Words cannot even describe...

Words cannot even describe what I am feeling right now. Less than 24 hours ago I was in the Highlands of Scotland, having one of the best times of my life and now I am just heartbroken. I don't even remember feeling this bad after breaking up with boyfriends! London has just completely lost its sparkle. If this keeps up, I think I am going to have to quit my jobs and go live in Scotland for a the rest of my time here. Ah, but before I get too emotional, I have a week to update you on.

Well, I guess the last time we left off I was just about to travel to Bath and Stonehenge. Both were lovely (but not as lovely as Scotland...). We got off to a bit of a rough start though. We were supposed to be leaving our flat to go meet up with tour at 7:30 to make sure we were on time for our 8:45 pick up. Well, at 7:30 I was the only one ready. Fortunately Ellen was only running a few minutes behind, but at 7:40 there was still no sign of Raquel or RJ. I went and knocked on Raquel's door, and she was not awake. Apparently Raquel and RJ and some other people in the TWC group decided to go out for some drinks on Saturday night and neither of them woke up to their alarms. Well, fortunately in the long run, we ended up making the bus just fine, no problems. So then we traveled on our little Anderson Coach up to Stonehenge. Stonehenge was really neat, and it was so interesting to hear how long it took for all of these stones to be put into place. Apparently the whole project from its little beginnings as a circular ditch, to placing the highest stones, took something like 1,500 years. And the whole thing was done without any significant tools, and with tribes of only 20 or so people. But the thing is, it would take something like 400 people to move one of these stones. So that was all very interesting. I took my little audioguide tour, and the required touristy pictures. After about an hour or so at Stonehenge, we moved on to Bath. Bath was also very interesting, seeing all of the ruins of the ancient Roman Baths that had been there. The actual city of Bath was also really beautiful. The architechure on all of the buildings was great. Every building, from the 18th Century all the way until now, is required to use the same cream-ish colored Bath Stone. It was a very quaint little town. The only problem was, we only had about 2 hours to see the Roman Bath Museum, eat and see the entire city of Bath. By the time we finished eating after our little audioguide tour of the museum, we only had about 40 minutes to see the city. So we were very rushed. Yuck. After seeing Bath we headed back to Londontown for a relaxed evening. Unfortunately I had to get a jump start on a paper I have due quite soon.

Monday I woke up to a nice little surprise, an email from Onkar saying he didn't really have anything for me to do, telling me to just stay home. Very exciting. So when I finally woke up around 9:45, a significant improvement from my usual 6:45, I had a spot of breakfast and got back to work on this paper. I am still in the middle of the writing process, but hopefully I should finish up within the next few days. I am looking at how air warfare affected Great Britain, making it more willing to appease Germany around the time of the Munich Crisis. Perhaps boring to some, but I think that it is interesting. So I pretty much spent most of the day dividing my attention between research for my paper, talking to Brett online, and doing laundry. A VERY exciting day, I know. In the evening I of course had my Monday class, the contents of with I won't bore you with. After class it was back to the apartment for some more reading and research.

Tuesday was also pretty uneventful (especially compared to the thrills of my past weekend). I got into work a bit early, knowing that I had some time to make up for leaving early a few days last week and realizing that I would have to leave work early on Thursday to leave for the airport. I posted the week's House Magazine online, like the before, but this time it was more exciting. It was more exciting because I posted my first article. My little 200 word article about elections in Turkey. Hey, you have got to start small. After finishing up with that, I started a little bit of work for a new magazine. This little number is called The Monitor Digest, looking at the progress of legislation, the composure of parliamentary committees, work by think tanks, all of that. While it was a bit dull, I got rewarded with a credit in the front page as an editor! Woo hoo. I also wrote a two more articles for the "Electionwatch" section of House Magazine again, this time looking at drug traffickers in Guatemala funding political campaigns, and corrupt local elections in China. So lots more to come from me in House. After work I ran a few errands, then headed back home to finally get a start on my paper. I wrote about 600 words of the 2,000 and lost motivation, saying I would work on it more Wednesday. Long story short, I didn't. But that is ok.

Wednesday was another relatively unexciting day. I got into work early again, and did some more work on the Digest. When this finally comes out a few days before I leave, it will pretty much be my little baby. I did all of the editing work on the entire magazine (its only about 25 pages long) and I picked out all of the photos that go along with everything. After finishing that all up, I also did a bit of transcribing for the reporters. Some of the people that we interview are some real pieces of work. I tell you! When I finally went home, I did a few more errands, mostly corresponding to the errands run on Tuesday, then headed home for a bit of dinner with Ellen. After dinner I sat down to work on my paper a bit more, but then decided it would probably be a better idea to pack for my Scotland adventures. After finally getting all packed up, I sat down again to work on it. But, I decided that I was too tired, so I put back on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (which I had originally put on when I was packing to keep me entertained), intending to fall asleep. Well I didn't fall asleep, instead I just watched Harry Potter instead of doing work. If I knew all of the exciting and beautiful things that I would be seeing in the next few days I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway...

