London | Day N° 20 | Knightsbridge, Mayfair, and Oxford St.

My last day at LSE – and the day of my final exam! I woke up quite early to study in my room, reviewing as much as I could. It’s so much material to understand in such a short period of time, but I can only do my best. I let Eli catch up on sleep while I went down to study at the New Academic Building on LSE’s campus for a little while before I took the test.

One of the differences in schools here (or at least a difference between William & Mary and LSE) is the strictness of exam-taking. At W&M, all students sign an honour code and are then trusted to be faithful on their exams and schoolwork; many tests are completely un-proctored by the professor or any kind of instructor. Here, the regulations during an exam are extremely strict. You must turn your mobile phone off and have it under your desk during the exam. You can only use LSE-approved calculators, and you aren’t supposed to have anything else on your desk during the exam (drinks, etc.). Your student ID card needs to be out on the desk so the invigilators (such a better name than proctors!!) can come around and mark you down several times throughout the exam. No one is allowed to leave during the exam, and in the last fifteen minutes, no one is allowed to leave, even if they’ve finished. I’m not complaining, it’s good that cheaters are so discouraged, but it’s quite strange.

Goodbye room..... 

Anyway, after I had finished my exam (and officially finished my program at LSE!), Eli and I met up with my friend from LSE and did a quick shopping trip to Knightsbridge, yet again. We didn’t get to spend much time there, but I felt that Eli needed to see Harrods while she was in London. We had a quick late lunch at the Caffe Concerto across from Harrods, and then had to scurry down to the tube to meet our friend for dinner. He (very generously) treated us all to a fantastic Indian meal at Benares in Mayfair. The restaurant was so beautiful, modern with black stone and fountains and colourful candles. We had the strangest assortment of dishes: my first course was a lotus kebab with lavender yoghurt (very spicy!), the entrée was jackfruit biryani (the jackfruit was almost flavourless and kind of had the texture of an artichoke heart or aubergine), and dessert consisted of tandoori pineapple (incredible) and Earl Grey ice cream. My friend also recommended a passion fruit and chutney martini, Benares’ signature cocktail, which was so interesting: quite sweet but with a rich spicy undercurrent in each sip. Every single thing I tried was completely different from the Indian food I’d ever had before; it was definitely a culinary adventure! Such a great recommendation and experience.  

Passionfruit-chutney martini   

Eli, my friend, and I then walked the few blocks down to Oxford Street. This is another busy shopping district, perhaps more accessible than Knightsbridge. We looked through a couple of British (maybe European) shops that I’d never visited before, Primark and River Island.  I wish we had more European stores like this in the US: our clothing shops are either very cheap and horrendously unfashionable, or very fashionable and expensive. H&M is the one of the few common shops that has low prices but supplies us with European fashion, but I wish we had more!

It was quite late at that point, but when we returned home (and after I said my goodbyes to my friends from LSE!), Eli and I stayed up for a bit planning out our trips to Oxford and France. We went through many opetions before finalizing all our various means of travel: bus, train, cab, shuttle, airplanes… This will certainly be an interesting trip, and we will definitely be experiencing many different aspects of Europe! It’s strange for me to travel so much without a car, which I’ve always had, and have to submit to the schedules and fares of public transportation; honestly, it’s much more of a pain too. But it’s a part of the experience!  

London | Days N° 10-11 | Midterm, Baku, and the London Eye

Chocolates at Harrod's  

It’s hard to believe that I’ve already been in London for a week and a half! I don’t have much longer here… the time is speeding by. I took my midterm exam this morning, after studying like a madman for the past week (and particularly yesterday). It went well – I hope. The UK uses a different grading scale than the one I’m used to. In the US, a student starts with 100 points for their grade, and then deductions are made. An ‘A’ is often given for grades in the 90-100% range, ‘B’ in the 80-89% range, and so on and so forth. Here, a student starts with 0 points, and is assigned points based on their work, making their way up toward 100%. However, it’s more difficult to get a high grade this way, so an ‘A’ is given for grades in the 80-100% range, ‘B’ in the 70-80% range, ‘C’ in the 60-70% range, and so forth. We’ll see just how difficult it is to get an ‘A’ by this method, but it seemed like most of the previous summer school students at LSE have been able to get A’s and B’s.

After taking the midterm exam, my two friends and I did a bit of touring around London! This is our only full afternoon and evening off until the end of the course, so we wanted to take advantage of it and see a bit more of the city. We took the Underground over to Knightsbridge (once again) and spent a bit of time at Harrod’s. This time, I was able to see the gourmet foods section in more detail, found some rose-black tea, and purchased passionfruit macarons (yum!!). I also had to get some chocolate-covered rose-flavoured Turkish delight for my little sisters, who are fans of the Chronicles of Narnia series. It was interesting talking to my friends (who are from the UK and Azerbaijan) about the differences in food availability here. For example, it’s pretty difficult to find Turkish delight in the US, except in some gourmet food stores and around the holidays. No one really even knows what it is except for its famous role in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But it’s relatively easy to find here. On the contrary, Godiva chocolates are rare in the UK and Europe, while you can buy a box of Godiva chocolates basically anywhere in the US. Harrod’s was carrying basic boxes of Godiva chocolates (worth less than $20 in the US) for almost £40 ($60!!).  Of course, it depends on availability, but it’s just interesting to see what it is considered rare or valuable on each continent.

