the movement of a train and a month abroad: week five

the great affair is to move. [robert louis stevenson]

nine weeks left...

daily updates:

20 october: my making of britain class was canceled again. we haven't had a full class all term, i must wonder what is going on in my professor's life that he can't teach us. but with that extra time, miranda, a girl from class, and myself went to hyde park to see the peter pan statue. hyde park is so pretty! i cannot wait to see it once all the leaves have changed. because i was bored, miranda and i started pregaming around nido at five. john, craig, max and dylan came over and we all played kings in the cafe. it was fun, and it reminded me of home. afterwards, max, miranda, dylan and myself all went to find the gay clubs. it didn't work, we couldn't find many, and those we did find we're closed. we ended up just barely making it back on the tube. we were on the last train!

21 october: it's officially been one month since i left america! i can't believe it, the time has gone by so quickly. i am utterly shocked by the fact that i'm not home sick at all. it's a little weird actually, but after the first day here, i haven't had any regrets or even the tiniest pang or wish to return home. in fact, the only time i get sad is when i think of how fast the time is going and how little of it i have left. i really need to make the most of my remaining time here.

i finally got my debit card working! so, megan and i went grocery shopping. i bought a basket's worth of food, probably enough for two weeks. my total was only thirteen pounds! grocery shopping is so cheap here. i need to stop eating out, and start eating in.

i went to watch the united v moscow match that night. we won, of course, one to nil. we went to the drum and monkey again. we met the owner this time, he came up to us and asked if we were the americans he'd been told about. we spoke to him for a while. well, john spoke to him. i just smiled and nodded along. at the end of the match, when it was time to settle the tab, we realized my card wouldn't work cause there is no chip in it. so he told us to just settle it sunday, when we come for the united v liverpool match. i couldn't believe it! talk about trust. i might still be in wales, but john says he's definitely going. after the match, we met craig at the hobgoblin to watch the chelsea match. i ate so much, i ate a pizza and indian food. both things are delicious here. kat and miranda met us there. i was so excited to see kat, after her weekend in spain. so, we just went back to nido and swapped stories.

when i got back, i bought tickets to the fright nights at thorpe park! soon, megan and i will buy our rail tickets. we're going the day before halloween, and it's going to be amazing. i'm hoping to get there right when the park opens, and spend all day riding the roller coasters. then at night, we'll go on the saw ride and explore the terrifying mazes and haunted houses. i literally cannot wait. halloween is my favorite holiday and i was afraid i wouldn't be able to get scared this year. however, i still need a csostume...

i also bought train tickets to manchester yesterday. 21 november, john and i are going to watch the united match. i'll actually be able to see them play in person! i'm definitely going to have to learn more about them before i go.

22 october: i missed french class in the morning. i was going to switch into a lower level, but i messed up the times and ended up not going to either levels. so, i met kat, max and linsdey at oxford street and went shopping. i bought a leather jacket, which i've been wanting for years. i have the confidence to pull it off here! and i bought some trainers for the wales trip. thursday night is student nightat seOne, london's largest nightclub. so megan and i decided to check it out. boy did that night have problems! my debit card still wont work at atms, but it will work in stores. so megan said she'd pay my cover and id just buy the first few rounds of drinks. great idea yeah? no. turns out they only take cards with a minimum order of 17 pounds 50! not willing to pay that much, we bought re-entry so we could get to an atm. yes, you have to buy re-entry there! we got to the atm, and my card still wouldn't work. so we went back in, rechecked our coats, and realized that megan was now out of cash. so i sucked it up and bought five double vodka shots+mixers. five! we ended up getting really drunk and having a great night. we met a couple of people there, specifically a boy named matz. and we took the night buses home. i'm always so proud of myself whenever i do that.


23 october: the first day of my trip to wales! my roommate and i met two strangers at the train station. turns out their names are geri and ally and they were going to the same preseli venture tour as we were. so we bought our train tickets and a reduced group rate. we got into haverfordwest, wales about three hours before the bus that would take us to preseli was scheduled to come. so we went to a local pub and kicked back a few beers, and played darts. after a while, the bus came and picked us up. we got to preseli, ate and hung out at their bar for the night. the drinks were cheap, but i swear to god they were watered down. i didn't get drunk the entire weekend, regardless of how much i drank. until i started drinking the prebottled ciders.

there was a huge group of americans on the adventure, and one british couple. there was devin and myself, geri and ally, then about thirty other american students who were all from the same program and knew each other before.