Thursday I woke up extra early to make sure that I had plenty of time to make sure I had all of my things in order for my trip. And its a good thing I did! I left intending to get into work early again, but London public transportation decided otherwise. Instead of taking my new usual 30 minute walk to0 Highbury, I decided to take the ridiculously crowded bus to King's Cross, mostly because I had all of my stuff for Scotland with me, and it was raining a bit. It's very fortunate that I made this decision. The line that I would normally take to work, and the only line that goes through Highbury & Islington was suspended because of signalling problems. So I was forced to take the much slower, and much older Circle line into Westminster tube station, about a 10 minute farther walk than my usual Vauxhall. But, like I said, it all worked out nicely because I just randomly decided to take the bus, and I had left plenty early. My work load was pretty light on Thursday, scrapping the bottom of the barrel for tasks at times. I put the finishing touches on the Digest, finally finishing everything up, wrote the "Backtracks" article for House, talking about things that happened during that week in British political history (I chose Churchill losing the election to Attlee in 1945), and alphabetized all of the cds of photographs that we had in our cupboard. After all of that excitement I headed to the Tube, to catch my train, to catch my plane to what I now know to be pretty much the most beautiful country in the world. Apparently I have bad luck with flights around here though. Apparently only about 25% of flights are delayed (I mean we are talking budget airlines, so you can't really complain). But I seem to be catching all the wrong flights, because all of my flights are delayed. haha. My flight to Edinburgh was delayed by about 45 minutes, so not too bad. Fortunately I had made the impulse buy of a book at the bookshop in the airport. After a few chapters of my book I was in Edinburgh and about to have the most fabulous experience ever. I took the bus from the airport into the center of Edinburgh and slowly but surely found my way to my hostel. One of the great things about Scotland is everyone is just so friendly. As I was standing at a corner trying to figure out my crossroads, someone just came up and offered me help. Heck, in London you would be run over by about a million people pushing past you, and the only time you would get help was if you asked. So I checked into my hostel right around 10pm, dropped off my bag, grabbed my camera and went exploring around Edinburgh. For such a small town there is so much to see! The architecture in Edinburgh was also amazing, and all of the monuments and buildings were lit up at night, and just looked breathtaking. I took lots of pictures and walked all around the city, doing a little window shopping too. After seeing Edinburgh Castle, the medieval Old Town, Georgian New Town, Scottish Parliament, the Scott Memorial, and the Palace of Hollyroodhouse, I headed back to my hostel for a wee bit of shut eye before an early morning start.

I woke up bright an early Friday morning, after getting back almost at 12:45 from my walks around Edinburgh. I was so paranoid that I was going to oversleep my 6:45 alarm that I woke up about every hour all night. It also didn't help that I had to creakiest mattress in the world. After waiting outside the bathroom for about 40 minutes, I was forced to forgo my shower in order to be sure that I would be on time for my 8:15 bus. So after finally getting ready, I rushed from Old Town to New Town to grab some breakfast, but nothing was open until 8. Finally I just decided to wait until 8, grabbed some Burger King (because it was the closest thing to me, don't judge) and rushed back down to Old Town checked out (not even my hostel was open before 8) and rushed back up to the Royal Mile to check in. Phew. After a few minutes the big yellow coach bus that I would come to love pulled up and we all loaded in. The tour was great, telling us all kinds of fascinating things about Scottish history, places, important Scots, various things that Scottish people invented, etc. (you would be very surprised how many things Scottish people actually invented, or at least inspired). There were always lots of interesting stories or funny little jokes throughout the whole day, and plenty of music... traditional Scottish music, modern Scottish music, regular popular music, just tons and tons of cool stuff. I have to include one of my favorite stories from the first day though. Apparently the Edinburgh Zoo is famous for it's specialization in penguins. I was told that they allow their penguins out once a day, around 1 or 2 pm and they are allowed to just sort of wander around the zoo. They are right there with all the people, and they can go see the lions or whatever (so cool, I know. Just one of the many reasons that I need to go back ASAP). Well apparently this one time, some guy decided that he wanted a penguin as a pet and STOLE penguin from the zoo when they were out on their little penguin walk one day. Well then he got the penguin home and realized that he knew absolutely nothing about penguins and didn't know how to take care of it. So the next day he took it back to the zoo. They hadn't even noticed it was missing when he returned it!!! And they didn't even do anything to prosecute him or anything. haha. See, I told you Scottish people were very nice! So I am going to have to go to Edinburgh Zoo and steal me a penguin. Although, it might be hard getting a penguin through security at the airport. After leaving Edinburgh, we headed first to Sterling, a really important city for Scotland because it is sort of a bottleneck from the Lowlands to the Highlands. Basically, in terms of Scottish history, whoever held Sterling was in control of Scotland. This is the city where the big battle with William Wallace leading the Scottish armies during the wars for independence. So in Sterling we climbed up (literally climbed, most of the way up the path was at about a 35-40 degree angle) to see the William Wallace monument. I have been told that it is the largest monument to a single person in all of the UK, and something like the 4th largest in the world (but I seriously question that fact). After Sterling we headed into the Highlands. When we stopped for lunch I tried my first Scottish foods, cullin skink, a sort of fish chowder, and IrnBru, an orange colored soda that has more sugar than Coke, with an indescribable taste (the best I can come up with is bubble gum?), and enough crap to rot straight through your stomach. But overall it was quite good. We slowly wound our way through the Highlands to Loch Ness, stopping pretty frequently to take in some amazing views and take a few hikes down the mountains and around to some beautiful little rivers and lakes. Gorgeous. Like I said, our ultimate destination was a little town called Fort Augustus along the banks of Loch Ness. When we got in to Fort Augustus we went to see a little show by this guy Ken inside of a little house that was similar to what Highland families would have used. He showed us all of the weapons that Highlanders used, and gave us quite a bit of insight into Highland life. A very interesting show. Ken is an amazingly interesting guy, but I can get into more of that later. After the show we went and checked into our hostel, grabbed some dinner, and then headed out to a little boat trip around Loch Ness. It was amazing how much information there is. I was completely a Loch Ness Monster skeptic, but after seeing all of the sort of videos and pictures and sonar information that the captain of this boat had, it is hard not to believe it. This guy had a picture of the back of one of the "creatures," which they think is basically a dinosaur, about 10 feet away from him. You can even see the sort of bone structure and stuff, so you know that it is definitely not a fish. Another interesting little fact, although Loch Ness in not the widest, or longest or deepest lake in Scotland (it ranks number 2 in all of these categories) if it were to empty, all of the water from all of the lakes and rivers and streams in all of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland could not fill it back up. Ok, keep it short Jess, no one has all day to read this. After the boat trip a few of us went back to the hostel into the little bar there. My new friend Pam, from New Zealand, one of the Australian girls, our guide Russell, and I played a bit of Jenga, until this guy Davy came and played a little mini concert of all sorts of Scottish Music and regular music on the guitar. When he stopped to take a break, we moved a couple of the tables out of the way and spent the rest of the night dancing away to all of these fabulous songs. A bunch of the locals came up to the hostel to hear Davy play, including Ken, the guy from earlier, and this guy Rorie. Rorie is a bit of a character. He wears his kilt and all, and lives in a wigwam down the road from the hostel. The only thing is, the wigwam is not on his property. He just sort of sets up in someone's front yard. It's great. Actually, a bunch of the Scottish guys in the bar (there weren't many)were wearing kilts and all. Ken, he is the guy from the show, he is pretty awesome too. Not quite so weird, but just a really fascinating guy. He has climbed all 284 mountains over 3,000 ft in Scotland. He hasn't done it just once, he has done it 5 times, once with each of his dogs. This guy even brought his dog out to the bar both nights. Great dog, by the way. Sorry. Straying away again. Ok, so we were dancing and drinking the night away, and then I had a bit of bonding time with one of our guides, Russell, after Davy stopped playing. We chatted for a really long time about random shit, mostly politics. Before we knew it, it was already 2:15 am, so we both hit the sheets. We had to be ready and on the bus at 8:30 again. Which meant that I only got a little over 4 hours of sleep before I had to be up again. Noticing a pattern? I don't sleep on my "vacations." haha.

