Tag Archive for: Savannah Shapiro

BY SAVANNAH SHAPIRO

Europe is different than the United States. Very different. There were so many things that I was unaccustomed to that I decided to make a list of what was different here in London as opposed to the United States.

Food

Enjoy your nice cheeseburger and side of ranch dressing because this is something that is hard to come by here in London. And if you do by chance find a cheeseburger here, it’s just not the same. I ordered a salad one night at Montague Pyke, a restaurant near the Soho area, and that was the first time I realized food here was very different. The ranch dressing isn’t our creamy deliciousness but instead it is watered down. It’s more acidic and has a tang at the end that I don’t find appetizing. Cafes line the streets and there are cute bakeries everywhere it’s just a matter of finding the one that’s for you. We have stuck to a diet of pizza and I think that’s the way to go! I’m still on the hunt for my go to restaurant.

AC

There is no AC anywhere here. It can get unbearably hot and humid here in London and all you want to do is sit in a place that has air conditioning, but that is very difficult when restaurants, dorm rooms, stores and transportation systems lack AC. Staying hydrated is key especially in the tube where everyone is packed in like sardines in an underground tunnel!

Ice

Unfortunately, London is short on ice, especially when it’s hot outside. Most restaurants here are accustomed to serving room temperature beverages, making you appreciate the nice cold soda you can get from the U.S. Once we started asking for ice, we were finally able to get the cold drinks we were searching for. I found it really helpful to freeze a bottle of water before our walking tours and long day of class.

Trash Cans

Surprisingly, there are few trashcans that line the street like we are used to. In London, they don’t call trashcans trashcans, but rather they call it litter. If you go to a Starbucks or any other café for that matter, don’t be surprised if there isn’t a trashcan. You can simply leave your trash where you are siting and the staff will clean and remove the trash for you.

Smoking

In the U.S. there are designated smoking areas, but as for the U.K. there are not. Many people smoke cigarettes in the street which I found to be an interesting difference from the United States.

Traffic and Transportation

Double decker buses are so cool here! I loved hoping onto a bus and going up to the second floor. The view is very nice from up there, and taking a ride on the bus is very helpful for understanding the streets of London. A double decker bus is the epitome of London. I didn’t think that the buses could get you from point A to point B, and that they were just tourist attractions, but they are very helpful and get you to your destination very quickly. The buses are also cheaper than the tube.

How to pay at a restaurant

It is a little different here than the U.S. If you use an American debit or credit card, which most people in the program did, the waiter/waitress brings out the ATM pin pad and inserts your chipped card to pay the bill. You pay the bill directly at the table, and are not obligated to pay tip. If you eat with a large group then you may see a service fee added to your bill, which is just the same as gratuity in the U.S. If you want to leave a tip you always can, but it is not mandatory nor do the workers expect it. Also after paying, you must sign the receipt in which they check your license or the back of your card to make sure your signature is the same.

Drving and crossing the street

I’m still trying to understand how the rules on the road work here in London.

Cars are on the opposite side of the street, drivers drive on the opposite side of the car, and when you cross a cross a crosswalk you look left, right, left. Cars usually do not stop because it is not pedestrians right of way like how it is in the U.S. Also, stop lights work a little differently. The light changes from red to yellow, which allows the stopped cars to slowly take off. It is important to make sure you clear the crosswalk in time, before the cars start to take off. Because crossing the street can be a little intimidating at first, make sure to find zebra crosswalks which are indicated by the black and white striped poles that have a large yellow bulb at the top. These crosswalks function as our stop signs which allows the pedestrian the right of way. Cars stop for you, but make sure to look both ways before crossing at all times!  

Escalators

Believe it or not there are two lanes to an escalator! Although it’s a normal escalator the crowd divides into two sides: the right side is used for standing, while the left is used for walking. Because there are a lot of commuters who are rushing to get to their destination, it is important to move to the right side if you want to stand. If you are in a rush to catch a train or the tube, it would be best for you to use the left side and walk down or up the escalators with the rest of the rushing commuters!

