Almost home

Homework and finals are done at last!! I finally got them all finished up on friday and I've already gotten a few things back. In theory I should be looking at good grades for the term, but there are lots of assignments to factor in, and I won't count on anything just yet.

I'm down to my last few days here in London. I've got very mixed feelings about it. Here's what I have decided: I never want to leave London, I want nothing more than to stay here. BUT- I do miss family and friends back home, so if you all would kindly hop a jet across the pond, I'd be much obliged. Really though, I do leave in a few days time and I'm just going to concentrate now on spending my last homework-free days here enjoying myself.

When I do get back home I will have no official reason to keep up a blog. My life will get significantly less exciting (Appleton, sadly, does not compare to London) and I'll have very little to report on. However, if people want me to then I'll at least give it a go of keeping up with this back home. I know I don't email a whole lot, so I'll think on it, and if you have input then let me know what you think. You can email me (beankm@hotmail.com) or respond here, or just stay silent and I'll make a decision later. Hope the holidays go well, and here's me signing off from London!

Final countdown

Only a few days left, its crazy! This week I saw the show August: Osage County, which was really interesting. They managed to make it funny and moving, although I thought the audience was a bit too quick to laugh. We also went to a football match yesterday, which was awesome. I'm not much of one to get into sports too much, especially not the ones where everyone is obnoxious as they watch it *cough*americanfootball*cough* but I had a really good time. I was shouting and cheering right along with the rest of the crowd. I went for the local team, Queens Park Rangers, and I bought a QPR scarf as a souvenir. The colors are the same as Lawrence, so I can just pretend thats who i'm trying to support.

It was a little chilly, but I really didn't need to be wearing the scarf. Whodathunk that its December now? When we got to the stadium Kylie and I each picked a footballer to follow, just so we had someone to cheer for, and I picked N. 14: Martin Rowlands. Turns out he was one of the best players on the team, and he ended up scoring the winning goal! Well, he actually scored the only goal, which is to say the score was 1:0. So anyway, the game was really really fun. This week we'll see one more show (the last of the year) and there'll be a small secret santa gift exchange before we all head home. In between now and then i've got loads of homework to do. So off I go, to do the final push!

Nearing the end

I haven't got much to report, but this lets me put off my homework for a second longer. I've only got two more weeks left here, which seems strange. I've grown so accustomed to living here, even in ways I don't consciously think about. Kylie asked me the other day if I thought i'd have trouble driving when I got back. I said "No, I haven't driven a car here so there's nothing to mess me up. I'm sure out of instinct i'll drive on the left side of the road, its just when i'm walking about that I might look the wrong way" She just sort of looked at me and said "Do you mean 'drive on the right side of the road'?" Woops. So maybe i'll take a break from driving and busy intersections for a bit when I get back.

I've finally discovered the beauty of the public library system here (they've got nationalised health care, I don't know why public libararies all of a sudden impress me so much). Its wonderful because i'm getting work done (well, not now, right now i'm blogging...) and i'm getting out of the house (hurray!) and i'm not paying for time by refilling on tea. I suppose I ought to head back to working. Or rather, should start working. Tonight i'm gonna go see the giant Christmas tree in Trafalgar square get lit up. There'll be choirs there and maybe if i'm really good it'll snow. Right, heres me being a good and dutiful student, going back to my studies. I'll write again soon!

Yam failure

Yeah, yams didn't turn out so well. Apparently the British grocery store 'yams' are not the same thing as american ones. On the outside they looked the same, but they're white on the inside and taste more like regular potatoes, but slightly sweeter. Close, but no cigar. So that didn't work out at all, but thanksgiving was fun all the same. Friday I took an epic walk through Hyde Park, which as been decked out with a ferris wheel and carnival (Winter Wonderland) for Christmas. Saturday was a lovely day- Kylie and I thought we'd try to go to the Tate Modern and the London Transport Museum, but we severely underestimated the potential of the Transport Museum. It was awesome. We ran around, got to climb on stuff, got to wear stuff, got to pretend to drive stuff, and do a little scavenger hunt with stamps. Yes I realize i'm a University student, and yes I realize that these things were geared towards kids, but we literally spent the entire day in the museum and it was COMPLETELY worth it.When we first started trying on these costumes we were baffled, because they were so small! Then we realized they were for children, but don't worry, that didn't stop us.
They had models of what some of the original metropolitan line cars looked like. There were creepy models of people on the inside, but it was cool to have life-size models.

