Eliana’s First Week at London Overview (Post 2)

Hello friends!

I shared about the first two days of my adventure, but so much has happened since. I’m writing a journal for my Purdue internship supervisor, so I thought I would just take snippets from that and keep it simple. Again, it’s not very edited, but I hope you find it enjoyable!

Here you will find:

• Pictures of all the touristy things
• Ramblings about navigating the city
• Gushing about my church visit

15 May (Wednesday)

My experience with culture shock so far… The “different-ness” of this country does not seem to overwhelm me—I think it is a bit more like a “spot the difference” puzzle. The most apparent thing are the steering wheels on the right side of cars and them driving on the left side of the road. Somewhat shocking, but not overwhelming.

I am also adjusting to other things besides the specific culture: living in a city, sharing a flat/apartment with six flatmates, overcoming jet lag. With no sleep from the “night” on the airplane, I probably survived Tuesday purely on adrenaline. By the end of the day, I could predict an emotional crash coming if I continued to socialize and drain my introvert battery while draining my physical battery. Thankfully, I have not had a huge crash yet. I only was able to sleep from 7:30pm to 2am, but with all the time that I was up early in the morning, I was able to get some time to myself to recharge my introvert battery. I was a little cranky and tired later, but I eventually recovered, especially as we enjoyed a delectable afternoon tea and visited the Victoria and Albert Art Museum (AMAZING) after orientation. Now hopefully I’ll get better sleep tonight and be good, right? I guess we’ll see.

16 May (Thursday)

I did get better sleep last night! Now it is 8:41 in the morning and I just got back from my first long walk alone through the bustling city. I survived. Huge accomplishment right there. It felt like learning how to drive—I felt clueless, vulnerable, and as if some of my decisions were a little bit impulsive and unsafe, but I needed to make it through each mistake so I could keep making more mistakes. That’s how you learn!

My walk started with just trying to get out the front door of our flat building. I made several pathetic attempts to open the door until the staff member kindly pointed out the clearly labeled button. That was when I knew that I was completely clueless and internally died of embarrassment. But I think a healthy dose of embarrassment is good for you every once in a while. So I continued onward, beginning my mission to familiarize myself with the route to my workplace.

 I was hoping that I could just walk the route and maybe check my phone three times to check that I was going in the right direction. However, the roads were not straightforward, with sidewalks on either side and regular intersections. Instead, they curved and sometimes there were places to cross, and sometimes you had to cross in a different direction before you could cross in the direction you wanted. Street signs were not always clear, and some paths I thought would be roads turned out to look more like alleys. As chaotic as the bigger roads were, at least they offered the security of more people around me, and I could pull off to the side to check my phone hopefully without looking too lost. As I went into a neighborhood kind of area with smaller roads, I felt more vulnerable and more lost, coming into dead ends and gates and trying to find my way to the right “yard.”

I’m looking forward to seeing these day-to-day tasks become easier over time as I gain confidence and independence in my new surroundings. The thing about seeing a stranger jaywalk and making a bad call to run across the street is that you don’t make that mistake again from then on. The process feels clumsy and stupid, but I’m making progress. I’m stepping into the shoes of a Londoner by parting from my group to go out on my own, and I’m challenging myself in the process. I plan to keep pushing myself farther—walking alone was just the first step. Next, I take the Tube to church by myself. Then, maybe I will take the bus to a new airport and fly to Scotland by myself. I will make a lot more mistakes, but I’m ready to find my limits and surpass them.

It’s crazy how quickly I switch between homebody-who-doesn’t-even-want-to-think-about-more-travel to completely-clueless-but-courageous-adventurer even in the three days I’ve lived here.

17 May (Friday)

So much has happened just since I wrote my last journal entry. Yesterday, we went on a walking tour with buckets of rain pouring down on our heads! It was pretty miserable but it was a London experience! I suppose… the tour guide did confess that the rain was usually not that heavy. It cleared up around the time we were getting on the dry, warm bus.

During the beginning of the walking tour, I was amazed to hear of all the history behind the things just outside our door. There are Romans buried underneath us? The park around the corner used to be a prison? Charles Dickens watched an execution there? So cool! During the bus tour, it was so cool to see the more famous buildings in London, like Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben (aka Elizabeth’s Tower), Tower Bridge, London Bridge, and so much more. It was amusing to learn some of the nicknames that Londoners have for the big buildings, like the Walkie-Talkie, the Razor Blade, and the Gherkin.