24 october: we woke up early and went on a coastal hike. it was absolutely amazing, and quite easy. but it was seven miles! they dropped us off on one end, gave us a map, and said be back to preseli by one. it worked out though, and i really enjoyed it! when we got back, we ate lunch and went surfing! i had to wear a full body wetsuit, boots and gloves. but once in the water, i couldn't feel it at all. for the first couple hours, i could only get to balance on my knees. but, by the end, i had stood up fully twice! on a real board, not a long board!! it was my first time surfing and i absoultely loved it. i will be going again. after surfing, we went back to preseli for dinner and drinks. the canadian bartender, max, lit a bonfire so we all huddled outside around it. then we went for a moonlit wal to the beach. it was absolutley gorgeous, it was a pebble beach, not a sand beach. the waves were so loud, and the sky was full of shooting stars. it inspired much introspection, which will be written about in another post. i went back and fell asleep in my comfy top bunk.

25 october: this was the day i was dreading. i had woke up every few hours, from nightmares of drowning and losing my teeth. not many people know this about me, but i am not a strong swimmer. i'm barely a swimmer, even in the loose sense of the word. before surfing, i had never been further in the ocean than past my belly button. i have doggy paddled in lakes when i went cliff diving before, but that is very different than being in an ocean.

so imagine my trepidation at going coasteering. i signed up for it before i knew what it was. just for clarification, i have included the definition:


Coasteering is a physical activity that encompasses movement along the intertidal zone of a rocky coastline on foot or by swimming, without the aid of boats, surf boards or other craft. It is difficult to define the precise boundaries between, for example, rockpooling and ocean swimming. Coasteering may include all or some of the following:

• Swimming or Adventure Swimming: in rough or white water; and/ or tidal currents. A route, or activity, where the group start out with the intention of staying dry is not coasteering.
• Climbing, scrambling, sea level traversing: the very nature of the coastline that is needed for coasteering demands aspects of these activities. Ropes, as security on rock, are not used. Any climbing activity usually takes place above deep water. Coasteering is never a dry, climbing activity.
• Jumping and Diving: are often seen as an appealing and exciting part of coasteering. These activities actually make up minimal content of a coasteering session.

A defining factor of coasteering is the opportunity provided by the marine geology for moving in the “impact zone” where water, waves, rocks, gullies, caves etc, come together to provide a very high energy environment.

hmmm... now does that sound like something a poor swimmer should do? i had asked steve-not-simon, who is a lifeguard, about coasteering and he had suggested i just not go. but i was determined.

so i lied, signed my waiver, and told the preseli venture tour administration i was a strong, ocean-confident swimmer. i didn't mention my fears to anyone, i bottled them up. i got up in the morning, pulled on my wetsuit, and sat shaking in the van on the ride to the beach. i walked down the steep path to the shore, lagging behind the rest of the group. the path ended at a deep, turquoise lake with still waves and high steep cliff walls. i walked calmly into the ocean, as if i had done this millions of times before. i could feel the water level rising againt the armour of my wetsuit, and every inch it rose, the more worried i became. i refused to show it, and when my feet could no longer touch the floor, i floated up and began to awkwardly attempt a butterfly stroke. then as we swam farther and farther out, towards the rocky cliffs and crashing waves, i realized exactly what coasteering is. we climbed up the cliffs, through a cave, and emerged into a tiny alcove, with rolling water, white with movement.  we then jumped in to it. yep. that's right. i jumped into it.

and i had the time of my life. the feeling of a wave crashing down on you, carrying you away, is one of the most meaningful i have ever experienced. there was one place where three separate waves merged to crash on one single rock. i swam over and held on to a hole, and waited for the waves to come. i can't describe how it felt to have three waves break on me at once. you just have to try it. we also went cliff diving. that was amazing as well, i loved the feeling of falling. i didn't care for hitting the water, but i loved falling.

but it was an amazing weekend, my roommate has the pictures on her camera though. i'll post them as soon as she gives them to me.

