If you are taking a semester abroad in London, there are some useful tips you should know, and which could help to make your time-spent a success, rather than a failure. Even though London is culturally sopping wet with richness, and though large, easily navigable via the Underground tube station, there are plenty of mistakes that I have seen the temporary academic diaspora make.
The ‘Waiting’ Game
One devastating mistake that can be made is to wait until opportunity comes knocking. You are only in London once, and if you are a serious, responsible person (which you ought to be), then you should have started planning at least some major things that you want to see prior to ever having arrived on UK soil. I, for example, made the following mistake: had I been more on the ball, I would have been sure to visit Stonehenge and the Windsor castle. Unfortunately, I visited neither. What is my excuse? Well, I simply ‘waited’ until some group would go there and invite me along. Well, the group never came, and now I’m back in the U.S. wishing I’d seen Stonehenge. Get the picture?
Don’t Shop Near the Tube Stops
The London Underground is well designed, both geographically, and as I found out, economically. The ‘tube stops’ are the points at which you can get off the London Underground, which serves as an oft-traveled underground tunnel-web that girds the city’s underside. When you get off at a tube stop, you will perhaps be tempted to buy something immediately. Perhaps this is because you are American, and you feel uncomfortable if you aren’t always buying something you don’t need. Whatever the reason, you should make sure to walk down side streets that are a bit off the beaten path. I have found that there is, on average, about a 10-20% increase in price on basic items, especially food, drink and clothes, that you will be paying if you are too lazy to look anywhere other than the shops right outside the tube stop.
Even though, technically, your actual reason for being in London will be to complete an academic semester, you should shoot a little higher than this pre-delineated standard. Try to inundate yourself in the culture to the maximal extent possible if you want to get the most out of this experience. One way to do that is to select two or three classic works of fiction that have been written by native authors. For example, in London, Dickens would be an excellent read; as an aside, Dickens frequently visited the Cheshire Cheese pub in London, which still stands, on Fleet Street. Dickens sat at the table in the front room next to the fire place.
Avoid ‘Black’ Cabs
So you want to get from King’s College to Leicester Square? Don’t you dare make the mistake of taking a taxi cab. Taxis are only designed-and priced-for one type of tourist: the rich idiot. You are smarter than that, and should take the tube. If you don’t believe me, then take a black cabby somewhere and see for yourself what you have gotten yourself into.
