I must confess I did very little homework this past weekend, mostly because I felt like I deserved a break after crunching through those essays. So on Saturday I did a bit of window shopping in an area about twenty minutes away which was fun. I ended up buying some Gloucester cheese just to see what it is like, and it's probably my favorite of the cheeses available in the UK so far....mostly because these people only eat cheddar, and when I say "cheddar" I mean something that will make your soul die a little when you eat it because of its "sharpness."
When I got back to the dorm someone asked me if I wanted to go to an ice sculpture exhibit, so we got some people together and trooped down to "Canary Wharf." I had been in this part of town before to visit the Docklands museum (history of London boats, merchant stuff, etc) and I quite liked it both times I visited. It is very modern looking: giant metal and glass buildings, elegant walkways, lots of fancy trees and ritzy restaurants...I think it might be quiet at night but it is certainly a very upscale business district during the day.
This isn't the ice sculptures, this is the view out my back window at the GREEN PLANTS. Jealous?
Here's an ice sculpture! It was getting close to dark so they were all lit up from the bottom, which was a neat effect.
After the sculptures, we rode the DLR up into a main part of the city again. The "Docklands Rail" is pretty much an underground train, except that it runs just in one particular area of town, just north of the river, and it's incredibly nice. It's also above ground on rails so you get a very nice view. I definitely suggest taking this in the evening, because we got to see the sun setting over the river while we whizzed through high rise buildings and interesting glass structures, etc. I convinced my friends to try Chipotle for dinner, and I think I sold them all, even the girl from Mexico who kept insisting that they weren't real burritos. Which is probably true by her standards, but I lurrrve Chipotle. Afterwards, some people went back to the house, but Pep and Sanjiv and I decided to find something else to do. We poked around in a bookstore for a while and then used a smart phone to look up free events in London. We found a free comedy club in Islington (a part of town adjacent to Camden borough) so we took a bus and went in. The show was in a very cool, old pub, and we weren't sure what to expect when we went upstairs and found there were only about 20 people there. However, after a few minutes they kicked us all out so they could set up chairs and when we finally got to go back in it was incredibly crowded! So many people! We ended up sitting on the floor in the front, which was kind of funny. The comedy show was surprisingly good. There were six acts plus a host, and the majority of them were actually quite talented. We are definitely going to be going back on Saturdays that we're bored, as the only cost is whatever you decide to donate to them (a reasonable arrangement).
On Sunday I should have gone to the grocery store, but I decided to do laundry instead and then got distracted by too many other interesting things! So until tomorrow I will be living off of scrambled eggs and toast, I think. In the evening, Pep and I set out to go to a London Symphony Orchestra concert. It was only £4 this time, and a fairly famous contemporary composer, Adès, was conducting his own pieces, so I was pretty pumped. Here he is:
After the concert, we go back to the house around 10 and found a crepe party in full swing, so then we got free second dinners! I contributed some kiwis that I had lying around, which was surprisingly delicious! Kiwis should go in more pancakes in the future.The girl I went to Munich with, Serene, had a scary weekend. She was going to meet a friend in Nottingham, so she went to the train station and decided to take some money out for the trip. When she put in her card, the atm said that her account had been suspended because of over charges, and that she now had zero pounds in her account. She was pretty freaked out because she just got a big student loan payment and she should have had a couple thousand pounds in her account. The atm wouldn't give her the card back, so then when she went to get her train tickets they wouldn't give her the ticket (you need your purchasing card in order to receive them). After some wrangling, she finally got the ticket and had a nice weekend in Nottingham with her friend. She called her bank but they said they couldn't do anything until Monday so she is in talking to them now to see what happened and how she can get her money back. I hope everything works out okay!
Brad and I are trying to figure out when we are going to take our trip to Rome and the Vatican, and one of his breaks from school is during my spring break too: March 30 - April 8th. We started looking for tickets and hostels and realized that it is really expensive...then we figured out that he has school off that week because it is Holy Week. So now part of us thinks it would be really cool to be in Rome during Holy Week, and the other (larger) part of us thinks that it would be a zoo. I wish I knew when my work placement was going to require me to be there, because his next break is during my third term and I don't know if I can leave then! If we do go right before Easter we would definitely get there a week before Good Friday and leave by Monday or Tuesday. Blahh crowds! Brad is optimistic that the Pope might give Mass most days that week though, so he is the small part that still wants to look into it, haha. While the Pope is giving Mass is probably the best time to go through the museums at the Vatican though, so maybe that would work out for me! haha
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