26 october: i came home from wales, exhausted, sweaty and dirty. i spent the day doing laundry and sleeping. it was a monday, so i went to the rocket bar, with john, craig and rikky. since every monday night is pound beer night, it's turning into a routine. we played table games, since the video games were taken the whole time. the games of choice were quarters (only with a ten p piece) american finger football and english finger football. the english finger football was much harder and way more intense, i barely even attempted it. i met a girl there, named debbie. megan came late, after her dance rehearsal was over. apparently she's going to dance in the rememberance day parade! it was fun, as usual. but john pranked me. quite horribly actually. my friend rob, whom i met a couple weeks ago, had been texting me asking if i wanted to hang out. i was getting a little annoyed, and i guess john was fed up with me complaining about rob's persistence. john asked if he could see my phone, and i naively let him have it. he started texting rob dirty messages. now upon recieiving completely vulgar messages, did rob question it? no. he proceeded to send them back. needless to say, i can never ever see rob again. but, had it not happened to me and had rob not yelled at me for "playing mind games", it would have been quite funny.

  

weekly highlights: 

dates: 20 october- 26 october (days thirty through thirty-six)

sights seen: hyde park and wales

somewhere new: wales!!

someone new: countless again :) notably, mat with a z.

something new: surfing!!

what i miss: sunny days. my dogs. my parents.

what i love: the ocean. the accents. vodka with brambleberry juice. the food is growing on me as well :)

what i'm not so sure of: nothing!

coal mines.

i wrote this a while ago, on my phone. only now got around to posting it.

the sun has set and i am riding the train from wales back to london, cocooned in music, and contemplating my life. i spent last night lying drunk on a bed of pebbles, crushed by the dome of shooting stars overhead, enveloped by the sound of waves crashing, with lungs collapsing from the weight of being. i was turning my sobs into coughs while i wondered how those with me could giggle so nonchalantly, when presented with an emotion as beautiful.

as i was feeling so overwhelmed, so full that i might burst, i still felt the hollow hole, felt that something was missing.

i thought back to how complete i felt a few years ago, wondered whether that was the missing ingredient. rather than fall back into ghosts, i let my thoughts wander down a new path. then it hit me suddenly: i am, in fact, missing something as of yet undefined. the people i've met here have seemed quite content. they all seem truly surprised by my constant yearning, my endless searching, and my inability to settle. i've never quite understood those things about myself either, to be perfectly honest. but sitting on that beach last night, and now riding on this train, i can finally see the difference, or at least, the reasoning. almost everyone else, here and back home, has a purpose. for example, artist james is a painter, james from class is a drummer, rob is a teacher and guitarist, and so on. they have that one driving force that defines their lives. i, on the other hand, do not. i feel as if i am constantly in search of it. in fact, my entire life seems to be one long scavenger hunt with no defined goal, only conflicting indecipherable clues in the form of emotions.

rob made an uncannily accurate observation on myself the other day. i was describing to him my life in america, and he asked what was most important to me. at first, i thought of my dog noodle. but i realized that if that were true, i would never have left noodle with a stranger so i could travel. i then thought of my mother, and quickly realized that couldn't be true, or i would have never wandered so far from home, so often. so i told him of the pursuit of my yellow bird, and he remarked upon the fact that i am always searching. i never stay in one place for more than three months without traveling elsewhere or moving homes, and i never keep friends, or relationships, for more than a few months. he surmised that i am looking for something in the places i go, and in the people i meet, and that i have yet to find it. he thinks that i will never find it, that my personality has destined my life to about the pursuit rather than the realization. he said that he doubts i would know what to do if i ever found that something vague i am looking for. he's not sure i would even recognize or realize it, let alone be prepared to handle the end of my search.

i am reluctant to say he is right, as pretentious as he was. but the more i analyze my behavioral patterns, the more i begin to think he is correct. it distresses me that a stranger can, upon only the second encounter, analyse these traits and still come to the correct conclusion, when i've been trying solve the problem myself for years. 

having realized this has left me just as confused as when i started. because i literally start to hurt when i stay in one place. and i am not totally convinced that a life about starting over is a bad thing. beyond that, i truly enjoy the search, even though i have no idea what i am looking for. am i destined to forever be on a search? one driving force behind my life could be that i am a student, but even that is a form of searching. what is it i am looking for?


i am at a loss as to what to do about this. 


"good morning," said the little prince.

"good morning," said the railway switchman.

"what is it you do here?" the little prince asked.

"i sort out travelers, in bundles of a thousand," said the switchman. "i send off the trains that carry them: now to the right, now to the left." 

a brilliantly lighted express train shook the switchman's cabin as it rushed by with a roar like thunder. 

"they are in a great hurry," said the little prince. "what are they looking for?" 

