More fun in London ... New Post from Matt

It's been a whirlwind past several days.  A summary:

Saturday:

My day starts early and I take the tube to Heathrow to meet the students.  It takes longer but I'm reviewing a journal article so it's not wasted time.  I meet the students and Katarina Keller (who accompanies the students on their trip over) as they exit customs at about 9:40.  We go to our coach which takes us all to the students' flats, hear an orientation, then we're off to the Welcome to London lunch at Zonzo's Restaurant.  They serve great Italian food and it was a great meal.  (Here is what a group of very tired students looks like:)

Sunday:

We found a great church for while we're here.  It felt alive, despite being a traditional service, and had a huge number of kids.  Our older kids went to Sunday school during the service and had a great time.

Later Sunday we had a coach tour of London, with occasional stops for us to walk around and take pictures.  We do this with every group, and Heather Davies always does a great job.  We got to see many sites and she does a great job of giving us some history of London but always in a humorous way (or, since I'm in England, should I say humourous?).  Highlights of the coach tour:

- Feeding the squirrels
- Prince Albert Memorial
- Buckingham Palace (just outside)
- Westminster Abbey (just outside)
- Big Ben (see Jacob's explanation for what we actually saw)
- St. Paul's Cathedral (just outside)
- London's Tower Bridge
- The street that was "Diagon Alley" in Harry Potter
- and more

Here are some pictures ...

Monday: 

I had quite a bit of work to do, but we took a few hours to take a walk through Hyde Park, visit the Diana memorial (which was overrated, IMO), and went to Harrod's (quite interesting - fun to ogle at the high prices).  The kids also liked the toy store.

Pictures from the Diana Memorial and Harrods ...

Tuesday:

I had class and Amanda and the kids went to the British Museum.  Jacob reported on that, so I won't go into much more detail.  I was pretty busy with work most of the day.

Wednesday: 

I was working all day, basically.  Zeke was happy with finding out I picked up our Lion King tickets ...

As part of the British Theatre class, the students go to a play every week.  Hence, I get to go to a play a week.  This is part of my "work" here.  :)  This week we saw "Stones in His Pockets".  It was a good play, and it was a small theatre so we were right next to the stage (2nd row).  Really fun to be that close.  On the way back, however, we walked to the tube stop and found out we couldn't take the line because "somebody fell onto the tracks".  It delayed us a bit, but not a big deal for us.  Not the normal thing you expect to hear, however, at least when you're not local.  I suppose that's the equivalent of somebody getting in a car accident in the US.


Thursday: 

Today we had two tours.  For background, the course I teach here is called "Seminar in European Business". For part of that course, we tour different businesses all semester.  Today we had a morning tour of the BBC and an afternoon tour of Chelsea Football.  Both were superb.

At the BBC, it wasn't specifically a business related tour, but we found out quite a bit anyway about the business.  The early questions we asked focused on their funding model.  Every household with a TV set in Britain must pay 145 pounds - it's the law.  That funds the BBC.  They are 1/3 bigger (in terms of employees) than CNN without running commercials.  Of course, for that, they are seizing money from private citizens - many of whom I'm sure would not say it's worth it (sorry, the libertarian in me had to comment).  We also saw where some shows were produced, dressing rooms, the newsroom, and more.  It was an outstanding tour.

In the afternoon, we went to Chelsea Football.  That was also outstanding.  My family was able to come along to that one (kids under 8 weren't allowed at the BBC tour).  The nice part was that the group cost was actually lower with the family, as they give a 15% discount if you get over 30 people, and our family made it 31 - it was about 20 pounds cheaper for the group with Amanda and the 3 kids along than if it weren't for them.  (Bad business model, but good for the us.)

That tour was more-focused on the business of Chelsea football.  There was plenty of fun stuff, however.  We got to see the pitch, the locker rooms, media room, and museum, all were fun.  But, they also do more of a focus on the revenues from sponsors, other revenues, the costs of operations, and how the contracts of players in the UK are handled.  It was an absolute blast, and has made me much more on-the-ball about getting tickets to a football match here.

Friday (today):  Work this morning, a quick walk to the park with the kids, and I bought football tickets for me, Jacob, and Allison.  We got tickets to see Fulham, a Premier League team, on Saturday, February 11th (3:00 PM kick off).  I'm really excited to see a football match here!

Back to work!