Hello friends!
My name is Anya, and I am living in London this semester while studying biochemistry at University College London. It has officially been a month since I arrived. So far, London has been magical. The art, the history, the academics — I am in love with the momentum of this city. I have explored so much these past four weeks, and it is exhilarating to know I’ve only scratched the surface. Here is a sample of what I have been up to.
London’s Art Scene
I feel like I have traded the local music in Austin for London’s art scene in terms of the volume of art and its influence on the culture here. Private galleries are plentiful. I get to visit a new one every day — I believe I visited 25 galleries total as of yesterday.
My favorite thing about these smaller galleries is getting to talk to the people who curate them. Everyone was so friendly and eager to tell me about their current exhibits, and I have made some good friends this way. Once, I even got a private tour of the artists’ studios underneath an exhibition that had already closed for the day. Apart from being very cool, that experience led to a free invite to an upcoming painting workshop!
My favorite art-related endeavor so far was a performance art show I attended at a church last Friday. The dances, poetry and costumes were breathtaking and introduced me to some incredible people. Surprisingly, I enjoy going to these events alone, as it allows me to make friends with everyone else there rather than staying with a familiar group. Again, the kindness of everyone I have met has already made London feel like home.
I am headed to another art show with performances and short film screenings tonight, and I even helped install this one! Earlier this week, I transported giant canvases across the city and bolted sculptures to the walls of a studio in East London with more new friends. The creativity I am surrounded by here in London keeps my heart very full.
Experimental Music
I attended a wild crossover: an orchestra performance of various Bach pieces broken up by lectures on sustainability in space development. Between cantatas, someone would come up and present green policy initiatives in space exploration or recite a manifesto on the importance of our solar system’s health.
This event was part of a larger series titled “Bach, the Universe and Everything.” Some future themes for this event include “numerous occasions in history where poets and creative minds have somehow been ahead of scientific discovery in their predictions” or “aliens.” All, of course, were accompanied by Bach and opera singers.
One of the first things I learned about University College London is that it is located next to a beautiful church that occasionally holds free organ recitals. I have already attended one of the recitals. I have also been to a handful of jazz bars and have tickets to an upcoming classical Persian music performance that includes three instruments I had never heard of before: the tombak, tar and ney.
Exploring Outside London
I joined the hiking club at University College London and went on my first 8-hour trek of the semester last weekend. As a beekeeper in Texas, I love learning about local ecology, and exploring a fresh environment has been fascinating.
I’m very much hoping to get picked for an upcoming club trip to Wales. It will consist of three days and nights spent outdoors, with some beautiful hikes along the coast. As a new member, I am last on the priority list, but keep your fingers crossed for me!
I just got back from my first international solo trip, which I consider a personal milestone: a weekend in Paris. I am a broke college student, so I made this trip as cheap as possible, which made it much more interesting. My £15 (but 9-hour) overnight travel included getting to France by boat, which is always exciting, and the £20 a night hostel was actually very nice!
I did eat almost exclusively bread and cheese, but that isn’t really a new thing. Paris was, of course, breathtaking, with my highlights being the Palais Garnier opera house and the Père Lachaise Cemetery (where I met Oscar Wilde and subsequently picked up a copy of Dorian Gray to commemorate the occasion).
One of the best fusion jazz sets I’ve ever seen at a venue called La Gare/Le Gore. Located in an abandoned train station, La Gare is a jazz bar from 6-12 p.m., and Le Gore is the techno club directly underground from 12-6 a.m. I visited La Gare/Le Gore on the last night of my trip, and it was a fantastic way to end my little excursion.
Academia
Believe it or not, I have been attending classes despite my numerous adventures outside of class. My two favorite classes are Genetics and Society and Emergency History. The former explores the cultural context surrounding genetic study, emphasizing the field’s ties to scientific racism and eugenics — a considerable part of both American and English history — and how we can critically approach today’s developments in a socially responsible way.
Emergency History is – for lack of a better word – about everything. This week’s readings included the Franciscan papal ruling document, a short book on medieval economics, an essay on surveillance capitalism and some early Marx writing.
Yet another historically significant fact about London: this is where Watson and Crick used Rosalind Franklin’s imaging to uncover the helical structure of DNA, one of the most significant scientific discoveries ever. Some of my science friends and I have plans to tour their laboratory, which is still in operation, and then visit a nearby pub that Waston and Crick regularly patronized.
This part of the blog doesn’t quite fit anywhere else, but I thought I’d also include a description of my living situation. I live in a flat with nine people from eight different countries, and it feels like a multinational sitcom. I could not have asked for a better setup.
And that concludes my roundup of my initial weeks in London! My time here has been exhilarating and exhausting, but there is nowhere else I’d rather be. London is an absolute dream, and I could not be more grateful for the opportunity to be here.
This post was contributed by Anya Koehne, a Global Ambassador for Spring 2025. Anya is a junior studying abroad in London, England.
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