"not even the locomotive engineer knows that," said the switchman. 

and a second brilliantly lighted express thundered by, in the opposite direction.

"are they coming back already?" demanded the little prince.

"these are not the same ones," said the switchman. "it is an exchange."

"were they not satisfied where they were?" asked the little prince.

"no one is ever satisfied where he is," said the switchman.

and they heard the roaring thunder of a third brilliantly lighted express.

"are they pursuing the first travelers?" demanded the little prince.

"they are pursuing nothing at all," said the switchman. "they are asleep in there, or if they are not asleep they are yawning. only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes."

"only the children know what they are looking for," said the little prince. "they waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry..."

"they are lucky," the switchman said.

[le petit prince. antoine de saint-exupery]

rowdy stadiums and bouncy castles: week four

freedom lies in being bold. [robert frost]

ten weeks left...

 daily updates:


12 october 2009: i have no classes on monday, so i had a nice lie-in during the day. that night, i went to the rocket to meet jon, his visiting cousin sam, craig, kat and a girl from bulgaria named maria. the rocket is the london met student bar, you have to be a student of my uni to get in. on monday nights they do one pound beer, ciders and shots until nine. so we ordered extra and stayed there until about eleven. jon spent the whole time hitting on maria, but failing miserably. after that, we went to tiger tiger for their student night. i can now say, officially without hesitation, that i do not like tiger tiger. but, nontheless, the night was fun. we had kfc afterwards. oddly enough, it's the only fast food place that tastes remotely similar to those back home.

13 october 2009: tuesday was a great day. i went to my first real art history class, we met at the national gallery and studied the renaissance art. after class,  i went with two girls from my class to this tiny little restaurant nearby and ate breakfast food. when i went to my afternoon class, it turned out it was canceled, so a big group of us all went to the rocket. i stayed there for a while, but then left to meet up with the artist james to price art supplies. i would like to start making and embroidering paintings. but we couldn't find what i needed. i did, however, go to iknit. i will be going back there for the knitting group! after that, we ate quickly and i returned to the rocket for bingo night! which was canceled, so jon, his cousin, megan, rikky and i all left and met a different james, from class, at the ministry of sound. which was the best club i could have asked for. it was really hard to get into, they wouldn't let in the boys we were with. but megan and i were allowed in, so we selfishly met class james, who was already inside. the music was amazing. i hate dancing. i mean i really hate it. but i danced all night. we left when the club closed, and we ended up crashing on class james' couch, because the night buses are so hard to figure out. but, amazingly enough, we all woke up in time for class the next morning!

14 october 2009: turns out class was pointless, cause all she had us do was write a 500 word essay to be turned in next week, which wont be graded. it was just "to get us thinking." after class, i went home and slept. that night, craig, jon and his cousin and i went to the hobgoblin. the hobgoblin is a local pub about three blocks from us. the owners are very nice, and the atmosphere is amazing. we pregame there almost every night, before we hit up the clubs. the drinks are cheap, the staff is friendly and the owners usually stay open later for you.  if you're ever in london, look up "the hobgoblin angel" and have a great time. after they closed, we went to a pub in leicester square which had multiple stories, built around trees.

15 october 2009: thursday was quite a productive day. classes were canceled, because the teachers were on strike! with my empty time, i decided to plan some trips. i bought my ticket to friday freshers night, and i booked a tour to explore stonehenge, bath and windsor castle. then i booked a trip to go coasteering in wales next weekend!! it's an adventure weekend, so one day you go coasteering (cliff diving!!), the next day they teach you how to surf, and the final day you go on this gorgeous coastal hike. i've been cliff diving before, but ive never really been surfing. that weekend is promising to be quite entertaining! i think i'll buy a disposable camera for it, so i can take pictures. i'm still trying to figure out what to do for halloween. i was thinking either dublin or edinburgh. but i might have to go alone. max and kat want to go to amsterdam, my roommate wants to go to madrid, but i want to stay in the uk or ireland. i'm not sure how safe it would be for me to go alone. but i did come here alone, and i have traveled alone before.

that night, i went back to old street for a very calm night out with max and miranda, two people who live in my hall.

