Hiya! I’ve been in London for about a week now, after having spent two weeks in Pittsburgh, and it’s been a blast so far. While we’ve been learning a lot here, we also have been seeing and doing some tourist-y things, such as a walking tour of Cambridge, a food tour, and more! 

London definitely has both its similarities and differences to the US. One similarity to note is the London Underground and the bus systems, which operate almost exactly the same as public transport systems in big cities in the US. I would actually say that these systems are a little bit better in London, as they are easy to navigate, consistent, and the trains/buses come often. One difference that I thought was interesting, however, was the service and tipping culture. In the US, many service workers rely on tipping to make a living wage. This means that they tend to be very friendly and gracious in order to earn those tips. In the UK, service workers are paid the same as other customer service workers that don’t earn tips, so they do not have to be overly friendly to make enough money to live. This does not mean that the service is bad by any means, it is simply a cultural difference, and I have had nothing but good experiences with service workers in London!

Our days have been fast-paced, not unlike London itself. We walk up to 20,000 steps a day, to the coffee shop just down the road from our flat, to back home from the tube station, and everywhere in between. Outside of our planned program activities, my new friends and I have spent lots of time exploring the different neighborhoods of London, from the East End to Covent Garden. 

A lot of times at Pitt, I have the tendency to feel like I’m a very small fish in a very, very big pond. I guess it comes with the nature of a big school like Pitt, but it can be overwhelming at times. With the size of this program being only 13 students (myself included), I have been able to get to know the people in my program on a level much deeper than I could have if I was in a classroom. I’m happy to say that we all get along quite well and these are connections that I will hopefully have for a very long time.

That’s all from me! See you at the end of the program!