ants in our pants (or, rather, our trousers??)

A street sign that reflects our moods at the moment...

You see, we arrived in London more than two weeks before our courses were set to begin, anticipating that we would need time to find an apartment and get settled in, but that's happened rather quickly. Certain other "settling in" things can't get done until we're enrolled or we've moved in. So, now, we don't have much to do and we're feeling... antsy.

I'm sure the feeling will only last a couple of days as we will soon have lots of orientation events and reading and meeting of fellow students etc. But through the coming weekend, we need to come up with some profitable ways to spend our time which are, preferably, free or cheap (since we still haven't been able to open UK bank accounts).

Yesterday, for instance, I went jogging!! (Believe it or not...) Which is, of course, a totally free way to get exercise. And also a nice way to discover that there's a park just around the corner from where we're staying with a cafe, a Japanese garden, and (at the moment) "Britain's best" big-top circus!

Today, we may go to the National Protrait Gallery (which we hear is free) and which is near Bloomsbury, where Sergio will be going to school.

Other ideas include:

• Exploring neighborhoods in East London, which everyone tells us is the "Williamburg" of the UK
• Finding out more about the Oval House Theatre, which is around the corner from our new apartment and seems to do interesting new plays and arts education work

• Check out Nueva Generacion, a Latin-American cultural center (also quite close to our new apartment) that aims to help young Latin-American immigrants integrate into an alien culture.

Anyone else got any ideas? I'm sure we'll come up with ways to keep busy and we'll let you know all about them.