16 october 2009:  the freshers party!! at six, i headed over to megan's flat to pregame and book plane tickets for a weekend in dublin. her computer freaked out and we were unable to book them, but she's going to try again tonight. we met rikky and my flatmate at the rocket. at first, it started out really slowly, but the later it got, the better it got. there was a bouncy castle!! known as a moon bounce back home,  so we jumped on that a couple of times, until megan's dress broke. there was a cover band of the kings of leon, called the "kins of leon", which was actually enjoyable. and then a dj whom i had never heard of came on. megan was very excited, she even took a picture with him. we then met two very pretentious boys, and we left to get food. we hung out with them until the tubes opened again, just in time for the trip to stonehenge. or so i thought. 

well, i didn't make it stonehenge. it turns out my flatmate went to the hospital last night. she'd been having trouble breathing all day, and she left the rocket earlier cause she couldn't breathe. i guess she woke up at four in the morning with her eyes swollen shut and her throat closing. the ra here rushed her to the hopsital, and it turns out she was having an allergic reaction to the hay where she rides horses. we, of course, rescheduled our trip for the seventh of november.  

but here are pictures!

17 october 2009: i didnt do much during the day, i didnt get home until late morning and i just ended up falling asleep right when i got back. i did go out with my roommate to help her get lunch though. that night, kim, artist james, max, miranda, and myself all went out for dinner and drinks. we went to an asian fusion restaurant. i had chicken curry. it was good, but not great. we then went to a couple places for drinks. it was a bit awkward being around james, but i figure we can be friends. max, miranda and i left early because we had to get up and study the nexy morning. i dont think james believed me, but it was the truth. max and i ended up getting amazing indian food on the way home. a perfect end to a not-so-good night.


18 october 2009: i got up early and max and i went to study at the library. turns out the library is closed on sunday! we ended up going and studying in the cafe. afterwards, we got pizza and i went to camden to meet up with rob (one of the people i met on friday) we went an outdoor pub for a couple of hours and had some good conversation. i got hungry, so we stopped off at a tiny hole in the wall cafe. the walls were papered with comic books and in the corner sat an old refigerator stuffed with books. a very interesting place. i ate a toastie! it was basically a grilled cheese sandwich, but british style. i really enjoyed it. we went to a couple more places, before we went our separate ways. i ended up heading out to kennington and meeting up with steve-not-simon, who still insists on calling me alice. probably because i stubbornly/drunkenly called him simon for the first few hours i knew him. i met him tuesday night when i went to the ministry. he is one of class james' four flatmates. class james had already gone to bed by the time i got there, since he had to work early. we drank and watched some films: dumb&dumber and starsky&hutch, both of which i had never seen before. he and his flatmate were infintely more entertaining than the actual movies; they tried so hard to copy the american accents but failed miserably and hilariously. i drank some very old, stale, quite possibly moldy, wine. it might have been the most disgusting thing to ever enter my mouth. but i drank it quickly, repressed the nausea, and felt the perfect amount of tipsy.


megan and i booked our tickets to dublin! we're going the first weekend of december. i've been told that i need to stay in london for halloween. apparently there are huge parties and its a very big deal. so the day before, megan and i are going to thorpe park for the scarefest. then we'll be here for halloween night. hopefully, i'll go to edinburgh sometime in november. i have two weekends free...


19 october 2009: i didn't wake up until late, seeing as how i didn't have any classes today. i spent the day trying to figure out my debit card, which didnt work. i think i have to switch banks. this is getting ridiculous, i havent had real access to my money since i got here. but on a good note, i went to my first football match tonight! i a got free ticket from john to the fulham v hull city match. it was absolutely amazing, i cant wait to see manchester united. but we sat deep in fulham territory, close to the field. the fans were rowdy and the action was amazing. fulham won, two to nil. i went with john, craig, and two other girls from my program, lindsey and pamela. the game was so exciting, i wish i had known all the songs. but i definitely am going to be addicted to football by the time i leave here. i've already started naturally calling it football, not soccer! football back home has now become "american football". i think it comes from the many years of french.

the stadium was so huge, the fans so rowdy, and the game so intricate that i was a bit overwhelmed! i still really enjoyed it, and can't wait to learn more!


oh, like the shirt? my mom made it.  like the sweater, in the pictures above and at the beginning of the post? i made it.

 
weekly highlights:

dates: 12 october -19 october 2009 [days twenty-two through twenty-nine]
sights seen: even more london!

somewhere new: south london!
someone new: countless again! but most notably, rob and steve-not-simon.
something new: i went to a football match!!

