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My decision to come to London was carefully planned: I chose a great school in a great city in a great continent. Little did I know then that the most rewarding part of my experience here would emerge from pure spontaneity and coincidence.

I met my neighbours months after my arrival, during a residents' pizza night at the International Students House. That night was all it took to realize they were an amazing bunch, and a few more meals together confirmed I was part of an incredibly warm and diverse community of friends that would change my life in London in unexpectedly wonderful ways.

Learning and Laughing

It is not hyperbolic to say that I have learned more from my neighbours than I have in the classroom at LSE. Through our conversations I have travelled the world as they know it, through our meals I have tasted their cultures, and through our jokes I have realized that differences become trivial when we all can laugh together.

One-year Master's students in Britain are all too familiar with the situation described so brilliantly by my good friend and fellow Master's student:

INSTALLING SUMMER.....

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Install delayed....please wait.

Installation failed. Please try again. 404 error: Season not found. Season "Summer" cannot be located. The season you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is unavailable in England.

Perhaps my friend was referring to the lack of sun and warmth that characterizes this time of the year in England yet is unthinkable for the season in his native Brazil. But perhaps he was referring to the lack of summer that comes from having to write a thesis during vacation. You have all heard that British people are obsessed with time, and one-year Master's programs in England are no exception. Forget about that September-May nonsense; here they last exactly one year. While we attend classes for the first nine months, the last three months after final examinations are destined to the dissertation writing process.

London has so much to offer that it is hard to choose the very best. However, after thinking long and hard, I have come up with a list of my favorite places and things to see and do in the city:

- Coffee Shop: The Natural Kitchen (City, EC4 and Marylebone, W1)

- Bookstore: Daunt Books (Marylebone, W1 and others)

- Park: Regent's Park 

- Museum: Science Museum (South Kensington, SW7)

- Market: Camden

- Season: Spring

- Theatre Venue: Royal Albert Hall (South Kensington, SW7)

- Musical: The Phantom of the Opera (Her Majesty's Theatre, SW1)

- Gym: Regent's Gym (Great Portland Street, W1)

- Shopping Area: Oxford Street, W1

- Chinese Restaurant: Phoenix Palace (Marylebone, SW1)

In March this year Londoners flocked to the Thames on a a typically grey Saturday afternoon in the capital. The tranquility of Putney Bridge, with its churches uniquely facing each other from opposite banks, was disturbed by groups of friends and families with babies rushing to get a good spot along the river. This was the 157th Varsity Boat Race disputed annually by Oxford and Cambridge Universities, a tradition that only the two World Wars have been able to disrupt.

Of the places where I conducted research in preparation for my undergraduate thesis, the National Archives in London significantly surpasses the rest in terms of resources, efficiency, and organization. Here you can find documents relevant to military, family history, maritime, diplomatic, political and colonial queries. This hidden gem is surprisingly neglected by university students, as I discovered during those long summer days when I was often the youngest visitor in the reading rooms.

I came to love my routine. Every day, at the earliest hour, I would travel on the District Line to Richmond, a 40-minute ride from Central London. I would get off at the Kew Gardens station and walk for ten minutes past quaint suburban streets until I saw the former World War I hospital, surrounded by fountains and flowers. On the first floor, I would pass the Talks Room, where first-time visitors can attend an information session about navigating the building and conducting research. Near the cafeteria, the same locker took my backpack, while my laptop, digital camera and reader's ticket came with me upstairs to the Document Reading Room.