Pictures

Check 'em out:
http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=78jdg5cd.8rkt88zx&Uy=-p0wbhn&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

Christmas time in the city

Just like in America, London is lit up with Christmas lights--Oxford Circus has fake snow that falls!

I wanted to get in the spirit (and everyone who knows me knows that I love Christmas) so I deccorated my room. My mom sent me some garland and some holiday window stickers that I put up the moment they arrived. Yesterday, Joe and I went to Ikea on errands and saw a little tiny potted tree. Its only about 12" tall but its in a little pot and looks lovely with the red glass balls that I decorated it with. It sits on my new coffee table and my room now looks like a room! On my window sill is a flower stalk thing that looks like a bird of paradise but doesn't have roots. It just needs water, like bamboo. Amazing that a table and plants can tie a room together, but they do!

Thanksgiving abroad (my first away from home!)

This was a pretty action packed weekend. The week went fine (minus me walking into a door at work and banging up my eye, and Kelly finding a live worm in the upstairs toilet) and I'm starting to like my job a lot more. In my opinion, it isn't as well run as my old store, we're always short staffed, and the new people aren't trained at all! But work was fine. For Thanksgiving, I made some stuffing, green beans, and a pomegranate. It was delicous. On Friday night we went to a college party. That's right, a bunch of graduates did the lame 'return to college' thing and met up with one of Joe's friends from WU who now goes to London School of Economics. Oddly enough, there was another girl from WU there (5 WU grads in London, pretty incredible considering the size of the school). There were a bunch of people from all over the world and they were a ton of fun. We caught the last tube home, we were having so much fun. Saturday monring (6 hours after we got home on Friday night), Joe and I headed off on our adventure to Cambridge. It rained while we were there but the town is very cute. There were two outdoor markets, all the different parts of the school, cathedrals, museums, and more. We both agreed that our favorite part was Kettle Yard, which is a house that was owned by the former curator of the Tate. He lived in it for many years, deccorated it as a former curator would, and then donated it to the city. It is advertized as a non-musuem, non-gallery place to see art. Guests can sit in the chairs and read the books--but no touching the art. Very cool.
Sunday started off lazy, doing laundry and making eggs for breakfast. Then we headed off to a friend of Frank's from work, Erika, for another Thanksgiving feast. We got very lost for a long time, but eventaully ended up in her warm flat and had a side dish extravaganza (Frank and Kelly were the only non-vegetarians in the group).
So three thanksgivings in one week seems pretty good.

A few of my favorite things

I felt like a real Londoner today, walking around the city. After my errands, I went for a stroll through Regent's Park and the surrounding area. The park reminded me of Central Park, complete with the city's zoo (the first zoo in the world). It is very much fall here and the leaves are falling from the trees and turning orange. It was beautiful. I wandered aimlessly in my scarf and hat set, listening to Simon and Garfunkel, and drinking a hot chocolate. While I was walking, I thought of the things that I love about London, and the things that I miss from home:

Top 10 things I love about London:
10. Not cleaning bathrooms at work
9. Walking down a street and realizing that there's a famous building in front of me
8. Scarves
7. Signing up to go on a weekend trip to Paris
6. The tube
5. Corn in tuna fish (sounds gross but its really good)
4. The Christmas decorations at Oxford Circus
3. Gluten free food is everywhere
2. Getting to know my aunt
1. Seeing art, musicals, historical buildings, and more on a daily basis.

Top 5 things I miss about home (I couldn't think of 10!):
5. Mountains and the Sound
4. My computer
3. Having my own bathroom
2. Mexican food
1. My dog and mom

And now a little walking tour of my home area, provided my Google Images since my camera is out of order:

My tube stop. From the perspective of whoever took this picture, my house is to the right.


About four blocks down from the tube, St. Gabriel's.





Four more blocks and then my house.