On Saturday we went to the Isle of Skye, one of the islands off the western coast of Scotland. Skye was fabulous. It had rained on Friday night, so all of these amazing waterfalls just sort of appeared on the sides of all of these mountains. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I took lots and lots of pictures. Skye is very small, like most of the Highlands, population wise. The whole island is basically houses scattered about every few miles with just tons and tons of open land (with lots of cute little sheep running around). The scenery was quite picturesque. Skye is said to be the land of the faeries, basically the Scottish equivalent of a leprechaun. In the early afternoon we went down to this little river, which legend has it has healing powers and will make you beautiful and all held our heads in the river for 7 seconds. The water was really cold, but heck, it is part of the experience. Then we went to the largest town on the Isle of Skye, Portree, has about 5 streets on it. We stopped there for lunch and we were able to see the whole town in about 20 minutes. haha. After lunch we went to this amazing little waterfall, said to be in the heart of faerie land. Well this must be true, because I think a faerie stole my brand new toe ring! I had climbed all the way to the top of this little hill so get my picture at the top of the waterfall. Because it was next to a river and it had rained the night before, like I said, and the area was very boggy because of all of the peat. So I struggled to get up in all of the mud (realizing after the fact that Graham, our other guide had said to make sure to go up the left side because the right side was very boggy, and of course I was on the right). On the way back down I was going very slowly, determined not to fall because Graham had put money on me falling on the way down. Well I was almost to the bottom when I slipped in the mud a bit. Because the ground was so soft, I couldn't really stop myself from slipping more, because the slope of the hill was pretty steep. So I just started running down, hoping to make it to the bottom without falling. Well I almost made it. Fortunately for the one and only pair of jeans brought with me to Scotland, I didn't fall until I was out of the mud and on solid grass. Quite miraculously, I only had a few speckles of mud on my legs, and that was it. Unfortunately, it was went I was distracted by my muddy run down the hill (I was barefoot because it was so muddy) that a faerie stole my toe ring. Bastard. Didn't even have it for 24 hours yet. Oh well I suppose. After that we went to some an amazing cliff, Ramasaig Cliff, along the side of the island closest to Ireland. They were beautiful. Graham got a bit of karma thrown at him for betting that I would fall, because it was at this cliff that his favorite rugby ball, which some of the guys were playing around with, got punted off the side of the cliff. Poor Graham. After Ramasaig Cliff, we headed back to Fort Augustus for a bit of dinner, before heading down to a pub in town. This was the beginning of a fabulous evening. I know that whatever I write cannot fully encompass it. It's just one of those things that you had to be there. Down at the pub we had a few drinks, and a little bit into the night, one of the bartenders just busted out a set of bagpipes and started playing a few songs. Fabulous. A little while later I attempted to play pool for the first time, Russell and I versus Pam and Graham. Fortunately Pam and I were both first timers, and both a bit too drunk to be successful at this game. Russell and I ended up winning, and two of the other girls from the trip, one from Spain and one from New Zealand, both of which were not as drunk as me and were both at least decent playing pool, took us on. Needless to say, it didn't end well. Basically every time it was my turn, I ended up sinking the cue ball into a pocket. Ops. After pool the pub was closing, but we were all ready to keep the night going. So Russell, Graham, Pam and I took a walk along the locks leading into Loch Ness. It was a very quiet night, so Graham showed us all this really cool thing that when you laid on the dock and hung your head over the edge and looked at the reflections, everything was an absolute perfect reflection, but when you looked at the water without your head upside down, it wasn't. Difficult to describe, but soooo cool. Then we realized as we were lying there on the docks that we could mess with people passing by, because it was too dark for anyone to really see us lying there on the dock. So we would lie very quietly as they passed by, and Graham would make animal noises at these people. The reactions were hilarious. One kid started yelling stop that, stop making noises, and threatened to fight whatever it was. For all he knew it was a bird. I guess a typical Highlander reaction, wanting to fight anything. haha. It doesn't sound funny now, but at the time we were all laughing so hard that my sides were cramping and my eyes were watering. Russell, trying to hold in a laugh ended up ripping a HUGE fart. That's when it all broke loose. I don't exactly remember how, but somehow we got onto the topic of spooning (in typical Jessica Harbin fashion). I guess I should probably note here that Graham is about 6'7. A big guy. For whatever reason, I said that he was too big to be the little spoon, and then he got all sad. So, to comfort him as he was lying there on the dock, I went up and let him be the little spoon. So as not to leave out Pam and Russell, we all started spooning, hence inventing the quadraspoon, to go down in history. We lied there all spooning and talking for a long time, and of course, I was in heaven. Finally it got too cold, so we walked back to the hostel and talked a bit more before turning in. I couldn't believe it, but it was already 3:30 when I finally made it to bed.

