On what can't be predicted in London...

When you're in a foreign country for two months, there is bound at some point to be a challenge or two. I'm pretty proud of how the students have taken this adventure on and faced the obstacles bravely. For instance, Russia at this point has invaded Ukraine, bombarding the city of Kyiv and others, and occupying many areas along the Russian-Ukrainian border.

This issue is pretty important to the British as part of Europe, and there is a great deal of concern expressed for the Ukrainian people. My student Kamaura Kim took these photos outside the Russian Embassy in London while walking around Hyde Park.

This is the embassy itself, which as you can see is abandoned and surrounded by barriers. 

Now, normally my students don't have to walk to class around Hyde Park. Normally they would take the tube. However...

This week we experienced a tube strike. It seems the city has decided they don't want to pay for tube worker pensions, and they want to cut 600 positions. Never mind that we promised you a certain amount after a lifetime of hard work...we've decided that's exorbitant! And if you could go ahead and do 3-5 jobs instead of just the one - for the same pay - that would be great.

😕

Well guess what dudes. When you treat the people who make a system work like crap, they stop supporting that system for you. Then the system doesn't work, and we are all screwed. Now the buses still ran, but most of us weren't as used to those. (Meaning myself.) I was in fact very late to class the first day of the strike. Thankfully my Detective Fiction students are very cool. 

To be fair, the buses are relatively easy to use. They are a lot like Milwaukee buses. They try to make it as easy as possible. Each stop has a letter prominently displayed and a schedule clearly readable. Plus there's any number of apps that tell you exactly where to go. Still, there is nothing quite like the speed and simplicity of the London Underground (tube).

Stop pissing on workers!!!!! Their work makes the world run.

Finally, and I almost forgot to add this, our second week in London, the city experienced the worst wind storm on record, Storm Eunice. It too halted the trains and caused a great deal of damage across the country, including my homestay. See below her collapsed garden fence.

The magnificent beast you see perched there is called Leo.