The Day Commemorating My Birth

Last night we didn't end up going to the Nottinghill Festival because we heard that it continued today (and we were all still pretty jet lagged). Instead, we found a new pub, this one called The Angel (The College Arms is the one we visited the first night and, I'm fairly certain, will become our regular hangout due largely to its proximity). It was a beautiful pub, all hung with velvet curtains and squashy, cushioned chairs, but the barman was not the friendliest. We hung out for a couple of hours anyway, and made our way back to the flat. Everyone came downstairs to my basement flat, and we hung out for the rest of the night, generally bonding. I had a long conversation with Hayes about Notre Dame... was extremely pleasant. But it ended up being a late night, and we had an early morning today...

This morning we had a meeting at 9 with Dr. King about travel dates for our day trips to Bath and Stratford upon Avon and... somewhere else. I forget. Was lengthy and fairly boring, so most of us went back to bed afterwards. Rolled out of the sack sometime around noon and hung around the flat. It's really fun getting to know new people... sometimes I think I forget that. But we hung around and had a very intense conversation about alligator garr, and then alligators vs crocodiles, and then a "would you rather" conversation concerning death by alligator vs death by shark. Typical college kids, I guess.

Alligator Garr. BIG FISH. With some SERIOUS chompers. AKA a good reason not to swim in Arkansan rivers.

Left the flat to check out the Carnival (the more common name for the Nottinghill Festival). CRAZY. We were looking at stats about it before we left, and there were HUNDREDS of thousands of people there. It's this huuuge Caribbean festival, so there were jerk chicken stands all over the place, and Red Stripe everywhere. Literally, I have never seen more trash in my life than what was littering the streets around Nottinghill. Shops boarded up their windows (I assume that they've learned some risks are just not worth it, and protect their windows. This tendency leads to Nottinghill looking like some Great Depression-era Hooverville for the Carnival, but judging by the cars in the area, it's pretty swanky typically. Worth a visit once the trash gets cleaned up at least), people were dancing on roofs, police presence was LARGE. I think every cop in the country must get called into service. Hundreds of cops. With funny hats. All looking pretty  miserable, actually. British cops are very serious. I was playing the smile game today (stare at someone til they CAN'T avoid looking at you, and then smile nicely at them. Creepy Kate idea of fun), and cops were the best targets. Because it took extended smiling to convince them that I wasn't going to pull a knife or something as soon as I walked past.

Had a really excellent jerk chicken, and then we headed back to the flat (we had split up halfway through; my flatmates were ready to head back, but four of us stayed... John, Chase, Hayes and me). Lots of walking, but a good adventure for the birthday. It actually didn't really feel like my birthday even though my phone has been blowing UP all day (SO sorry I've been not answering, all you non-answered calls. Too expensive to talk... email instead!) and the other Hendrix kids have been reminding me about it all day. I think it's just that today would have been a great special birthday thing to do, but since we've all been hanging out so much, and because our responsibilities up to this point have basically been nil, today was just another day. In a great way. Does that even make sense? So maybe it's more like EVERY day has had that birthday specialness, so it's even better. That sounds about right.

First day of class tomorrow, bright and early at 9:30 (ugh. I like sleeping til 11 much more). Thanks for all the Birthday lovins, and especially for the email loving! It's nice to still feel connected, even being so far away.

OH! Forgot. Got my crappy local cell phone today. 12 of us got the same one. It cost 4 pounds, plus 20 more for the plan. So we're planning on investing in some stickers in order to differentiate, but at least we can get in touch at things like today if we get separated. Comforting. Anyway, that's another night down. And it's still not old :)

Travel and The Real Day One

Yesterday was about the longest day EVER. After hours spent trying to make my bag weigh less than 50lbs with Mom's assistance, I left for the airport at 6:30pm. Got to the airport only to find that my flight had been delayed an hour; no big, I've had much worse. We left pretty promptly at 10:10. Lady sitting next to me was super cool; from Netherlands and in the states visiting a camp she used to work for in the summer. Sleep on the plane did NOT happen as much as I would have liked... the super nice lady kept twitching in her sleep, waking me up! Whatever.

Arrived at Heathrow around 10:15am local time (so 5:15am at home), and took my sweet time getting to the flat... I had no real rush, so I had a nice chat with the currency exchange man (he informed me that one can tell if the queen is in residence at Buckingham Palace if her personal flag, a yellow one as opposed to the union jack, is flying). A really nice couple that had flown over on the same flight from Phila were on the same tube that I was and we had a nice chat, too (they wanted to make sure that I actually knew what I was doing/where I was going, so they sweetly made sure I had myself together). Hour spent on the tube, and I arrived at Russell Square Station! Getting my bag up the stairs was noooot fun, but I made it to my apartment without too much ado. Checked in at the main office (our flat is on a street that attaches to the square, so it's SUPER convenient to get to from the tube station....at least if you aren't hauling a 50lb bag of stuff), and moved right in!