Another early morning yesterday, as we had to be on the bus with all of our stuff packed up by 8:30. After such a wonderful night, I spent the whole day dreading having to leave. We drove around the far side of Loch Ness, and started heading back towards Edinburgh. We drove through Inverness, a little town (actually dubbed the ugliest city in the UK, and not talking about the buildings). Inverness is famous for having dolphins and seals in the little salt water river that runs through the town. We stopped at this battlefield, famous during the Jacobite Wars where the British and Jacobite forces met. It was really interesting learning all weekend about Scottish History, and what a huge role these Jacobite Wars had, potentially changing world history. After that, we stopped in another cute little town for a bit of pub grub, but unfortunately we had to spend most of the day just driving straight through. One interesting place we did stop was Dunkeld Cathedral, right along this beautiful river. Inside of the cathedral is where the "Wolf of Badenoch" is buried. The Wolf of Badenoch was Alexander Stewart, the illegitimate son of King Robert II, and was pretty much a crazy mother f-er. He would go around killing people for no reason and burning down churches. When he died no churches would take his body because he was such a horrible person, but at the same time he was royalty. Dunkeld Cathedral finally took his body because it was one of the only churches he didn't burn down, and the royal family paid the church a ton of money. After Dunkeld Cathedral we headed straight back into Edinburgh. Since I stepped off the bus I have felt incomplete. I dreaded coming back to London, and I gave some serious thought to calling in sick to work and staying in Edinburgh one more night. But alas, I came home.

Hopefully this DSL (deep Scottish love) will wear off a bit soon, and I can feel whole again. That or I will just have to go back to the Highlands immediately.

Things to look forward to this week:

Nothing. I am not in Scotland.
Just kidding.

Tomorrow: drinks with Pam and Cat from the tour
Wednesday or Thursday: Drinks with Gaby and Sam
Friday-Sunday: Rome

One of the Craziest Weeks Ever

Well, this week shaped up to be quite crazy. Carrying over from last week's Gay Pride and Canada Day celebrations, much more was added to the list of ridiculous events.

Starting out with Monday. I like to call Monday my day of irony. It started out with me going to work out in Ealing, as usual. However, on my way to the bus, my shoe broke. Fortunately the strap that broke was not extraordinarily crucial, because the shoe was still functional, however uncomfortable. So after my 2 hour commute to work, I arrive to a few menial tasks to take care of. Mostly copy/pasting. In about an hours time I am done with my project. I had spoken with Dr. Sahota on the phone earlier, and he had mentioned something else that he would like me to work on. He told me that he would email me more detailed instructions. So I sat. Waiting. After about 45 minutes I finally sent an email. No response. More waiting. I guess on the positive side I got some emailing done, and fortunately I had my laptop with me, so I was able to work a bit on the papers that are coming up for my classes. Finally after another 30 minutes I tried to call Onkar on his cell phone. Straight to voicemail. So I sat more. Finally at 1:00 (having finished this project at 11:00ish) I sent a slightly less than polite email asking for something to do. A few minutes later I received a response that basically said that I could just go home. So I had commuted for 4 hours to copy/paste for an hour. In an attempt to cheer me up, Mommy gave me a green light on going to TopShop for a new pair of shoes and a new dress. I finished up my shopping and caught the Tube home. Instead of getting off at King's Cross and taking the bus like normal, I decided to take the Tube to Highbury Islington and walk home, because I remembered a shoe repair shop on the walk home. Well on the Tube, they made an announcement saying the train would be stopping at King's Cross because there was a fire at Highbury Islington. However, right as I was about to get off, I heard another announcement saying that they had the go ahead to go to Islington after all. So I stayed on the train. When we got to Highbury Islington, the train stopped, but the doors didn't open. The station was closed. So I was forced to ride up to the next station. When I got to Finsbury Park (the next station) I got directions for a bus back to Highbury Islington. As soon as I get to top of the stairs, I hear an announcement saying that Highbury Islington is now open. So I turned around and got back on the Tube going the other direction. When I get out of the station it is downpouring. It is raining to hard that you can't see across the street. So I brave the rain to the shoe store and get my sandal fixed. I got home and noticed that my light blue and white skirt was covered in black. The ink from my TopShop bag was all over. Then later that evening Raquel, Ellen, RJ, and I were going to buy our tickets to Bath. Everyone gets all booked except for me. Tour is full. That was the kind of day I had. Grrr.