Look, Ma! I'm driving a tram! I actually don't know what the controls did, but it was so much fun to just mess around with everything!

This poor wax-model chap fell asleep on the tube. Technically I may not have been supposed to be in that area of the model train, there may have been a 'Do Not Enter' sign I had to move aside to sit next to him, but don't we look great together?

Anyway, today I went to the Science museum for research, and I have to go write a paper based on what i've found. Hope you enjoy the pictures, it was one of my favorite museums i've been to so far. Hasta!

Stonehenge and Salisbury

Right, I was gonna blog more often. Here we go. Last friday we went to Stonehenge and then spent the day in Salisbury (the nearby town). Stonehenge was cool, especially since no one knows for sure what the stones were put there for ( I think we can all agree that it was an Alien portal). It was a bit chilly, but on saturday I bought a coat and all is well. The rest of the day we wandered around Salisbury, taking a tour of the local Church and getting dinner before going to a show at the local theater. The Church was really cool, it was at least 700 years old, and the water table is barely four feet below. They even pulled up a tile, put a measuring pole in, and showed us how close the water level was. The baptismal font in the middle had a perfectly level surface, in which you could see a perfect reflection.
The show we saw was A Month in the Country, which was alright but the book is better. Last night we went to see In a Dark Dark House, and they brought the female lead from the American version on Broadway. It was very depressing, and i'm not sure what I was supposed to take away from it, but I suppose we'll discuss that in theater class next week. It was better at least than the modern adaptation of Othello we saw last week, so i'll count the small blessings. Today is thanksgiving (!!) and we're having a huge feast for all the Americans. At last count I think there will be 42 people there, between students and their families. I'm making yams, though at the moment I haven't a clue how to go about doing that. Attempting to make yams is probably more accurate. I bought yams, marshmallows, butter, and brown sugar. I'll let you know how it turns out. Hope everyone has a happy turkey day! Catch ya later!

10 Day- at last.

Alright, first things first. I made it home safely, if not late, but at least all in one piece. The trip was amazing, we (Kylie and I) made it to Valencia, Barcelona, Venice, Rome, the Vatican, and Palermo (Sicily) before heading home. We had a rough start, our gate was labeled wrong and the stewardess didn't check our tickets, so we accidentally boarded a plane to France. However, once past that hurdle things went significantly smoother. Here' s a picture of our first Hostel, in Valencia, located right in the Old Quarter. We spent our time exploring the city, going to the aquarium (2nd largest in Europe) and going to the beach. We also had Paella Valencia and Paella Mariscos, which both originated in Valencia.




I saw this picture in a tourist pamphlet and went on a search to find it. This was taken halfway through our epic 17hr day, turns out its located right off of the beach. Dunno why I liked it so much, probably because i'm on crew so i've come to like boats. This was the same day we ran around a castle in the old quarter, caught a football game, went to the aquarium, walked along the beach, had Paella, and saw the start of a protest (something about CO2). It was a LONG day, and there are many more pictures to show for it.


This is me in Barcelona, at the base of the Columbus statue which is located at the end of Las Ramblas, a famous line of streets. Two of our friends from London, Colleen and Ashley, were supposed to meet up with us in Barcelona, but before we had a chance to call them we randomly ran into them on the street. Good thing too, because their phone was broken. Barcelona has over 3 million people, yet we run into the only two we know, in a side street of an unpopulated area. What are the chances?



I just like this picture because of the trees- they look like they're out of Dr. Seuss or something. This park is right next to the Sagrada Familia, a famous church with a lot of Gaudi architecture. I took more pictures of the Gaudi influence, which is all over the city, but I just really like this one, so you'll have to wait to see the others. The authentic food we ate there were Tapas, a spanish appetizer, which we ate just before seeing a Flamenco show. Leaving Barcelona was when things started to get tricky.