The main purpose of our trip to Knightsbridge was to visit Baku, a fantastic Azerbaijani restaurant south of Hyde Park. My friend (currently studying at LSE  Summer School) attends university in Wales but is from Azerbaijan, and wanted to introduce us to Azeri food. I’m always ready to try new things, and I was particularly interested in this type of cuisine because my little sister is from Kazakhstan, which borders the Caspian Sea across from Azerbaijan.

It was absolutely delicious. Between the three of us, we tried many different dishes: yarpag dolma (vine leaves stuffed with lamb), gutab (thin pancakes filled with herbs, lamb, and pumpkin with pomegranate seeds), Barbary duck and watermelon salad, a cheese-and-pick platter, dushbara (a wanton-type soup with beef parcels in veal broth), and baklava. Everything was new to me (even those dishes which I thought I had tried before, like baklava and dolma, but soon realised that the American versions are nothing near the real thing) and so, so good. In addition, the restaurant itself was stunning. The dining room was chic and comfortable, and the presentations of food were unique and beautiful (everything was served on slate tablets, except for the dolma, which was in a boat!). And of course, after lunch, I had to try Azeri tea, which I found similar to Russian tea, but a little lighter. The whole lunch was such a delicious discovery, and I wish Azeri cuisine was easier to find!

The view of the River Thames west from the London Eye

Once we were quite full, my friend and I used up the rest of our free afternoon by taking a turn on the London Eye (finally!). The queue wasn’t too bad, and I’m glad we did it. First of all, this enormous Ferris wheel is almost 450 feet high but is cantilevered (supported on one side only), which is incredibly impressive and a little scary. It’s just enormous. Its position also allows unparalleled views of the River Thames to the east and west. London is beautiful, especially along the riverfront, and the Eye gives you a pretty perfect view of the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Charing Cross Station, and the Shard. It’s a shame, but because of how much studying I need to do, I don’t think I’ll be able to visit all these places in the next week. I’ve passed them and seen them from afar, but most cost so much to tour, and I feel like I need to dedicate all my extra time to schoolwork. I’ll try to maybe sneak one or two more in before I go – but I’m sure this won’t be my last time in London!

day three: harrods and my first day of class!

Hello again! Today was my first day of class at the London School of Economics, and I got to do a couple other things as well....

Breakfast at the Delaunay

They had us wake up early to attend a welcome address at the school; the lecture was at 8:30, which means that I was waking up at 3:00 ET. It was really great. I actually got there so early that I went and had breakfast at the Delaunay (again...). After the short address, I tried to return to my dorm and sleep, but it was so warm that I wasn't able to. I had been thinking that I needed to purchase an umbrella, because it's due to rain the next few days, and I had the marvellous idea to take the Underground to Harrods!

Twenty minutes later I was shopping the gorgeous and far-too-expensive halls of Harrods. God, what I'd give for one of those Burberry trench coats. Of course, I had to spend lots of time shopping for tea, and invested in tins of Earl Grey and Royal Garden teas. I found a cute black-and-white Harrods umbrella but only got to glimpse at the gorgeous rooms full of chocolates, pastries, biscuits, and meats, because I had to head back to LSE. I know I'll return again - not only do I want to stroll through the beautiful mosaic-encrusted deli, but there is also a Topshop across the street (I've never been!) and Hyde Park is blocks away.

I met with a number of classmates for my Financial Markets class at noon for lunch at the school, and was able to meet students from the US and all over Europe. I was amazed by how many people are enrolled in the course - our class is in a large lecture hall that seats about 200, and most of the seats were filled for the lecture today. The lectures take place from 14:00-17:00 every day of the week, and small 'classes' (about 15 students each) meet every morning for discussion of the material. This is new to me, since William & Mary's classes are all very small. The Financial Markets course will essentially deal with portfolio management; and, in addition to the 1,000 page textbook and numerous additional readings, we were given these immense red tomes with all the class notes. Quite a bit of reading.....

Just some light reading material...

The trickiest part right now is fixing my circadian clock. Waking up 'early' isn't necessarily that hard; it's forcing myself to go to bed at 23:00 (which is actually 6:00 pm for me as an East-Coaster). If I let myself stay up until 3:00 am like I want to, I'll never wake up in time for class. I know it'll just take a few days to figure out, but it's not at all fun.

So tonight I already have a bit of reading to do (lucky me), and then I'll be trying to force myself to sleep... The worst part is actually the heat. It might sound silly because it's only 65-70 F here, but no buildings (that I've been in at least) have air conditioning, and trying to fall asleep indoors without AC or a fan is quite difficult. In an enclosed space, it gets warmer than you'd expect. But it's not much to complain about. I'm in a beautiful city, in a wonderful country, lucky enough to be studying at this amazing school!