But, Tuesday, on the other hand, was fabulous. I started my new job at Dods on Tuesday, working in the editorial department of House Magazine, a weekly publication about UK politics. I uploaded the paper version of the magazine onto the internet, which might sound lame, but is actually moderately interesting, because I basically was able to get a jist for all the articles and the set up of the magazine. I also was given my first story to have published! It was only 200 words and didn't have a byline, but still. I wrote about the problems in Turkey regarding their upcoming elections. Apparently the Turkish military is threatening to overthrow the Turkish government (well really only the majority party in the legislature) because they are worried that the government is becoming too Islamist. Pretty interesting. Then I left work a little bit early to go to the premiere of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was really crowded and it was pouring the entire time, but I had a blast. I met up with my roommate Anna, Abby, and Christine at Leicester Square. Christine was able to get some great video with my camera. I wasn't video taping because I was a little bit busy. I took off my heels and I had Abby on my shoulders for about 45 minutes straight (then again later) as she took pictures of all of the stars. So there I was, no shoes in the middle of a London street with a 20 year old on my shoulders (fortunately Abby is so skinny that she turns sideways and disappears), and someone stepped on my foot! I am sitting there hitting the person (a not-small man) screaming that he is on my foot, yet he doesn't move. When I finally tried to walk, my foot was frozen. I couldn't move my toes and it hurt terribly. I thought that the man had broken my toes. In actuality I was just having the worst foot cramp in the history of man. But even despite these seemingly horrible things, I had fun. After returning home soaking wet and in pain, I had some dinner and had a meeting with one of the executives of The Washington Center who had come in to London to see how things were going for everyone.

Wednesday was obviously going to be a crazy day, no matter what. The Fourth of July. At work I did a bit more uploading magazines to the website, then I got to go to an interview. One of the special feature pieces that we have every week is an MP interviewing someone else about something. I was able to attend the interview between a Lib Dem MP and the Chairman of Shell Oil. The interview was very interesting, and I was able to learn a lot about how oil companies operate, the search for alternative energy and maximum energy efficiency, and the various projects Shell has going on. But by far my favorite parts of the interview were A) when the MPs cell phone rang about 20 times in 5 minutes with the loudest ring known to man, and B) when we were riding the elevator down to leave and you could smell the overwhelming amounts of liquor on the MPs breath. During the interview the MP seemed a little out of it, and I noticed the open liquor bottle on his desk, and the paper cup that the MP was drinking from (which matched other cups on his desk on top of another bottle of liquor). However, I did not put two and two together until it was blatantly obvious. Very amusing. Being drunk is not at all socially taboo here. In fact, people drink on the Tube pretty much daily. And not homeless people. So after work on Wednesday I met up with Raquel and RJ, where we also met up with Carter and Tomas and went to a bar in East London. This bar was very interesting. Everything was falling apart, the chairs were old and looked like they had been grabbed off the curb, showing padding and all, and there was a hodge-podge of things on all the walls. And it was supposed to be like that. I would best describe this place as a homeless bar, but cool. Very interesting. After the bar, we headed to another bar a few blocks away to a party hosted by American Apparel. Although the place was mediocre, I appreciated the free beer and wine. This bar also had some FABULOUS nachos. So fabulous we needed to order another. Since I have basically only been hanging out with the same people, all day, every day since I got here. I decided that I needed a day off. Therefore I invited my dear Sonya to celebrate with me. We were originally intending to go to a barbeque place in Soho, but my phone died (which happened the last time I tried to meet up with Sonya, if you remember). So I had to settle with sticking with the rest of the group and having Sonya come too. Fortunately I was able to slip away with Sonya for some much needed non-TWO time. Fabulous girl she is. Before I knew it, the rest of the group was heading out, so I left with them and crashed.

Fortunately I didn't drink very much on Wednesday night, mostly because I wanted to get an early start and get into work early. It's a good thing I left early, because the Victoria line (the line I take to get to Dods) was closed. So I had to settle for the slower Circle Line, and a longer walk. When I finally got to work, only 15 minutes early when I had left an hour early, I got to transcribe the previous day's interview, and relive the glory of the drunk MP. Although that task was slightly burdensome, my next project was worth it. Another story. Still no byline, but this one was 300 words (I am moving up in the world!). This time I wrote for our "Backtracks" column that looks at something that happened in UK politics during this week in history. I wrote about Tony Blair becoming leader of the Labour Party. Very exciting. Unfortunately soon after that I had to go to class. Not that I don't enjoy my weekly time with Roland (he is great to listen to, and very interesting) but I am starting to feel bad because I am having to leave so early every day! Oh well. After class I did grocery shopping and lugged 8 bags of groceries on my hour commute back home. No curry night. I am kicking the habit :-)