what i miss: being able to spend money.
what i love: football. clubs. vodka with lime and lemonade. losing a jean size, my diet and the amount of exercise i get here has really toned me down. i got out of the shower today and i realized that all my cellulite and ripples are almost completely gone. i just wish it was bikini season! that's the first time i have ever said that. my face has slimmed down as well, thankfully.
what i'm not so sure of: sundays. nothing is open, but steve says that's because everyone is tired from eating their sunday roast. not sure which i prefer: feasting every sunday or actually being able to shop.

i can't believe it's already been a week since my last post. the last week went by the quickest of all, it feels as if i posted only yesterday

the world at large: week three

i miss the poetry.
i relish the anonymity.

eleven weeks left...

daily updates:

3 october 2009: i think i might have had the best night of my life last night.

i have met so many people here, but the majority of them have been americans. we tend to gravitate towards each other. i am working really hard to stop that. last night, a boy who lives in my building (max) invited me to dinner with some of his british friends. first, we went to a roof-top bar for students. max has a really close friend named kim who is going to graduate school here. we met her there, along with her flatmate and her flatmate's boyfriend. afterward, we went to a tiny italian restaurant. there i met another boy named james. he was quiet and reserved and stereotypically british. it turns out he supports himself by painting. we got into heated discussions about art. he likes traditional, i like more modern. after dinner, he said he was going to new cross to meet some friends. max and i invited ourselves along. it turns out that new cross is on the outskirts, so we took a tube and a train! it was definitely grimy, and there were absolutely no tourists. but once there, we went to this very seedy authentic bar, connected to an even more seedy night club. it was amazing! we stayed there until four in the morning, just talking and drinking. james invited us to crash at his place, because the tubes had stopped running and it would have been very hard to get home. so we, and two others, walked to his house. it was five stories! i couldn't believe it. we stayed up in the sitting room until seven, then i crashed with max (who is gay) in one of the guest bedrooms. i forgot my camera, so i don't have any pictures. but the location was artsy, the drinks were cheap and the conversation was great.

another boy who lives in my building, jon, is a big manchester united fan. so we've been watching the matches at another seedy, hidden local pub. we've been a few times and it is simply brilliant. the people get so into it, i love it. the pub even has an entire room dedicated to the united team. it's up the stairs and hidden, there's an entire table with united memorabilia, and a huge flat screen tv. on the nights of the big games, the room is a sea of red and white clothed people, yelling at the tv and screaming at the goals. it is so amazing.

i feel like i'm seeing real london, not just the touristy ritzy parts. i've been out to the pubs every night since i've gotten here though. i need to watch how much i spend, or i won't have any money for travel!


6 october 2009: i started classes today! my first class was "art in london",  followed by "the making of britain". it was such a great experience. i feel like i can handle them, maybe even succeed. so far classes don't seem much harder than they are back home. on an even better note, i met some great british students, who are in the majority of my classes (megan, ricky and james o, not to be confused with the other british james). we went to the pub at three, after class ended, and stayed there until eleven o'clock! what amazing conversations we had. we ended up playing british bingo, which is so different than american bingo. there are no letters, just numbers! how weird is that? the prizes were shots and a pitcher of beer. because there were so many of us at the tables, we each won a shot every round and we won a pitcher as well. the picture is of my bingo card. the teal writing was written by me, the random blue marks by the drunkest jon i have ever seen. jon is my drinking buddy, he's the only one who likes it as much as i do. but this was the first time i've ever seen him drunk!

7 october: i started "the french revolution". turns out, i have already studied everything we're going to cover! it'll be great to see how differently they teach the same subject! there was an inflatable laser tag night at the student bar, so i went with megan, ricky, jon, and craig. we played a couple of times, and had our asses handed to us. megan has pictures from that night, so i'll try to get them from her.

8 october: i started french, which was a complete disaster. i think i might be in too hard of a level. i don't want to switch, because the level below completely ruins my schedule. so far, i only have morning classes tuesday, wednesday and thursday. my schedule is absolutely ideal for traveling. i have many trips planned, and i don't want to mess with my schedule. besides, being in the harder class might make me learn french even more! that night, max got a big group of americans together. we went to camden for the pubs. after the pubs closed, the group split up. jon, max, kat and i then went to picadilly circus for the clubs. we went to "on anon" again, where we met a very cute italian who was smitten with kat. until he met max. upon hearing that max was gay, he divulged that he was bi, and spent the rest of the night trying to decide which one he wanted! he would spend ten minutes with max, then switch back to kat! finally, we just got in a taxi and left him behind.

this was my first night out with kat. kat is an american student from los angeles. we have clicked instantly, she is bubbly like i am and very attractive. we make quite a striking pair, as we have been told by many people. even more fortuitous, we have compltely different taste in men so there will never be a competition. it feels like the perfect pair. i have grown quite close to max and megan as well. jon is my drinking buddy/big brother.

