Learning how to live in London – a Cuban fresher’s perspective

I’m very grateful to Aimée Gonzalez for this excellent guest blog. Aimée is Cuban and currently studying at the London School of Economics (the LSE) in the UK under the Chevening scholarship scheme.

Two months have already passed by… and I’m still dazzled and struggling to keep pace with the vigorous current of London’s life.  Instead of reflections, what I have now is a cumulus of thoughts, experiences and emotions that pile up in complete disorder. Following Tim’s kind invitation, I would like to share some of them with you without trying to generalize or bring things together. If you don’t find this too boring, I’ll write more in a future blog.

Plugging into ‘The Matrix’…

You don’t realize how you rely on daily routines until you need to start them from scratch. Especially in environments as different and demanding as LSE’s and London’s are for me. Unlike in Cuba, a great deal of your interactions happen online: access to information (fairs, courses, events, discounts, parties, news, lectures…), access to services (library, printing, transport, different payment cards, banking, bookings) and access to social life (people share and coordinate a lot through social networks). Most of them require you to plan ahead. Not just for a few days, sometimes for more than a month.

For instance, something as trivial as doing your laundry: the service is paid for with a specific card that you have to buy in a machine. To top up the card, you have to sign up on a website (username, password, personal data, terms and conditions…) and pay online. They then send you a number code to your email. With that number code you go to another machine and top up the laundry card. Then you insert the card in the washing machine and voilá!

Also, you shouldn’t drop in to a professor’s office; you book a slot of his time online. Theatre plays, fairs, parties, train tickets….all of them you book in advance. So you spend an incredible amount of time just learning how things work and making sense of the overwhelming number of offers, discounts, memberships, payments schemes; from the oyster card (a London travel card), Google maps, the British Library, WhatsApp to Amazon.

The LSE…

Ohh… I could write pages on this! The philosophy of education is different from that in Cuba; fewer lectures, more seminars and presentations and a lovely flow of independent reading. I have learned a lot of interesting stuff and still have a lot to catch up on. I have a very international group of classmates (all five continents represented) and they are really nice. I have only just started to make sense of all this new knowledge and the university is already asking for my dissertation topic!

The Library is amazing (it closes at midnight). But LSE also has a variety of comfortable and attractive places where you can study; from the Shaw Library to the 8th floor of the New Academic Building. And there is so much going on at the same time: from lectures by invited speakers to concerts to the student society’s events to unexpected things…

This week there was a strike for better pay by University staff. Professors from different departments (International History, Anthropology, Law, the Gender Institute, Sociology, and Government) gave speed-lectures about subjects like the history of striking, the neo-liberalisation of higher education, communicative capitalism and the Neoliberal Academy. I was impressed by the points of view expressed there.

The city…

And on top of all that you also get to experience the city! I’m staying in an area call Shoreditch, in a residence really close to London’s main financial district, the City of London. So I’m surrounded by really impressive skyscrapers. My favourite is 30 St Mary Axe (widely known as “the Gherkin”). I see it day and night, it’s beautiful, and when I get lost (which I still do quite often), seeing it reminds me I’m close to home.

Catching a conversation in an unintelligible language on the tube, all those faces from different ethnic groups, a Thai festival in a Buddhist temple, a beautiful Degas in the National Gallery, centuries-old Chinese paintings at the V&A museum, a Wilfredo Lam painting in the Tate Gallery, a glance at a rehearsing Carlos Acosta during a back-stage tour to the Opera House, the city sights from the top floor of the bus after a hard day, a glass of wine while I shout at friends in an overcrowded pub…each and every one of those things has made me happy. And still there is so much more to see and do!

Therefore, thanks again Chevening for giving me this truly invaluable opportunity.