The Adventure of the Missing Weeks

Where have I been these past two weeks?

All my (3? Really, that's it?) devoted followers know is that I arrived in London safely and now reside in Ramsay Hall, Room 507. (Not shown at the right.)

My activity since then, is a mystery, and you have no doubt been inclined to imagine what wild goings on I have had, piecing together clues from things you may have heard. Perhaps you fancy yourselves amateur detectives.

Well, wonder no longer, dear reader, as Evan Mousseau Explains It All For You. (Oh dear, now I'm mixing my allusions.) It will be rather like Sherlock Holmes, at the end of a case, recounting the details of a case to Watson, illuminating all of Watson's various wonderings with his brilliance.

Note: Photographic evidence of the following adventures is forthcoming, once I have settled upon a website to upload them to.

Week One (January 7th-January 13th)

The first few days were spent, for the most part, acclimating to my surroundings. UCL had pieced together a few days of orientation activities, wherein we were welcomed to campus, met with other students, registered for classes, etc. It was also at this time, that I, wandering the Student Union bar at one of the events, stumbled upon a group of Georgetown students, who I have been adventuring with ever since.

These adventures included, but were not limited to:

• Encountering an over-zealous waitstaff at an Italian restaurant for one of our first meals in London.
• Reaffirming the notion that Hoyas have a way of finding each other, when a large group in the National Gallery stumbled upon your humble narrator, who had ducked in to get out of the cold and kill time before a planned meeting at the Sports Cafe to watch some Georgetown Basketball. (Favorite paintings on this visit: John Constable's "Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadow," Henri Rousseau's "Surprised!" and Hammershoi's "Interior")
  
• Seeing mummies, clocks, chess pieces, swords, blue dots, and Hamm from Toy Story at the British Museum. I forgot my camera on that trip, so pictures will have to come from a future visit.
• Starting classes. I'm taking American Literature, Modern Literature, Memory & Decision, and Language & Cognition. But I won't bore you with the details. At least not in this entry.
  

Week Two (January 14th-January 20th)

With classes even more underway, the members of GUCL (the elite group of Georgetown students at UCL) were seldom as all together as we were initially. But we've still managed to keep our adventures going, albeit in smaller groups, usually. Here are some of mine:

• A visit to "The Green Man," an excellent pub nearby with an extremely wide variety of ciders. My goal: "I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was. To try them all is my real test, to drink them is my cause."
• A rainy day stop at St. Paul's Cathedral, where there was a hefty entrance fee to stop us from going beyond the entryway, and the Somerset House, where there were ice skaters.
• Shepherd's pie and a pint at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, one of the oldest pubs in London, rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire in 1666. A wonderful spot, which I'm sure I'll be visiting again.
• A trip back to Trafalgar Square and then up through Chinatown.
  
• A sunny day wandering through Regents Park. Sure, it was still cold, and none of the flowers are in bloom right now, but it was nice to enjoy the sunshine. And we got to see all sorts of birds. (When photos are uploaded, you will see that I was a bit overzealous in my photography of said birds.)
• A trek down Baker Street to 221B. For those who are unaware, this is the factual location of the fictional lodgings of one Sherlock Holmes.
• Attended a performance of "Avenue Q" in the West End for only 10 pounds! And got our seats upgraded when we got there!
  

Did those adventures meet your expectations? I should hope so. Indeed, I should hope that whatever imaginings you had put in their place were exceeded. For as Holmes says in "A Case of Identity," "Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."