Now that summer has finally arrived in London (and as Glastonbury has started, now the festival season is well on its way) the radio stations all seem to be playing summery songs – if you look in today’s independent and see John Walsh’s list of songs about summer, those talking about the things that make summer so exciting you’ll see they are all American. In fact he suggests the summer song is about sun, sea, surf, girls and cars and the Americans have always done that better than the British. The songs ….. ”Summer in the City”, “Surfin’ USA”, “The Boys of Summer”, “Dancing in the Street”, “Summer Breeze”, “Up On the Roof”, “Summertime Blues”, “Summer of ’69″, “Girls in Their Summer Clothes”, not forgetting of course “Summer nights” from Grease. He struggles to find many British songs that are able to capture the feeling of the summer in the same way – a few notable exceptions being “In the Summertime” by Mungo Jerry, “Sunny Afternoon” by The Kinks, “Lazy Sunday”, complete with birdsong and church bells, by the Small Faces and summer holiday by Cliff Richard. And of course the one we British love best of all “Oh I do like to be beside the seaside”.  The kind of list John Walsh suggests is a part of it –  teenagers and cars and surf, but there is also the kind of music that is evocative of summer – what makes you feel like it’s hot and summery – for example Mas Que Nada by Sergio Mendes.  Much of this feeling will be cultural – for example the  wonderful “Soul Limbo” by Booker T and the MGs which is also the theme tune to BBC cricket and of course reminds every Englishman  of cricket and that is just the same as the summer. You can listen to lots of this music on Spotify for free  if you are in the UK Tune into the UIC radio station next Tuesday 6th July and listen to “The UIC Summer top 10″!

London is without doubt the biggest melting pot in the UK – people for all around the world live here and have been coming here for hundreds of years. If you look even further back then there has been virtually constant immigration to London – of course one of the best known groups of immigrants were the Romans over 2000 years ago! There are several legacies of this movement of people – the  multiculturalism we enjoy in London – a huge variety of restaurants, music, fashion, religions for example and also a huge variety of languages spoken. We know that students want to come to the UK to study English (and many of them want to come to London) and so this is an additional source of international visitors coming here and adding to the general colour of London. You might think the most widely spoken languages are European, but in a recent survey of 850,000 children – asking what the first language they spoke at home was – the most commonly spoken language were: English (71%), Bengali & Silheti (5%), Panjabi (3.5%), Gujerati (3%),   Hindi/Urdu (3%), Turkish (2%), Arabic (1%). Greek, Spanish, French and Portuguese are the most widely spoken European languages and all about the same numbers – under 1% each. So, you can assume that around 30% of the population in London doesn’t speak English at home, and this alongside another statistic – that around 10% of school children don’t have English as their first language – surely must give London the title of ‘most diverse city on the planet’.

In UIC you will find students from over 50 different countries every year – all here to learn English and all here to add colour to the city – not to mention bringing millions and millions of pounds into the local economy – whether from their school fees, the accommodation fees or just the money they spend day to day on ravel, food, newspapers and so on. These students are not only valuable culturally, but economically and hopefully one day the government will recognise this!

London is home to many Greek people, and many Greek things. Some of them are in the British museum and the Greek government has been asking for them to be returned for centuries – more vociferously in recent years. The main objects are the Parthenon marbles which have been in the British museum for the last 150 years. The marble sculptures were a part of the Acropolis in Greece and are also known as the Elgin marbles – after the British Ambassador to Greece. He claimed to have permission from the Greek authorities to remove the marbles but there is a huge controvosy as to whether this permission was given properly – or whether the marbles were in fact stolen. Whatever the history you should really take the opportunity while you are in London to visit the British museum and see the marbles for yourself. UIC social activities often include visits here – it’s only a 15 minute walk from the school.

London’s Greek community was established thousands of years ago but the first real Greek immigrants came around 1670 – fleeing from persecution of the Greek Orthodox church. In the 1920s and 30s many Greek Cypriots left home to settle in London – many opening cafes and restaurants in Soho. Nowdays there are almost 200,00 Greek speakers in London – often held together by religion – it was, and still is a very important influence in Greek life and can be experienced in the cathedral of St Sophia (the Church of the Wisdom of God). Founded in 1877, it still stands in all its glory in Moscow Road, Bayswater. And today, most Greek immigrants from the mainland try to settle in West London, as close as possible to their favourite place of worship.

If you want to try one of the longest running restaurants in Soho (and one with a bit of history) then Jimmys in Frith Street (Jimmy the Greek) is for you. It’s been described as the ‘coolest traditional Greek restaurant in London”

What most of know Greece for though is holidays, beaches, sun and sea. In June you don’t need to go to Greece to get this. From Friday 18th to 27th June, a “Greek Beach” by the Thames will pop up on the South Bank, with sun loungers, Greek music, sand sculptures, beach football and competitions to win Greek holidays.  Find out all about it at the Taste of Greece website. It’s a great opportunity to try some Greek food, learn some Greek songs and do a little Greek dancing.

You might have seen our blog post a week or so ago about the student visit to Northern Ireland. Well, here’s one better! We are not one of those schools content to just go to the pub on a Friday evening. Whilst of course we do all those kinds of things in London (but better) we also organise regular trips outside London – to the normal touristy places like Oxford and Cambridge, but we also take things one step further. We have visited not only Northern Ireland and Amsterdam, but students have just come back from a trip to New York!

Mike (our social organiser) took 8 students to New York for the weekend and while there met up with 2 students who used to be at UIC and happened to be in NY! The students came from France, S.Korea, Italy, Russia, Venezuela and Brazil so a bit of an international team for the visit. The trip left London on 3 June and came back on the 7th. We spoke to Veronique from France and Alexandra from Russia (pictured here on top of the rockafeller tower)

UIC: how long have you been in the school? V: 5 months and 2 weeks, A: since December

UIC: are you enjoying your time in London: V: Oh yes, I wish I could stay longer

UIC: Why did you decide to go to NY with the school? A: It’s a great opportunity – the price was good and its nice to go with friends – usually it’s difficult to find friends at home who want to go on trips like this – and when you get a group together the price gets cheaper.

UIC: How much did it cost? £590 for 4 mights and 5 days.

UIC: Where did you stay? V: In a hostel in W60 street – it was near Central Park and the rooms were only sharing with 6 people, and we had our own bathroom so it was OK

UIC: What did you do? V: We saw everything we could – The statue of Liberty, Central Park, MOMA and we climbed to the top of the Rockefeller building to get a view of NY. A: We also went to the Ground Zero museum where the twin towers were and saw lots of reminders of what had happened on 9/11. It was very moving. V: and we went to Coney Island and even swam in the sea. It was so hot – 32 degrees and very very humid. All the landmarks we saw were smaller in real life than we expected. Times Square was amazing.

UIC: How were the people? V: They were very friendly, if you looked lost in the street they were always trying to offer advice, A: but the staff in the restaurants and especially the airport were sometimes a bit rude.

UIC: did you find it expensive? V: so-so  but it was confusing to have the tax added onto everything in the shops – the price on things wasn’t what you actually paid. A: And you had to pay in all the museums – not at all like London where most things are free

UIC: would you like to go again or did you see everything you wanted to? V: I’d love to go again, A: and me too

UIC: Thanks very much