Visit to LBS. Part 2. The School and the students

I first met the School on fine Sunday morning. A friend of mine who visited the School earlier, prepared me to the 'shop, restaurant... oh, here is LBS!.. and another restaurant' environment of it. First I spotted a shop with all kind of items with LBS labels: bags, umbrellas, bunnies, etc. If your boss doesn't yet know you're applying, it's a good idea to buy something there ;) Then I saw a group of athletic young men and told myself 'This must be it'. And – yes - they were standing near the entrance to the Plowden reception. The school was nice and peaceful. The grass from the back, good-looking entrance (is it ever opened, guys?), was green, the birds were singing, joggers were running around. I took some photos and went for a walk in Regent Park.
On Monday I put on my student's shoes and came in for Managerial Economics.
But first let me say that I would not have had such a nice time at school, if it were not for the New Student Ambassador, Divine Miss N. She was great! She showed me around and introduced me to the whole bunch of people, so in the end I really excelled in phrase: 'I'm-from-Moscow-applied-in-Round-One-fingers-crossed-now'.
I have met RSR, Al Martine, and FutureGuru from the BloggerWorld. And Hussein, who's writing to BusinessWeek. And a lot of others (and I even remembered the names!). I've also found out that there are a lot of Russian speaking students in LBS (about twenty or so). No wonder, since the school is interested in people who have international experience, - all Russians to whom I spoke, left the country more than five years ago and have dual citizenship. Maybe ‘living in Moscow’ will pass as a ‘diversity’ thing for me?
What else I’ve learned from students
1) life is really-really busy here (yes, I can imagine. What I cannot imagine, is that you all can find time to blog)
2) I’m prepared to go to Amsterdam, since I’ve learned how to say ‘Get out of the way, m**r’ in Dutch
3) it takes time and effort to open a bank account in London banks, since they are not willing to give any money to students. Even when they are Mr Future Big Guys. Would they until then have to carry cash in their socks? ;)
Speaking of clothes, on my way to school I thought how I would look in jeans and sweater. I came on holiday and was not going take a suit along by any means! I hit the bull's eye: all students wore jeans. If you saw someone in a suit, he must have been a professor or a second-year on his way to interview.
I would have stood out in jeans on the info session (they take place every Monday and Friday at school at 15:00). Everyone there was in suits except for adcoms ;)
I planned to visit School on Monday and then come for info session on Friday, but the students talked me into coming to Strategy on Wednesday, so all in all I've been to two lectures and three times at School. By Friday I felt myself at home: I knew the difference between two reception areas, didn't get lost on my way to the lady's room, discovered candies on the reception desk, was showed the stand with the Wall Street Journal and could find my way to the MBA Program Office with closed eyes.

*the next part will be about lectures, more students and everything else I forgot to mention*