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Hi guys!

Thought it was about time I got around to writing to you and telling you something other than "I'm alive" and "I need....." (surprised? Well don't get too used to it, I get kind of lackidasical about this kind of thing at times.

Let's see, I know you've heard the plane & London stories, I'm really tired of telling them anyway, so it's a good thing, you wouldn't get a very through [thorough] view of it anyway. We made another trip into London a couple of days ago, first we all got a bus tour together around the city, and then they let us loose to do what we wanted. We wandered over to Harrod's, a huge department store complete with a piano department, (all pianos, uprights, baby grands, all colors, woods...), at least 6 furniture departments including "Fine Arts" (antique), a 3 room book department, a huge toy department plus a separate one for stuffed animals, I could go on like this forever. The main drawback was that I (we) was (were) there on the first day of their big sale. You know the old pictures of the New York Macy's at Christmas rush -- body to body? You've got it. Only the first floor was like that (yea!) the others were like a regular day after Christmas sale. Oh, I forgot to mention the food halls full of fruits & vegetables, freshly butchered meat, game, poultry, & fish, several types of caviar, chocolates..... That place was too much!

Then we managed to find our way over to the theatre to see Deathtrap £2 (about 4.50) for student rush seats in the 3rd row! The seats were better than the show, but the show was worth seeing. Then dinner in an Italian hole-in-the-wall, and home on the late train & the free late taxi home.

Speaking of theatre - London is amazing! Hello Dolly! The King & I, Chicago, Deathtrap, Mousetrap, My Fair Lady, Oliver, Richard III, Annie, Oh! Calcutta!, -- all playing simultaneously! I can hardly stand it. A lot of them have student rush seats which will help a lot, but I'm going to go crazy (such sympathy from you! Thanks a lot!) Rumor has it that musicals here aren't that great, but the dramas are good, but I'll have to check that out for myself.

What else? The room is nice even though it's one of the worst in the house, but that's not saying much in this house -- even the servants had good rooms (that's us). It does have bad wallpaper & even worse purple curtains, but it's warm (old coil radiator) and bigger than a regular dorm room so its isolation & lack of carpet (a couple of 2 foot rugs is it) aren't too terible.

My roommate is great. Our musical tastes are different but Lisa got me to appreciate a lot of what she & now Jill listens to so there really isn't any problem there. She's a sophomore in mechanical engineering and we get along really well, so that\s convenient.

Um, classes. I've changed a bit. I think I'm in Education now it's great. The first class was today & the professor is from Reading & seems really good. The stage hasn't started yet --professor's not due back from the U.S. until next week,-- but the reading looks ok. (I've only read two before & only heard of a couple others so it'll all be new which will be nice. I switched from the history class to Church Architecture since I'd taken something so similar at Stanford I figured I'd try & get something different. It's totally new and really confusing recognizing styles and such, but it's really going to be intresting even if it is a lot of work (these 5 unit classes can kill you).

I can't tell you about anyone else since I haven't heard from anyone (hopefully I will have by the time you get this because of the 5-14 day time lag) and I can't tell you about any more exciting trips since I can't take any until we get the money thing all straightened out. I'm probably going into London on Saturday to get a 1/2 price rail pass, a hostel card, and hit a couple of museums and a play -- it's all I can do this weekend, but there's a possibility of a bigger trip next week since Jill has 5 days (I always have 5 days because of my classes) & we might go to Scotland or Ireland, unless she decides to camp, in which case I can't go do to lack of supplies, then I might go to Bath etc. with Janice. It's all really up in the air -- we only plan one weekend at a time if possible, otherwise it gets really confusig. Actually it's probably a good thing I can't go anywhere this weekend -- I can get ahead in my reading so it will be easier to travel & later work on the stupid term