Summing up the week

So after new years things seemed to calm down a little bit around here. I've gotten to know most of the flatmates in the house (which are all from Australia) which has been nice. As of now there is 10 of us living here, but in the next two weeks it will be down to eight because two of them are moving to other countries. They are all quite interesting actually. We live in a house where it is a mix of guys and girls all around my age or older and their ways of life are slightly different than ours. Like for example, in Australia it is very common for people my age to go off into the world and travel for a couple of years. Most of the people living here have been to more places in the world than we would ever dream to go and have lived in several of them. Its fun to also compare lingo or slang words with each other, the hardest for me is them saying "are you doing OK?'', which in their terms is saying whats up or hello...but I always want to answer with fine or something like that which is hard to shake.
In the past couple of days we've walked by Buckingham palace, ate Thai food (which is popular here), went out in Notting Hill (again), and ventured to IKEA so that I could get a decent comforter to stay warm in my freezing cold room at night. At Buckingham palace Brendan, Christin, and I attempted to do the O-H-I-O using a column in front of it as the "I". A british man took the picture and told us we looked like idiots, which we probably did, but you'd understand if you were from Columbus.
So far I've made a little list of things I've learned about London/being new to the area that may be helpful to the rest of you if you ever visit here:
1. Take a walk along the river - you see about every major monument and encounter VERY interesting people.
2. ALWAYS stand on the right on an escalator unless your actually physically walking up it - I learned that the hard way.
3. You bump into someone every 5 seconds here, so theres no use in saying excuse me.
4. Yes, they know your American.
5. It gets dark here at 4:30, so you are forced to wake up early and do things. (Which if you all know me, thats a very difficult thing)
6. Those red guards that everyone messes with are NOT at Buckingham Palace, they are at the Tower of London which I have yet to see.
7. The only American pop music they play is the classic songs that everyone knows like "Sweet Home Alabama" - except for in the CD store near my house where for some reason they play Soulja Boy.
8. You learn new things everyday, and you just have to embrace them.

Tomorrow is my BUNAC orientation and then the job search begins!