One of the girls, Laura, found me sitting, dazed on my bed, and took me outside to get some food. We ate at a cafe in the middle of the square, and I swear, that plain mozzarella tomato sandwich was HEAVENLY. One of the guys, Nick, walked by about 20 mins after we sat down, and after lunch, he and I went on a search to find the organic grocery store that he SWORE was nearby. 2 hours later, we returned triumphant, him toting lots of organic vegetarian food ( I informed Nick that it would take much more convincing to get me to go veg). Upon arrival, we broke to unpack and get ourselves situated. The other girls were leaving  to find a grocery store as Nick and I returned, but I decided getting unpacked would serve me well. Our room is TINY (will include a pic as soon as I get transferring data from phone to pc figured out... maybe by the end of this post), and I'm in the bed by the window. My two roommates and I have realized by now that we got royally wrung out to dry in terms of rooming. We have four drawers each, apx dimentions of 3in x 15in x 25in, and two desks in the room. Our bedroom door opens into the hallway, not into our actual "flat," so we have to take a key to our room whenever we go into the REAL flat to use the bathroom/kitchen/living room. It doesn't make any sense, because the other bedroom in our flat is attached directly to the corridor that all of these are on. Also, other bedroom has wardrobes for their clothing in addition to the dinky drawers. But I digress.

My bed is the one in all the light...

 Once I got myself somewhat organized, I realized that I was revenously hungry again, but as I prepared to depart, Dr. King arrived! He came over to our flat, and the whole group (minus one) gathered for basic info. He gave us part of our weekly 80 pound allowance. We set a time for a meeting on Monday, and then were done. Left almost immediately afterwards for food; we went to a pub nearby called the College Arms (they have a deal every Monday/Thursday that if you buy two large glasses of the house wine, you get the rest of the bottle free). I asked the barmaid what beer I should try and explained that we had only just arrived in country (NOTE: official drinking age in the United Kingdom is 18... WOOOOO!). She steered me towards a bitter beer, and so I bought my first pint of British beer. For food, I had a venison pie that was fantasssstic!

Venison PieMy First Pint!

As we were finishing up, a group of older men appeared (mid-30s?), and invaded our table (literally, just sat down and started chit-chatting). We hung out with them for a while, discovered that they had just come from a rugby match (their team lost), and were cordially invited to head over to a different pub in Covent Garden. We politely declined, but they ended up sticking around for 45 mins or so anyway. Fun.

Went back to the flat and hung out for a few hours before heading off to sleep.

Another mini-rant about my bedroom: we are in the front of the building. AKA right next to the sidewalk and road AKA the windows rattle every time a large vehicle drives by, and people apparently stop and hang out on our stoop in the morning with screaming babies. Regardless, we all slept til noon.

This morning we went food shopping (part two for most of my flatmates... there are 6 of us), and bought basics. The fruit here is incredible; I bought some Scottish strawberries that were just... insanely delicious. Helps that it's harvest time I suppose.

It's raining now (we had a beautiful dry day yesterday til we were leaving the dinner pub), and we're just kinda vegging out. The Nottinghill (or Nottingham? I forget) Festival is today; apparently it's a big deal and a lot of fun, so I think we'll end up heading that way sometime in the near future. Street vendors, a parade and general frivolity :)

Til next time...

Day One or When I Wake Up Tomorrow, I'll be in England

Hello, Internet Universe, it's me, Kate (I feel like this is an appropriate greeting for my first-ever blog post). Since I'm not entirely sure what I want this blog to be beyond a journal of my experiences traveling through London and other parts of  the UK/Europe this semester, I'm going to keep it open ended.

I woke up this morning after having a really funky dream that I still had my braces and they had managed to partially fall off while I was at a slumber party with some girls from high school. This minor detail did not, however, stop me from flirting with one of the girls' older brothers and his friend when they walked into the room. Typical? Maybe. Why am I so bizarre?

The dream was strange, but at least I slept last night; it was my last night in my cozy cloud of a bed at home in the States. In less than 24 hours, I will be headed across the great wide wonder that we call the Atlantic Ocean, and moving into my new flat in foggy London town. At this point, I could go into the mixed emotions that I'm experiencing, but I'm not really in the mood. Rather, I'll leave you with this quote from the cover of the journal that my best friend gave me before she headed up to school in the BX... "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." Thoreau knows his shit. So that's my plan for the next three months; to live up to Thoreau's words (maybe London will become my Walden).

(Here I want to have a snazzy send-off moniker, like Gossip Girl "You know you love me! xoxo" but I don't think I have it in me this morning to decide on one. So until next time, imagine, please, that I've left a really neat, fitting one. Thanks for your help, Internet Blogosphere)

PS If anyone actually does decide to follow me on this, I apologize in advance if I turn into one of those people who is constantly updating her blog. That would get old, I imagine, reading my thoughts all the time. I'm really not that interesting.