Here's the deal with Venice: Never try to go there from Barcelona. You know what you will end up having to do? You will take the metro from your hostel to the train station, then a train to a bus depot, where you will buy a bus ticket to the airport, where you will get on a plane to Venice, where you will arrive at yet another bus terminal, where you will buy a bus ticket to the boat station, where you will catch a boat to the nearest station to your hostel, where you will wander around in the dark (oh yes it's night by now) trying to find your Hostel. Here you see all of my tickets: Metro, train, bus, plane, bus, boat. Just take my word for it: Don't do it.



We did end up making it, and a good thing too because Venice is AMAZING. A city on water! And it's sinking, so....i'm glad I got it off my list of things to do before I die/it sinks. While we were here the weather was less than amazing, a bit london-ish. Also, it was here that I had a momentary freak out about how much money I was spending, as did Kylie, and we decided to just have sandwiches for a few meals. That led us to a meal I will never repeat: Plain bread with prune jelly. Kylie thought it was grape jelly, but she was wrong, and we both suffered for it.






This is me in St. Mark's square. Lots of cool architecture and history here, but I was a bit damp and chilly, so we hurried through to find a nice warm, dry cafe. This was also our first city where we couldn't speak the language, so that was a bit bracing. All I could manage was 'parla inglese?' and if they said no then I just sort of... nodded, helplessly smiled, and wandered off. Public boats were expensive (€6.50 per ride) but we figured out that you can just sort of...hop on, and no one checks your tickets. Good times.






And from there we moved on to Rome. First we visited the Vatican, which was AMAZING. The artwork alone was breathtaking, though I admit (and as you can see in the picture) I was not quite humbled until I entered the Basilica. In this photo i'm just so excited to be NOT damp and cold in Venice, plus we had just found our hostel (with only a boat-train-bus ride to get there) so I was pretty excited. As you can tell.







Our Womens Hostel was actually a converted Convent, which we were a bit skeptical about (neither one of us is Catholic). However, 'Convent' really just meant 'feminist sleeping place', and we were right at home. After our crazy journey in Venice we were also skeptical about the location of the hostel, but as it turns out Rome is tiny. We walked across and around the city in less than 5 hrs. Compare that to the fraction of Valencia we saw in 17 hrs and you catch my drift. Rome has around 5 million people, London has 7 million, and yet their size difference is immense! I couldn't believe it. We also had a delicious pizza, our 'authentic food' for the city.








This is the infamous colosseum . The day turned out to be gorgeous, and we passed many many ruins on our way to here. Past this we took a detour to the train depot (to get our overnight ticket to Palermo) and continued on to the Spanish Steps. We were promptly kicked off the Spanish Steps (something about them being a historical landmark, and us not being allowed to drip our gelatto on them...) but we just continued on to the Pantheon.




As we wandered the city we realized that the police kept setting up barriers everywhere we went. We realized eventually that there was some sort of protest going on, and we looked it up when we got back to our hostel. Apparently some legislation is being proposed which would privatize the Italian university, so these protests are being held all over Italy. This one attracted over 100,000 students the day we were there. This photo was taken with part of the pantheon on the side.



Alright, we're in the home stretch. From Rome we took a night train to Palermo. It was completely shady (aka sketchy) and we didn't really know what was going on. We felt fairly confident that we were on the right train, not on a plane to France, so we just got in our bunks, cuddled up in our saran wrap, and tried to sleep. That didn't last long, as they apparently give you a courtesy wake up call at 7am. At least we were on the right train.





Finding our hostel turned out to be even trickier, but if this is what the front area of your hostel looked like, wouldn't you have a hard time too? Apparently it was 'under construction' but it sort looked like it'd been that way for awhile. Nevertheless, it was probably the best hostel we stayed in. It was cheap, clean, and the guy that runs it is AMAZING. He was so helpful, gave us maps, directions, suggestions, bus numbers, coupons, the list goes on.






On his advice we took a bus to a city not 30 miles away, located up on a mountain. That strip of sun you see is basically outlining the original area of Palermo. The city also had a lovely church with craaazy mosaic artwork inside. We nearly missed the last bus back down again, but luck was on our side in the end.






I wasn't going to put this picture in here, but I can't figure out how to get it off my blog so i'm just going to leave it. In case you can't tell, that's me, and behind me is the same thing I just described. Gorgeous Palermo, even though in reality its quite dirty.