And finally, two doors down from me, the Londynske Mosque:

Life is only a little different in London

That's the conclusion that I've come to. Woke up yesterday and didn't feel good so I called in sick to work. I've never done that before but I really just needed to sleep the day away. On my day off I went to the store and bought water and went to the post office to send off my camera. Then I slept until 5:00 when I went to meet Joe to see Evita. Amazing show. Our original seats were in the LAST row of the theatre but during intermission we moved up to the dress circle. Lesson learned: pay the extra £2.50 and get much better seats. Today I'm not scheduled to work so I'm doing more sleeping and drinking tea. Being sick is awful no matter where you are.
Around noon I plan on venturing over to ISH (International Students House) where I will pay £5 and become a part of their travel club. This makes me elligable to pay for the weekend trips that they go on. I wasnted to go on one to Barcelona but its already full. They have a lot of day trips planned and one to Paris for the weekend. ISH also has free Sunday night movies, £4 pilates and yoga classes, a free American football club (Frank and Joe will play in that while Kelly and I do yoga) and a ton of other things that I've forgotten.
I had some technical difficulties with my mobile so I had to get a new number: 01144 7726 458732

Boooooo

After a great weekend, its only natural that I would have a shitty day. I woke up and walked to the internet cafe where I was going to upload my pictures, only to find that my camera was broken. I called Sony because it is only a few months old, and they told me that I can send it in and they'll fix it at no charge and have it back to me in 7-14 business days. After wasting 10 minutes of valuable phone time on that, I went to the bathroom. As I was washing my hands, I heard someone saying 'Hello' and then I heard a door slam. I had left my door propped open while I was in the restroom, and when I returned, I realized that someone had closed my door and locked me out. Frank, Kelly, and Joe were all at work so I sent Joe an email asking him to bring me my coat and money/tube card to me at work. I walked to work in the cold in my khakis and polo shirt with no music, no phone, no money, no nothing. A guy on the street asked if I was cold but didn't do anything to help. I felt pretty sorry for myself. Got to work, had fun with the girls I work with, my boss told me that Starbucks would buy my lunch today (had a gluten-free sandwich, yummy), Joe brought me my things, and I went home. Now I'm off to ship off my camera and pray that I get it soon.
So I don't have pictures to show anyone, sorry. I will in a few weeks, though!

Weekend holiday

Totally full weekend:
Saturday
7:20AM-I slept through my alarm and am very grateful that Kelly wanted coffee and woke me up.
8:00AM-Left our house for the tube station
8:25AM-Arrived at International Students House to leave for our trip to Stonehenge and Bath.
11:00AM-Arrived at Stonehenge. VERY cold. My fingers were numb by the time we got close to the stones. Not as impressive as I thought it would be. Incredible that it exists, strange that we don't know what it was used for, but I think a documentary would have been enough info for me. But now I have a picture of me in front of it.
1:30PM-Arrived in Bath. We were starving so we made a beeline to the nearest food-not a great idea. My omlett was cold and the bar girl didn't know how to use the VISA machine. Refreshed, we made our way to the Roman Baths. So amazing that it still exists. We had audio guides that were partially narrated by Bill Bryson and they were great. The water in the springs is around 80 degrees (I stuck my finger in and it was warmer than I expected it to be). Moved on to Bath Abbey which had an amazing gothic ceiling. Walked over Pulteney Bridge (looks like the Rialto Bridge in Italy) which has shops on both sides of the bridge. Wandered around some, got on the bus at 4:30, returned to London at 7:45, went out for drinks with a girl we met on the trip, slept like a baby.
Sunday was a little more relaxed. Dinah and I went for a walk along the South bank and she talked about the sights and we chatted about ourselves a bit. She brought me some banana bread that was excellent. We've made plans for me to help her with her new mobile and iPod. At 4:30 I met Kelly and Frank at the National Gallery where we wandered around till 6. That's a museum that's going to take several trips before I see everything. Kelly and I are going to see one of their special exhibits on Wednesday evening (probably the Velazquez one).
Busy weekend but I feel like I'm seeing the sights that I want to see. Its amazing that I've been here for nearly a month!
Pictures to come soon.

