The Underground

A.K.A The Tube

A.K.A. (in our Bastardized American Lingo) The Subway

In my (humble) opinion, there are two good things about the Tube. One, it is rather convenient: both quick (usually), easy to navigate (usually), and easy to access from most places in the city. And two, live music! It's nice to hear the song of a one-man band, a guitar and vocal duo, or in this case, the Scottish bagpipes echoing throughout the tunnels of the stations!

More photos!

The London School of Economics (or, the LSE)

The campus is plunked down right in the middle of the city, albeit somewhat seamlessly. It seems like another little section of central London. Location-wise, if you type in "the LSE, London, UK" in google maps you can see it just north of King's College and just off of Kingsway and Aldwych (the half-moon shaped road).

If you zoom in far enough, you'll find "Ye Olde White Horse," a fabulous place for having a pint after class, or a hot whisky on a cold day. Ahhh.

There are 83 other PhD students in Derek's Department alone (Geography). Yikes! One of the best things about this is that the students are from all over the world--from New Zealand to Italy to Switzerland to Nigeria to Mexico. It's a great way to gain some new perspectives, no matter who you are! Derek has been both taking and auditing classes this semester as well as working on his own research for his particular topic.

The picture above is one of the streets on campus, which harbours the Waterstones Bookstore as well as some admin buildings. This was actually taken on our very first day in London; this was our first view of the school also.

YUM!

Front: The most delicious portobella burger EVER.

Middle: Laura thoroughly enjoying the most delicious portobella burger EVER.

Back: St. Paul's Cathedral, a fantastic view from the window at Gargantuan Burger Kingdom (which is, incidentally, not the actual name of the restaurant but will hereafter be known as such, since the burgers were not JUST grandiose in taste but also in mass and volume.)

Oops!

We had a meeting with the Queen on our first day in the city, but we were so jet lagged we fell asleep just in front of the palace...luckily, some courteous passer-by used the camera I (Derek) was holding to take our picture and then returned it to my backpack. Sneaky little devil.

The Language Barrier

Do you wear a boot or haul things in it? Why does a potato need a jacket? Why does a courgette taste like a zucchini? What do fridge freezers have to do with old men? And is my apartment really flat? Seems fine to me, just a bit quaint. Anyways, this is our first post and we promise to write more later and put up more pictures and the whole works. We may even answer some of these questions, though I'm guessing you can get most of them, maybe not the fridge freezer/old man one, but most. Along those same lines, we've named this blog "Mind the Gap" because that's what you always hear getting on and off of the subway (a.k.a. tube or underground) and, well, because we're a good bit away from all of you back home. Hopefully, this will be one means of making us all a bit closer.

Derek and Laura