Friday was medium exciting I suppose. I started it out in the traditional way, 9am class. We learned about post-war Britain and how they were basically screwed hardcore in everything. It was really interesting. I didn't know about a great deal of the issues Britain had after WWII. Silly American ethnocentrism. After class I did a bit of research for my upcoming paper on British appeasement before WWII, and then met up with Raquel and Ellen. Marty (our Friday morning professor)took all of our class to the Cabinent War Rooms and Churchill Museum, located in the underground bunkers formerly used by Churchill and his Cabinet (duh) during WWII. It was super interesting to see how everything was set up. They basically had a fully functional house almost underground. There were meeting rooms, a mess hall, bedrooms, and communications rooms, in addition to all a fancy dining room for Churchill and his wife. Pretty neat. The Churchill Museum was also really cool. It just opened in 2005. Very interactive. Its hard to describe all of the ways that this museum was fabulous. One really cool thing was this "Golden Egg" exhibit. Apparently, Churchill used to refer to any information gained by cracking German codes his golden eggs. In this exhibit you would put a Golden Egg into a particular spot and it would ask you a question and illuminate only the correct words in a letter directly next to the display. It was really cool. There were tons of videos and Churchill artifacts, in addition to all of his speeches recorded and available for listening. Overall, very cool. After the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum we went over to the Tate Modern Art Museum. There was a really interesting exhibit about urban development and how development can affect discrimination and poverty in cities. But one conclusion I was able to make was this: I don't really understand a lot of modern "art." Why should someone pay thousands of dollars for a canvas that has been sliced down the middle? That's it. Just a blank canvas with a cut down the center. That is art? Or a canvas painted completely red with a black stripe down the middle. If that is art, then all of the college painters in the world should be making a lot more. My house is a piece of art then. I shouldn't be so critical. Otherwise there was a lot of really cool paintings and photos everywhere. Its funny, because some of the things when I first saw them I was like, "That's lame," but after a minute (or reading the little plaque describing what the piece was about) I thought, "Wow, that is so cool." After the museum we returned home to a bit of pizza and a bottle of wine before heading out for a night on the town. We headed to Reflex, a sweet 80s club. Amazing time. Even though I wasn't born until 1986, I still appreciate the glory of all that is 80s. This bar not only played the fabulous 80s music, but was clad in Dirty Dancing posters and David Hasselhoff. Oh yes. That good.

Waking up this morning was a bit rough. That bottle of wine came back with a vengeance. But, I did not let it, or my exhaustion, defeat me. I headed out bright and early to Portobello Road Market. Although I spent all of my money, I had a great time. As they say in Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks, "anything and everything a chap can unload is sold at the corner of Portobello Road." There were tons of knickknacks, antiques, clothes, jewelry, and much more. I had a fabulous time shopping around and came home with plenty. The only disappointing thing was that most of the people were not particularly receptive to bartering. But, I still came out victorious, adding an antique stamp, a new dress, a pocket watch(for Daddy), a necklace, earrings and bracelet (for Mommy), and a pocketwatch-style necklace. I also was able to try out some delicious Ghanaian food for lunch from a street vendor. It was fabulous. And cheap. I had a beef and pepper stew and a creamy chicken and peanut sauce stew, all over seasoned rice. A delicious treat, and my wallet appreciated that it only cost 4 pounds (because I had spent all of my money!). After Portobello Road, I met up with Ellen and Raquel and we watched the prologue of the Tour de France. Today was the time trials, and every racer went individually down the 7 km course from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park then ending at Buckingham Palace. I think that I probably walked about 15 miles today between all of my adventures at Portobello and trying to navigate the Tour de France. Obviously you couldn't cross over where the time trials were going on, so I was forced to walk all the way from one side of the park, around the outside of the course, to the other side, hoping to find a cool t-shirt (from a place that took credit cards--like I said, I literally spent all of my money at Portobello). Long story short, I didn't buy any shirts. Oh well. Perhaps when I am in France they will have something. And that pretty much brings me here to you. Tonight will be an early, unexciting night, because bright and early tomorrow Raquel, RJ, Ellen and I are heading to Bath and Stonehenge (I forgot to mention that I was eventually able to by my ticket for the tour, that it wasn't REALLY sold out).

Exciting things coming up this week:
Tomorrow: Bath and Stonehenge
Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday: Scotland :-D

But for now, I bid you adieu. Until next time I will remain, Jessica, Pond Jumper Extraodinaire...

Rain Drops Are Falling On My Head

Well, this week can be summed up in one word. Rain. It has rained basically all day, almost every day for the past week, which has really put a cramp in my style. In addition to making me habitually cold and basically ruining my favorite pair of shoes, the rain forced us to cancel our weekend trip to Bath, because the rain had flooded everything. Hopefully we can reschedule it for next weekend. Despite the rain, this week has been full of action.

I started off the week pretty typically, with a long day at work. Monday was the first time that I actually felt busy the entire day, researching statistics and creating profiles on the constituency that my boss is running for, Ealing Central and Acton (yawn, I know). After work though, I did something that may shock those who know me well. I skipped class. I know, I am such a bad person for it, but I had my reasoning. Instead of going to my Perspectives on Experiential Learning Abroad class (which I am not receiving a grade at Michigan for), I went out to a pub in Ealing with a few of Brett's friends from Australia, Gaby and Sam (female). I learned the nitty gritty of their adventures down under (perhaps sometimes a bit too much information, but hey, that happens) and learned that Brett pretty much talked about me non-stop with everyone there. It was actually a little bit scary. I would start to tell a story, and these girls would just say, "Oh, this is the one where..." I kinda killed my conversation skills. 2 Strongbow and a pitcher of Pimms and Lemonade (which is Sprite here) and I headed back to my humble abode all the way in Islington. I returned to a bit of conversation with my roommates before our midnight 21st birthday celebration for Tomás. We bought him a cake in the shape of a bustier and put relighting candles on each of her boobs. After storming into his room and singing things got crazy. As we made our way to the kitchen (aka the Social Club) to cut the cake, Ray attacked from behind opening up a thoroughly shaken can of beer and pouring it all over Tomás. This was when Raquel decided it would be more memorable to smash the cake on Tomás' face rather than eat it. Meanwhile I am capturing these precious moments on video tape. Needless to say a food fight ensues and with beer covering the floor things get a little slippery. One wipeout and ungodly amounts of cake in hair later, the boys cleaned up and the girls retreated home, sides hurting from laughter.

