Class 5 (21 July 2014)

Outside Sherlock Holmes Museum

Another day in London, my bank lessens. It’s amazing how expensive this city can be. The exchange rate is currently at $1 = £1.71 meaning that the U.S dollar is just about half the value of the British pound. You would think prices here would drop to match the price of th

e U.S. but that is not the case. If you stop by Burger King, which I had today, a burger in the U.S. is about $7, here the burger is £7 as well, but the conversion to dollars is equaled to $11.95. I know it doesn’t seem like a huge deal with that example, but when these prices continue to amount, considering the only “free” meal we have is the continental breakfast, which is composed of toast, croissants, and nasty cereal. I’ve spent near $900 in the U.K. with 75% of that being on food.  Today I found out that a large pizza from Papa Johns is £17. That’s nearly $30!!! So one piece of advice from me is if you do ever visit the U.K. you should come with a lot of money, I’d say try to have $100/day, if you plan on visiting a ton of tourist destinations.

Enough with my venting, today our class visited the Regents Park. It was a very beautiful park. As we sat on the grass, we held a class discussion about the novel A Vindication of the Rights of Women. The novel really zeroed in on women’s rights and education. At the time the novel was written, women were basically educated to become servants to the men. The writer of the novel, Wollstonecraft, gives her ideas on how women should act, and how everybody should be educated in order for women to become respected human beings. I completely agree with a lot of her feminist proposals, but one thing that did strike me was her education proposals. Of course, these are her ideas and aren’t very perfected, but she was talking about how students should be split after the age of 9 into different groups by their gender. It didn’t make sense to me. Splitting by gender might compromise everything she worked for in her feminist ideas. The idea was interesting, because today it would seem insane to do such a thing.

Anyways, on to the rest of my day.

My London journey is soon coming to a close. I’m getting ready to wrap up the trip and start gathering my things. We have 3 official London days left and I’m going to try to make the best out of them. I won’t say that I’m homesick, but I really do miss my bed, and car, and some people. I’m not very looking forward to work and… well, normal life again. Why I do look forward to going home includes, WiFi everywhere, air conditioning, cheap food, and a cheap lifestyle… I really do miss that, and it’s something we all take for granted back in the states.

Regents Park