Touring the Town

The International Centre organised an exciting (and free!) bus tour for us international students today. Thankfully, this wasn't the usual touristy stuff, but normal travel coaches and an entirely different route from the red busses.
The guide gave us several interesting bits of information that I hadn't known previously:
25% of London are actually greenland: parks, gardens etc
50% of all Londonders don't own a private car
Big Ben is the bell (I knew that!) inside the Tower of Commons (which I didn't)
The location of town houses of: JK Rowling, Sean Connery, Elton John, Margaret Thatcher etc
And lots of other stuff. Thanks to this tour I finally have some sense of where everything is located...having previously mainly travelled by underground, this is priceless.
The only place where we stopped and got out was St. Paul's Cathedral ('We can use the toilets for free here!'). Charminlgy, the toilets, shop and cafe of the cathedral are located in the crypts ('The Crypt Cafe'- I just loved that one!).
Other interesting places I saw were: Old Baily (the criminal court), Downing Street (doesn't look that appealing actually), the Horse Guards (with shiny armour!), the Fire of London Memorial, and of course all the tourist hot spots.
And also shops. All those shops! With those beautiful shop fronts! I even saw the one of Vivienne Westwood (I think), with a clock out front that runs backwards. :)
Plus, Waterstone's! A bookstore even larger than Borders? Seven floors? Best leave the credit card at home. :D

Now, this evening, there will be a three-course dinner for international students, which is very neat indeed. Uni probably wants to ensure we don't die of malnutrition before teaching starts...
Anyway, all those introductory events and the free food are quite incredible, as is the amount of information material that is handed out here. At least I get to see what I'm not paying for...a stark contrast ot home, where I don't get to see what I am paying for. Hah.