Our second day there we had a delicious italian breakfast at the hostel (did you know 'traditional italian breakfast' calls for cake? Nom nom nom) , bought a picnic lunch at a nearby local market, and headed to the beach side. It was yet another gorgeous day, and it was Sunday, so lots of families were out and about with their dogs and such. Our authentic food here was pasta and a delicious canoli. Ordering pasta was hilarious, because there were no pictures (it was a fancy place) so we literally just took a wild guess, pointed, and got a surprise meal. It was delicious though!




So thats a horribly shortened version of my amazing 10 day adventure. We caught our plane without too much trouble, but by the time we got back to London the tube was closed. We tried to navigate the night bus, but it doesn't really run very close to Gloucester road, so we had to walk a bit, and we didn't walk through the door till a little past 3am. Hopefully you can see why it took me awhile to get this all posted- the idea of summing up everything I did was just so daunting! Still, I gave it my best shot and i'm sure you'll hear more stories in time. Eventually i'll put all the pictures on my public Picassa account, but that calls for having a computer with picassa on it, which these school computers do not. Right, its past 1:30am now, so I need to go try to catch some sleep. Hope you enjoy and i'll try to get back into posting more often again! G'nite!

Off I go...

Alright, this is the last post before I head off on my 10 day trip. I will, as requested, try not to fall off of any cliffs, but I think the real danger is running out of space on my memory card. We'll see, but here's to adventure either way!

Nothin' much goin' on

So, I haven't really done a whole lot worth blogging about, and I haven't got many pictures to share, so i'll let Kylie keep her computer and just write a message. Classes are really busy right now, midterms are on wednesday. I have two papers, a review, two midterms and (i thought) I presentation all on wednesday. However, I walked into class today (monday) and my professor asked "So are you all ready to load your presentation onto the computer?" Yeah, apparently _today_ was my day to present on the Phylogeny of the Archosaur. Woops. I explained the mistake i'd made, they gave me the option to wait till after midterm break, but I figured i'd get extra brownie points if I went (not to mention I should have been more responsible about that in the first place...) so I just shot from the hip and got it over with. They seemed to think it was fine. I'll get my grade after break, i'll celebrate then.

Tomorrow night there's a huge group all-nighter being pulled for the election. Its a bit ridiculous, because we're going to go out and buy all sorts of junk food, stay up all night (the results won't be in till likely 7am London Time), and then take our midterm at 9:30am that day. At least I can be studying/working while the results are being tallied. It'd make more sense to just get up early and find out, but thats way less fun :)

I leave for Spain/Italy on Friday afternoon. I'll try and post again before that, but once I leave i'll be MIA for 10 days. No worries, i'll be with Kylie and I think we're meeting up with some people in Rome/Naples, so i'll be fine i'm sure :D And that's it for me, told you it wasn't exciting. Wish me luck on my papers/midterms/reviews and i'll write again soon!

Pictures of Scotland!

So, once again i'm on Kylie's computer, for the sake of posting pictures. Last night I went to an Ani Difranco concert, and heard a few other bands as well, and that was awesome- almost surreal. I didn't think i'd ever see her live, so to be in the front row of a sold out HUGE theater in London was amazing!
In this photo I was climbing unassisted up the North face of the mountain. I probably should have had someone with me, but I just kept repeating to myself the saying I'd heard so much as a child: If you can get yourself up, you can get yourself back down again. Then I remembered that it was Chris that used to say that, when I was all of 9 years old, climbing trees at the park with him underneath. A far cry from climbing mountains in Scotland, with hundreds of feet beneath me and no hospital for miles. Oh well!

This is the Irish sea, as the sun was setting and clouds were coming in. The sun is still poking through a bit though. I have probably 60 photos from this day alone, because the views were just breathtaking. However, for lack of space and motivation, I picked this on as a highlight.
This is near the top of the mountain from the first day. I'm standing on the very edge of a very steep cliff, and it was very windy, so my face is one of nervousness. I didn't take any pictures at the top because by then we were in the clouds, so not only would my camera get wet but all you'd see is white reflection. Oh, and yes, those are jeans I was wearing, and yes that was a horrible way to climb a mountain, but no I did not have anything else to wear. Pay attention to the mountain you see in the upper left corner, you'll see it again in the next photo.