9 october: i spent the day running errands, and enjoying a day off of classes. everyone was off traveling, but i decided to stay here for the weekend. kat was the only one left, so we went to dinner at an amazing italian restaurant. we decided to explore old street, so we met megan there and had a pub crawl! we must have gone to twenty pubs, just going up and down each main street in the neighborhood. we'd have one drink and go somehwere new. it was quite interesting, and nice not to get wasted. we met a lot of people, and tried many different drinks. i also liked just drinking with girls. back home, all my friends are boys. here, we go out with girls and meet boys. it's different, but really fun!

10 october: during the day, i went to the knitting and stitching show! it was so interesting. i didn't see too much new information about knitting, which disappointed me. but the needleart was so amazing! it was actual art, with thought and self-expression and meaning. i've had an image in my head for the past two years, and have been unable to satisfactorily express it. i've tried painting, drawing, photography and sculpture, but none of those mediums have worked. i think needle felting or embroidery over paints/sketching might do the trick! i made felt while there, and bought a kit to make even more. i just need a felting needle, some canvas and some charcoal. hopefully i can figure out where to find them here.

the night after the show, kim invited me out to come out with her and her friends from south africa. so kat and i hopped on the tube to goodge street. we stayed there for a little while, then met megan in camden. camden gets old really quickly, and the pubs close at midnight, so when i found out that james, the artist from last weekend, was partying in picadilly circus, i decided to meet him there. the rest of the group went home while kat and i jumped on the night bus. i rode in the top of a double decker bus! it was great, and such a relief to finally figure out the night buses. we'd been taking taxis cause it was such a daunting task. taxis get really expensive though, and the night bus is only a pound. we met james and a friend at "tiger tiger", and stayed there until the lights came on when the place closed for the morning. we then shared a taxi out to new cross, and stayed up talking in james sitting room again. then kat and i crashed in the guest bedroom. the mattress there is quite comfy, especially compared to the one that came with my flat: it is made up of huge, hard springs that stick up and assault your pressure points. i wake up with bruises on my particulary bony bits, like my ribs and hips. so, needless to say, i am quite keen on sleeping elsewhere.

11 october: kat has family here, and she invited me over to come and meet them. we spent the day with them, sightseeing and playing with their one year old little girl. i went to bed at nine. it was a very relaxing day, especially compared to the rest of the week.

kat is furthest on the left, and max is standing right next to me. my flatmate is the one in the front of everyone else. we all went to buckingham palace, on an lmu sanctioned tour. sorry for the lack of pictures. i always forget my camera, partly because i lost the case for it and it no longer has a wrist strap. but i will start taking pictures soon.

weekly highlights:
dates: 3 october- 12 october [days thirteen through twenty-two]
sights seen: london!!!

somewhere new: london!!!
someone new: countless :)
something new: i made felt!

what i miss: food that has taste and actually fills you up. food here is horrific. the only thing i've truly enjoyed eating has been italian food, which, of course, is the most expensive. even the fast food here is bland. i also miss my hair doing what i tell it to. damn you humidity, i miss the desert's dry air.
what i love: football. the pubs and the clubs. the tube. the grey skies. the people. the indian food. the opportunity to wear heels and tights every day.
what i am not so sure of: classes. i have no idea how those will end up. i think some will be easy, some deceptively so, and some just might beat me. also, i am quite unsure of my flatmate. we had some issues, but now that i am inviting her to travel with me, she seems much happier. we'll see.

photos!!

my flat. it's so tiny! but it has a bed, a shower and a stove top. what else do you need?

the last photo wasnt taken by me, it just shows the building i live in better than any photo i could have taken myself. oh and i got the bright green feather boa at a club, i didn't bring it with me. in fact, there's a funny story about it, our friend ricky was also given one. megan and i dared him to wear it to class the next day. he didn't, so he owes us a night-out, on him!

 

the last three are the view from my window. my window is really dirty from all the rain. but i have no idea how to clean it, it only opens about four inches.