When I first arrived in London, I met this awesome lady Rebecca who helps run the Fordham in London program, and she told me that my favorite part of orientation would be “Monopoly,” which she elaborated further to say was really more of a scavenger hunt, but then wouldn’t give me any more details. I was definitely intrigued, but also skeptical, because in my experience orientation is code for a few days of excessively long and dull talks filled with common sense information. While there was one day chock full of the usual mind-numbing boring information, I was pleasantly surprised that the next two days actually were not the usual orientation horror. I enjoyed a pizza party (complete with gluten-free pizza option, potato pizza, and a new tasting crust because in the UK, you can’t put sugar in bread), an entertaining talk from the local police (complete with a slideshow set to Greenday’s “Time of Your Life” and British speak such as “tea leaves” and “chopstick fingers” meaning thieves), and yesterday, finally, the monopoly scavenger hunt.
No one seemed to know what to expect from this Monopoly orientation, and all we received was an email telling us to meet at Walkabout, an Australian pub, and requesting that everyone dress up to the theme “British.” I’m not a big fan of looking ridiculous in public, and their costume suggestions included Queen of England and the Union Jack:
(I am not kidding, these are the exact images attached to the email invite and labeled “costume suggestions”)