Gas Stations

You would think that in a packed city with many cars there would be multiple gas stations, but we found it very interesting when we could barely find any. There is a gas station called BP within the city, and the only one we’ve seen by far. Good thing we take those buses!

Toilets

In the U.S. you can use public restrooms practically anywhere you’d like. However, in London, not everywhere restaurant or store has a restroom to use. Some public places that do have toilets require you to pay to get in. I suggest to ask a restaurant kindly if they have a restroom, which they actually refer to as toilets, and they will more often than not allow you to use their restroom.

Savannah Shapiro studied abroad in London, England in summer 2017: https://ieo.ucla.edu/travelstudy/English-London/

By SAVANNAH SHAPIRO

On my first day in London, my friend Morgan took me to visit Hyde Park. It was the day before my first class started and a good way to familiarize myself with the congested streets of the city. After walking to Buckingham Palace, we crossed the street and stopped by a local grocery store called Marks & Spencer to pick up our mild and creamy Camebert cheese, a block of mature cheddar and a box of crackers. We took our cheese and crackers to Hyde Park and sat right in front of the pond watching the ducks swim in the lake. Although Hyde Park was busy because of the ongoing summer festivals and concerts, it was still enjoyable and relaxing. We could hear Green Day playing in the background as we ate our cheese and crackers and tiny row boats crowded the surface of the lake that sits in the center of the park. Spread throughout and across the lawn of the park, there are green and white stripped chairs littering the lawn. The chairs are called Park Deck Chairs and as comfy as they may look, they come at a price. To sit in one of the chairs on the lawn, the price varies from £1.60 for one hour and £4.60 for up to four hours. For us, the nice green grass worked just fine.

One of my favorite aspects of Hyde Park was the gardens. Surrounding the pathways of the pond were rows of different flowers and plants. There is the Rose garden that is located in the south east corner of Hyde Park, near Hyde Park Corner and just south of Serpentine Road. A walk through the gardens, which is free, was both relaxing and helped me adjust to the long day of traveling I did the previous day.

In addition to picnicking and walking through the Hyde Gardens, the Serpentine, which is the lake centered in the middle of Hyde Park, is a place where you can rent a boat for an hour and paddle across the lake. Boating opens up from the months of April to October and opens at 10:00AM. The boats do not close until the sun sets which during the summer time is anywhere around 8:00-9:00PM. The cost per person on the boats is £12 for one hour and £10 for 30 minutes. This is approximately $15.60 and $13 respectively in U.S. currency.

If you get a little hungry or thirsty while you are at Hyde Park, there is a tiny little restaurant that sits on the edge of the pond that offers sandwiches, salads and snacks. More importantly, there is a little ice cream station attached to the outside of the restaurant that scoops your favorite gelato flavors that goes perfectly with a nice walk in the garden!

Hyde Park Quick Tips:

1. Hyde Park is a great place to picnic and relax from the crowded streets of London.
2. Boating across the lake is another fun activity
3. Walking through the Hyde Gardens is beautiful (and not to mention free)
4. Go grab some ice cream and find a nice spot on the grass

Savannah Shapiro studied abroad in London, England, in Summer 2017: https://ieo.ucla.edu/travelstudy/English-London/

BY SAVANNAH SHAPIRO

LONDON

It’s already week 2 for us here in London and we only have 11 more days left in England. On Monday, we had our first classroom session which was on the campus on the University of Westminster. It felt like a normal day of class at UCLA, but felt different as Professor Makdisi talked about the streets on London while in London. I started making the connections to our readings we did and the streets we already roamed in London.  

Tuesday was a day for museums. We started our morning off bright and early and took some time before class to visit The British Museum. It was also the first day where we encountered rain. We were lucky enough to have clear and sunny skies for our first week here, but the rain came at last. Luckily, we were indoors which made it the perfect day to tour some museums.   

The British Museum is so large that you can spend hours and hours wandering through all the rooms in the building. There are over 90 rooms that are dedicated to Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome and Greece, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Not to mention, the museum is free! We spent most of our time in the Ancient Greece and Rome rooms, as well as the Egyptian room. My favorite room was the gallery that contained the Elgin Marbles. The marbles that were from the Parthenon in Athens Greece seemed so remarkable that my mind couldn’t fully comprehend what I was seeing.   