This is the near-end of the moutain from the first day. This day was much wetter, but still amazing. Behind me is the river we followed down from up top, and you can see mountains beyond it. The peak you see in the upper right is the same peak I pointed out in the previous picture, from the other side. Where we are here is where the vegetation is finally cropping up again (trees, bushes, etc) but we are far from the being at the bottom again.


This was on the way up the mountain from the first day (I know, out of order, so sue me). Sorry, no Lochness monster in the lake down there, but there are some sheep behind me! I think I have an odd expression on my face, but I blame that on the fact that I didn't realize the photo was being taken just then. Had I known I assure you there would be a look of utter joy ;)







And I guess that's it for now. I have to go write a 700 word review of the show White Devil, which is all about Italian corruption and the catholic church. So off I go, i'll write again soon!

And then the homework comes...

So, I realized today that I have a paper and a presentation due next wednesday, as well as another paper due on Friday. *le sigh* Ah well, I suppose the time of no homework had to end at some point. Today I went to see a show called 'The White Devil' and guess who sat across from me at the theater? Alan Rickman, AKA Severus Snape from the Harry Potter movies. So that's the fourth actor from the HP movies that i've seen thus far. Funny funny. I'm working on uploading images from Scotland, but my computer really is broken (I had hoped it would be temporary) and there's no memory card reader in the public computers upstairs. This weekend i'm hoping to (in between writing papers/presentations) get to Brighton, on the coast of England. I'll try to post pictures from that as well, someday.

In food news: I cooked proper food this week, making my mum's Chicken Chicken recipe. There was an epic hunt for tin foil (I don't have a pan to bake chicken in, and I also only had £1.20 in change, these were the hurdles) but in the end I found success. Today I splurged and bought some delicious chinese food from a street vendor at Camden High Street. It just looked so good...It called to me. That was quite exciting, and I think I ate it so fast it would be more aptly described as inhaling it. Mmmmm.

And now it is nearly half midnight, and I still have to do my biotech homework for tomorrows class. Remember the good old days when I was just in London going to classes but not actually doing any homework? Yeah, I miss those days. Strange to think i've been here a month already- it's nearly halfway done! Crazy days. I'll try to write again soon, and thanks for the comments, they're much appreciated!

Lame lame lame.

My computer is broken! I'm on a friends computer, and there are a few upstairs (so don't hesitate to email!) but mine is royally screwed up. It whirrs when I turn it on, but the screen never turns on. I've tried everything I could think of, but my RA has informed me that we have no tech support available, therefore it will have to wait till I get back stateside. If anyone has any ideas let me know, otherwise i'll be doing very sporadic posts, with no pictures for lack of ability to upload them. It's your loss though, because the pictures I took in Scotland are AMAZING. For now my friend needs her computer back, so i'll head off. Boo computer: Epic fail.

South Wales!

My trip to Wales was amazing! The country side was gorgeous, and we could see the seaside from the hills when the clouds weren't too low. We left friday night, drove for five hours, stopping to spend 150 quid on food for the weekend, and arrived round 1am. The University of Kent was there as well, and we stayed up till 4am playing games. Among them was the squeezebox game: Two boards, held together by two screws, which can be tightened to narrow the gap. Try and fit through, tighten screws, repeat. The stick game: You stand on a bottle, each with a stick, and try to knock the other person off balance by hitting their stick with yours. The rock game: Put your head on one chair, your heels on another, pick up a large rock and try to pass it round your body as many times as you can. Record was 48 times. And the can game: Place your feet at the line, place your hands on two cans. Stretch forward and, while leaning precariously on one can, place the other as far as you can (marked by the green bottle) and then try to make it back to the starting line using just the one can.

Saturday we spend about 8 hrs in the cave, climbing waterfalls, dropping into streams, and chimneying all over. It was a great combination of a lot of things: Length, technical stuff, great photo ops. We were soaked by the time we reached the last waterfall, also the biggest, and we got a great picture of us all standing beneath it. I haven't got it yet (it's on someone elses camera) but i'll post it eventually. Sunday we did another quick caving trip, as well as some hiking, and then headed back. All in all it was TONS of fun, and I can't wait till next weekend! Meanwhile though my computer has been acting up, with the screen sporadically not working/functioning. My RA said her computer did the same thing just before the motherboard fried. Lets cross our fingers for my not having to buy a new computer in London! That's it for me, i'll post again soon. Hope you like the pics!