Today we went to the Globe to see Much Ado About Nothing! We stood up the entire time like peasants would have done back then, and it was cool to see the cast interacting with the audience. I loved the play and the experience and would definitely go again.

18 May (Saturday)

Today we had French toast for breakfast with bacon and yummy cream cheese, blueberry, and passion fruit toppings, courtesy of a lovely flatmate. Using the stovetop was quite a struggle! After that, we visited Camden Town, which was a fun area with a lot of little shops. There was a lot of very tempting and very expensive food from various cultures, and myriads of souvenirs of various themes.
When we got back, I made my first-ever Tesco run. I still need to check my maps a lot, but I’m glad to be gaining some confidence navigating the city alone! While I was there, I was thinking I would be able to sign up for a Clubcard, but it turns out that you have to be here six months first. The security guard/worker guy took pity on me and swiped his Clubcard for me. 😂😅 I ended up with two meal items + snacks + drinks and my Digestible biscuits for under 9 pounds! In comparison to all the 10 pound plus meals at Camden … GREAT deal.

Tomorrow, I take the Tube on my own and visit a church! I’m very excited to worship with other people who share my faith in a whole new country.

19 May (Sunday)

Note: I am redacting some information from this journal entry for privacy, including the church name. Church members’ names have been replaced with initials. If I know you, feel free to send me a message and I’m happy to share more detail about the church I visited!

Today was a full today. Today was a really good, really filling day.

I took the Tube alone for the first time. Overall, it went pretty well! The tubes were not very busy. The hardest part was finding Circle and District Lines for my tube change (they turned out to be upstairs), but I was only five minutes late to church in the end.

Most things were very similar to traditional Baptist churches in the U.S. There was a greeter at the door for me to exchange a happy “good morning” with, and I was handed a hand-out and led to an open seat. The service was very similar in structure too. One thing that was different was a “practical lesson” that was shared after worship. A leader told the church about how the church building was rebuilt after it was bombed during WWII. He explained what coping stones were, and how the coping stones of that building were beginning to fall apart, along with the lintels and windowsills. After he described a plan to fix these issues, the total cost, and the plan for raising the money. Aside from the practical lesson, the sermon was a very similar structure to U.S. sermons, even starting with an illustration from Star Wars. 🙂

After the sermon, I met the ladies who were sitting in my row, K and R, who were so sweet and friendly! R was the pastor’s wife, and she invited me to lunch at her home. I mentally canceled my plans for that afternoon’s walking tour and gratefully accepted.

After I accepted, the plan was that R would bike back and prepare and K and I would walk the half-hour walk there later. In the meantime, K took me to have tea in the church lobby and meet several other church members (including U, who would also come with us to lunch.) With all the introductions, I needed to work on finding the simplest way to introduce what I was doing here (study abroad with Purdue or CEA CAPA or an internship with a small book publishing house?) and where I was from (California or Indiana? And where was Indiana exactly?).

The walk to lunch with K and U was delightful. There is so much more greenery in east London compared to the central areas I had explored.

Lunch was delicious. It was a full meal. There was homemade elderflower cordial, pulled pork, chicken, potato, strawberry cheesecake, and ice cream. I met a couple other guests and the full table had a really good conversation. I found a lot of common ground with these fellow believers in very nuanced topics. We talked about the balance between speaking with truth and grace. Our conversation went on well after 3pm, so clearly it was too late to make the walking tour, but I had no regrets.

After that, I was invited to the evening service, and I accepted this invitation as well. The pastor drove us back to church, dropping several of the other guests to go to the Tube station. I helped R set up toys in the nursery and childcare rooms, and then we went to the evening service, which was preached by another pastor.

After the service, I met even more church members. I don’t remember what part of the day it was, but I mentioned that I wanted to go to Edinburgh, and U told me that she was going to Edinburgh in June. She invited me to come with her, and we exchanged contact information so that she could share her travel details.

It had already been a long day, but I heard there was pizza at the student Bible study, so I stayed for that too. 😉 It was part of a survey of the whole Biblical story, and it was really interesting!

So, that’s how I came to arrive at church at 10:35 am and leave at 8:20 pm. It was a long day, but it was very spiritually filling to spend the whole day with other believers (and also very culturally insightful to spend the day with actual British people ;)). I’m very grateful to have found a church home so quickly!

When I got back to my flat, I booked my train ticket to Edinburgh. I had just met U and been invited that same day—but sometimes the spontaneous things are the best things. =)