When in London...

Kelly got a job today and I've decided that I like my job a little more than I thought, so we celebrated tonight. We went shopping at Oxford Circus and then bought some crisps (potato chips) and cider at the store. Since everyone else in London drinks on the streets (and its apperantly legal), we decided to do the same and cracked open some cans of cider and felt like we were doing something deliciously bad.
Speaking of great things, I've discovered that London is a haven for the gluten intollerant individuals of the world. At my Starbucks we have a yummy gluten free vegetarian sandwich and at the Sainsburys (super market) they have an enormous section devoted to gluten free foods. Selection includes, but is not limited to: baguette, croissants, 2 kinds of stuffing, flours, pancake mix, pizza crust, falaffel, sandwich bread, and crackers.
My job doesn't suck as much as I thought it did. Tomorrow night I'm going out for drinks with the girls that I work with and I hope that I'll make a friend-like person. I can walk to work in about 30 minutes so I save money on the tube. I still make killer drinks and customers continue to comment on my smile. Oh, and we're getting an automatic machine in January.
Today is my mommy's birthday so be sure to say happy 35th to her if you see her.

A Real British Weekend

We decided that we were tired of being cheap and sitting in our rooms all the time so we planned a weekend out. I had to work on Saturday so when I got off work, we all went to a pub that I found in my Let's Go book. They had good, cheap cider, but it wasn't the best place to meet anyone.
On Sunday we went to the British Museum and the cinema. The British Museum is most likely the worst laid of museum that I have ever been to, with ever worse label cards. Regardless of that, it was quite impressive. They house the Rosetta stone (not as impressive as I thought it would be--kind of like the Mona Lisa), dozens of mummies, Greek vases (I was able to impress Kelly and Frank with my wee bit of knowledge on Greek mythology/vases because of a class at WU), and a whole room devoted to clocks. Pretty amazing stuff. And we only saw the top floor!
The tubes were all screwy this weekend so we had to work hard to get to where we were going. After what felt like ten train changes, we got to the cinema. Kelly and I saw Marie Antoinette and the boys saw Borat. We each liked our pick but Kelly and I were dissapointed that there was no beheading. Came home, had some ice cream, and got in bed.

Sir John Soane's Museum

Probably one of the most interesting museums that I've been to. Soane was a guy who decided to turn his house into a museum and still live in it. He has authentic ancient relief sculptures right next to casts, an Egyptian sarcaphugus of Seti I (which he outbid the British Museum for), Hogarth's The Rake's Progress, and so much more. Literally, something on every surface. They wouldn't let me take pictures, so I got one from google.
I found a park that's only a few mintues from my house so now I have a place to run. There are dogs there and everything!

Beginnings

On the off chance that I keep sending emails to people who don't want them, I'm going to switch to blogs.
I'm sumarize the beginning of my trip for those who may have missed it:
Got into London with no problems. The hostel we stayed at was fine, minus the incredibly loud techno dance club on the first floor and our chainsaw snoring roommate. One of our roommates was Kelly, who we quickly made our friend. BUNAC is no help in finding jobs or housing so we did it all on our own. I wanted to find a job close to where I lived, so I decided to find a home first. After many scary flat viewings, we viewed one in Willesden Green that seemes doable. Kelly, Frank, Joe, and I now agree that we probably rushed into singing a lease, but we're happy enough. The rooms are rather cell-like and we share three bathrooms and kitchens with about ten other people that also live in the house. There's housekeeping for the communal areas that supposedly comes twice a week. Its very much like dorm life.
Found a job at Starbucks that isn't going as well as I wanted it to. I'm trying to be optimistic, but its pretty terrible so far. Keeping my fingers crossed.
So I have a job and a roof over my head. What else could a girl want? Museums.