Nearly a week later...

Well, I suppose thus ends the keeping up with the blog regularly, huh? It is now thursday, nearly a week since the last post. Lets see if I can't remember what i've done...Well, saturday I went to portobello road and walked through the market. I'll have to go back on a weekday, when there are less shops and more food. Not that I bought any of the deliciously fresh produce, but I enjoy walking through and people watching in that sort of a setting. Reminds of the farmers market back home I suppose. Sunday was a completely gorgeous day, so of course I spent the morning and afternoon reading on the grass near round pond and promptly falling asleep. I have a lovely tan line round my watch band as proof. I had lots of stuff with me (my camera, bag, jacket, books, etc) and I didn't want any of it to get stolen while I slept, so I tried to have my hands/arms/legs draped over all of my things, and i'm sure it must have been an odd sight.

Monday tuesday and wednesday were all days filled with classes. Tuesday I did go and see a Harold Pinter show called 'No Man's Land'. The most exciting thing about that show was the fact that the actors that played Dumbledore and Filch in the Harry Potter movies were the lead actors in the show. Other than that it was dreadfully slow and dull. Last night's (wednesday night) show, on the other hand, was wonderful! It was called 'A Disappearing Number, and was about the Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. Well, there was a bit of other plot in there, but the most interesting story was Ramanujans. He's close to my heart because when I wrote my Calc II paper in High school on predator/prey relationships through series, I had to use Ramanujans name as my alias so that my peers could review it objectively. That's beside the point. Point is: Classes and theater are keeping me busy. Though as it turns out there are only three people taking my bio class as an advanced course, therefore we get to do lots of 1:3 discussions with our Prof, which is kind of cool.

Anyway, i'm sorry there are no pictures today. I took lots, but my camera is over 5 ft away, which qualifies it as 'too far'. However, it has been suggested that I post my address here, if only so I can't complain at not receiving any post yet. So here's my address, you can put any name you like on there so long as it ends with 'Miller'.

[Insert Name Here]
London Centre
7 Brechin Place
London, Eng
SW7 4QB

I leave tomorrow at 6pm for Wales, but i'll be back on sunday and i'll post again soon. Till then, cheers!

A good two days.

Alright, scratch the whole Covent Garden idea, but I did spend the afternoon in Greenwich instead. A group of five of us took a river boat to Greenwich, and I even passed by one of my favorite buildings. I don't know what that egg shaped building is called, but anyone that can tell me gets bonus points. Once we arrived at Greenwich we met up with two of our professors and their son at the market. We grabbed sandwiches and had a picnic, followed by a tour of the National Maritime Museum and a trip up to the Prime Meridian. The view was amazing, and in the background of this picture (taken from the building housing the Prime Meridian showcase) you can see the Queens House (middle) attached to the National Maritime Museum (left).

Today my evolutionary biology class to a field trip to visit the Down House, where Charles Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection". We toured the house (sorry, no pictures allowed) and also the grounds. Boy-oh-boy were his grounds spectacular. There were rows of gardens, fields, forests, hills, hedges with doorways cut out, and stone walls weaving throughout it all. Hide and seek must have been AMAZING round there. After we finished up there we went to go eat at a local pub, but I only had a card on me so there was no food to be had for me. The day finished with us checking out the local church/cemetary in front of our bus stop, and the nicest old man came up and offered us an impromptu tour.

All in all it was a very productive two days, and we'll see what this weekend yeilds. I've attached a picture of all the exchange students and me in front of our dorm. I was told folks liked the pictures of me in all these different places, so I swear that's why i've added so many, it's certainly not because of any photogenic confidence ;) And that's that for me, i'll write again soon!

Not much to report on

Well, not too much has been going on. My first week of classes just wrapped up for the week, and i've got a mountain of reading to do over the weekend. But that's not going to stop me! I think i'll maybe go to Covent Gardens tomorrow, i'm going to visit Darwin's house and property on friday, I think i'll take a day trip on saturday to the seaside at Brighton, and sunday shall be my day of reading. Sounds like a productive weekend, yeah? And things look good for the trip to South Wales the weekend after, so keep your fingers crossed.