Tuesday had an early start as I left for the airport to pick up Reggie at 6am. I was working from home for the day, so I spent the hour and a half ride to Heathrow airport doing more profiling, this time for the neighboring constituency of Ealing Southall (the Member of Parliament for this constituency had died the week before and it was unclear if it would be an open election or a woman only election, so Onkar wanted to be prepared to run there too, just in case). After waiting at Heathrow for almost 3 hours Reggie finally came through customs. Apparently he had been hassled at customs because he didn't have an address for where he would be staying, and also didn't have my phone number to prove that he wasn't going to come into the country and disappear. Needless to say, they finally let him through. We headed back to the flat and I finished up my work for the day. When we finally were ready to head out, we headed to Piccadilly Circus, bought tickets to see Mama Mia, and then went to the Natural History Museum. This museum was pretty cool, because there were a lot of things that would never be in a museum these days. It was a little sad but they had tons and tons of stuffed birds (mostly acquired during the colonial days) from all over the world. Another big attraction in this museum was a dinosaur exhibit with tons and tons of complete skeletons and a section just about how scientists figure out how the various dinosaurs acted, what they ate, etc. One thing that I have noticed about British museums is that they are very reading intensive (similar to this blog). Cases are all crammed with stuff on display, and each piece has a three paragraph explanation of what it is. Not very conducive to those with a short attention span. We stayed at the museum until closing, then headed down the street for some yummy pizza and pasta. After dinner we went to Piccadilly again, met up with Raquel and headed to the Prince of Wales Theater for Mama Mia. We were in the second row (holler student day of discounts, tickets were only £25) and it was amazing. The music was great (who doesn't love a little ABBA?) and the acting was great (not to mention there was a high proportion of young eye candy in the cast, some of which appeared shirtless... yum). We were singing along and dancing in our seats (and towards the end out of our seats). Raquel and I were in heaven, and even Reggie gave it a thumbs up. Great night.

Wednesday was slightly less glamorous. I went to work, as usual, and sat in the attic completely alone all day. Unfortunately I had missed an email from Onkar by about 10 minutes when I was leaving in the morning saying, "I might not need you today, give me a call and maybe you can spend the day with your friend". But since I was already in Ealing, Onkar and Mark (the person who I technically work for, but I have never met) found me a task since Onkar was in Oxford for the day. I finally finished up around 3 and headed to Kensington Gardens to meet up with Reggie. As soon as I got there it started raining and continued raining all night. After walking through the gardens and seeing Hyde Park we got on the Tube and grabbed some dinner. We ate at Pret A Manger (French for Ready to Eat or something), a slightly pretentious sandwich shop, sporting only all natural foods. I was actually a bit surprised, because the prices weren't ridiculous and the food was excellent. I had a duck wrap and a caramel cheesecake. Both were delicious. After dinner we headed down to Tower Hill and took a Jack the Ripper tour. While the tour was very interesting, it was pouring the entire time. I guess it added to the mood. Unfortunately it soaked us to the bone (even though we had an umbrella) and sent us home freezing cold. Day one of hating all the rain, no longer accepting "That's London for you" as an excuse.

Thursday was frustrating and pretty boring. Once again I could have been done with my work by about 2:30, but Onkar held me back once more. Instead of just getting things done, he was always off doing something random and unnecessary, especially making phone calls to friends. Thursday was slightly intense because this was the day that we officially found out that Southall would be an open election and Onkar was planning on running for both constituencies. Basically that meant that I had to do everything that I had done in the past two weeks in one day for Southall. I was very organized and got everything done, but Onkar, on the otherhand, was not as on top of things. When I finally just told him that I was leaving for the day, I was free from UK politics for a few days. I headed back to my flat, where Reggie was waiting for me after an equally unproductive/ frustrating day. After gathering our strength once more, we headed to the White Swan for our weekly ritual of Curry Night. While the food was delicious, I have a feeling that this was our last united Curry Night. Like every other Curry Night, Ellen and I ended up getting excluded (this time accompanied by Reggie) as everyone else moved outside to smoke, then decided to stay there. Frustrated from a long day at work and frustrated from the lack of manners of the rest of the group, Ellen, Reggie and I headed back to Charles Morton Court (the name of our building) and killed a bottle of wine before bed.

Friday was another touristy day. After my Friday morning class about London and the England 1885-Present (which I attended without Ellen or Raquel, and obviously without Reggie), I met up with Ellen and Reggie and we headed to the Science Museum. However, on the way we were met by Anna, a fellow Washington Center student who has more or less moved to the fringes of the program because of her clingy, princess, compulsive liar ways. I felt bad that she doesn't really have many friends in the program, so I invited her to come along with us. Before reaching the museum, we decided that we would eat our packed lunches in the garden area of the Natural History Museum. Anna refused to sit and eat outside (and didn't have a lunch packed) so she went into the Natural History Museum to find food. While we were eating the rain basically stopped, but everything was still wet. Being adventurous, we pressed on. After finishing lunch, we finally made it to the Science Museum. This too was very reading intensive, and my attention span was basically nil. Raquel finally met up with us at the museum, and it basically turned into Ellen, Raquel, Anna and I sitting while Reggie looked around (my feet hurt!). After the Science Museum we headed to Tower Hill once more (minus Anna, who went to the Victoria and Albert Museum) to try to see the Tower of London. Unfortunately it was already 5:00pm, and the Tower closed at 6pm. While this might not have normally deterred us, the £15 ticket price did. We did, however, take a look around the perimeter of the Tower and crossed over the Tower Bridge (NOT the London Bridge as many believe) and headed to the other side of the Thames. Here we went to the London Dungeon, a very touristy attraction that is supposed to scare you, complete with wax figures of Jack the Ripper's victims, piles of dead bodies from the Plague, Sweeny Todd's barbers chairs, etc. Think Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyworld, but not as advanced. There was even a river boat ride. While it was ridiculously cheesy, we had a good time. After our narrowly missed impending deaths, we headed back to Islington for some dinner and to recharge (aka change and sit down for about 30 minutes) before heading back downtown to Oxford Circus to some pubs there. They were pretty typical pubs, O'Neill's and Shakespeare's Head, complete with good conversation and beer (or Strongbow, in my case). The Shakespeare's Head even had a guy playing the guitar and singing. It was great. The rest of the group headed out for more adventures, but Reggie and I opted to head back, seeing as he had to leave my flat by 6:00am. Little did we know that we were also headed for an adventure. Slightly drunk, I got us on the bus going in the wrong direction, but I didn't notice for about 10 minutes. When we got off the bus, we were on a one way street, making finding the corresponding bus in the other direction more challenging to find. We finally found a bus that would work, but Reggie's travel card had expired, since it was after midnight. So we got kicked off the bus. We decided to try to find a different bus, and about 30 minutes later we were finally safe and sound on the N73 (after buying a bus pass, because I was not about to risk getting kicked off another bus and having to wait another 30 minutes for the next one). To congratulate ourselves on safely getting home, we picked up a doner kebab (yum), and finally made it to bed around 3am.

