Crazy Stuff (7-8)

Today has been interesting and long. I slept until about 9:30 or 10 and then went to Camden Coffee House to update and post my blog for yesterday. I took the tube to Picadilly Circus but I really just walked towards Oxford Circus and ended up shopping there, and by shopping, I mean spending a couple hours at H & M trying things on. They have so much more variety in London H & M's. Heck, they have multiple floors. The one at the Spectrum didn't even exist until after our last trip here, I think. I had a racist moment, perpetuating the stereotypical fear of the "other" Justine and all her post-colonial references discuss. There are signs at Picadilly Circus station that say "Beware. Pickpockets are known to operate at this station." I walked up the stairs and out of the tube station and started to look at my map. Right after I put it away, a black man with scruffy-looking facial hair, one of those jacket vests, and a beanie saw me and asked if I needed help finding anything. I said I was fine, walked about 100 feet down the street and asked a white woman which way the shops were. I walked in the direction she told me to and there were all the shops. A lot of them looked like they're out of my price range. I ended up going into H & M and spending quite a lot of time there. It's sort of interesting that stores back at home typically allow you to bring 5 or 6 items into the dressing room, the ones in Dublin only allowed 2 or 3, but the big ones in London allow up to 10. I went into the dressing room twice and brought in 9 or 10 items both times. Needless to say, had anyone been with me they would have probably complained that I was taking too long, and I didn't even leave the ground floor! There were about half a dozen different things I really liked, but I'm pretty self-disciplined when it comes to spending. I ended up getting 2 dresses, one not on sale (a black dress, becuse every girl needs a nice black dress and all I've had in the recent past were awkwardly altered band dresses: 15 pounds) and one on sale (white with stripes of various blue and blue-green hues: 7 pounds). Odd how the tags all had 3 sizes, including "US #," and accurately enough both dresses I got said "US 6" but there were some things I tried on where a supposed American 6 or 8 were tight and a 4 was loose. It was weird. After I realized it was getting late and I needed to hurry up and make a decision there and check out I decided to go look for that sweet shop we went to 3 years ago that Ron liked. I asked somebody who worked at the Oxford Circus tube station and I think he said something about straight down Regent St. but I couldn't find it before I had to leave for the dorms, because there was to be an important meeting tonight...

Well, I haven't discussed things in much detail. I'm still not sure if it's appropriate to talk about what's going on, but it *is part of my London experience. I've just said that the dorms we're staying in are pretty bad, and I'm still not going to say anything much. For once, I'm letting others do the whining, and hoping to benefit from the result. Seriously, they had someone from the Chapman study abroad office fly out here. That's how bad it is. Some stuff I don't think is too bad. No soap in the bathroom? Eh, I carry hand sanitizer in my backpack all the time. Little Italian kids running through the hallways and their leaders opening doors without knocking (and that just for one night)? Eh, I was just sitting typing up my blog. If I'd been changing or whatever, I would have locked the door, and I don't need to take a shower every day. I just wet my hair with the sink in my room and brushed it the morning they were here. The awful thing is that they're doing renovations on the building we're staying in. Chapman was apparently never informed of this. I think it may have something to do with the travel/tour agency they were working with not disclosing this information, or maybe they never had that information? Tonight most of us went out to dinner at the Grand Union pub down the street (which Justine paid for) and then met in the lounge downstairs in the dorm to talk with the lady from Chapman. She told us about the process of events that had led to her coming there to objectively assess the situation. Of course there was a lot of "well this is travel" and "culture shock" talk coming from her at first, but by the end of the meeting she had heard and understood our concerns. They're going out tomorrow to look for a viable solution, because previous solutions have not worked out. For instance. I was in corridor P, right above where they were renovating, and the fumes and things were horrible. I then moved to corridor R, and the next day they started renovating right under it. The fumes in the elevator were almost unbearable. The light in the R hallway is supposed to be motion sensitive, but sometimes even walking up and down the hallway several times won't turn the light on. At least I'm right next to the bathroom. Of course the staff has been rapidly trying to clean things up since they found out that Chapman was going to be inspecting. This was discussed at the meeting tonight. I've gotten tiny bites and seen little black specks on my sheets. I was able to get new bedding. Other people are having terrible alergic reactions from the fumes and debris from the renovation. Those who were the worst have moved into hotels already. With the discussion of the timeline and processes that have gone on thus far, I doubt there will be any resolution before I go home. Heck, I've been counting down the days. I'm only in London for 3 more nights after tonight. We were never given a break down of how our money was being spent, just a "woohoo, we're under budget" and we're all regretting it. The dorm staff have been pretty condescending. I think I went to go ask about getting the little keychain we're apparently supposed to show at the breakfast line that was not included in my new set of keys for my R room, and there was an immediate "who's your team leader? Is your team leader Justine?" kind of like "Won't you whiners get out of our hair?" At this point, I don't know whether I'd rather get to move out for the last couple nights or be compensated for the trip, or at least the London leg of it. Oh, whatever, this is livin' the city.