Tonight Kylie and I sat around for a good hour naming off all the food we miss from home. Many notable recipes were mentioned, including (but not limited to) chicken chicken, frog eye salad, strawberry pie, cottage cheese pancakes, yams, stuffing (there was actually a whole 15 minute set about thanksgiving in general, so i'll just breeze over that), apple crisp, and much much more. In the end we realized we have A) No baking supplies B) No kitchenware with which to bake the supplies we don't have and C) No oven in which to put the kitchenware with which we can't bake the supplies we don't have. It was a sad conclusion to a nostalgic hour, but we made a trek to Sainsbury's (the nearest grocery), bought some instant cookie dough, and sat round the kitchen table eating it with a knife. I think of the poorly spent evening and it's made better by the prospective productivity of this weekend.

And sad to say I haven't taken any pictures since I last posted, but fear not there will be many more to come following this weekend i'm sure. I did see a show at Picadilly last night, but since I didn't bring my camera i'll just post a picture of the program. It was an excellent show, based off of the Hitchcock film, based off of the book. This is me signing off, i'll write again soon!

Clubs clubs clubs!

So many clubs, so little time! Today was the 'freshers fair', which is basically a crazy huge activities fair where all the uni clubs and societies set up recruitment tables. The one at Lawrence takes up the first floor of our main rec center gym, the one here at Imperial was about five times as big. It was nuts! There were too many clubs to name, but in the end I settled on a few select groups to join: The Juggling club (of course), the Mountaineering group (rock climbing and ice climbing), the outdoor rec group (camping, hiking, canoeing, more climbing, etc), the Caving club (wahoo! There's a trip to South Wales two weekends from now that I DEFINITELY want to go on!) and alright, I signed up to receive info about the rowing club (but I swear i'll only watch! ....) I briefly entertained the idea of the riding club, till I saw the price listings, and i'm sure my email ended up on a number of other groups that i'll never actually attend. There were three clubs I found especially entertaining: The Tea club and the Cheese club, both created to sample, discuss, and ingest the many variations of their chosen dishes, and the Meat club, created specifically in retaliation to the vegetarian society.

We took a stroll through Hyde park yesterday after classes were up (they all seem like they'll be fun enough) and I took some pictures. The last one is from my window in my room, a look down Brechin Place. Hopefully i'll actually become active in the clubs I joined, and hopefully i'll continue to enjoy the classes I signed up for. And that's it for now, i'll write again soon!

What did I learn today?

Today I learned that I should carry a compass. Actually I learned that lesson a few days ago, when I went on an epic 7 mile journey from chelsea, to the thames, to westminster, up to Buckingham palace and the royal parks, over along Knightsbridge, and back down cromwell to home. Had I had along a compass it wouldn't have been nearly so long, but the exploration was not necessarily regretted. I also learned how to use a calling card today, which was lovely, and I brewed up my first bit of english tea when I got home. I've finally bought an oyster card, so soon i'll spread out beyond western london, and i'm sure there will be a whole new set of lessons to be learned when that comes about. I suppose I ought to add some pictures at some point. Right, off I go on that mission!

London at last

Well, I finally made it! Got here early, i'm staying in a hostel. The directions were quite misleading, but in the end i'm here. Today we walked around, wandering till we got lost. We went quite a few miles but in the meantime we were able to locate all the nearest grocery stores, laundry mats, parks (except Hyde park) and hospitals. I bought the fixin's for pb'n'j sandwiches, which i'll likely live off of till I get to the dorms. The weather is nice and cool, no rain yet, and its been a blast just taking in the natives from a less touristy perspective. Tomorrow: Hyde Park shall be conquered. Tonight: A group movie in the kitchen and then pass out time!

Also, trying to cross the streets here has led me to think hard about my own mortality. Its a combination of fast cars in opposite lanes than i'm used to, more cars in general than I usually have to deal with, and motorcyclists who don't have to heed any sort of lane lines at all. I can't decide if getting a bike for while i'm here is worth my time or asking for death. Only time can tell. Gotta fly!