Weekend Extravagance and Early Week Adventures

Well, since we last met, very little has changed. My wallet is much lighter, thanks to the nature of the lovely city of London, and my friendships have grown closer. Unfortunately, I am still jobless for June, but I have been officially hired at DODS, a political communication and information company, for the month of July. I will be working in their media department, which consists of a monthly magazine, The House, a number of weekly publications, and an online magazine, epolitix.com. Apparently I will have an opportunity to write a few special pieces for at least one of these publications, and I will be able to attend press conferences, potentially one of the weekly press conferences with the Prime Minister. I am very excited to start. The potential of my July job is the keeping me positive lately as I continue to search for employment in June. I have a few things on the agenda today, so hopefully things will begin to fall into line.

But there are many updates to be given on the crazy life of a student in London. Friday night we went to a few dance clubs around the Piccadilly Circus area (slightly over-touristy). We went first to a club called Bar Rumba, after much research in travel books and online. All of that research was a waste of time and a load of bollocks. This bar's sketch factor was probably a 9 out of 10. We females were escorted into a basement to use the ladies, and the bar was littered with creepster guys staring onto the dance floor, with their mouths watering. Needless to say, we did not stay there very long. We actually left before the drinks we had ordered were even delivered (service in England is total crap, because waiters have a high minimum wage, and therefore don't get tipped). We moved down the street to the Rainforest Cafe's dance club. This place was pretty fabulous, with two DJs spinning sweet music, fish tanks, waterfalls, and a huge bar. I decided that I was going to pretend like I only spoke Spanish, so I got in for only 5GBP, instead of the normal 8. After I shared this information at our Saturday afternoon recap of the evening, I became a legend. The evening was an overall success, minus the tiny hole burned into my silk dress (one of the many downfalls of allowing people to smoke indoors). After some miraculous work my RJ, navigating the night buses like a champion, we returned to our humble Islington abode. An advantage of living in a Turkish neighborhood is the cheap kebab places still open at 3:30am. We took advantage of one of these places, tapping them of all of the lamb that they had left, with 5 lamb doners (a kind of sliced lamb sandwich in a pita with lettuce, onion, and tomato). Apparently I was feeling adventurous, because I decided that putting chili sauce on my doner was a good plan. I immediately regretting that decision, but corrected the problem with some thousand island dressing after returning to the flat. Yet another instance of expanding my spicy tolerance.

After finally retiring to my bed at 7:00am on Friday, after a long night of dancing, food, and conversation, I slept until 3:30pm. When I finally arose from my sleep, I treated my roommates to some yummy omelets, and we laughed for almost two hours about all of the ridiculous events of the night before. Feeling lazy, and needing to gather energy for the night to come, Raquel and I settled into her bed to watch a bit of 1980s glory, Pretty in Pink. With our cheesy romance needs satisfied, we created a mean taco salad, and socialized a bit with our gentlemen neighbors, who were playing drinking games in our kitchen. These boys were seeking shelter in our kitchen because they had successfully made such a mess in their that they did not have any clean dishes, or an counter space remaining (because it was covered in dishes, pots, pans, pizza boxes, and beer cans). A group decision was reached to go to a club in Angel (a relatively short bus ride away, compared to the hour commute to Piccadilly). This club, The Egg, supposedly served breakfast at 7:00am, and stayed open until 1pm the next afternoon. We did not make it this long. We arrived at Egg, to be charged a 15GBP cover (questionable if it was worth it). We danced for about an hour, before retiring to some comfy couches. This club was very strange, in that it did not make any mixed drinks. Your choices were shots or beer. Seeing as they did not know how to serve a shot of tequila, I settled of a Corona. Unfortunately this undesired Corona was interrupted by my motherly nature. My friend Tomas's stomach ulcer was acting up, so I sat with him before finally laying down the law and taking him home. This time I navigated the London night buses like a champion. After finally getting Tomas to bed, I was soon joined by the rest of the group, returning by cab, rather than the bus. We retreated to the female kitchen once more, slowly dwindling in numbers. I finally surrendered at 7:00am once more, and apparently after I left everyone else went to bed (yes, I am that cool).