In addition to the Elgin Marbles, we saw the Rosetta Stone which was swarmed with hoards of people. The Rosetta Stone was the key for scholars to understand and decode the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. The cluster of ancient hieroglyphics clutter the surface of the stone from top to bottom. Although it was crowded around the Rosetta Stone, it was something definitely worth seeing.   

After The British Museum, it was time for class and we had to meet Professor Makdisi at the Tate Britain. The Tate Britain is the National Collection of British Art and is much less busy than The British Museum. At the Tate, we looked at artwork by Turner and Blake connecting the concepts of our walking tours to the pieces of artwork. We looked at how 18th century was captured both the good and the bad and compared this to the writing of Blake, Hannah Moore and Hazlitt.   

After we finished walking the Tate and finished class for the day, we went back to the dorms and relaxed. We called it an early night and made plans for the next day in Hamstead Heath.  

Savannah Shapiro studied abroad in England on the 2017 Summer Travel Study program “London and the Age of Revolution:” https://ieo.ucla.edu/travelstudy/English-London/

BY SAVANNAH SHAPIRO

The weekends are your free time. Professor Makdisi ends class early on Friday allowing you to fly out or take a train to another country which many students did their first weekend here. We decided to stay in England for our first weekend and travel outside the city into the countryside. We booked a tour where it took us to Windsor Castle, Lacock, Bath and Stonehenge. We had a long day and started the day off early meeting our bus at 7:45 in the morning at Victoria.  

 The bus was air conditioned (thank goodness) and the seats were nice and comfy making the trip on the road nice and comfortable. The whole week, we were always planning what to do and where to go, and this was the first time where someone was guiding us where tog o and when to come back which was something that I liked. It felt like a middle school field trip and it was nice for once to have some guidance on what to do and where to go. We didn’t have to worry about admission tickets inside the castle or Stonehenge, everything was already taken care of through the tours which made things that much more simple for us.  

Windsor was so amazing that it is hard to even put into words. The castle was surreal and the rooms inside packed in centuries of history. The crown molding that ran across the circumference of the wall and crystal chandeliers that hung from the ceilings were restored by Queen Elizabeth and transported you into a different time. There were separate rooms dedicated the knight’s armory rooms and old weaponry. I highly recommend exploring The State Apartments at Windsor which include all the bedrooms, weapon rooms and dinning tables of the castle. Certain rooms are closed during specific seasons of the years, but nonetheless every part of the castle that was open was awe inspiring.  

After our stop at Windsor, our tour guide Doug and driver Ricardo took us through the English countryside. We stopped in a tiny little village called Lacock where little houses sat on cobblestone streets. We were again transported in another time period. The cottages were cozy and tucked away on the long windy cobble stoned streets and we were able to wander up and down the pathways. It was like a fairytale.  

Our next stop took us to Bath. Bath felt like a little piece of Italy with its Yellowstone building and Roman architecture. We didn’t go into the Roman Baths although we could. The line was a little long and we decided that we just wanted to walk around the city and into the abbey that was rigt next to the baths. After going into the abbey, we walked down to a tiny little bakery down by the river and ate some pastries. The bakery was tucked away under a building where you had to crouch your head down low enough to get through the window that was the door. We passed a hand squeezed lemonade stand where you could smell the fresh scent of lemon peel. We stood on top of the walkaway and peered down at the gardens taking in all the sights around us.  

We soon made our way back onto the bus and proceeded to travel to our final stop of the day: Stonehenge. We parked next to a field that was littered with red poppies. The poppy filed alone would be worth visiting. A small little bus took us down the 2 mile path that leads up to Stonehenge. We walked up to the stones and fell in awe. It is another monument that is so historic that you don’t realize you are seeing it until you are there.  

I payed £74 for our trip to the countryside which included all of our entrance fees to the locations and a free lunch. Without a doubt, it was the best £74 I’ve spent so far.