Models aka Ladies of the Night

August 24, 2011

Lucky for us UC Accent students, we didn't start class until this Monday actually. Instead, Thursday served as an orientation day for us to learn about the program and various parts of London from a walking tour. For some odd reason, they thought it would be smart to have us students wake up EARLY to attend an orientation only a few hours after arriving into London, still jet-lagged and all that good stuff. We were served black coffee or tea with cookies as a breakfast... bitter, bitter tea I am not used to at all... ASIAN tea!!!!!!!!

An informative session but due to the lack of sleep regularity and warm environment, many of us started to drift off. On the bright side, we got free stuff from the security team in charge of our city/borough of Camden Town in London... I still don't know where/how we are situated in London.... Anyways, got a rape alarm (not a whistle): a must have as mace is not legal in the UK, a portable bag hook dealie for tables, a clip to hook you bag to you to keep from being stolen so easily, a led flashlight with a uv light, and supposedly, we are to be getting free invisible ink type pens. Awesome. Thus ended the early morning.

After that, from what I can gather from my memories, I believe I went around with my roommates to the grocery store to buy food. I'm not quite sure. It was either that or I bought food. Either way, I went somewhere and then back to my place to eat lunch or something. Killed some time before I left with my flatmates to go on a tour of the city by foot by a tour guide. Excited as I get to see the city a bit before exploring crazily on my own.

After having our midday meal, our group set off to find this person who would guide us through the jungle that is Central London. (As I type, it is probably the 6th siren I've heard today. It happens everyday.) Being separated from the rest of our group, my flatmate Monica and I went off with this tiny, pink-jacketed old lady who started off our tour right in front of the "school." (I quote school because it's really just a building with rooms in it, not a university at all. It's like a cram school situation. People either live next door to the school or where I live, which is more nicely kept flats.) The building across from school was the Trades Union Congress, which meant that if any strikes by workers occurred during our stay, demonstrations would take place in front of the building and we'd get to witness it all. It's a ghastly statue at the front of it.

Anyways, besides the facts stated above, she talked about how the aristocracy of England came to be and how it works today. Very hard to remember the facts but I'll spot the incorrect shit here. Man, I really want to write a story from doing this thing. Let's write one Annie. Yes, let's. Agreed. Why not pick up the old one and start it again. Blah blah. Journal wernal. Facts(?): Forgot a lot of it... but some king of England gave out the titles Duke and Earl to the first ones of those titles as a way of gifting loyal subjects with taken land from monasteries destroyed and such. Pretty sure it was King Henry the Eighth but what the hell do I know. So, he gave land to the first Earl or Duke of Bedford which is where I live and then to pass it on after only girls were left, they married the daughter off to another great aristocrat nearby which then combined the fortunes together, leading to the creation of Russell Street and Russell Square. She then proceeded to tell the girls to marry any dukes or earls as they are filthy rich and still own most of the land people use in London, no matter how ugly or uncharming the man is.

Since London suffered heavy casualties during WWI, much of the city's architecture relied of being built fast and re-developing the city over design and restoration. This explains why there are really not too many nicely designed buildings in my area. We went through an alley way sort of street which seemed shady to me, but is probably not and ventured onward to the more interesting parts of the city. If I were to try to get back to where we toured, I would have no clue and be lost, especially since I didn't know anything about where I was as it was only the 2nd day. After several twists and turns, we ended up at Soho Square (mind you, squares are parks) and stood in the middle of the park where we blocked traffic from many directions due to the smaller but still enormous group of students on her tour. Apparently, the Soho area used to be a rich, aristocratic area but as London lost its glamour to the rich, the poor started moving in and took over, thus creating slums. In the later years, Soho became the center for media entertainment. In one of the buildings around Soho Square, Paul McCartney's office stands and used to showcase all his gold record awards but have been recently moved to a new office. A little ways down and the 20th century fox studio is also in that same area. There is also a St. Paul's church, I believe, in the same vicinity. What was curious was that a lady was tacking apples onto a giant board and made art from it. It was to promote Swedish culture in the Square as a Swedish fair was going to be held.

We finished staring and taking pictures in the park and left to wander through other parts of Soho, which is another borough or city or town in London... I DON'T KNOW what it is. On our way through the streets, she pointed out a large building with scaffolds in the front and how it used to be a great lord's house and was lavish and beautiful inside, though probably no longer used as a house. As we walked along the front of it, she also explained why some homes have blocked up windows or filled in windows. At one point in London history, the government imposed a glass/windows tax which meant the more windows, the more taxes you had to pay. To prevent the window tax, most owners just filled in their windows to be exempt from paying more taxes. Lovely tax to pay. How ridiculous. Not sure why this tax exists but its a British thing.

As we strolled down the street of supposedly diverse shops and restaurants, we happened to noticed a sign above the entrance to some flats with the world Model on it. Now, if you knew history, you'd know that prostitutes at one point, had to operate like this in England as it was no longer legal to solicit business on the streets. No more streetwalkers, but prostitution is still legal. A good tip off is that there is a red light next to the model sign and above, the rooms have names of the girls you can hire for the night. Hence, models are ladies of the night here in London. As we kept walking, we passed a lot of interesting shops and many theatres that played musicals along this area. London is, after all, a great city of the arts and theatres are found everywhere. I leave myself here as I need to sleep for my cinema class tomorrow... what a boring blog I have. And its even more dull when I say it's boring. It's a like a boring placebo, only its more like I gave you another dose of the boring drug and its now traveling through every single vein and artery and capillary in your body. I hope you die from boredom from reading this.

Anyways, it's the next day now.