Sunday was another late start, but this time breakfast was not made. Instead I was in charge of cooking some Turkey Melts for lunch, satisfying myself, my other half Ellen (also still has not started her job), and Ellen's friend Morgan, known as Frenchie (because he is French, duh! I know, we are so creative with our nicknames). Morgan stayed with us for the weekend, and was quite a little ball of energy (and also stocked our cabinets, which was WONDERFUL). I finally woke Raquel up at 5pm, and we organized an evening trip to the London Eye, a giant ferris wheel-type of contraption on the Thames. Our ride on the London Eye put us out a relatively significant number of pounds, but was definitely worth it, as it gave an amazing view of the city (assisted by the beautiful weather Sunday and the beginnings of a sunset). We capped off the adventure with a bit of McDonalds, breaking our promises not to each at American food chains. We just couldn't resist. After returning home, we watched another movie, She's the Man, and settled into bed.

Unfortunately, my Monday was not as exciting as the previous weekend. I woke up early and forced myself to finally write my proposal, due the following day, needed to earn credit for my internship from UofM. A simple three page proposal ended up taking me almost seven hours to write, mostly because the majority of it was supposed to be a description of my intern duties (which I barely knew) and a connection between how my internship connected to a segment of my academic study of communications. I was supposed to list a number of sources that I would be drawing from, but the only problem was I didn't have a library to find these sources. It took quite a bit of internet searching, but the overall mission was a success. Between the proposal, and my Perspectives on Experiential Learning Abroad class (looking at how the British workplace is different than the American workplace, and how everything fits into the bigger picture of us finding real jobs) my day was gone. As a sort of study break/ treat Ellen, Raquel and I all went to the Sainsbury's near our class, and bought some groceries and ate an entire tub of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food ice cream (it would have melted if we had tried to get it home! :0)). Following our gorge-fest on the Tube, we returned home to finish up my proposal and have a bit of cheese, wine and bread, complimented with good conversation, to wrap up the evening.

And finally, yesterday was a lovely day in London. I woke up and wrote a few emails and tried to find myself a job (because the program has been disappointing overall, to say the least). Afterwards, I woke up Ellen, and made us some macaroni and cheese. When we finally got out of the flat, we were intending on going to the Natural History Museum, but the Tube was running with severe delays, and was blazing hot (there is essentially no A/C anywhere in England). So on a split second decision, we decided to ditch our museum plans and went shopping instead (in proper housewife fashion). We spent almost 2 hours in this one store, called Top Shop. Its 4 floors of the coolest clothes ever. I had to exhibit some serious restraint. But, I ended up finding my mommy's birthday presents, and a new top for myself (to help me look more European, thereby fitting in a bit better). By this time it was already 5, so Ellen and I headed back home. The Tube was ridiculously crowded (to the point that people were smashed in all the way pressed into all the doors) and was even hotter than before. I was sweating just standing still. By the time that we actually got back to the flat, RJ came down and told us that we had 15 minutes before we needed to leave to get some Indian food with some of his friends. We were a little hesitant at first, because the Tube ride alone took an hour, plus a 20 minute bus ride. Long story short, it was sooo worth it. His buddies were hilarious, the food was amazing, it was a great time. RJ is a pretty funny guy, but dinner last night was like RJ multiplied himself 4 times. We laughed the whole night. We had probably 8 or 10 different Indian dishes, and I ate them all, even the spicy one that is supposed to light your behind on fire the next day (results still in deliberation). I also drank some Indian beer, called Cobra, and it really wasn't that bad ( I normally despise beer). And I think the best part of it all was that his buddies picked up the tab, drinks, food, everything. We ran up a 160GBP bill. That's basically $320, holy moley. After dinner his buddies drove us to the Tube station, and we BARELY made all of the last Tubes from two stations. Tubes stop running between 11:45 and 12:30. Fortunately we made them all, otherwise there would have been a lot of bus riding. Overall, I would give the night a 10 out of 10. Fabulous. We are trying to convince his buddies to come out for Raquel's birthday on Saturday, and I will make them dinner (to try to return the favor, more or less). The menu is tacos. Silly Raquel, she thinks she is Mexican (she is really from El Salvador). Her birthday is shaping up to be quite a night, but if I told you any more about that, I would have to kill you.

You will just have to tune in next time, for more Tales from Across the Pond...