It was very rough having to wake back up at 5:30 to take Reggie to the Tube Station so that he could make it back to the airport in time for his flight. And of course, it was still raining. I came back home, took a nap for a few hours, then we were back on the game with breakfast, then out to see London's Gay Pride Parade. It was pretty great. There was such a mix of people and groups represented in the parade. There were the people dressed up crazy in dresses and feathers and the whole nine yards, then there were people dressed totally normally. One of our motivations to go see the parade was to see Tomás, who was representing the Respect Coalition (basically the British Communist party). The whole time it was pouring pretty hard. After the parade we went to lunch, then slowly attempted to make our way to Hyde Park, where there was a concert scheduled. Rumor has it Savage Garden was going to be playing at this concert. But after lunch we got held up, because the boys wanted to go into Hanley's toy store. An hour and a half later we were on the way again, only to make it about a block before stopping to get Cadbury McFlurries at McDonalds. After ice cream, the rest of the group decided that they didn't want to go to the concert anymore, mostly because of the rain, and wanted to go to the movies instead. Ellen, however, did not want to go to the movies, so her and I tried to find the concert at Hyde Park. We never found it, although I would assume that it was long over by that time, because we had taken almost 4 hours to get over there. After being totally soaked to the bone, Ellen met up with a friend and I returned home to Charles Morton for a bit of research and trip planning (booking hostels and such) before turning in for an early night in bed.

And finally, today, Sunday. Today was another whirlwind kind of day. I woke up early and was motivated to clean my room (gasp!) and even clean our kitchen. After that, I began updating our little virtual meeting grounds, but was then offered a day of fun London activities. I couldn't pass it up. We went to Camden Market where I spent lots of money and haggled for fun little gifts, including a lovely little top for myself. After Camden, Anna, Abby, and Christine and I (yes, a new group! I didn't know what time everyone else came back last night, and I didn't want to sit around all day waiting for them) went to Kensington Gardens and took a tour of the palace and saw the Princess Diana exhibit. It was really interesting seeing all of the different rooms in the palace, a lot of which were still equipped with original furniture. There were also lots of ladies court gowns, gentlemen's court attire, paintings, and all kinds of little things that were very interesting to see and learn about. Each person on the tour was given a little tour headset sort of thing so that you could hear commentary about each room (there had better of been something fancy like that for £10!). All of it was very interesting, and even better, no reading! After fully exploring the palace, we headed to Trafalgar Square, where we rendezvoused with RJ, Raquel, and Sean to celebrate Canada Day. Unfortunately the Canada celebration had been Friday (even though today was the actual Canada Day). So we decided to look for a bar near there called the Maple Leaf. We ended up changing plans and went to another pub that was ungodly crowded, but fabulous. It was like a frat party. We all bought a round and headed outside to socialize. We met some really cool people, particularly an ex-professional skateboarder, and a Swiss bank employee, both of whom were madly in love with me. We bonded on our understanding of cold and snow (everyone else in the group near us was from Florida, California and El Salvador). My game was so on that I not only got myself a free drink, but got everyone else in my group a drink as well. Oh yes, I am that good. After that intense celebration, we headed to Abbey Road and did the typical tourist thing. We all took our pictures crossing the street, Beatles style. The funny thing is Abbey Road is in an essentially residential neighborhood. But I am sure by this time people around there are used to it. After we got our pictures, we headed back home, with a stop at a nearby McDonalds (hey, don't judge us. We were really hungry and on a budget!) for a bit of grub. Now I am about ready to turn in here seeing as I have to be awake in 6 hours for work. BUT, on the positive side, it only rained for about 30 minutes today, then was pretty sunny the rest of the day. Unfortunately, rain is forecasted every day at least until Wednesday. Crap.

Exciting things this week:

Tuesday: Start my new job at DODS
Crashing the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix premier

Wednesday: Attempting to celebrate the Fourth of July. We are planning on taking hot dogs and potato salad to work for lunch, then going to get some BBQ somewhere, hopefully

Friday: Ministry of Sound (a church that has been converted into a sweet dance club)

Saturday: Portabello Road Market

Sunday: FINALLY the trip to Bath, Salisbury and Stonehenge

Tune in again to find out if you favorite characters will survive the rain, car bombs and flaming vehicles. All on... TALES OF LONDON!