Life in London

Life in London

October 19, 2007, 2:13 am
Filed under: Lifestyle

In life news, it was Tai’s 21st birthday last Wednesday and we decided to celebrate this completely meaningless age. Kassity made him a ridiculous dinner that necessitated multiple trips to go shopping and included home-rolled sushi and not home-made duck! Ray and I took care of the party and invited American friends over to … celebrate. Slowly, Americans such as myself have educated the Brits on how to play games such as beirut, kings, and spoons and generally refuse to try anything else. Oddly, I met girls from Duke that night that I had never seen before in my life. Really weird. It’s kind of pathetic that I don’t know anyone.

The next day I woke up in my clothes not knowing how the night ended. It wasn’t until 5 p.m. that Giancarlo showed me a photo he snapped of me without pants, sitting on the toilet, with my head in the sink. This picture will not be shown on the internet. Anyway, I suppose I learned that night that you can unscrew my bathroom door from the outside really easily. There’s this episode of Scrubs where J.D. develops a case of vasovagal syncope, meaning he passes out when he poops. On an unrelated note, I have a tendency to go and pass out in the bathroom after I have too much to drink, because the quiet and the small space comforts me. Somehow, put these situations together and you can understand my night.

The rest of the weekend was spent out and about in London going to Old Street one night and SoHo the next. England is in the Rugby World Cup finals against South Africa, and I have never had to learn about a very complicated sport so quickly. It seems unnecessarily complicated when all you really do is try to run the ball past someone else. Thankfully, I watched this with Joey who is at LSE, a former rugby player (which is only funny if you’ve met him and seen his frame. he was one of the kickers all the way in the back). Oh, and he’s Canadian. And the Canadian dollar has surpassed the American dollar. It’s upsetting.

One thing I’ve noticed: this country is so terribly unorganized and technologically backward, it is frustrating sometimes. Like how it takes two weeks to set up a basic bank account. Or the fact that the e-mail servers at school don’t really work and the school computers run Windows ME. Or that people aren’t meant to take courses in different subject areas so they place my lab in the time of my other class, making me miss information and group assignments for the lab, then having a group who does not respond to e-mails and disappears immediately after class that I end up missing my other lab on Thursday. I blame the country.

I’ve been mountaineering every week, partially in hopes of receiving an invitation to go climbing off the coast of Spain, but also because it’s awesome. Due to my unique combination of being very lightweight and very flexible, I don’t embarrass myself. There are some absolutely amazing people though. Too bad they are now going to Sardinia, and I am planning my own trip to Spain. I still have yet to go outdoors, but it’s definitely in my list of near goals. My parents have rock climbing equipment and it’s definitely something I want to try when I get back. Duke also has its own climbing wall now.

I saw my first musical, We Will Rock You, the jukebox one based off of Queen. Mostly because Ray really wanted to see it, but who doesn’t appreciate a good sing along? I plan to see at least one more, hopefully Avenue Q as they are offering some kind of special. I have yet to attend a football match yet, but I am trying to get in touch with Joey in the near future. Apparently he has a stepbrother who has season passes to Arsenal (yeah, ridiculous) – and he somehow got the connections to watch England vs. Estonia last weekend. I definitely have to go to at least one, hopefully one where I can learn all the songs and hooligan it up.

My roommates are all fun people. The thing I like about living with 10 others is the nightly midnight snack we all decide to have, consisting of mostly cereal and nutella. One night we even made fried bananas with cinnamon on top of nutella. I had a burn mark on my hand for over a week after that. And there is this amazing local kebab place that will sometimes let us get a free fried sausage when they are closing because we’re regulars. I have been living off of having a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich everyday for lunch and alternating between cooking pan-fried chinese food at night and pasta, as it is all I know how to make. Since I’ve been here, I’ve felt like a fat American as I realize just how ridiculous American portions are compared to those in other countries. But I keep eating.

The last few weekends I have been spending in London and hope to travel more in the future. I have Oxford plans this weekend where I will see people from high school that I haven’t seen since graduation. It should be interesting.

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