Barbican Center

The good thing about having international friends is that they all have had so many different experiences that if you combine all of their experiences with yours, you could definitely discover the world in few days.

I have been living in London for about 5 years now and I have been studying for a course degree for about 4 years. However I had always been commuting to my university to attend classes, and once I was there, I would take advantage of the library service and spend the day at Roho (Royal Holloway University of London, we call it Rhul as well, if you are interested in reading something about the university, here's the link link to my review of the university mentioned above). However, the days in which I did not have any classes to attend, I have been trying to study at home, with all the destruction that a house can have.

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Also, if you live with someone else, timing could be a problem. I am a late afternoon sort of student, therefore I actually start to concentrate at about 6pm, when it is usually the time my mother (with whom I live) comes back home from work. A disaster. And what about motivation? If you try to study at home, you surely miss some motivation and start doing something else. Anything would be better than forced study. And that is called 'procrastination', but we all, students, perfectly know that word for sure.

So what about you finally decide that the exams are coming way too soon and you really, no like really, need to study this time? No distraction, no procrastination and no excuses. Also excuses are for loosers. Yes, you hear me. And that is what I say to myself when I feel like I want to do nothing at all. Being lazy does not bring you anywhere in the world. I then, decided to have a look at the many libraries that London offer to any students, but some of them are free to enter to any person really, not just students. There are a lot of libraries you can visit. Either you visit another college's library, such as the UCL or King's College, to gove an example. Or else you can use Senate House, which is the open London library.

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The downside of all those libraries is that you will need to have a card done on your first visit, in order for you to study in the library. As much as I just said that being lazy does not bring you anywhere in the world, in this case, you can definitely avoid to waist those 10 minutes to make a card and go to another place, which is from now on my favourite place ever in London.

The Barbican Centre

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The Barbican Centre is located in the area of Moorgate/Barbican underground station, which is in the entre/east of London. You can reach the area with the Northern line, which is the black line, take the one that goes up to Edgware. I suggest you to go to Moorgate and then walk for about 3 minutes walk to arrive at the Barbican Centre.

The building is huge and it looks quite American style at first glimpse. However, once you enter the building, it is absolutely amazing inside, with a gorgeous back garden, which faces an old and beautiful church. In the garden there is a lot of space with open air chairs and tables, where you can obviously chill, eat and drink.

Inside the building, you can get lost, but the 4 floors have a directions table, so don't worry. You can have a coffee at the bar on the entrance floor and then choose where to go. The library is n the 2nd floor and there is no bar up there, nor a toilet. You will need to go either upstairs or downstairs. It is a little bit annoying, but at least you get to move a little bit after studying in the same position, for at least 1 hour I hope for you. In the library floor there are very cool sits with plugs for you to charge your computer or simply open space tables. It is very silent in there, therefore, please bare in mind you are really going for studying. The only noise you can hear is the noice of someone's fingers playing a piano. That is the coolest thing ever. There are pianos you can use, you will need headphones, of course it is a study area and not everybody like to listen to music while studying. But I love the fact that there were pianos for anyone to use. There is also a space full of music cd's and a books and nice spaces where to seat and read.

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I honestly think it is one of the coolest place I have ever seen, where you can study and enjoy the atmosphere. Everything was quite cool, from the chairs, to the colors of the wall and each floor has a space where you can sit and study, with tables and chairs of different sizes and different types, bars and toilets are near certain areas, but far from others, so if you have the need to be near the toilets, there are also some seats just in front of the toilets on the 2nd floor.

You can definitely decide to go and spend there the whole day studying and then when you need to relax you can go and have lunch outside, if the weather is nice, it would be even better. You can have a tea at the bar and play the piano to relax a little bit after that much of studying, which I am sure it will be a lot more compared to what you are used to study at home. In fact, the room where you study is so quiet that you feel quite motivated to work hard.

The Barbican Center is easy to reach and free to enter, therefore I suggest you to try it out!

Enjoy your studying ;)