any hour of the night.
Pedro lives at Maurice Court, in a shared flat with 5 other postgraduates: two Chinese (a boy and a girl), a guy from the Philippines, a girl from India and one from Italy. All the rooms of the flat are single and en-suite and, therefore, only the dinning area, the kitchen (HUGE!) and the corridors are shared. The prices are acceptable - especially if one considers the London reality - and living at a campus - specially by one that is surrounded by some of the cheapest pubs in London - allows a student to have an amazing experience, making it a lot easier to meet new people. Pedro's room, in which he is spending a lot less time than he should - Sir, I would advise you to stop drinking, and partying and start sleeping and reading! - was better than expected (the pictures on the Queen Mary website do not make it justice), even including a small fridge. However, he felt kinda blue when he discovered that his room is located at the ground floor (positive point: its window faces a garden), something that he will eventually get used to; really inexplicable is the shower which does not contain a proper separation from the rest of the tiny bathroom, which results in a small flood everytime que Pedro va a ducharse (I have been practicing my Spanish and I really like how this expression sounds - not sure if it is supposed to be written like that though).
On his moving-in day, your character did not manage to do anything worth noting. In fact, the trip was tiresome and although he tried to meet some of his fellow students, the line to enter in the club in which some of the other LLM students were partying was huge and Pedro gave up. However, such failed attempt to know new people (we can advance the ones who were at Drapers are now part of Pedro's life) allowed this student to get to know part of the campus by-night, including one of its most popular features: the Neuvo Jewish Cemetery, a Spanish-Jewish-Portuguese cemetery from 1726, the second-oldest graveyard in England. How fun it is to walk along it by night (especially if there are so many freshers around you completely drunk despite the fact that it is only 10 p.m.)!
Anyway, long story short, after one and a half week - which feels more like a month and a half - being in here, the Mile End campus feels like a very comfortable place to live in London, which could in fact be too comfortable, as almost everything can be found in the Mile End area and, therefore, one could accommodate itself to its surroundings, missing a chance to meet one of the most vibrant cities in the world. No fears! First, all of Pedro classes will be at Lincoln's Inn Fields / Holborn. At the same time and much more relevant, this is not a simple and boring diary (hey!, stop being cranky, this one is to give some context to the reader! it's part of the early pages!), but, instead, a proper logbook, in which adventures and their associated dangers (including, but not limited to fights against dragons - read the last post) are to be included: Central London - or (as some of us simply like to call it) London will be our site of action and Mile End will in most of the cases be reverted to our hero's resting cave (unless some zombies decide to leave the nearby cemetery and decide to have a chat - well, some of them used to speak Portuguese and I can make myself understandable in Spanish.
Pedro lives at Maurice Court, in a shared flat with 5 other postgraduates: two Chinese (a boy and a girl), a guy from the Philippines, a girl from India and one from Italy. All the rooms of the flat are single and en-suite and, therefore, only the dinning area, the kitchen (HUGE!) and the corridors are shared. The prices are acceptable - especially if one considers the London reality - and living at a campus - specially by one that is surrounded by some of the cheapest pubs in London - allows a student to have an amazing experience, making it a lot easier to meet new people. Pedro's room, in which he is spending a lot less time than he should - Sir, I would advise you to stop drinking, and partying and start sleeping and reading! - was better than expected (the pictures on the Queen Mary website do not make it justice), even including a small fridge. However, he felt kinda blue when he discovered that his room is located at the ground floor (positive point: its window faces a garden), something that he will eventually get used to; really inexplicable is the shower which does not contain a proper separation from the rest of the tiny bathroom, which results in a small flood everytime que Pedro va a ducharse (I have been practicing my Spanish and I really like how this expression sounds - not sure if it is supposed to be written like that though).
Anyway, long story short, after one and a half week - which feels more like a month and a half - being in here, the Mile End campus feels like a very comfortable place to live in London, which could in fact be too comfortable, as almost everything can be found in the Mile End area and, therefore, one could accommodate itself to its surroundings, missing a chance to meet one of the most vibrant cities in the world. No fears! First, all of Pedro classes will be at Lincoln's Inn Fields / Holborn. At the same time and much more relevant, this is not a simple and boring diary (hey!, stop being cranky, this one is to give some context to the reader! it's part of the early pages!), but, instead, a proper logbook, in which adventures and their associated dangers (including, but not limited to fights against dragons - read the last post) are to be included: Central London - or (as some of us simply like to call it) London will be our site of action and Mile End will in most of the cases be reverted to our hero's resting cave (unless some zombies decide to leave the nearby cemetery and decide to have a chat - well, some of them used to speak Portuguese and I can make myself understandable in Spanish.
No comments:
Post a Comment